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    Intel Media Accelerator 900 comparison??

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by Istari, Jun 2, 2006.

  1. Istari

    Istari Notebook Guru

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    Hi,

    Forgive me for my graphical inneptness, but I have a question about video card comparisons. On my desktop at home, my video card is an nVidia GeForce4 MX 420 (64 Mb). For the laptop I'm planning on getting, I want to get a video card that's cheap, but can still play the games I want. On my desktop, I can play HL2 and AoE 3 with relative ease. What is the Integrated Intel® Media Accelerator 900 Graphics card like, compared to my current GeForce? Is it better (i.e. would it play AoE 3 and HL2 at decent settings?) and would getting higher SDRAM help at all? I know that one card is for a laptop and one is for a desktop; hopefully that does not cause trouble for comparisons... And also, can it do any of those new methods of rendering, such as blooming and pixel/vertex shading (i'm not very familiar with them)?

    Thanks a lot,
     
    Istari, Jun 2, 2006
    #1
  2. Charles P. Jefferies

    Charles P. Jefferies Lead Moderator Super Moderator

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    The GeForce 4MX, being as old and outdated as it is, will still play games better than a GMA900. You can't play most newer games on the MX though, it is only DirectX 7 hardware while most modern games require DX9. The GMA900 is DX9 but it has trouble running just about anything under that codepath.
     
    Charles P. Jefferies, Jun 2, 2006
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  3. sionyboy

    sionyboy Notebook Evangelist

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    I had a Intel GMA 900 in my previous laptop, it not as good as a GF4MX. GMA900 does not have hardware transform and lighting which is a requirement of most modern games now. It can do software T&L, but this hinders performance.

    If you want something similar (or a bit faster) then I'd go for at least a 200m, or an X300. These cards have pixel shaders so games like HL2 and AoE3 will look better than your GF4.
     
    sionyboy, Jun 3, 2006
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