looking for a laptop for my 10 year old that can run minecraft

[ricbon]

hey guys good evening I'm looking for any recommentations on a laptop that can run minecraft well for my 10 year old daughter.

 

[SamiHanna]

Every laptop can run minecraft, but isn't 10 years old not to young for an laptop?

 

[xandros9]

Every laptop can run minecraft, but isn't 10 years old not to young for an laptop?

Well, you have a lot of options. I'd consider something like the ASUS Transformer T100 or a similar Atom class computer.
Those are Minecraft capable.

Really depends, there are so many, from the high end to the budget.

but older hardware probably won't. My 2008 laptop can't really handle Minecraft. (Intel integrated graphics from the era)

 

[Flagz]

Depends if it's a normal 10 year old or a Minecraft fanatic 10 year old. My Brother (11 now, 10 at the time of PC purchase) wanted something that can run mods. He didn't tell us that, and alas, his PC cant run mods, just a few more bucks and im sure we coulda got one that was fine for mods, but nows its a lil too late.

 

[DavidinCT]

Any midline laptop from 3-4 years ago should not have an issue. You can pick up a dual core Intel laptop on ebay or something for under $200 all day with a little looking.

I would think anything on the shelf in the stores (maybe not the brand new $99 models), would be able to run minecraft fine...It's not a really high end game by any means, I was able to run it on a Netbook with a hair of sluggishness but, it was still play able

 

[superunderscore]

Every laptop can run minecraft, but isn't 10 years old not to young for an laptop?

My old 9 years old laptop couldn't, bad graphics card :/

 

[Wagan8r]

​Going off of the Minecraft benchmark found here:

AnandTech | The Bay Trail Preview: Intel Atom Z3770 Tested


Any of these laptops will be more than capable of handling Minecraft:


Newegg.com - Computers & Tablets, Laptops / Notebooks, All Laptops / Notebooks


An Asus Transformer T100 could play Minecraft, but I couldn't say that it (or any Bay Trail Atom) would play Minecraft well.

 

[jeffchapik]

Have you considered getting a used Xbox 360 and letting her play it on that instead? Eliminates the issues of turning a child loose on a laptop, and runs smoother too. If you get it on disc, I don't think you even need an internet connection or Xbox Live, although you'd want to get connected at least once to download all the available updates.
Sent from my RM-820_nam_att_100 using Tapatalk

 

[Reflexx]

Does Minecraft really even use the graphics card? I haven't installed it on any PCs, and I'm not well versed in Minecraft, but as far as I know it doesn't really use any polygons. It uses Voxels. The CPU would probably handle the graphics. You'd just need a halfway decent CPU and probably a decent amount of RAM.

I imagine that RAM would be the chokepoint for most low-end systems.

​I could be completely wrong though.

 

[jeffchapik]

Minecraft is a surprising hog. I'm not sure why, but it takes a decent gfx card to run without a lot of lag. My old Dell Latitude with an AMD Mobile Radeon won't run it.
Sent from my RM-820_nam_att_100 using Tapatalk

 

[xandros9]

Does Minecraft really even use the graphics card? I haven't installed it on any PCs, and I'm not well versed in Minecraft, but as far as I know it doesn't really use any polygons. It uses Voxels. The CPU would probably handle the graphics. You'd just need a halfway decent CPU and probably a decent amount of RAM.

I imagine that RAM would be the chokepoint for most low-end systems.

​I could be completely wrong though.

Oh yup, not entirely sure off the top of my head, but I would imagine rendering all of these blocks and entities etc etc could bog down something really fast.

 

[Reflexx]

Are you sure it was the graphics card though? Maybe your new PC just has a better CPU or more RAM?

Or maybe the newer graphics cards help because they have more RAM than the old ones. I suppose that could help with larger texture packs.

As I understand it, Minecraft is also single-threaded. Well, most of the core tasks go in a single thread. So having an old CPU with several cores won't be as good as having just one faster core.

So a laptop using a multi-core Atom with 2GB of RAM might have trouble even if it had the best GPU in it.

A laptop with integrated graphics, but an i3 processor and 4 GB or RAM would do better.

 

[Aviskri]

https://help.mojang.com/customer/portal/articles/325948-minecraft-system-requirements search for something that can match recommended requirements if you want to run Minecraft at max performance.

 

[repeating]

Consider the fact your small child doesn't need some kind of alienware overpriced overkill. Laptops are really expensive for the level of performance given. Get him a windows phone with Survivalcraft until MS has actiual Minecraft, now that they've acquired them.

As a worker in level 2 consumer tech support for a cell provider, honestly, get him a note 4 Edge, get yourself a Galaxy Avant, and consider yourself a really good parent for doing the right thing. Kids need to have intrinsic knowledge of touchscreen mobile device operations to get by these days. He already knows more than you.

If you ever need to call for tech support, please hand the phone to an 8 year old after you verify the account. You, your terribly annoyed tiny relative, and me will have a much better night if you approach it this way.

Long story short: Put a damn wallet PIN on your phones

 

[Wagan8r]

Are you sure it was the graphics card though? Maybe your new PC just has a better CPU or more RAM?

Or maybe the newer graphics cards help because they have more RAM than the old ones. I suppose that could help with larger texture packs.

As I understand it, Minecraft is also single-threaded. Well, most of the core tasks go in a single thread. So having an old CPU with several cores won't be as good as having just one faster core.

So a laptop using a multi-core Atom with 2GB of RAM might have trouble even if it had the best GPU in it.

A laptop with integrated graphics, but an i3 processor and 4 GB or RAM would do better.

It absolutely uses the graphics card. Minecraft does not use voxels, but rather polygons rendered in cube-ish form. Even if it was voxel based, it doesn't change the fact that your GPU should be doing the work. CPUs are not even close to the level of efficiency of GPUs for any vector or floating point math. Voxels are even more complex to calculate than polygons anyway, so it can be quickly ruled out.

 

[Reflexx]

Minecraft isn't voxels? I always assumed the low tech looking graphics were due to each cube being made from a collection of voxels. With so many cubes being identical, it would seem to make sense.

So I guess it's just rendered to look bad on purpose?

(I'm not a Minecraft player, so I dont know a lot about these things)

 

[thatguy97]

Ive played minecraft on a pentium 4 and it worked fine just had to turn draw distance down and this was with a Geforce 6800 it was below the requirements and looked bad but I got it running

Posted from my Samsung galaxy S5