Good Video Card?

Arok2092 · Post by **Arok2092** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 10:44 pm

I just got a laptop made by Dell and I'm new to the whole computer gaming thing(I've used consoles until now) and I wanted to know if my video card was any good. According to the sheet(because I don't know where to find the system specs on my laptop) my video card is a Intel HD Graphics. Is that good? If I should provide more about my system please let me know. I'm mainly wanting to play older games such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Could that video card handle it? And, just for giggles and gags, could a game such as Oblivion be played decently on it? I have more questions about my system components and qualities but I'll leave it at that for now. Thanks in advance!

DesR85 · Post by **DesR85** » Mon Apr 05, 2010 12:30 am

That Intel HD Graphics is actually Intel's integrated graphics. It is good at running older games like Knights of the Old Republic but newer-gen games like Oblivion will lag.

Arok2092 · Post by **Arok2092** » Mon Apr 05, 2010 4:08 pm

Thank you very much! That seems to work out perfectly for me. Now I would like people's opinions on how good my laptop is for gaming. (BTW this was mainly made to be used for college so I'm not expecting it to be great at gaming, just want to hear how people's opinions and suggestions)

Dell Inspiron 14
Processor: NEW 2010 Intel Core i5-430M
OS: Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium, 64bit
LCD Panel: 14.0" HD WLED
Memory(RAM): 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz
Hard Drive: 320 GB, 5400 RPM
Video Card: Intel HD Graphics
CD ROM/DVD ROM: 8X CD / DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
Sound: High Definition Audio 2.0
Network Card: Integrated 10/100 Network Card

So just people's opinions on this please. I'm sorry if I put too much or to little info. I'm still new to computer gaming as I've used primarily video game consoles until now. Also if people have an idea of the most demanding game you think my system could handle that would help alot! Thanks in advance!

Kipi · Post by **Kipi** » Tue Apr 06, 2010 8:38 am

One good place to check if you have any specific game in mind is [url="http://cyri.systemrequirementslab.com/CYRI/"]System Requirements Lab[/url].

Just choose a game from drop down and it will check your computer and gives you the result whether your computer can not run the game, passes minimum requirements or passes recommended requirements, as well as gives some specific info what you must improve.

It's more or less accurate, I use it at times to check if my laptop is capable running specific games, and so far the result from the site has matched the reality.

Arok2092 · Post by **Arok2092** » Tue Apr 06, 2010 6:34 pm

Kipi wrote:One good place to check if you have any specific game in mind is [url="http://cyri.systemrequirementslab.com/CYRI/"]System Requirements Lab[/url].

Just choose a game from drop down and it will check your computer and gives you the result whether your computer can not run the game, passes minimum requirements or passes recommended requirements, as well as gives some specific info what you must improve.

It's more or less accurate, I use it at times to check if my laptop is capable running specific games, and so far the result from the site has matched the reality.

Thank you very much for the link. I tried it out but I don't think it's very accurate, at least to my computer. I downloaded KOTOR on my computer and its running just fine, even above the game's requirements. But that website said my video card couldn't handle the 2nd one (KOTOR 1 wasn't an option to test out sadly.) So I went and looked up KOTOR II's requirements and it has the exact same as the first game. The website also says that my video card has 1.7 GB of Video RAM. And since the minimum is 32 MB I don't get why it says that. Outside of the video card it says everything else is good and on the sub-categories for the video card that's all green checks too. So I don't know. I really just want to test out on a bigger, newer game to see, but without wasting the money as I can't seem to figure it out on my own. Does anybody have any idea as to why my video RAM is at 1.7 GB in just an integrated card? Or how tough a game they think it could take?

Kris · Post by **Kris** » Wed Jul 28, 2010 10:08 pm

You could also download free benchmarks like Futuremark 3DMark06, 3DMark Vantage, or Unigine Heaven, and see how they do - see how they look as they're playing. Games like NWN, NWN2 etc won't use anything above DX9.0c, so when you're running Heaven, be sure to set the DX to 9. There are other things you can do with the infinity engine (NWN) like set shadows to off, to help it to run nicely on a slow videocard. Things like Crysis and most of the current shoot-em-ups won't run.