HW requirements

Personally I would never buy a laptop with an Intel GPU for gaming. A dedicated graphic processor from nvidia or ati would be best.

however before we take this any further it would be helpful to know what your budget is for the new laptop, then we might be able to help you find the best deal for amount your looking to spend.

Overall, it's a lot less than WOM.  It's just that it requires Pixel Shader 3.  But this choice along with Lord CodeCritter's magic has resulted in the game being 2 orders of magnitude faster.

I get 60fps in the debugger.

I just got an Asus Zenbook/Ultrabook last month so I hope it can run the game.

It's got an Intel Core I7 with a 128gig SSD and 4 gigs of 1333Mhz ram. Intel 3000 for graphics however.

I can run Paradox Interactive games very well as well as Torchlight. I'd love to be able to play E:FE on it as well as these are the only games I really care about these days. Well, Civilization 4/Fall from Heaven as well.  

Zenbook is what I am interested in, too.

The original question might be a bit misleading about why I am purchasing the laptop. My main use case is browsing net & programming. I don't play much, and the games I play aren't really that heavy. (Combat Mission from Battlefront, and then some old games, from MoM and XCom to Baldur's gate and so on). It would be nice to be able to play FE on the laptop, but if not, I have to find another solution. Maybe I will buy dedicated gaming desktop, I have room for it, and it seems one can get ridiculously powerful computer for nearly nothing these days.

I agree that Intel graphics aren't usually good for gaming, but HD 3000 seems to be actually somewhat capable chip. It is also an interesting chip because many MacBooks have that chip. So dual-booting Mac users should be interested in this question, too...

If I read Brad's reply correctly, he is saying it will probably work, but without actually making any claims that it will work. Maybe I will wait until the beta is released, it seems I can get some very accurate feedback about Zenbook then

My budget is around 1000e, no strict limits. I am from Finland, so EU prices apply.

Currently I have three paths forward, and I seem to be flipping between each choice on hourly basis (as seen in my previous two posts):

1. Buy a laptop that is fast enough for all my gaming needs. It is hard to find a light, fast and somewhat affordable laptop.
2. Buy a laptop that is fast enough for the most important games. Is HD 3000 enough here? Maybe add in a dedicated gaming desktop.
3. Buy a slow & cheap laptop + dedicated gaming machine.

Now, choice 1 will give me a bigger laptop than I want, choice 2 is going to limit the games I can play (or I need to add in a good amount of money to get a nice laptop + good enough desktop). I am not exited about choice 3, I kind of have that now, except both of the machines are old, too. I almost never use the dedicated gaming machine. So, putting that desktop money into better laptop seems wise.

So, what I want is small, fast and somewhat cheap. I can't have all of those. ZenBook looks like a good balanced choice, the only question is if it is at all good for my gaming needs. Maybe I need to bite the bullet and go into 15 inch machines, where I can have fast-enough laptop for around 800e. If you have good suggestions, I am all ears.

Seems like the key thing here will be to verify whether or not the Intel HD 3000 is capable of supporting Pixel Shader 3.0

Checking into things, I believe the Intel HD3000 card supports Pixel Shader 3.

For example,PES 2012 (Pro evolution soccer 2012) requires pixel shader 3 and it says that Intel HD Graphics 2000 and 3000 cards support that. At least for the minimum system requirements. Can't guarantee it's a good game though.

PES 2012 MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

OS: Windows XP SP3, Vista SP2, Windows 7
CPU: Intel Pentium IV 2.4GHz or equivalent processor
RAM: 1GB RAM
HDD: 8GB free hard disk space
VIDEO: DirectX 9.0c compatible video card. 128MB Pixel Shader 3.0 (NVIDIA GeForce 6200 / ATI Radeon X1300 / Intel HD Graphics 2000/3000)
SOUND: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
DirectX 9.0c or higher (included on Disc)
800 x 600 monitor resolution

PES 2012 RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
OS: Windows XP SP3, Vista SP2, 7
CPU: Intel Core2 Duo 2.0GHz or equivalent processor
RAM: 2GB RAM
HDD: 8GB free hard disk space
VIDEO: DirectX 9.0c compatible video card. 512MB Pixel Shader 3.0 (NVIDIA GeForce 7900 or AMD/ATI Radeon HD2400 or better)
SOUND: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
DirectX 9.0c or higher (included on Disc)
1280 x 720 monitor resolution

SUPPORTED CHIPSETS:
NVIDIA - GeForce GTX550Ti, GTX470, GTX285, 9800, 8800, 8600, 7950, 7900, 7800, 7300, 6800, 6600, 6200
AMD/ATI - Radeon HD 6870, HD5850, HD5770, HD4870, HD4650, HD3870, HD2600, HD2400, X1900, X1650, X1600, X1300
Intel - HD Graphics 2000, HD Graphics 3000

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Using some more Google fu:

How do I run perfect mode on il2 1946? - Topic

intel hd 3000 has pixel/vertex shader 4.1 and 1.7GB ... The Intel HD3000 is a 2D Acceleration solution targeted at office applications and video. ..

They seem to say that the Intel HD 3000 has pixel shader 4.1.

According to this page, it supports up to Shader Model 4.1:  http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Intel-HD-Graphics-3000-graphics-solution.43710.0.html

Is it true that any GPU which supports DirectX 9.0c or better, will support Pixel Shader 3?

I found this DirectX vs Pixel Shader info while googling...

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4360-TPJL-2065

Not necessarily, some older DX9 cards only go up to Pixel Shader 2, but most GPUs made after 2006 have support for Pixel Shader 3.

Sadly, even if you have powerful DX9 card with PixShad 3, there'll still be some games that scoff at it and never give a reason.

I'm hoping FE handles better than WoM did, every time I enabled the graphics my GPU fan would go into overdrive, it didn't do that in Skyrim. 

My fans also get a serious workout with E:WOM, and that's with the graphics tuned down. I've been playing the game alot lately, thanks in part to Heavenfalls triad of v1.4 mods. I've actually been playing only E:WOM for a couple weeks now. This despite competition from more than a dozen "new" oldies recently acquired via GOG.com. E:WOMs been fun lately. I look forward to E:FE now that I think my 5 year old GPU can run it :~)

my current laptop is stuggling with E. FE Im thinking of upgrading and was wondering if this cheap laptop would play FE with decent fps on lowish settings, if anyone could help that would be great.

Intel Core i5-2410M

1gb Geforce gt 525m

6gb ram

windows 64bit

yea that will probably handle it just fine. With most video games the graphic card is more important than the processor. in this case the 1GB Gefore GT 525m should be more than enough to play the game on low or medium settings.

before buying it though i would wait for someone that is in the beta to advise, but i personally think it would be fine.

I did buy the Zenbook. The game is fully playable although in the end game it is a bit slow. I had to disable most effects. Wouldn't recommend for playing on huge maps, but for small maps it seems Zenbook with its HD3000 graphics is good enough.