dumb n00b question

[jo_k_er_man]

do the same video cards that fit in a tower also fit in a notebook? or are there only certain cards for notebooks.. this is my first laptop... so its a whole new ballpark for me.. i can take apart a box and put it back together.. but never messed with a laptop...

also could anyone suggest a decent laptop v-card.. preferably somethin between 256-512mb.. and around $100

[mr.greenxxx]

damn i wana know too. but i believe u cant change laptop cards, like there integrated. theres ram slots, but nothing for graphics. i can be wrong tho

[DonVito]

as far as i know the graphics card is intigrated into the motherboard of the laptop. i know some laptops have dedicated video cards and im positive you cant use a desktop video card in a laptop. i would say search google for ur laptop brand maybe you can find one for it. i built my desktop all from parts on newegg.

[mr.greenxxx]

i know most desktops with itegrated ones have another monitr socket, so u pop a card in and just install and connect to the other socket, maybe inside theres lil bits and bobs you fuck around wwith to change it. but laptops arent really for gaming, paprt from the specific AND PRICEY ones.

[jo_k_er_man]

^^ you're right..its integrated into the mother board.. it runs off my memory.... so i need to get this bad boy up to 2gb so i can use all 256mb twords my graphics

[skullkidnate]

It depends on the laptop. Some laptops have room for a special laptop PCI card, some don't. I really do not think your laptop will be able to get one added, especially for that price range, though I could be wrong.

Within the next 6 months external graphics cards should be coming out.

[so speak low]

If you want to keep your laptop and the video card is integrated in your motherboard, then you're gonna have to buy a new laptop motherboard that will fit in your laptop and that has a better video card integrated. I might be wrong, but I think that'd probably be your only option, besides what skullkidnate said about external graphic cards, which I hope is true, since I have a laptop and I'm a pretty big gamer. I've heard some stuff about it too, but I haven't seen anything that confirms it 100%.

[jo_k_er_man]

im downloading the updates for my 945gms.. hopefully that helps.. i've read and says my video can go up to 256mb.. which is what im in the range for.. so lets hope it works out.. im suprised WoW works on my pc but TW08 crashes my video settings

[so speak low]

If your video card is 256, then I'm not suprised WoW works. That's all I have. That and 2gb's of ram and it doesn't do that bad at all.

[jo_k_er_man]

^^^ right now i only have 512mb of ram... 8mb of which is allocated twords video

[skullkidnate]

Intergrated graphics are shit. Simply shit. If you do want to try them out, you will have to go into your BIOS setting and change the mb of intergrated graphics. You can get to the BIOS from your boot screen.

[newradicalface]

^ Yeah man integrated graphics are balls compared to PCI express. Most laptops come with the graphics chipset built into the motherboard, and those that don't generally come with a graphics card that isn't available to purchase without the laptop. Also what Nate was saying with the PCI slot in the laptop, it isn't made for videocards yet. Most laptops have a normal PCMCIA connection, which is too slow to handle the bandwidth of any videocard that doesn't suck. ExpressCard is the new standard that also doesn't meet most requirements of most modern graphics cards.

[skullkidnate]

^^Maybe I wasn't clear. When you have a graphics card on a laptop, it uses a pci-e internally, but a setup different that tradition pci-e.

[Tommy1The1Cat]

Take ur laptop to geek squad they can put a card in and they will know exactly what cards to put in. If you dont have experience with laptops dont take the chance u could really fuck it up

[WeeDMaN]

^^^ right now i only have 512mb of ram... 8mb of which is allocated twords video1.6 gigabytes BIATCH :P lol, waitin on enough money for a new mother board, that or Ill buy a Pci card.

[mr.greenxxx]

i have 4gb of ram, atm my computer only uses 2, fucking stupid windows

[acga5]

has nothing to do with windows, windows supports up to 8gb of ram, its just that none of the programs you are using are using 4gb of ram :) should have just bought 2gb of really fast ram

[jo_k_er_man]

which works faster/better? 2gb ram or 2X1gb and fill both slots?

[DonVito]

well its usually better to use two cards of the same speed and size so it can work in dual channel. dual channel is just suppose to speed up access times and everything. now with dual core processors and faster bus speeds its nothing really noticable now days but it used to speed things up alot. i have two 1 gig cards in my computer and ive never used it all up. i have a laptop with windows vista and 3gig of ram and it uses so much ram. i love the pc i built with windows xp pro im so glad that i didnt get vista on this thing.

[jo_k_er_man]

yea... vista blows.. to run vista decently you need at least 2gb of ram

[skullkidnate]

has nothing to do with windows, windows supports up to 8gb of ram, its just that none of the programs you are using are using 4gb of ram :) should have just bought 2gb of really fast ram
If you are speaking about windows XP you couldn't be more wrong. Xp only supports 4gb of ram, and it only registers 3.7~. If you are on a 64-bit system you can use as much ram as your motherboard can handle.

[skullkidnate]

^^^ right now i only have 512mb of ram... 8mb of which is allocated twords video
Upgrade your ram before alloting more memory for video. You don't have enough ram for it to be worth anything.

I only have 2 gigs on my desktop. DDR2800. I am going to add either 2 more gigs or 4 more. I am still unsure.

[DonVito]

its really pointless to have more then 4 gigs unless you have a 64 bit OS. and even then you dont even really need that much ram. i only have 2 gigs of ram in my comp with a core 2 duo processor and it flys. i love everything about computers its like my favorite pass time. LOL

[skullkidnate]

....I do have a 64-bit os. :D