Rocksmith for PC Demos Great on Desktop (Video) but Won't Play on My Old Laptop

I downloaded the Rocksmith PC version demo onto one of my desktop systems and also onto a laptop to try it out. The desktop system works great! Really nice. Fast loading. Flawless, really. Cable was recognized immediately. It was plug and play. Literally. All software should work like that. Much better than playing on the XBox.

My desktop system isn't exactly a new, state-of-the-art computer. I don't remember exactly when I bought it, but I think it's close to 5 years old. It's a Gateway GT5432 with AMD Athlon 64x2 5000+ dual core processor. Only upgrades are 3 GB of RAM and I did swap out the original video card with an NVDIA GEForce 9500GT. This system is nothing special and it runs Rocksmith just fine with no jerkiness, no lag, and no other issues.

[demo video to be posted here as soon as I get a FRAPS capture I downloaded, installed and tried FRAPS, but it slows down my processor and also didn't want to capture the audio. I've also tried Cam Studio, a free open-source program that also captures on-screen video. But, that didn't work much better than FRAPS. So, I'll do this the old-fashioned but reliable way - with an actual video camera on a tripod! Stand by.]

[I'll be using one of my cheap First Act guitars to do the demo video]

My laptop was another story - couldn't get past tuning on the laptop. BUT I believe that's because the laptop I was using isn't exactly a high-performance model. It's a 2-year old Compaq with an AMD Sempron SI-42 processor. Got it at Wal-Mart for under $300.00. It does have slightly upgraded RAM (to 3GB). The video card meets the minimum requirements to run Rocksmith but video memory is only 256MB. That can't be good. Rocksmith boots slow and runs even slower on this laptop. It recognizes the cable just fine, but I never made it past tuning. It takes forever to get that far. Once I get each string tuned, as soon as I get to the final tuning check on the high e string the game locks up. That's as far as I've gotten.

I'll try downloading onto my wife's slightly newer, slightly nicer laptop and let you know how that goes.

I am generally impressed with loading speed and absence of lag in the PC demo. And, I love the fact that on a PC I can grab screen shots for later reference and record video directly onto my HDD for blogging purposes. But, for now I'm not ordering the PC version. Not saying I won't get it. Not saying you shouldn't get it. It looks awesome. But, for me, there's no need to rush. If my wife's laptop doesn't work any better than my old laptop, I'd have to bring a guitar upstairs to play Rocksmith on my desktop computer, or put a computer in the music room, or put a computer in the living room. None of those are attractive options at the moment. I'd want to be able to play this on a laptop that I already own.

Plus, there's that DLC issue - I'd "lose" 18 songs by switching platforms. For now, I'll stick with my XBox version. (And, just for the record, I won't be buying any more DLC until I make up my mind about which platform to go with. Of course, if Ubisoft figures out how to credit our previous DLC or transfer it across platforms. . . well, that would certainly help. Are you listening, Ubisoft?)

One last thing to consider: The Demo is probably somewhat smaller than the entire, full-blown program. There are only 3 songs, compared to 51 in the full version. I don't know, but it seems possible that the whole program might not run quite as well even on my desktop as the stripped-down demo.