GCountach

I'm going with 312. It's either really high or really low and low seems to be covered.

Might be worth mentioning what platform you have it on.

For future reference to those who may have this problem, can you post what you did to fix it?

Hmm. Given the error code, I'd say minecraft is having problems authenticating you. Try running the server with authentication off (i.e. set online-mode=false in your server properties) and see if that works. This is fine if you're just running the server for yourself and maybe a few friends, but shouldn't be used for any public servers. Alternatively, try again later. Maybe minecraft.net won't be hammered then? HTTP error 503 is "service unavailable".

This is awesome. So awesome, I won't even mention it's in the wrong forum. I'm going to test it out right now to see if it works. Thanks for the heads up. EDIT: Blarg! Appears GLSL Shader's isn't updated to 1.3.2 and Sonic's hasn't been updated since 1.2.5. Well, seems there's an unoffical 1.3.2 version down toward the bottom that diz posted, but does anyone know about 1.3.2 sonic shaders? DoF alone just gives me headaches and doesn't seem worth it.

I think if you read the link you posted, you'd have your answer.

When it comes to nvidia, the first number determines the generation and the second numbers is the relative speed compared to the rest of the generation. For example: a 610 is slower than a 640, but a 580 is faster than a 640. The reason a 610 is slower than a 640 is because the 610 model is on the lowest end of that generation (at 10) whereas the 640 is higher. The reason that 580 is faster than the 640 is a bit more complicated, but basically comes down to the fact that while it's a earlier generation, the GPU power is still much more than the 640. Once again, while not perfect for determining the actual FPS rating you'll get in a game, http://www.videocardbenchmark.net is a great site to get a comparison to the speeds of two graphics cards. In the above example, the numbers come up: 610 - 283 (this isn't a typo) 640 - 1237 580 - 3963 Now 580 is pretty nice (it's the 4th fastest on the list after all), but you can get a decent idea that the 610 is not even close to as good as a 640 going by those numbers. If you get an nvidia ANYTHING that ends with 10 or 20, it's garbage as far as gaming is concerned. Those GPU's are meant to only be used for surfing the web really. For reference, the highest rated intel graphics I could find was the "Intel HD i7-2760QM" (no doubt on the most expensive motherboards) and it had a score of 1,180. So whatever intel you get, it will not be as fast as the 640. Also, that dell laptop is no longer being sold. Given it uses the same chipset that's been recalled, it's probably for the best since it makes no mention if it's B2 (recalled) or B3 (perfectly fine). I'm not sure if B2's ever shown up in laptops or not, but it's worth noting. I did a quick search on newegg and I can't seem to find a laptop under 500 that doesn't use intel graphics so that sucks. If you could bump your price range up to 600 though, I'd certainly agree with elustran's choice. An i5 + 640 would be quite the performance for the price and form factor. I want to say the IdeaPads are based off the old Thinkpads that were thought highly of, so it would seem like a good choice all around.

How often is it going to have to be moved? I find most people who say they need a laptop have a desk at their house they put it on and it never leaves there. The simple fact is a laptop is always going to cost more than a comparable desktop since you are cramming the same power into a smaller space. The numbers you're asking for are very difficult to come up with, since no one has exact benchmark testing for a wide array and configuration of hardware. That link I provided before is the best data I could find on the subject, and that's only for non-opti vanilla. Finding optifine tfc numbers? Not really possible. There are a few things I can highly recommend though. 1.) Get Win 7 64-bit. This will allow 4gigs+ of RAM and the use of java 64-bit that will allow you to allocate more ram to minecraft if it ever becomes required. 2.) Do not get less than 4 gigs of RAM. In my opinion, 4gigs is the new minimum for buying a computer, especially one that's going to be used for gaming. My current computer, sitting idle with win7 64-bit, is using up 2.28gigs. 3.) Avoid intel graphics. They were never designed for gaming. 4.) If possible, get a "discrete" video card. By discrete, I mean a dedicated video card that is PCI-e and can be removed from the system. The fastest video cards are going to be discrete ones, especially in your price range. With your $500 limit, you must consider that if you have to buy windows 7, you already threw 100 bucks out the window. That leaves you 400 dollars for building a computer. In cases like this, it's advisable if you can to reuse old hardware Mice, keyboard, monitor are commonly reused hardware, but hard drives, optical drives, power supplies if adequate could also be considered. If you had a laptop before, you might be screwed as mice/keyboard/monitor can easy cut $200 out of the total. I wish I could be more help, but I'm not really in tune with all the current model of AMD/Intel CPU's and AMD/Nvidia video cards. What I highly recommend is you see my previous link (here it is again: http://www.minecraft...are_performance) to get an idea what kind of framerates you can get on certain combinations of hardware then look up the prices of that hardware online. I highly recommend newegg.com. You should also check out http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ to get an idea what the relative speed of any given model of video card and CPU are (they're there too, just click on the tab at the top). I don't know what kind of deals your uncle can get, but newegg has a few partially built computer combos you can buy at a discount. They are listed as "DIY PC Combos" and can be found here: http://www.newegg.co...=DIY-PC-Combos. Some of those combos can give you decent discounts, but keep in mind that they are not complete computers and may not include video cards, optical drives, hard drives, etc. That's about all I can say for now. I'll try to give you expect specs later if I can, but hopefully this will get you on your way. EDIT: IMO, when it comes to minecraft, CPU > GPU. If you have to choose which one to spend more on, go with the CPU.

A $500 laptop that can run minecraft smoothly WHILE recording video? That sounds like the holy grail of laptops. I'm not sure what kind of overhead video capturing will cause as there is a number of variables involved (bitrate, resolution, audio quality, etc.), but I agree with everyone that you will not get far with any graphics that are made by intel. You may want to take a gander here, but beware that data is for vanilla minecraft: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Hardware_performance

I'd post any sort of discussions here, since the likelyhood of someone watching any given page's discussion page seems low.

If you don't have forge in the server jar, it's not going to load any other forge mods, namely TFCraft in this case. I'm not familiar with this hosting company, so you may need to ask them how you would go about modifying the server jar. Going by the info I'm seeing on the FAQ, you may be SOL since there's no bukkit port of TFCraft and there doesn't seem to be a way to upload a modified sever jar. Then again, I can't see the control panel to know your options. EDIT: Apparently, their features page says you do have FTP access if you have the 1G plan. If you have that, you may be able to upload the modified minecraft_server.jar that way. Either way, you have to have a server jar with forge and playerapi for TFCraft to play nice.

Keyboard: Logitech G-15 Mouse: Logitech G500 Headset: Logitech G930 Kind of high end stuff, but I figure I use it for hours a day every day, why get stuck with something I don't want?

I admit, when I saw the newest post in Off-Topic was "Stay On-Topic", I loled a little.

Not compatible. Won't work. Just like I said in your previous post, and it wasn't from a lack of trying different versions of optifine either (shaders mod won't even try to install if optifine isn't there). This isn't just my opinion either. Smart people have already tried and failed: http://terrafirmacraft.com/f/topic/1270-sonic-ether-compatibility/ http://terrafirmacraft.com/f/topic/1637-48g-compatibility-with-glsl-and-dynamic-lighting/

If you can load up single player fine, it's likely that the server is a different version than your client. Especially if other people can join that server.