Can you play SL on a notebook computer

I have a dell inspiron B120 and SL will load on it but nothing ever shows up n I can't even move with out it freezing like crazy can some one tell me what I need to do to my notebook to make the game work

Make sure the components meet or exceed the stated recommendations?

http://secondlife.com/corporate/sysreqs.php

I'm wondering, will Second Life run on any computer?

I have the list in front of me but I don't know what to change on the notebook to get it to work

What are the laptop's specs?

I will say, doing just a quick search on that model, one reviewer said in no uncertain terms that it was NOT built for gaming, and another stated that it had an Intel graphics card, which is not supported for SL.

Edit: OK, if your specs are similar to the following, I can see a couple of problems.

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell-inspiron-b120/4507-3121_7-31637435.html

One would be the unsupported graphics card, as I already mentioned. The other would be that SL requires 512MB of memory and recommends 1GB or more, but the link shows only a 256MB base for that model.

I have a Dell Inspiron D820 notebook and it runs SL great. But then so does my QuadCore Q6600 4GB RAM desktop

Seriously though, I think any decent notebook from the last year should work with SL. Graphics cards can be twitchy for some machines though. As always, strip away any unnecessary programs.

I use a Dell Latitude D600 and it is excellent. Can take me a while to log off, but that really my only problem.

According to the site I linked above, both of those have better RAM, the 820 has a faster processor, and the 600 suggests an ATI card.

From the recent post about GPUs vs performance, it appears folks are successfully (if slowly) using Intel embedded graphics to run SL. It's never gonna be smooth, but the "good" part is that there's not much choice about what to upgrade: just max out the RAM. Even if it turns out that SL is never gonna run satisfactorily, the maximum RAM for any notebook is usually just barely enough to get by.

And one reason for that is the compromises in hard disk performance that get made in notebooks. Access time just isn't the biggest design criterion for a notebook disk. So, I run SL with minimal cache on my notebook and seem to get better performance that way.

Also... well, it's been a *long* time since I've dealt with Dell, but as I recall, they have a pretty good mechanism for tracking what system software updates are available for a specific machine. If there's anything new for the graphics driver, you want it.

One last thing about notebooks: keep them cool. SL really makes everything in that tiny box work extra hard, and there's no space inside for the resulting heat to dissipate, so if the fan vents are even slightly blocked, Bad Things will happen.

I've got a laptop, guess that is what you call a notebook.
It loads SL ok but takes ages to get full colour up, and movement of avatar is very slow to respond on its screen. Also avatar movement is hop, skip and a jump when it does move.
It has 2 memory slots each with 512 in.
To upgrade I have to ditch these and put 2 x 1024 in. Why oh why they did not use one 1024 in first place, then I would just need one 1024 to upgrade. Not upgraded because I hate to throw items away, and of course costs double.
( My Pc has 4 slots with 2x 512s, daft again.)
I'm told the SL problem with laptops is the Graphic Card, on laptops they are not plug in and therefore these poorer graphics in the first palce are not upgradable.

If anyone thinks increasing my RAM would make my SL ok please tell me.
Love June

I use a Fujitsu Amilo notebook with 1gb ram a single core amd sempron 1.6ghz and ATI Xpress 1200 graphics card with 256mb graphics ram. Runs flawlessly. This runs better than my Intel Pentium 4 dual core 2.4ghz desktop (which has only 512mb of ram and only 128mb of video ram). So it looks like SL is mostly graphics card and memory intensive as opposed to being processor intensive.

However, with a bit of jiggling of the settings I got it to run on an old 1.2ghz single core intel celeron with 256mb of ram and the old on-board Intel gpu. Runs heavily flawed. Textures are often messed up - I occassionally see my face on my backside. Again, frame rate is fine, so the near-obsolete processor is not the problem there either. It's all good fun though.

Remember there's running and there's running.

I got all that except the ATI bit, my report says "VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro IGP [Display adapter]" and Semprom. Mine intel Celeron M 1.7

So is yours better than mine?

Love June

I'm not familliar with that particular display adaptor. But if it works for you, then that's what counts.

EDIT: Googled it. It seems to be a card made by a company called Gigabyte. They're a reputable company who are particularly well known for their motherboards. It seems to be a fairly old card - but like I said, if it works that's what counts.

No it does not work that's the problem I put in my post ealier.
Love June

There's your problem then.

RAM is not the issue. I have run it recently on only 256mb ram.

The VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro IGP has only 64mb of onboard video RAM, which used to be just about sufficient, but subsequent updates may have made that obsolete. I suspect it's more the card compatibility rather than simply the amount of video RAM. Have you got the most recent driver for this card? Someone else may have asked, but I haven't noticed. If you have and it still doesn't work then I'm afraid your up the proverbial creek.

June, sorry, but that doesn't look very promising. In the GPU performance blog post, http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/11/15/typical-frame-rate-performance-by-graphics-cardgpu/, there's an S3 entry way at the bottom (in more ways than one), so apparently some folks are at least able to login with some chips by that manufacturer. You could try snooping 'round the Technical Issues forum for anything relevant, but... kinda expect disappointment with that GPU. (So, no, at least for SL there's probably nothing to be gained by upgrading RAM in your situation.)

Yes I have the Driver update.
I had gathered in previous posts that it is the graphic cards in laptops are not upgradeable.
I guess with new purchases specifications will be higher and thus laptop situation change in the years to come. One as only to compare with PCs, compare one on sale today with one sold say only a year ago, spec. higher and cheaper to buy!

Today in Tesco supermarket a full PC set in a box £250 ! Made me feel a bit sick, my spare under 3 year old PC is in the repair shop and going to cost me £195 ! OK it has a slightly higher spec. but not much. Also it is there for the second time so higher price not mean reliabilty.

Love June