Best Games playable on GMA 950

I recently bought a laptop with the Intel 945gm chipset (which includes the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950) and I just wanted to say that I'm getting decent framerates at max resolution (1280x800) from most of the games in Orange Box. Half-life 2 and Episode 1 with high (not maxed) settings, Portal and Episode 2 with med setting and sadly TF2 is unplayable even on the lowest settings... so far. I haven't checked what my exact framerate is but it's definitely smooth and playable. The only time I get slowdowns is in large, open areas.

My specs:

Intel Core Duo @ 2.0GHz
2 gigs of RAM @ 667MHz
Windows Vista
And the Intel 945gm chipset

I also play WoW on high settings and max resolution at about 30fps. But I have to turn down the draw distance to its min because I got slowdowns in open areas in this game too, but that solved it. That's actually the only thing that was lower then max.

 

Hey I just noticed that our specs are nearly identical. Only difference is you have a better video card and my processor is the T2450. I also have a 160gb harddrive

And give this guy a break. Although it can't run Half-life 2 on max settings (I don't even think that it's capable) it does a decent job on high settings. Believe it or not.

 

I tried hl2 on my tz170 and it was really laggy even on lowest resolution. Maybe its my 4200rpm hard drive and core 2 duo 1.1 or i don't have latest drivers i don't know. But just saying i wasn't really able to run it well.

 

It's the processor, the GMA950 relies very heavily on the CPU for most of the actual processing and post processing.

 

Aw yeah thats probably it. I bought the counter strike anthology off amazon today, comes with 1.6 and regular day of defeat so hopefully at least i can play that during the downtime i have in school.

 

Ok thats it I'm reporting all these crappy posts. Half Life 2 on high settings on a GMA950 is just not possible, in fact the only thing thats possible is Dx7 low settings, and trust me every moderator here knows this as fact. In fact, funny how this is from a brand new user, and a recognised user posted not so long ago saying he tried Orange Box on his friends 950 and got 7fPS...

 

You are experiencing the reality of the GMA950. Obviously, Beatsiz and Kannisto are high on drugs when they're playing.

 

Ok I think this ends here. Some IGPs can do more than the hardcore seem to think but there are posts here that are probably utterly incorrect.

If you wish to make such claims (and I am not for one minute suggesting there should be another thread made on this subject) please, supply hard evidence, for example a film taken of said machine playing said game at said settings with an FPS counter on like the one in fraps for example. Then there will be no debate.

Thread closed.

 

About the GMA 950. I would simply like to add the in my previous notebook, the Dell XPS M140, I had the Intel GMA 900. It is a fair amount weaker than the GMA 950. 30-40% to make a guess.

I did install and play HL2 from time to time on it. I played it on high settings at 800x600. Most of the time when I was just walking around (with out shooting anyone) FPS was around 40-60. As soon as I would run into a couple guys, FPS would drop down to an almost unplayable 5-10FPS. So FPS in games like HL2 REALLY depend on where you are on the map and what you are doing.

Sure I believe the 950GMA can play HL2 at 1280x800 on high. But I also believe that FPS would drop down to 5-10 once you run into some guys and start shooting. A couple of games I did play on the GMA 900 was JKII and Crazy Taxi. Both ran great!

Oh and games like CSS were not playable. Average of less than 5 FPS on low settings and res.

Sorry moon_angle, I just had to add in my personal experience.

 

angle?

That's fine Jason, my x200 does the same on BF2 and FEAR. It'll run, but when anyone comes along it's unplayable.

Anyway, thread closed!