I Bought a used U101 vaio off ebay a few weeks ago. wow, what an amazing little computer. Anyway last night I thought that I would try and figure out if it would play any games. I loaded the latest omega drivers (it’s got a 16mb Radeon in it) and started loading up games. First on my list was the new demo of dungeon seige 2. I didn’t give it much hope, as the readme said you needed a 2ghz processor (the U101 has a 600mhz celereon-m), but low and behold, the game runs perfectly at 800x600 with all the detail turned up high!...
Next I thought I would try GTA: Vice City and yup this thing ran it easily at 800x600 (which on screen so small looks awesome).
So I figured if it could runs those games, why not try and really tax it and put half life 2 on there. Well, after the lengthy install process, I was gobsmacked when it actually loaded up and ran perfectly! (640 x 480, but still looks very nice on a small screen)....
Man am I happy that I bought this thing. I’ve already upgraded the hard drive to 60gb by canibalising a 60gb ipod photo (heck, 30gb in an ipod is enough for me), I’ve upgraded the ram to 1gb using a swissbit stick, bought the 13.5hr battery and now I’m looking at buying the english keyboard (don’t really need it as I have moved the keys around to the right spot on the japanese keyboard, but would be nice to get rid of all the unused characters etc).
This thing could soon be used as my main computer. I use the VTBook DVI pcmcia vid card to plug it into my 23” HD apple display, and it works really well as the refresh rate on the card works heaps better than many other laptops that I’ve used the VTbook with, as the pcmcia controller seems to be supported.
