laptop graphics

[NoctisReitop]

My girlfriend has a Gateway laptop that has an onboard intel graphics card. It's increasingly limiting her ability to play games, because many games "require" an nvidia or ati graphics card. I was wondering if any of you guys had any idea on how to remedy this. It doesn't appear to me that she has a bay to put a graphics card. Here's the model. Are there ways of emulating a "brand name" graphics card while running an intel? She's running Vista, but I don't really suppose that matters...

[Mithosphere]

There is really no way to increase onboard graphics. I dont think gateway is known for their graphics area at all. And as far as i know you cant upgrade a laptop's gpu, yes Asus or one of those companies had a prototype for an external gpu but i havent heard yet if they are putting them into production. Really the only way that i know to remedy such a thing, would be to buy a better laptop with either the Go 7x00 series, the Go 8x00 series or the Ati Mobility X1x00 series

[gvblake22]

Yeah, Mithosphere is right, there's really no way to upgrade the GPU on a laptop. The game incompatabilities is not the fault of it not being an nVidia or ATI branded GPU, but the fault of the onboard graphics you have being under the system requirements for the game. Seeing as how nVidia and ATI are prettymuch the only two players in the gaming video card market, game developers list requirements as "nVidia GeForce XXXX type card or ATI Radeon XXXXX type card or better", not that you have to have one of those two types of cards. Kindof like how some software says you have to have an Intel Pentium III or higher, that doesn't mean that because you have an Athlon 64 you are screwed.

[Reloadron]

Originally Posted by NoctisReitop

My girlfriend has a Gateway laptop that has an onboard intel graphics card. It's increasingly limiting her ability to play games, because many games "require" an nvidia or ati graphics card. I was wondering if any of you guys had any idea on how to remedy this. It doesn't appear to me that she has a bay to put a graphics card. Here's the model. Are there ways of emulating a "brand name" graphics card while running an intel? She's running Vista, but I don't really suppose that matters...

Her laptop is an all around good laptop, however, not a machine really designed and built around running games, other than real basic games. Looking at her specifications in part:

CPU and MemoryProcessor BrandIntelProcessor ClassPentium Dual CoreProcessor Speed1.6 GHzInstalled Memory2 GBMemory TechnologyDDR II SDRAMCache Size1 MB

Display and GraphicsDisplay TypeTFT active matrixGraphics ProcessorIntel GMA 950Resolution1280 x 800 pixels

The processor could be a little quicker with a larger cache. The integrated graphics are pretty much what you see is what you get. The machine is a nice laptop but not expandable (possibly RAM) in ways that would allow playing many games that require extensive resources.

Just my take on it...
Ron

[Stormcrow]

Yeah, the graphics on that are pretty much just enough to run Aero. Laptops can be upgraded with mobility versions of desktop cards, like the Go 7950GTX, but unless it comes with a PCI-E slot to drop the card in, your stuck with onboard.
As already said, the specs that list ATi/Nvidia are just guidelines for about what performance your card needs. The important factors are Direct3D support for windows/OpenGL for Linux, and the shader versions.

Looking into the GMA 950, it supports DX9, Pixel Shader 2.0 and Vertex Shader 3.0, which means it can and will run any game out there right now, just not with any good performance. You'll have to set it to medium/low and still might get lag.
One thing you can do is try running the games in DX8 or lower, and sometimes theres mods and fixes out there to adjust the game to run better on lower end graphics, like Oldblivion for example. Won't be the prettiest, but its effective.
Intel's specs on the card say that it's also PCI-E compliant and supports a PCI-E x16 lane for adding in a mobility card. I would check this out, as since it's OEM theres a chance Gateway may have added one, or left it out to save costs.