Is the Intel 4500HD going to be the only integrated graphics for a while? will it play Starcraft II?

I bought my current Studio 1555 last year and recall the Intel 4500 as the basic standard integrated graphics for most laptops. Will there be an "upgrade" in the near future or are we stuck with this one for a while longer?

Will it also play Starcraft II?

 

Latest gen Intel integrated graphics is the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD Graphics present on i3 and i5 CPUs.
The latest nVidia integrated is I think the GeForce 320M.
Ati might be the Radeon HD 4200 or 4250.

(I might be a generation behind )

But anyways, why the restriction with integrated graphics? (budget, battery life?)

 

I doubt GMA4500 can play SC2, the new intel chipset in arrandale is around the performance of a 9400M, which IMO will at most be able to play SC2 at the lowest settings on 800x600, and you really don't want to play SC2 at the lowest settings because it will really look like crap.

 

Even at the lowest setting, SC2 still looks better than Brodd War IMO. But then again why buy games based on pure pretty graphics? Go for the Gameplay

 

I cant recall if what my Uncle has exactly either a x3100 or 4500 BUt I was astounded that it can lay SC@ in 1440x900 at LOW settings though i think it also helps that he has a 2.7 ghz processor in a laptop.

My HD 3200 and 2.1Ghz Turion CPu can only play at 1024x768 at medium settings.

 

Yes Blizzard is very good at making games scale down very well. They subscribe to the notion that the lower the minimum specs they can make the wider the audience. But on that note they are not really known for ground breaking graphics. Except in their FMV's. Or at least used to be.

 

i have a i5 and tried the GMA HD graphics and played scII on lowest settings at 1600x900 just for fun. but yeah lowest settings look like crap. 4500hd might be able to play one lowest if you have decent cpu with it

 

agree!
I've had a intel GPU before, and many games refused to run for nothing, and I used a program to trick them into thinking that have a different GPU and they worked flawlessly
It will run Starcraft 2 and I think it's a good bargain

 

I've seen a friend of mine play the SC2 beta on a machine I'm pretty sure had the 4500HD. That machine does have a blu-ray drive, so it's possible it may have dedicated graphics, but there is no sticker on it to suggest so like there is for the Intel CPU and Blu-ray optical drive. Ran perfectly fine, though yes, it did lack eye candy but still looked pretty decent. Another friend was running on a Vaio with an 8400M GT. He was running at what appeared to be a decent resolution and shadows. Don't know his other settings, but it looked pretty good. On my roommates G50 series Asus, another friend pretty much was running it maxed out.