Need computer help...

[zero_chance]

I just recently bought a bunch of PC games (Beyond Good & Evil, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and Star Wars: KoTOR), and checking the system requirements, thought that I'd do alright in terms of system requirements. Not great, on account of my crappy integrated video card in my Notebook PC, but not bad.

Far from it, it seems. Beyond Good & Evil runs, but it's somewhat slow and choppy, and the video lags behind the sound in cutscenes. KoTOR did run, though I'm not sure how well, because I didn't try to get very far, until I updated it, and now it just crashes. Haven't bothered to install PoP yet, but the requirements are fairly similar to BG&E, so I have my doubts.

So the question arises, are there any settings I can tweak with my video card or in Windows itself to possibly increase performance in these games, possibly by freeing up some video memory or RAM? I do believe that it's my graphics card that's holding me back, but I don't think it's upgradeable.

Anyways, here's my DXDiag read-out, maybe you guys can make heads and tails of it, and hopefully recommend me something.

[Paul Miller]

Have you upgraded your video and sound drivers? Outside of that, I don't think there is much hope.... but try some other standard things, like checking for viruses and spyware.

[Lord Riff Raff]

Sorry, there's nothing you can can do if your system laptop doesn't have a 'real' gfx card. I'd suggest trying some games from the 1999 and below such as UT which run fine in software mode.

[zero_chance]

So I'm really that out of luck am I? Been running Morrowind fairly well at medium settings, and Warcraft III with the settings all cranked as high as they'll go without a hitch (minus some choppy framerates in foggy areas). So I can't handle these ones at all? Dang.

Laptop videocards can't be swapped out, can they?

[Dark Neighbour]

Nope, intergrated onto the mainboard from the start...

[Borman]

Yes, yes laptop video cards can be swapped out. But not in normal consumer level laptops, unfortunatly. Alienware, among others, makes it possible to upgrade laptop vid cards.

[zero_chance]

Damn...

Oh well, thanks for the help. I guess I'll just hold on to these for when I get my next upgrade, whenever that is...

[zero_chance]

Oh, before I take myself completely out of the running, is there any way to, or any video cards that can, be used as a peripheral device? As an add-on instead of having to swap mine out? Probably not, but it's worth checking.

If so, would it be possible to get one to suit my needs within the $200-250 CDN range?

[Lord Riff Raff]

Nope sorry, gfx cards are core devices that have to be enumerated via pci or agp, thus there can't be such a thing as a plugin graphics card.

[zero_chance]

What I figured. Bummer. No way of resolving the problem short of getting a new comp, huh?

[Josh]

You should just try PoP to see if it works anyways. It is a very good game.

[Lord Riff Raff]

Well there is one other way. Install the DX SDK and use the software rasteriser. Just one problem though, it runs the SDK demos with that driver at about 1 frame per 20 secs.

[zero_chance]

Well there is one other way. Install the DX SDK and use the software rasteriser. Just one problem though, it runs the SDK demos with that driver at about 1 frame per 20 secs.

I have no clue what the hell you just said. And if it was a serious attempt to help, mind pointing me in the direction of said software?

[Lord Riff Raff]

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...st/directx.asp

You want the 3rd download. By the way I wouldn't suggest this as you didn't understand what I said.

[zero_chance]

Mind giving me the gist of what it is that this thing'd be doing to my computer, then? Mainly, I didn't understand SDK, but I have a vague idea of the rest of it now.

BTW, the third download down is "DirectX 9.0c Redistributable for Software Developers - Multilingual", and I don't think that's the one that you were referring to.