Is the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 Good for Anything??

I recently ordered a laptop and since I was super low on cash I had to get an integrated graphics card. The laptop is not really for gaming (I am saving up for a desktop for my gaming needs) but I was wondering if it would be able to play games like CS Source and Unreal Tournament 2004 at minimal settings. My videocard is an intel graphics media accelerator 950 and i think it can be configured to use up to 256 mb from the system's memory so wouldn't that be enough to play some games?? I only have 512mb of RAM but i can easily upgrade to 1024MB.

Here are the specs of my laptop:

Intel® Core™ Duo processor T2300 (2MB Cache/1.66GHz/667MHz FSB)
512MB Shared Single Channel DDR2 SDRAM 533MHZ, 1 DIMM
60GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950

 

UT2004 should run ok, check my lowdown post for benches of the gma900 which is just a clockspeed difference (950 = 400mhz, 900 = 333mhz)

 

They will run fine, I've seen CS being played on a GMA 950 and it runs quite alright And i have Unreal 2004 on my lappy and this also runs fine.

Believe it or not modern games will run on this system, if graphics is important to you don't bother getting them. My desktop is for gaming too, so only when i get bored in the front room i use my lappy for gaming. Half life 2 will run around 30 fps on an intel 950. which ain't too bad, but if your a hardcore gamer then you'll most likely think that's pants. Strategy games are fine for this chip if your into that kind of game.

Oh and it saves you a ton of money and is very good on the battery, A dedicated card would probably drain the battery in half the time an integrated card does.

 

They should run fine, just not with anything fancy turned on. The GMA really isn't that bad in a notebook, at least if you don't plan on using it for hardcore gaming.

 

Some great games will defenatly run. For instance Starcraft, Warcraft 2 (and 3 probably), Diablo 2...

Ok.. So any game blizzard has put out??

 

Not just these games, others like the latest Battle for middle earth, released a few weeks back. this game supports the GMA 900 & 950. so it's playable.
I agree with what phil said, it's isn't that bad. it's just the people who want great graphics slate it so much because it ain't what they want to see.. but for the budget gamer who is only going to play CS, Unreal 2004, Command and conquer : generals, even HALF LIFE 2 (30 fps) . you can get enjoyment out of it.

I like to stick up for this chip as you can see because it gets slated way too much by the people who like to have the best graphics.

 

its not a bad gpu, but i think its worse then any dedicated gpu..i would recommend anyone who will do any gaming, to get a dedicated gpu (128mb..which is pretty common)..it doesnt eat system ram, and will be able to play at better settings.

pb,out.

 

Yeah, but we don't want to give out misleading information either. The GMA950 is a horrible 3D chip. Nobody should buy it and plan to do any 3D work.

Yes, I have good graphics and so do a lot of people on the forum, but the GMA950 is abysmal as I said, and not to mention that most newer games won't be playable at all.

Running the game (if at all) and actually having it playable are two different things.

 

The most i can get my laptop to do with a GMA900 is Civ4. The FPS isnt good at like 10fps. Still good enough for an ultraportable not intended for serious gaming.

 

You got the dell E1505 on that 602 off promotion, right??
great deal

ut2004 should run, css too, if you play css in dx7 mode it probably will run nice

 

You can always check out Intel's gaming guide,
http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/intel945gm/sb/CS-021400.htm
(I think these are if the games will run, but not if they will run at playable speeds)
I guess Half-Life 2 would crash, not sure about CS:S.

 

I got Half-Life 2 running on an old GeForce 4 MX440 at low settings. It looked like **** and probably got around 10 FPS. Just because it can run a game doesn't mean it will look good or run at an adequate speed.

 

I'm sorry but if your suggesting my information is misleading how can this be? do you realise i have the chip? this is from my own experience aswell you know. anyway.. regarding what the others are saying half life 2 runs on Intel 950 at about 30 fps Low quality, it hits 20 fps on high quality..
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2427&p=4

I'm not suggesting people buy it for the gaming, i'm saying for people who do that tiny bit of gaming (budget gamers) the chip can still give you some enjoyment. 30fps on wolfenstein enemy territory is enough for some people.

 

I have the GMA900 and it's ok for light 3D stuff. I thought it was fine until I got a 9600XT for my desktop a few weeks ago. With my 9600XT I'm playing games at full res. and highest quality with 2XAA and 2XAF and everything looks great. With the same games on my GMA900 I would struggle to get 20 FPS with everything set on low or turned off. Granted, my laptop only has a 1.3 Ghz Celeron M and 512mb RAM, so that's not helping any.

 

the 950 is slightly better than the 900, and cause you only had 512mb on your Lappy, its gonna struggle as your 900 will be wanting 128mb of that

I use my desktop for gaming. there is a considerable difference in graphics compared to my lappy

 

I'm looking into getting something out of Toshiba's Tecra line of Notebooks, and they all seem to have the GMA950 in them. I rarely use my computer for gaming (I'm a console gamer), and I don't imagine that to change even after buying a shiny new computer. About the only thing I'm really interested in is Sim City 4, and even my current piece of cra* (apparently that's a dirty word around here) desktop this new computer is to replace can handle that reasonably well. So... it seems like I shouldn't run into any problems using the integrated card, right? I just want to make sure... this will be my first Notebook, so I'm not all that well-versed with them.

 

Sim City 4 (Deluxe) is on the GMA 900 Compatability List ( http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/intel915g/sb/CS-011967.htm), so no problem for the 950. Can run, sure. How well, dunno.

 

I'm not sure how I missed that on the list, but thanks for pointing it out. If my computer that wasn't even top of the line (though it was pretty decent) when I built it 5 years ago can handle it, then I have no worries.

 

Just about the only game I play with any frequency is Morrowind - anyone know if there's any hope for it with an Intel 950?

Mike

 

I understand you have the chip, but what I'm saying is I don't want people to buy the GMA950 thinking that they can use it for low-res gaming . . older games maybe, but newer ones it just can't. There's no way you're going to play anything like Doom 3, BF2, or the like on it, it just isn't going to happen.

Your last statement is more along the lines of what I was thinking. Small time, occasional gamers who don't care about good graphics and want to play an older game at low settings.

 

Ok, Agreed.. Modern FPS are a No No with this chip. Half life 2 is the only one really, and that's because of the engine the game uses. its very friendly. Don't understand why intel have put on their compatability list that it doesn't play. Oh well. The compatability list that was posted by Jimc is probably the best thing to go by. Actually maybe not, cause they say DOOM III Plays, with no issues. which no doubt probably ain't true.

 

Wow people actually replied!! Anyways, thanks for the responses. I really appreciate them. And to HRT, you are correct. I got the E1505 for only $699 but because I was so low on cash I could not afford a dedicated graphics card. It is ok though because all I am interested in playing is cs:source until I get my monster desktop, which will rule all!!

 

shader problems with water and ok-ish frame rates...

 

if you are talking about Oblivion..i can tell you straight out..NO...if you mean Morrowind GOTY, then it most likely will..although i do not know how well.

pb,out.

 

Does anyone here use this card to play World of Warcraft? And if so, how well does it run? Playable? Or horribly jerky?

 

Yeah its strange, Doom 3 resurrection of Evil is listed as not compatiable with the GMA - the reason? Low frame rate.

However, Doom 3 has the green light - yet similarly it runs on terrible framerates on low settings, I wonder why Intel marked one totally different then the other even though they both run the same...

 

My laptop has a Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950. I dont know very much about this stuff and I was wondering if it will play Rise and Fall: Civilizations at war. The system requirements on thier web site mean nothing to me.

Thanks!

 

Could you post the system requirements of the game as well as the specifications of your laptop?

 

WOW I believe runs fine as i asked the question myself before, that was b4 i chose a e1705 with a 7900gs, i originally wanted a tablet.

 

I could not play half life 2 with a core duo and intel 950 at playable frame rates on low settings.

So I have to contradict the person who said that . Im not sure how people game with between 2-20 fps

Intel 950 plays games that are so old they dont need a 32 mb geforce 2. Even an old school game like baldurs gate, while it is entirely playable, will chug on integrated graphics.

 

Why the hell did Intel make such a low end Card for computers at the range of 700$-1000$. I mean If I upgraded my computer which has a x200m to 2gb of RAM, I can play alot of the modern games, Including F.E.A.R, HL2, CIV4, CSS, GW, WOW,Oblivion (with the oldblivion mod at 10 - 20 FPS, unless I want everything on low so it will look like a 40 FPS washed out peice of crap) and alot more for only upgrading a 550$ notebook. So my point is that if your planing on buying a notebook for 700$ - 1000$ with the Intel GMA 950.. DONT! you can get the x200m which is a better card for a lower price but all you would have to do is spend an extra 100$-200$ on RAM to play more games smoothly. Take this advice from me.

 

I must say my friend has a Sony Viao, and he has the GMA 945, and it is a piece of CRAP!!!! You can say that it can run CS:Source, but it can only play aim_ or fy_ maps. And if you play any other map, you get like 7 FPS (based on cs_assault, and being inside the building. When we tried to play Dust we got 6, and Aztec we got 2. And he had his res on like 480X600 and all the graphics were low. So i guess the low end games can run fine, but these new games will kill your computer. Just a matter of opinion.

 

For the love of god, maybe because it's not designed for playing games. How many times do I have to say this? Thus, battery life is good, which in turn is good for the owner, which - wait for it - of about 99.5% are not gamers so why should Intel improve their chip, for a tiny handful of customers, at the cost of a decrease in performance for the massive bulk of their customers?

The X200 is fine but it's designed for low end gaming, Intel's new X3000 is finally taking the gaming approach and so far it looks to easily stomp all over the X200 and Go6150 - but for the moment, quit whining about the GMA950. If you bought it, and it now magically 'sucks', well tough luck, that's not Intel's fault, it's yours for not doing your research and buying it in the first place.

I hate the way people treat the GMA950 like it was actually released and sold as a gaming card. I've got news, it wasn't, and it is immensely popular within the corporate sector which again form pretty much 99% of owners of said hardware. It just so happens to be a bonus that it plays some games, and it also just happens to be that Ati and Nvidia decided to release their own integrated graphics. Well, whoop dee do. If you're so fond of raving about how superior they are to the GMA, then just go out and buy one and stop moaning. I've never seen anything as laughably bitter as GMA950 owners who try to blame Intel for their own laziness in actually picking out a machine.

 

I played warcraft 3 fine on an Intel extreme Graphics and a P4 2,8 GHz (northwood, non-HT), which is many times crappier than a gma950. War3 (2002) is newer and much more demanding than baldurs gate (1998). Hell, baldurs gate only needs 2 MB of Vram. If it chugs, something else is wrong. (hihi, you can write hell in this forum without the bad word filter taking it out)

Computers in the range $700-$1000 are still low end (just not ultra low end). Don't expect to game any new games well on laptops in that pricerange unless something is on sale. And the x200m is still a crappy card that doesn't allow you to play new games at a good resolution.

 

I think anyone who is interested in playing games or doing Video editing shouldn't buy laptops with Intel based GPU's.

BTW I have 7200 Ge Force on my DV6000z with AMD Turion X2 TL 60 2 GB Kingston 667.

regards

 

With $700-$1000, you could build yourself a pretty decent desktop PC... maybe even one with a 8800GS .

 

ok

warcraft 3 is one of the last games not to need any 3d accelleration at all.

It is actually a 2d game that switches to 3d when you rotate. Its the end of the era im describing that you could run on a intel 950. You can get it to chug too easily.
Starcraft and baldurs gate are 2d games with 3d effects. warcraft 3 also.

Thats the end.
What Im trying to say is half life 2 doesnt run. A modern 3d game doesnt run. an intel 950 is below a geforce 2. The games that came before geforce 2 were runnable with no gpu.

Im just trying to clear somantics of what people think is playing a game. Even like morrowind is not playable on intel gma 950. You can get it to start and walk around though.

 

Well they have benchmarked the GMA 950 and it is playable in UT2004 and WoW and it can run Half Life 2.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2427&p=4

These benchmarks are from 2 years ago, and Intel's drivers have improved over this time (especially since Anandtech tested when the GMA 950 was recently released) so current performance would be a little bit better.

I'm pretty sure with a modern dual core processor, a laptop with a GMA 950 would perform better than a GeForce2 running DX7 code, since the GMA 950 has more pipelines and more pixel pushing power than a GeForce2 GPU. The only thing it's lacking is a dedicated T&L engine, but a modern processor should be able to outperform a GeForce2 T&L unit considering they were low clock and yet still bandwidth starved. A dual core could have 1 core working on T&L and the other core running the game which are generally single-threaded anyways. The GeForce4 MX's T&L performance might still be better than a modern CPU though, since it was clocked quite a bit higher than a GeForce2 and had more memory bandwidth due to faster memory and a more efficient memory controller and support for better compression and other bandwidth saving measures.

 

The comparison to a Geforce 2 is actually quite true. I can get Half Life 2 to run on a Geforce 2 MX - one of the worst released Geforce 2 cards - on low Dx7 settings, essentially also what the GMA can realistically manage. I can also get Dawn of War running the same on low, and again, realistically, the GMA can only manage similar settings to avoid being choked up in anyway large battles.

Same with UT2K4 - average benchmarks aren't accurate, for the simple reason that the GMA cannot hold a consistant framerate in that game, regardless of low or high settings. So while a benchmark will give you an average of maybe 50fps, actually playing the game, the fps count flies all over the place and renders it pretty much unplayable. I've tried it, and it sucks. Therefore again, in this category, the GF2 wins out as it can at least hold a good steady framerate.

OpenGL games like Soldier of Fortune 2, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Quake III perform better on a Geforce 2 then a GMA900 or 950.

The best Geforce 2 card, the Geforce 2 Ultra, is a far better performer then the GMA in everything, apart from the odd game that isnt compatiable with the GF2 Ultra like FEAR, Doom 3, etc. But then again, these games run crappy on the GMA anyway.

There are of course an odd handful of games where the GMA would perform better but not by much. Simply put the GMA is a terrible, terrible gaming card but it wasn't designed for such. The fact it can is just a bonus. If I had a choice between a Geforce 2 Ultra and a GMA, it would be the Geforce 2. Even faced with the choice of a GF2-MX (value card) and GMA, while you may automatically think GMA because it's far, far newer, it's not entirely clear cut depending on what you're trying to play.

 

I have the toshiba satellite with dual core 1.7ghz, 1 gig ddr2 pc4200 and this media accell on it. I play lortro at med settings with no lagg and some things like char detail st to high and render to high. I have no lagg even around a bunch of other char in the largest city (bree). This is playing over wireless on my qwest broadband ( over phone not cable). Now lotro is very detailed world with better graphics than eq2, guild wars or dark age of camelot. The engine turbine uses seems to be very good in terms of not bogging down as well. My friend has a gateway and on same wireless, he has to be on low and he has a dedicated graph card - albiet a older one.
I also unistalled vista as it is a ram pig( half my ram was used just at rest) and installed xp on it - that took about 2-3 hours as had to search a little for drivers on the internet but got all functionality up that first night with no hardware conflicts. I hope this helps. Oh, machine runs at leaste twice as fast on xp verses vista and load times are lower and boot time is prob 10 times faster - no exageration!

 

Hey Jimbobbeers, I also like to stick up for the little IGP that could. ; )

To show you the GMA950 in action instead of words, here are two videos of some games running on a macbook,
equipped with a 2GHz Core2Duo CPU, 2GB ram for the first, 1GB ram for the second video and the GMA950:
Ravenholm @ 1024x768
Beginning of HL2:Ep1, GTAIII, CallOfDuty2

 

i dunno if anyone answered the question yet, but:

Q: is IGMA 950 good for anything?
A: battery life

 

Eh, no. That must be the macbook with the X1600 or something. The GMA950 cannot play Call of Duty 2.

As to what it's good for, I have a GMA950 screenshot thread in my sig...

 

that is just wrong..
have you seen hp laptop with go7600 for 700 or 800??
that is not that bad and...
ati 200m isn;t crappy. it plays modern games without being dedicated graphic.
if you seen crappy, it is usually caused by the rams like mine

 

I dunno, but the guy who made that video (Hexley) was very specific about it being a standard Macbook (which does not come with a dedicated card) with a GMA950 inside:

edit: I just remembered, there is a program that "fakes" hardware t&l by emulating it on the main cpu.
The application on the other hand is made belief that hardware t&l is present on the graphics card and runs instead of shutting down with an error message.
Maybe he used that to get CoD2 running.

 

Can It - Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950- can play MAFIA ??? thank u

 

Yes, and you can play it on Hi-res!!!

 

Can I play the game: Legacy of Kain: Defiance on this graphic card?
I have notebook: Intel Celeron M processor 420 - 1,66 GHz, 512MB RAM
According to the minimum system requirements I can, but I want your opinion.
Thanks

 

Intel site says
http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gma950/index.htm

Ready for Microsoft Windows* Vista*

Updated Intel® Graphics WDDM drivers supporting the Intel® 945G Express Chipset are included in the Windows Vista* February CTP build (build 5308). These drivers are only compatible with this build and should not be used with other versions of Windows Vista.


Responsive Graphics Performance With a powerful 400MHz core and DirectX* 9 3D hardware acceleration, Intel® GMA 950 graphics provides performance on par with mainstream graphics card solutions that would typically cost significantly more.


A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:

Support for DirectX 9 graphics with a WDDM driver, 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)², Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel.

the 950 covers microsoft requirements for Vista and more

 

it'll do really basic gaming...most i've been able to play on it is Fable. most recent games will mostly require vertex shaders, aa/af, HDR, etc.