Buying Laptop, Unsure About Vid Card

Basically, I am wondering about a graphics card. I have heard it is a wise decision to go with a dedicated graphics card in general as well as for any gaming and certain HD usage, but sometimes at a cost.

A little background about me: I intend to do some gaming occasionally, but I don't consider myself a "hardcore gamer". If a game comes up that looks really appealing to me, I may try it out, but I am not one to pick up every new game and attempt to max out its settings. I mostly stick to FPS games and in general and I may be interested in things similar to and including Left4Dead, COD4, maybe COD5, BioShock, TF2, HL2, RA3, and maybe a few potential games that come out in the future that I am not aware of yet. I don't necessarily need to run these games at maximum and perfect settings - I just want to be able to run and play them. I have grown accustomed to low settings across the board from my past computer and even with that, I have had fairly poor performance, so any upgrade would be great, but I'm pretty sure I can get by as long as it works. I also intend to do some HD video watching and all, but I am not sure just how much that comes into the equation.

So with that, I am somewhat torn between the Intel GMA 4500MHD and the 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 9200M GS graphics cards - the 9600M GT NVIDIA is available to purchase but seems a bit overkill for me so I'm not really looking at that one. I have no problem upgrading to the 9200, but just wanted to check into it first. While having the 9200M dedicated may be a better future investment as well as a better gaming card, I don't want to be making a major sacrifice in battery life and laptop temperature for this upgrade. How much would these two areas change? Is the trade-off worth it? What kind of temperature increase can be expected from the 4500 to the 9200 - I don't want to be burning my lap if I move from the desk to the couch? Also, I wouldn't really do any intense tasks (like gaming, HD movies) while unplugged, but for just general use, would battery life still be affected by much? Anything else I should know?

In general, I'm just looking for an informed bit of help or something, as this is certainly outside my area of knowledge and I just want to make the right choice. I am a new user and I'm not sure if this is the right place to post (I made a similar post in the HP forum, but added a bit more to that), but any help would be greatly appreciated.

If it makes any difference, some specs include C2D 2.0Ghz processor and 3gb ram. Looking to make a purchase tonight (hopefully) so any quick help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

The 9200 should serve you better than the x4500, but unless you want to play all the games you listed at the lowest possible, I think the 9600 is the better bet - (8 Stream vs 32 and 64-bit vs 128-bit) but thats just my .02

 

FPS games almost always require a decent video card (unless you're playing games several years old). It is apparent you are not, you will hate the low framerates. 9600M GT is worth the investment here, more than the processor.

 

I would not want to play any of the games you listed on the 9200--it just isn't a very powerful GPU. If you were playing games like Civ IV that are not demanding, the 9200 would be a wise choice. However, for the games you listed, the 9600GT would be the right choice.

 

Thanks for the replies. My old laptop video card was ATI X600 graphics w/128 MB Video Memory and I could play a number of games I listed with it, but generally on lowered settings and with reduced FPS (regularly played with between 5 and about 20 depending on game [for newer] - even could get COD4 going - but even higher on other older ones). As long as I can have a nice step forward from that card, I will most likely be content. As stated, I don't necessarily mind playing on low settings as I am pretty used to it. As long as the games are playable and still fun to me, I can tolerate drops in quality...

This would be a step forward from the old one, right? Also, is the 64-bit going to hinder performance in a major way, or is that somewhat normal?

 

Yeah don't get a 9200m GS or even a 9300m GS.


A 9500m GS might be a good start but a 9600m Gt would be optimal

 

With 64-Bit experience, I absolutely loved it. Every program that I threw at it worked without a hitch. (My Opinion)

Like most of the other posters, I also agree that 9600m is the better choice. With your game selection now It will run things you own at medium-high settings. The newer games today will probably run at lower settings.

I think its worth the investment to future-proof your laptop for a few extra years.

 

I'd choose 9600m for the long run

 

trust the saying "save now, pay later". i had to find this one out the hard way.

if you can afford it, go for atleast a 9500m gs

 

The 9600 is a $100 upgrade for at least 2.5x the power of the 9200. This upgrade is then well worth the money, because of the huge jump in performance.

You will be sorely disappointed if you think the modern games you've listed will be well played by the 9200.