Laptop Graphix Cards WOes

Lord Malory

My wonderful thinktank:


I got this okay laptop, a dell C - series, for about 50 bucks,. NOt great, i know, its running at 2.4GH, and 1G of RAM. The biggest thing i need to do to make it worthwhile to lug around when im not on my home monster (the crystal bitch is her name= 3.8GH, 2GRam, Gforce 800, 5.1 dolby, etc). Since im starting school and need money for books, whats your suggestion. FOr instance, City of Heroes wouldnt even turn on on this computer. I Think it has a radeon 7500 from 4 years in it or some crap. I saw a few 512 laptop cards for under a hundred bucks - whats your ideas on that. advice is appreciated, bcause i know nothing about laoptops, and the best advice i have before i buy shit the better so i dont get screwed by the fucker installing shit for me if i dont feel like doing it myself. Sleeping for a few hours, seeing if Counterstrike will even play on this thing.

YOur advice, as always, is text-based gold.

-lord malory-

Daedalus

99% of the time, you can't upgrade a laptop's graphics card. It's built right onto the motherboard.

I mean, open it and see, of course, but I'm willing to bet you that it won't work ever.

Just install Diablo II and Starcraft on it, I guess.

Cycophant

Yeah, you're basically screwed in terms of an upgrade. Very little about laptops is upgradeable.

But to be honest, what did you expect? You bought a laptop for $50 - buying a brand new one for $1000 doesn't even guarantee the ability to run many games like that, and certainly not well.

ArcSyn

Yeah, laptops are not for gaming, unless you spend like $3,000 and even then, not worth the money.

Consider yourself lucky with a $50 laptop you can use to take notes on or check e-mail or whatever your school is set up to let you do. I play UO, StarCraft, and a few small other games on my laptop, but otherwise it's awesome for surfing the net from the couch. If I want to play a game I move to the desktop.

PatboyX

Yeah, my 1 year old macbook doesn't even render Geometry Wars properly.
(ok, I should probably update my boot camp but I'm lazy)

Lord Malory

okay, ill have to chekc the motherboard. But funny thing, i finished downloading counter-strike source. AND IT RUNS GREAT!!!! it isnt beautiful, but hey.

Peewi

Lord Malory wrote: »

okay, ill have to chekc the motherboard. But funny thing, i finished downloading counter-strike source. AND IT RUNS GREAT!!!! it isnt beautiful, but hey.

It's not really as if the requirements of Source games are that high.

Lord Malory

im going to check as soon as i leave the house and go over to my friends where hes got some nice little screwdrivers to see if it can be upgraded. if not, ill need some advice on shit that can run easily thats entertaining and fast that will run. Besides the BG2/torment, blizzard box, and CS., what would be old and good for a laptop struggling in the arms of the past?

Esh

Lord Malory wrote: »

im going to check as soon as i leave the house and go over to my friends where hes got some nice little screwdrivers to see if it can be upgraded. if not, ill need some advice on shit that can run easily thats entertaining and fast that will run. Besides the BG2/torment, blizzard box, and CS., what would be old and good for a laptop struggling in the arms of the past?

Don't even bother. Just look up the model on Google or something. And seriously, 99.9% of laptops you can't upgrade video cards on.

Lucky Cynic

I would take this opportunity to get old school games that will run great on this hardware, like Sim City 4, Age of Mythology, Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft III, etc. It's what I am doing with my current laptop, and it doesn't even have a graphics card, just that intel chip thing.

Lord Malory

Great idea Lucky -

and everyone,
I just called Dell, my radeon 7500 65MB graphics card -=vomit=- is locked into the motherboard.

So can you please recommend oldies but goodies?
I can run CS
and im thinking
Diablo II,
Starcraft + Exp.
Warcraft III,
think Civilization 3 could take it?


remember, ram isnt the issue, its the graphic accelleration

You guys rock.

Lucky Cynic

Age of Mythology is all sorts of awesome fun, especially if you like playing RTS campaigns because it's got two long ass campaigns.

Shadowfire

Peewi wrote: »

Lord Malory wrote: »

okay, ill have to chekc the motherboard. But funny thing, i finished downloading counter-strike source. AND IT RUNS GREAT!!!! it isnt beautiful, but hey.

It's not really as if the requirements of Source games are that high.

I don't think the requirements on CoH are even as high as source titles, though...


Reccomendations? I'm a whore for Gametap, so there you go. $10 a month for unlimited access to a shitload of games, and almost every one of them should run on your lappy.