Graphics Card?

[seireikhaan]

Greetings, inhabitants of the Arena.

Now, poor little, tech-confused me is out looking for a laptop for college before I leave the nest. I'd like to keep it from being grossly costly, but I'd like a laptop that can do pretty decent on gaming as well(so I have something to waste my time on whilst in college (:grin:).

Now, I've seen a bunch of mumbo jumbo graphics cards out there, and frankly, I have little clue what they all do. Soooo, gracious masters of gaming tech, I beseech thee; what graphics cards are worth getting? Which ones will enable me to play something that's actually somewhat modern?(unlike the poor dying creature that I'm on right now). Any help is much appreciated.

[Kekvit Irae]

A video card now is nothing if the motherboard doesn't support it. e-VGA is all the rage now, so if your motherboard does not have e-VGA video card slots, you won't get very far.

As far as a video card goes, check newegg.com and look for a card that is anywhere from 100 to 200 dollars, and has good reviews. Only power junkies who care about squeezing every last inch of framerate into their card would go into further detail. The best choice is one based on self-research.

[Csargo]

Wrong forum (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=132) :D

[Lemur]

You're looking for a laptop, right? Laptops come with their own video cards, and there is no swapping them out. (Okay, there used to be, but it never really worked out (http://www.notebookcheck.net/Upgrade-Replace-a-Notebook-Video-Card.3236.0.html).)

I don't keep up with laptop video cards, but here's the first thing you need to think about: Stay away from Intel integrated graphics. Even the most podunk card from Nvidia/ATI is going to outperform an integrated video solution, no matter what the salesman says.

Here's a rundown of what's out there for notebooks (http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Grafic-Cards.130.0.html). I don't know if this is up-to-date, but it's a good starting point. Maybe one of our mobile game warriors can fill in the blanks ...

[Husar]

Well, aboutb the best you can get here is an 8600M GT for around 1200EUR.
Generally I noticed that around 1200EUR (or dollars since we're being screwed over here anyway) you can usually get a notebook with a somewhat decent graphicscard. The big solutions with 8800GTX and stuff I wouldn't advise except if for some weird reason you want to use your notebook as a desktop because the thing will drain the Accu in about an hour or so anyway. :dizzy2:
And of course they can be insanely expensive.

That's of course my personal opinion and I'd rather keep shooters and fast games on a desktop personally, but since you said not too costly yet capable I'd got for such a more midrange option, I once saw a pretty good one tested somewhere, maybe I can dig that one up again...

[Meldarion]

There is no such thing as a cheap gaming laptop, you will probably pay triple the price for one that is only as good as a mid-range desktop. My advice to you would be to buy a cheap laptop and build a decent desktop. If for some reason thats not possible forget playing any modern games at acceptable frame rates.

[Lemur]

Well, aboutb the best you can get here is an 8600M GT for around 1200EUR.
Just glancing around, I see the new Macbook Pros (http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/performance.html) are shipping with the 8600 GT (512 meg). The Dell XPS (http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DYCZHN2&s=dhs) is shipping with the same card, only at 256 megs. Hmm, let's see who else is offering what ...

Sony's "gaming" Vaio laptops (http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SYCTOProcess?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&LBomId=8198552921665350946) are all equipped with the 8400M. Looks like a clean sweep for Nvidia. Going to to opposite end of the spectrum, Voodoo's money-is-no-object laptop comes with an 8700GT 512 meg.

Sure looks as though everybody's landing in the Nvidia 8xxx camp.

[Husar]

Can't remember what Laptop I saw which I mentioned earlier.
If you look around a bit here you can often find quite different Notebooks for the same price and it depends on what you want I'd say, if you want a better graphicscard you may "only" get a 120GB HDD but then I would have most of my data and games on my normal PC anyway so for me that wouldn't be an issue, if someone wants the notebook as the main compiuter or even the only one, I can see that becoming an issue although an external HDD could be an option, perhaps.
On the other hand, an 8600 GT should be the minimum if you want to play more modern games, I guess most Core2Duos in Notebooks would be sufficient anyway, whether they have 2.0 or 2.2 GHz, think the graphicscard would be the bottleneck anyway.

Of course you can have everything in a Notebook as well but that's usually represented in the price, weight and energy usage(and time until the accu runs out) of the thing, personally, I'd keep my PC as the powermachine and go for a compromise with the Notebook but then that's just me. :shrug:

[seireikhaan]

Hi all, thanks for the responses so far, and I've sorta got another, related question.

I've browsed Apple's Macbooks, and it seems they come with, and I quote, "Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor with 144MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory3". Now, can anyone tell me what this is capable of? I haven't really been able to find consistent reports on its capabilities. Could it run, say, Europa Universalis III? Or something with similar graphics requirements?

[CrossLOPER]

I've browsed Apple's Macbooks, and it seems they come with, and I quote, "Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor with 144MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory3".
I'm pretty sure you can play this:

http://osx.iusethis.com/screenshot/supermariowar.png

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Now, can anyone tell me what this is capable of?

Offhand, nothing comes to mind.

EDIT: Unless you like Runescape?

[rajpoot]

Bump.
Now I am buying a total upgrade for my PC, another gb of RAM, speakers, 22'' widescreen and ofcourse a graphics card.
So, this has got to be within the budget (the card I mean, the rest is nearly decided).
I was offered an Nvidia 8400 GS, for Rs2500, that is about 50 dollars I think, but I found that the reviews weren't good, and I wanted the card to be decent enough to run for two years atleast, so, well, help me, please!!