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Upgrading 8500
I recently brought splinter cell 2 and far cry, and i can only play them on lowest resolutions and settings.
I was wondering, how feasible it is to upgrade my laptops graphics card, I’ve looked on ebuyer, and this site but I can’t find any graphics cards for laptops.
Is it possible to upgrade, and if so what is the BEST laptop graphics card on the market, for around about 200 (or less :)).
Thanks for the reply, I currently have...
2.2Ghz Intel Pentium 4 Mobile
512DDR Ram
60gb HD
64MB Geforce 4200go
And i got the upgraded screen, the xvga? i cant remember.The reason i want to upgrade is, I want farcry to be playable, and im really surprised it isnt. It requires a 64mb Geforce 2 graphic card as its Minimum specs, and 1ghz processor i believe, but my laptop even on the lowest settings just refuses to play the game, i get like 0.5FPS. Splinter cell plays okey, on medium however on some parts of the levels it start to struggle, but it runs perfect on low.
Any ideas? Upgrading the graphics card doesnt seem like a very practical option.
I knew i should have got a PC!
Message Edited by StevenAFC on 04-10-2004 02:31 PM
- You can't get a generic AGP card and install it in your notebook. Notebook video cards are brand-, and even model-specific. So you'll have to get a card as a spare part from Dell.
The i8500 was sold with
- 32MB or 64MB Mobility Radeon 9000
- 64MB Geforce 4200go
If you own the Geforce, you've got the most powerful GPU that was sold in your 8500.
Now the shape of the graphics boards that are used in the i8600 are the same as the ones used in the 8500. The i8600 was sold with
- 32MB Mobility Radeon 9000
- 64MB Geforce FX5200go
- 64MB Geforce 4200go
- 128 MB Geforce FX5650go
- 128 MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9600PT
I put the 5 last cards in the order of rising performance, so the R9000 is the slowest while the R9600 is the fastest. However, the 2 last cards run very hot. The BIOS of the 8500 wasn't designed to accept cards that run that hot and shuts down when they reach a certain temperature. The only possibility is to modify the card to improve cooling.
Here you can find instructions how to mod a 5650 or 9600: http://www.bay-wolf.com/8500videoheat.htm
It seems to be very difficult to get a 9600 card from Dell, most people get a 5650 if they get any card. Keeo an eye on ebay, especially if you want the 4200go. I don't recommend the FX5200go. Andrew WOT
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Posted April 10th, 2004 19:00
Try to OC it a little, I'm running it at 225/490, it does not overheat, lock up or produce artifacts. Do not recommend to go any higher, btw try to blow CPU and GPU vents with compressed air, you may be pleasantly suprised by results. ;)
One other thing to remember when it comes to slow game performance are the nasty TSR's. Download, install, update and run AdAware from www.lavasoftusa.com to remove all the spyware you probably have eating your resources. Run msconfig from your Start>Run menu box and in the 'Selective Startup' tab get rid of all non essential programs that start when you turn on your machine. I've found that almost everything can be shut off in that menu with no bad things happening afterward. This should help gaming speed to some extent.
@StevenAFC wrote:
I followed your advise, and guess what im now playing farcry on medium and it is running smooth as.
Great. Enjoy the game, it's really good...Omegaman007
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Posted April 12th, 2004 02:00
I tried two of drivers from this site (56.72 performance and mixed) and both returned 3DMark2001SE scores that were about 1000 points LOWER than the Derll released 53.03. Did you guys get the same results? Is there some trick to this that I'm missing. I would have expected the results to get better with the newer drivers.
Also, what program do you guys recommend to OC the 4200go? I noticed that the 56.72 drivers had a tab to do that right in the driver, but the Dell released driver does not. Any suggestions?
Thanks for the help!
HMKrieps
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Posted April 10th, 2004 18:00
What drivers do you have? The Dell ones? If so, the I suggest that you upgrade to the latest nVidia drivers. The generic nVidia drivers don't install correctly on mobile GPU's, so you have to get a modified INF file from www.laptopvideo2go.com. This sounds complicatied, but it isn't at all.
After installation, check in device manager if version 5.6.7.2 is installed and try the game again.