NVIDIA GeForce 8400M 128 MB good for games??

Hi i was just wondering how well i would be able to play Sims/San andreas with the NVIDIA GeForce 8400M 128 MB graphics card. Thanks


Acer Aspire 5520G Laptop
Processor: AMD Turion 64 X2 2.1ghz
Memory: 2GB DDR2 SDRAM
Hard Drive: 250GB
Video Card: Geforce 8400 128mb
Screen: 15.4" in TFT active matrix
Operating System: Windows Vista

 

Sims 1 & 2 (I don't have The Sims 3) and San Andreas will play fine.

 

I would not play games on the 8400m as the hotter it get`s the quicker it will die , as thermal cycles kill this GPU as the solder that holds it to the PCB is faulty and cracks under high temperature changes.

 

agreed, the 8400 does have over heating issues. (mine died 8 month ago) plus it barely plays any current title at close to minimum settings. If gaming is of any consideration, i dont recommand it

 

don't OC that card, ever.

 

It tuns out that not just Nvidia had a problem with faulty solder , The Xbox 360 has an ATI GPU and has a fault called the red ring of death, Microsoft now epoxy the corners of the gpu to the motherboard to make it more stable.

http://www.anandtech.com/gadgets/showdoc.aspx?i=3472

 

Agreed on mostly the replies above.
8400M is a faulty card. Majority/mostly all its users got the heating issues.
Currently, I would suggest to avoid 8-series Nvidia cards(some of them easily overheat). Get 9-series and above(fixed overheat problem).

 

i have one and it is yet to fail with my maximum temperatures being around 80 degrees. it plays the sims 3 on max settings at 1280x800. and san andreas at max easily on 1280x800. in fact i think it can probably play most things on minimum i even had gta4 working smoothly with no shadows at 800x600. i wouldd however reccomend something like a 9300m gs which is less likely to fail and has similar performance.

 

It is strongly not recommended to get the 8400M and 8600M series cards... they have massive heat problems. If u could tell us ur budget we might be able to help you get a proper laptop.

 

I do not call 10FPS on GTA IV smooth.

 

Good for games? Not at high details/resolution.
Better than Intel GMAs? Oh hell yes.

 

i just sold off an 8600m gt based laptop that was aging and running out of warranty. so glad i did.

it already failed once under warranty and was replaced. ticking time bomb.

 

o.0 i hate that card man, with a passion. Had it once had to get the MB on my old laptop removed, and the heat sink, and it fried my SPEAKERS. Ah the horror that GPU is.

Oh and do not OC that CPU EVER EVER EVER man or it will melt on you in seconds. Get a x800 GPU if you wanna game. Just don't get that wretched card please, for your sakes.

 

Answering to the title of the thread: No.

Most of the games 2004 and before should be playable at good settings. Afterwards there is not much hope.

 

While yes there is a risk of heat issues with the 8 series nVidia cards, it is very small. It may be more than normal, like maybe ~0.5% failures compared with 0.1% failures normally.

I do agree that it is better to get a 9 series or 1xx series nVidia GPU only because it is newer architecture, but let's not make it like 8 series is 25% failure rate or anything. I put hundreds of hours on my Vostro 1500 and 8600m GT overclocked to its limit, and yet to have an issue. You usually hear from the select few people that have issues, but not the millions that don't.

As far as playability, if you want to play WoW or games from 2007 or earlier, you should be able to manage the newer ones with lower resolution and settings, with older titles at medium quality. All depends on what you want too. RTS games should play fine for the most part, FPS's maybe not so much because they're usually very GPU intensive.

 

for you infomation i got an average of 28fps

 

i bet the majority of 8400m failures were due to people overclocking them because personally i dont think my gpu runs particularly hot.

 

Hehe I know exactly how you feel. I sold my Vostro 1500 with 8600m GT just 1 month ago! :O

 

Damn you guys must have a hell of a strong grudge against that card..i havent seen that much hate since the ps3 vs laptop comparison, its ridiculous. I play all current games at max res i dont use 600x400 or 200x10 or what ever it is. I tried cod4 maxed out at 1280x800 with clocks slightly raised and its flawless.I play alot of games including these:
-burnout paradise
-crysis warh
-cod4
-cod5
-time shift maxed came out in 07
-bf2/2142
-soon batman

 

thats just wrong mate

 

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See above ^

 

perhaps a video would be proof enough?

 

its not the heat that causes it to fail IIRC, its the thermal cycling. Technically if you kept it hot all the time it'd be fine lol. its the expansion and contraction as it heats up that causes it to fail.

its an aging entry level card. dont expect great gaming performance on it.