Gma 950

I am looking for a laptop, preferably 14.1" or smaller screen, and would like to do some gaming. Nothing crazy, just some WOW or NFS: Carbon.. More importantly I want to be able to run vista no problem and support new games for a while. I realize the obvious benefit to having a super beefy dedicated card, but I was wondering how bad the integrated GMA950 is that like 90% of laptops seem to come with. The advantage there being price and battery life. Also, the best video cards are only on 15.4" or 17" laptops where you don't expect to have much battery life anyway. So... is the GMA950 useless for everything except word processing and going to be completely useless come vista, or is it really decent?

 

You can take a look at the GPU guide for more information. You can get a go7400 in a 12.1" notebook, i.e. dell m1210 or sony's 13.3 SZ. You can get an x1600/x1700 or go7600/7700 in a 14.1"

The GMA950 will supposedly run Vista's "Aero Glass" interface. WoW will run on the GMA950, but not terribly well. The game does scale, but you'll have to cut your settings. If you are looking for laptop, fill out the FAQ and post in a new thread in the "What notebook should I buy forum".

 

The GMA 950 will run Vista in all of it's 3D glory, So no problem there. Now for gaming; as you can probably guess the GMAs have never been good at it. So while some games will play alright ad dedicated GPU is the best. WOW will play on the GMA but NVS carbon is going to have a hard time and you can probably forget about the newest games.

For what you are looking at I would suggest the HP dv2000t with the Go7200 or if you have a little more money to spend the Asus a8js with Go7700 is a good option. Both are 14.1 inch notebooks. Also the Sony SZ can be had for a decent price and with the SZ you can switch between its GMA and Go7400.

 

if you have the memory to support the gma (IMHO at least 2 gigs ) the gma runs vista as well as any video card aero works fine so if you do not play any graphic intensive games the gma 950 is the way to go also as an example the inspiron E1405 I had got almost 8 hours of battery on a 9 cell but the XPS 121- only gets about 5 both on max battery normal use so it just breaks down to what you want from your notebook
jim

 

I can't get Areo to work on with the GMA 950 on my Z62F. I have seen areo run on the GMA 950, with varying degrees of success.

So, yes, the GMA 950 can fully run Areo. But sometimes it doesn't. Be careful.

 

We can help you find a laptop for your needs if you fill out the FAQ in the What Should I Buy forum.

If you want to do any sort of 3D gaming, you should avoid the Intel GPUs at all costs. Newer games will simply not run and if they do, will not be playable.

 

Thanks guys, this has been very helpful. I was leaning towards a dedicated card and was about to pick up the asus a8jp from newegg until they sold out. Should be back in stock friday though. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834220104

I'll head over to the other thread and see what other options I have in this range.

Just one more thing. When Vista drops, will DX10 be supported by any of the current high-end cards via firmware or some software upgrade, or will it require new hardware?

Thanks again

 

never buy gma cards they suck at anything 3D end of story.

 

actually some people don't have a choice if they have a restricted budget.

 

A whole new card you will need for DirectX 10. If you want one of those, you'll need to wait until the Spring.

 

and probably pay premium for them too, so i'd wait a few montsh after