Laptop graphics cards...

**peacemaker** · 10-16-2009, 23:53

I'm really bad with hardware-related things, so I thought I'd ask you guys....

Are (in general) laptop graphics cards interchangeable? I have an nvidia GeForce 9200M GE and it's decent, but not good enough for running my beloved large battles on ETW. I've been thinking of getting a new one but is that even possible? Or is the graphics card incompatibe with my computer?

by the way my computer is an HP G70T series, and i got it in January so it's pretty recent.

**Lemur** · 10-17-2009, 00:02

Are laptop graphics cards interchangeable? Easiest answer is no. Maybe even hell, no. True, there were a few abortive experiments back in the day with "modular" graphics on some laptops, but I haven't heard about such things in years.

So no. You want modular, you go desktop.

**peacemaker** · 10-17-2009, 00:36

Yeah that's what I figured. I've been thinking of getting a new computer but I figured if I can manage to just get a new graphics card in that'd help a ton. I've noticed on the 'customize your laptop' sites for major brands, there's an option to pick your graphics card. I just figured maybe if they can put in different things they can pull it out and put in a new one.

**Lemur** · 10-17-2009, 00:56

Well, often enough the same model laptop with a graphics card is using a different motherboard from the model without a graphics card. So here's your odds:

If your laptop has a PCI slot for a graphics card, and if there is a better card available and if it conforms to the thermal envelope and if it conforms to the power config and if it's still on the market and if you can get your hands on it ... then you can upgrade the card. If you have the tools and knowledge to do it.

**pevergreen** · 10-17-2009, 02:37

Don't do it.

Easier that way.

**Caius** · 10-17-2009, 05:06

What if I have an internal Vid card that can be up to 1244 MB, yet i can't change the 64 mb by default?

**Lemur** · 10-17-2009, 05:08

Originally Posted by Caius

What if I have an internal Vid card that can be up to 1244 MB, yet i can't change the 64 mb by default?

Um, I have a feeling that what you're talking about is shared memory architecture. Totally different animal.

**Caius** · 10-17-2009, 05:10

Originally Posted by Lemur

Um, I have a feeling that what you're talking about is shared memory architecture. Totally different animal.

I'm talking about that.

**Husar** · 10-17-2009, 12:58

Originally Posted by Lemur

Totally different animal.

And AFAIK totally useless, for gaming anyway.

**Tellos Athenaios** · 10-17-2009, 16:56

A 9200M is an onboard chip, i.e. not a dedicated card. So unless you fancy ripping chips off your motherboard and soldiering on another one..

Shared memory is memory taken from main RAM; and while it is possible to directly allocate memory to devices by fiddling with /proc & similar on *nixes -- that isn't a solution on Windows and in any case is more likely to do harm to performance than good 'cause it is the combination of kernel + driver that ought to be doing the memory management (including allocation) for the devices.