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    ATI Radeon X300 vs Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100???

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by mhsavage, Aug 7, 2008.

  1. mhsavage

    mhsavage Notebook Enthusiast

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    Okay, to begin with, I got my old laptop from my school, through a monthly payment plan etc. It's an IBM Thinkpad R52, 1.73GHz processor, 512Mb RAM, 60GB HDD, ATI Radeon X300.

    I purchased a Dell Studio 1535 two days ago. 4Gb RAM, 320GB HDD, 2.1 GHz processor, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100, lots of other cool stuff.(only $800!)

    I went over all the aspects of the laptop, but somehow I missed the graphics card, assuming, as a modern laptop, that it would be able to run 3D games like Halo. Other than the graphics card it was a great deal for the money.

    Anyway, I go home and set everything up, its so fast it was installing programs in about 8 seconds.

    Then I wanted to try out my old Halo game that I had played on my 4 year old laptop for literally years. I install it successfully and everything, but when I start it up, I get an error message that my hardware cannot support this game, what the hell?

    Well, I did my research and learned that my new graphics card is integrated and shared with the main RAM, and only uses as much as it needs at the time.

    I've installed new drivers, updated windows, everything, but this laptop still runs Halo like sh**, with choppy white dotted lines covering the screen.

    I then installed Portal, this time the white lines were decreased, but still prevalent, but the game was still much laggier than on my old laptop. Also, while trying out the new Runescape HD version (yes i play RS, what of it?), I STILL got bad graphics and lag. Seriously... on RS?

    My question that needs to be answered is whether the ATI Radeon X300 is truly better than the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100, or if there is just something wrong with my card.

    I guess I'm wondering if there is a way to dedicate more memory to the graphics card.

    Because my old laptop runs games better, I've considered returning the new laptop and just upgrading the RAM and HDD of my old laptop. Hopefully I can fix the problem on this laptop and that won't be the case.
     
    mhsavage, Aug 7, 2008
    #1
  2. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Greg, Aug 7, 2008
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