difference between INTEL GMA 128 and 256

Hi...

There are 2 laptops that i want to buy one of them, the first has intel GMA 945 up up to 128 and the other has intel GMA 950 up to 256 and both have 1GB RAM. and i want to play the best games that the laptop can afford to play.

so is there any imprtant diffence in the perfomace of these 2 laptops, because i can't afford but these 2 , and there is 150$ difference in price, and i want to get the best value for that price. so does it worth to buy the 256 or the difference is little.

Thanks...

 

either way, integrated graphics are the worst! Isn't there anything else you can get?

 

you sir, are correct!

 

ull probably be able to play AOE3 on minimum settings but thats about it- if u want to play anything more advanced than that- DO NOT get either laptop. get a laptop with a DEDICATED graphics card- preferably with 256MB of memory.

 

I tried to play AOE3 with integrated card, on lowest settings, it was smooth, UNTIL you got to a gnarly battle, my god!! To get one shot off it'd take 3 minutes AGH!!

So i stopped playing

 

RLY? my friend had an old crappy PC with 64MB grafix card which always slowed everyone down- then he bought a laptop with an integrated card & apparently according to him it was running like a dream lol

aoe3 is quite graphically intensive in big battles & sea battles- so i guess you could be right

 

Go for the GMA 50. Why? Cause the GMA 45 can't play any games at all. The GMA 50 can play games, just not as well as dedicated video cards.

And for other people here, the guy said he can't afford anything else but those 2 laptops. So, let's help him out here of what he can do

 

ok well the first question is:

What type of games do you want to play?

 

Em. As far as I know there is no GMA 945. There is the GMA 950 which is on the 945GM chipset. Also, the GMA 950 doesn't come in a 256MB configuration. The maximum is like 244MB. Lastly, since the GMA 950 shares system memory, it is generally dynamically allocated by the driver up to 244MB, unless the manufacturer is limiting it, which they shouldn't be since 1GB is sufficient to have up to the maximum 244MB shared.

 

Thanks man. you got it.
The issue here is shall i go for the GMA 950 / 256, or it would not be worth it.

Let me put it like this:
As Ghost_Recon23 have said, I can't play NFS most wanted with the GMA 945 / 128. So can i play it with the GMA 950 / 256 (even with the minimum settings), or just i can't as with the GMA 945 128. if not, can i even play the older versions of NFS like hot pursuit 2 or underground with anyone of them.

I also like to play FIFA 2006.

Thanks.

 

Actually, the GMA 945 did exist. I had it on my R60 Lenovo notebook ( I sold it for $900)

 

Well I don't think Intel officially launched it as such. It most be included with one of their cut down value chipsets like those Core Duo T2450 that don't appear on Intel's website. In that case I guess the GMA 950 would be faster due to clock speed although it's probably like splitting hairs since they both won't be considered fast.

 

After surfing a little bit at the intel website, i found this:

"..The new Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (Intel® GMA 950) graphics core is an intelligent and responsive graphics engine built into the chipset that is on the motherboard."

http://support.intel.com/products/chipsets/gma950/index.htm

So i guess that GMA 950 is tha engine used in the 945GM chips.
So the "GMA 950 up to 256" and the "GMA 945 up to 128" are the same, and they only differ in the didicated RAM memory.

I also found a Game Capability List :
http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/intel945gm/sb/CS-021400.htm

But I guess it is not accurate. for example, It is not logical that the Doom 3 works without any problems, while the half life 2 doesn't work at all

So the question now is: Is there a considerable difference in performance between the "up to 128" and the "up to 256"?

 

If you are going to def get the GMA and don't plan on gaming much, then if the 128 is cheaper, go with that one. They both suck. I have one, trust me.

 

the 945 refers to the chip, not the graphics name. You can play some games with the gma950, but to be guaranteed a good time of it, they'd have to be DirectX 8 based games. Tons of Dx9 games work, but the results are so crazily all over the place that you can't rely on it to run anything i.e even if two games have identical requirements, one may work while the other might not work at all.

If you must get it, stick with the older titles. Again, some newer stuff works relatively ok, but its not worth the trouble of having to find out what exactly does and doesn't. Personally, I've run Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Command and Conquer Generals, Quake III on the GMA900 (lower then the 950) and they ran perfectly at high-ish settings. But they're old games.

The only remotely 'new-ish' ones I tried were UT2k4, Pariah and Dawn of War - Ut2k4 ran terribly, erratic framerate regardless of settings, Pariah ran OK, and Dawn of War runs perfectly fine on lower settings.

Sports games like FIFA and NFL apparently work fine though, as typically they aren't very resource heavy, but you'd want to check out the specific releases (2005, 2006, 2007 etc) to see exactly which ones run the best.

 

why don't you just fill out the FAQ and we will tell you what you can and cannot afford.