StingingVelvet: Morrowind runs like ass! Shit!
the_bard: That sucks
I just tried Morrowind on my old non-gaming laptop (Lenovo T400), and it runs great, butter-smooth with everything maxxed out (view distance, dynamix shadows, AI etc.). So I am a bit surprised someone would nowadays have even less powerful laptop that can't run it. Ok, T400 wasn't a cheap laptop back in 2008 or so, but it wasn't a gaming laptop either. And nowadays you can buy second-hand T400s for like $300 or even less, I think.
Maybe it is then the damn Intel graphics in the cheapest laptops that can't really run pretty much anything. All the more reason to stay the heck away from them, I guess.
Just for the heck of it, I think I'll try how Morrowind runs on my ancient ThinkPad T41. If it runs acceptably even on it, then I really have to wonder about the capabilities of some newer laptops/Intel graphics.
EDIT: I checked it on T40/T41 too (which was a non-gaming laptop which came out around 2003-2004, selling now second-hand for maybe around $60-100 I think), and Morrowind runs pretty ok on it too even with everything maxxed out (resolution 1024x768), I could see myself playing it on it. The only real performance problem I saw on it was that while you were moving around outside, the game would pause for 1/10th of a second, every 5-10 seconds. It felt a bit distracting, and it seemed to happen more or less regardless of graphics options chosen, I didn't try to inspect more what exactly causes it (some software running in the background, or whatever?). Other than that, I'd say the graphics were "playably smooth" with everything maxxed out.
EDIT2: Scratch that, I restarted my T41 and even went offline just to make sure it is not doing anything in background (like updating Windows), and now the "pause every 5 seconds while walking around" went away. So it was something else, and now Morrowind seems to run quite nicely even on an ancient non-gaming laptop. Not buttersmooth but playably smooth, so more in the 30fps area than e.g. 60fps area.
Considering the age of both T41 and T400 and what they'd run for if you bought them today, I'm surprised if any newer cheapo laptops have severe difficulties with Morrowind. As said, maybe it is the damn Intel graphics then (both of those Thinkpads have some mid-level ATI mobility graphics chipsets from their era). It is evil I say!