Gaming Switching ISPs

[Warriorblade]

hey there, my parents and i are currently considering switching my family's isp due to the internet connection that i'm getting from shaw is constantly dropping suddenly.

Now, theres this bundle from telus offering a "free" laptop with these specs;

Screen 15.6" LED
Finish IMR Charcoal
Processor AMD A6-3400M Quad-Core Mobile
Memory 6GB DDR3
Hard Drive 750GB (5400 RPM)
Optical Drive DVD±R/RW w/LightScribe
Graphics AMD Radion™ HD 6520G Discrete-Class Graphics
Other DLNA Certified, Bilingual keyboard

Can this laptop play stuff like minecraft, borderlands, tf2, bastion, etc on decently high settings?
Also how fast is the "high speed turbo" internet that telus offers?, any sudden moments that internet just stops working?

thanks for the help guys

-Warrior

 

[Deleted_171835]

Laptop seems decent especially since you would be getting it for "free." I wouldn't do the laptop bundle, though since you'll be stuck on a three year term (with a cancellation fee of $17 per month).

The internet service provided by Telus has a 15Mbps down speed and 2Mbps up speed with a 250GB cap. I would suggest against switching to Telus, though. Doesn't make any sense to go from one shitty provider to yet another crappy one. Switch to TekSavvy or 3web.
http://teksavvy.com/en/default.asp
https://www.cia.com/locale.html

 

[jamesaa]

First, nothing is "free", as with mobile phones the "free" phone is subsidised by a slightly pricer contract (hence why sim only plans are cheaper) same applies here I would assume, and from your use of quotations you realise this also.

From a quick google search

The graphics card does not use dedicated memory, it uses some of that 6GB of DDR3, which although not ideal is reasonable considering it's DDR3 and you have plenty of it available.

As for the ISP itself, no idea, never heard of them here in the UK

What I will say though, is it definitely the ISP at fault with your connection dropping? In my case i had disconnects at random and it turned out to be the the cable modem, so my ISP sent out a new one for free, it could be a similar situation with your connection?

Depending on the situation a phone call to your current ISP may sort everything out, I used to frequently call my ISP asking for a "MAC code" (needed to move to another provider, in the UK at least) and all of sudden they would be giving me price cuts, free routers, escalated support services etc to keep me with them

(they need not know i didn't actually plan on leaving them

)

 

[jan777]

I've had experience in shaw and telus.

Starters, shaw is faster I think because when we was at shaw I get like ~70 ping in games while in telus i get ~130 ping. Well Im not sure if we have High speed turbo or regular high speed. I think we have the 6mbps deal.

in any case, Shaw drops out regularly, like once a day for 15~45mins, sometimes even more than once a day. While telus never failed me yet.

Another thing, I liked the router that shaw gave us, it gives me full bars even outside the house, but the one that Telus gives, I can't even connect when Im in my room. But i've heard stories that you could ask for a better router at telus. "thompson speedtouch" or something, that's supposed to be the better one.

overall I would pick Telus for the sheer reason that they dont drop connections. 6mbps is more than enough for my needs and we solved the router problem by using a lan cable.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

You should have no problem running Minecraft on that laptop. Don't know about the other ones.
It's almost as powerful as the HD 5650 in my laptop, and that runs minecraft more than fast enough for anyone.