How Can I Play Oblivion?

I'm not very computer savy just to let you all know. My wife and I bought a HP dv6000 and I was sad to learn later on that I can't really play any current day games on this laptop, especially Oblivion, at least from what I've heard.

Is there anyway for me to upgrade it? Am I stuck with this graphics card? From what I understand the processor and ram are adequate but all that's really lacking is the video card, is that true? If I'm stuck with the video card what kind of games could run on this laptop -- 4,3,2 years old games?

Here are the stats for everything, and I appreciate any help. Thanks a lot.


Model: dv6235nr
Processor Brand Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile
Processor Speed 1.6GHz
System Bus 533MHz
Cache Memory 2MB on die Level 2
System Memory (RAM) 1GB
Type of Memory (RAM) DDR2
Hard Drive Type Serial ATA (5400 rpm)
Graphics Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
Video Memory Up to 256MB (shared)


Oblivion requirments-

Recommended:
3 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
1 GB System RAM
ATI X800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, or higher video card

Minimum System Requirements:
Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows XP 64-bit
512MB System RAM
2 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
128MB Direct3D compatible video card
and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver;
8x DVD-ROM drive
4.6 GB free hard disk space
DirectX 9.0c (included)
DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
Keyboard, Mouse

Supported Video Card Chipsets:
ATI X1900 series
ATI X1800 series
ATI X1600 series
ATI X1300 series
ATI X850 series
ATI x800 series
ATI x700 series
ATI x600 series
ATI Radeon 9800 series
ATI Radeon 9700 series
ATI Radeon 9600 series
ATI Radeon 9500 series
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series
NVIDIA GeForce 6200 series
NVIDIA GeForce FX series

 

The problem is indeed the video card.
I'm sorry to tell you you can't upgrade it.
You have an integrated graphics processor, they are not made to play games.
Read The Mobile Graphics Card Info Page for more information on GPUs.

Read the Upgrading Mobile Graphics Cards guide for more information on that. As you'll notice 99% of laptop GPUs are NOT upgradable.
So you're stuck with what you have now. You'd have to buy yourself a new laptop to get a better GPU.

You can have a look at System Requirements Lab to see how your laptop will run the game.

 

I'll take a look at the System Requirements Lab when I'm on the laptop. Thanks for the help.

Would the computer be able to run any older games at all? Or games that don't require a lot compared with most others?

 

What games do you have in mind?

 

You have a shared graphics card which is not really that effective. To play such games, you need a decicated graphics card, and for games like Oblivion, you need the fancy ones. Graphics cant really be upgraded, and I'm sorry to say that you will be stuck with this card for as long as you keep your laptop. With what you have, there are no modern games you can play, but yes, the games by EA Sports are playable in your kinda laptop, so try them and ENJOY!!!

 

I was thinking of these as an alternative. Think it can run 'em?


Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon
Myst IV
Syberia
Beyond Good & Evil
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Civilization IV
Galatic Civilizations II: Dread Lords
Sid Meier's Pirates!

 

I'm not too familiar with those games. Sorry.
I check System Requirements Lab and some of those are on there. So your best bet is to see what System Requirements Lab has to say about it.

 

Alrighty then, thanks a lot Thibault, I'll check it out when I'm on the laptop later. If it runs one of the "harder" ones I have listed then it should run any of the others that have lower numbers.

 

You're welcome!
Best of luck.

 

Broken Sword: Dont know
Myst IV: Yes
Syberia: Yes,
Beyond Good and Evil: Yes
Call of Cthulhu: Yes (CTHULHU FTHAGIN!!!)
Civilization: Probably not, but worth a shot
Galactic Civilizations 2: Yes
Pirates!: Yes

 

Galactic Civilzations 2 should downgrade to your level, though you won't get any eye candy at all.

Keep your eye on the external graphics cards, there are some interesting ones that are coming out soon that work with PCI Express slots. Not sure if you have one...but that or a dock are the only ways to upgrade the graphics right now unless you have MXM or something similar.

Good luck, don't throw it away - look into it more and remember there are lots and lots of great older games it can play with ease

Cat

 

Don't rely on this method when it comes to the GMA900/950. Comparing the tech specs to the minimum requirements is not a reliable way of assessing whether something will or will not work on this card - for example, I've seen Dawn of War running on the GMA - it runs absolutely terrible, but it runs. I've also seen Pariah running on the GMA, and it runs fine on mid-settings.

Dawn of War : 32mb Geforce 2 MX
Pariah: 32mb Geforce 3

Despite the minimum requirements for Dawn of War being far lower, and thus you'd imagine it'd run better, this is not the case at all. There are plenty of other examples I've experienced, but that's just one. So don't run a game that requires 'x', and assume by that logic it'll run anything with such requirements!

Another good example is that FEAR Combat runs on the GMA series at low settings, a game which is considerably demanding on decent cards even. Whereas, some much less demanding and also better optimised games like Half Life 2, barely run at all...

 

Have you tried Oldblivion?

Its a mod for oblivion that allows you to play on systems with older version gpu's. I think its documented that it works with the intel gm 9XX series. good luck!

 

It works, but not anywhere near playable.

 

I actually had this idea but didn't know external graphics cards existed. Could you, or someone else, give me some insight into how they work. As far as a PCI Express slot, not sure if I have that on my comp, I found this though:

PCMCIA Slots 1 ExpressCard/54

Is that what you're talking about? If so, could I just buy one of those External cards, plug it in and play? And what is MXM? Again, I appreciate your comments guys.

 

Theres plenty of topics on the Asus XG external graphics card on this forum. Just run a search. It will work on your laptop though, you found the right thing

 

Sorry pal, trying to run Oblivion on the GMA is like bringing a bicycle to the autobahn.

On the other hand, the Asus XG---the first ever external performance graphics card---is set to make its debut at $400 (with 7900GS I heard!). If you have a monitor lying around (it uses a separate monitor), it's definitely an option.

CIV4 will not run on the GMA, there's just too much graphics candy. Too bad, since CIV3 ran on anything. GalCiv will run OK, it will not look pretty though.

I'm actually not sure about Pirates, I've rented the Xbox version before and I think the graphics are somewhat heavy on the eye candy. I don't know about the PC version, but if I had to guess I'd say the gameplay will not be acceptable, especially during the sword duels.

 

If you have a GMA950, then this list published by intel will give you a good idea of what you can run:

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/intel945gm/sb/CS-021400.htm

In general, the real problem is GMA950 doesn't have hardware pixel shaders, which are required for most directx 9.0 games. Some games have a compatibility mode fallback, but other games will just flat out refuse to work! Although I am sure that you will be able to find something on the list that you like and can enjoy for a great while. Good luck!

 

This was a good read for me (The Mobile Graphics Card Info Page, By Chaz) on these forums, and cleared up a lot of confusion -- wish I had read it before buying a laptop...oh well!

Anyway, I really want to play Sid Meier's Pirates! more than anything right now and I don't know if I'll be able to, with what I've been reading and what Gator said up above, without putting all the settings down or making the resolution look like crap, which freakin' blows. But maybe it'll play, or even play nice, here's hoping.

 

i can for sure tell you that pirates! plays fairly well on my girlfriends old Pentium m banias with mobility radeon 7500. the 7500 is, i believe, only dx 7.X cabable with 32 mb of video memory, so i can almost guarantee it will play on your config. I've compared the quality by playing it on my rig at full settings, and i must say Im very impressed with how it plays on the 7500. the game looks no where like 'crap' even at low settings.

edit: another way around some games' hardware requirements would be 3d analyze: http://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/tools/3d%5Fanalyze/download/

it's a tool that emulates hardware and lighting functions so lower end cards can bypass some game requirements. I've tried it on Lego Star Wars on the mobility radeon 7500, and it works great.

 

Thanks, JacktheCrow, for the info. Sounds like you know a thing or two about getting "around" stuff from this and your previous post. Yeah, from what you said seems like I'll be able to play the game on my integrated card -- Aargh!

Oh, and by the way, how does Vista affect all this, since that's what I've got, would the game(s) play on it?

 

Actually comparing an old video card to a GMA 9x0 is kinda iffy. Technically most dedicated cards, no matter how old, have more brute force than the GMA does. So even though they may not have all the same features that the GMA has, they can still push more frames.

Vista is only going to hurt performance, for now.

 

My wife and I bought Sid Meier's Pirates! this morning at Wal-Mart for 20 bucks, took it home and installed and it played just fine, with shaders, lighting effects, and rez turned all the way up on it. Haven't tried turning the water detail, and overall detail up on it yet, but, all in all, I'm quite happy with the results, so now we know it does work on a GMA 950. Just gonna have to wait on that Oblivion.

No matter what anybody says, you're alright in my book; especially you TwilightVampire 'cause you got a cool picture and name -- Interview With The Vampire -- freakin' pimp.