Is it the video card that's the problem?

I recently bought a new laptop. It's a HP Pavilion dv9000 (GD545AV) with Vista. 2GB of RAM. AMD 64 Athlon X2 and NVidia 6150 GeForce (64MB) dedicated. Look here: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v30/MercuryBlue/vidcard.gif

My problem/question is this: I tried running Halo: Combat Evolved on this computer and find that it does very poorly. Even with every setting at the lowest. My laptop's specifications overqualify the system requirements for the game. Look here: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v30/MercuryBlue/halospec.gif
What you see above are the recommended requirements (not minimal). However, it still runs laggy and such even with sufficient dedicated memory? Why is this? If you need any other specs, I'll try to provide them.

Thank you for your time and knowledge.

 

You are most likely setting Halo to too high of settings. That card is one of the best integrated cards, but an IGP is an IGP...it isn't for gaming.

You may support the latest shaders, the latest version of DX, the latest everything, have enough memory...and still not play the game because the card is too weak.

Lower the settings to the minimum, and gradually raise them until you get the best picture possible without a slideshow.

 

No, that can't be it. Even with every setting at the lowest, the performance is very poor. Now, I'm afraid to spend my money on a game (because this is now my only computer) to find it does not run decently.

 

First off, the 6150 isn't that great of a graphics card, especially for gaming. 64MB just don't cut it anymore. I'd recommend at LEAST a 128MB idedicated gpu if you like to play any games that are graphic intensive on low-medium settings.
Secondly, Intel chips tend to perform better than AMD. Also, using Vista, the absolute min is 2gb of ram. I'd go with 4gb if I'm running vista (vista tends to run slower than xp).

 

Hmmm, that doens't sound right. Even the GMA900 (which is much weaker than your card) could play Halo at the lowest settings.

Try updating your drivers: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=64910
And making sure you are running in the 'Performance' (Vista) or 'Home/Office Desk' or 'Always On' (XP) power profile.

FYI: Intel CPUs are generally more powerful than AMDs. But AMDs/nVidia's GPUs are more powerful than Intel's GPUs. You should be somewhat okay with 2GB RAM, check your RAM usage when Halo is running and see if you are getting close to 2GB. Also, the GPU is the bottleneck here...you could have half the processor you do and still have this issue I'd think. The problem is something software related to the GPU...it is possible the (somewhat unmature) Vista drivers could be the problem.

 

I know that Halo tends to have rather poor performance, but surely there's a patch.

 

My drivers are fully updated. =/ I'll try running it on the "performance" profile and see what happens. As for the thing about 2GB being the minimum, my RAM isn't used up very much so I don't believe that is the problem. And what's this patch?


EDIT: No difference in performance. Sucks just as much. @_o I just don't understand why 64MB of dedicated memory for a game that minimally requires 32MB would play so poorly.

 

A patch (update) to the game.

EDIT: If you're not plugged in or at least using "Performance," you're not getting the most out of the laptop.

 

@Makoto: Memory is only part of the story here...

The core of the GPU is what does all the math, rendering, etc, etc...and that is what determines how well a game can play.

Memory is where all the info for the game resides, and without enough memory you cannot feed the core enough info fast enough because it will constantly have to trade information with an uber-slow hard drive.

 

I have Aero turned off and have the power options at full. I also tried setting the performance tab to the best (where everything looks like it's Windows 98), but the performance is just the same.

@Greg, I understand that. However, I think my computer has a good enough CPU and memory, doesn't it? If you look at the picture I provided from systemrequirementslab.com above, it gives me reason to believe my laptop should be capable of running this game decently.


EDIT: Well, I thought I had all my drivers updated (that's what HP Help and Windows Updates said), however I went to that link Greg gave and went to driveragent.com to get a scan. I found this: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v30/MercuryBlue/scan.gif
Does updating these have any actual benefits? Will it really help in the 3D department? If so, I try clicking on the little Download (floppy disk) icon and it says I need to sign up?

 

you can probably find the drivers on some other site.

 

it might be related to vista... unfortunately.

 

I decided to download a run a couple demos of Unreal Tournament 2004 and Quake 4. Unreal Tournament was actually playable, however Quake 4 was close to how badly Halo was. Maybe I should stay away from FPS games? Should I experience poor performance from MMORPGS or games like Command and Conquer Generals Hour?