Please help me understand about laptop graphics

I think I screwed up. I bought an Acer laptop with an ati 256 MB dedicated video card (ATI 3200) but it only had a 1.60 ghz processor. It had 3 gigs of ram.

I wanted more processor speed so I took it back and went somewhere else and got the Compaq CQ61-411WM. I thought it had a better video anyway cus it uses an ati 4200. I hoped it had at least as much as the 3200 - which is 256 MB. But I find it only has 128 MB dedicated memory - shared up to 1 gig... But.. this machine has 2 gigs of system ram.. and a better processor.. a 2.1 ghz... you see my thinking was it would be easier an cheaper to get the compaq and just upgrade the Ram instead of upgrading the cpu on the Acer.

But with only a 128 dedicated video card.. now I guess I will have to upgrade Both.. the ram to 3 or 4 gigs And the video card....

Did I screw up.. or did I still make the better choice?

Please tell me this.. If I upgrade to 4 gigs of system ram, and the system uses 3 and the video card because it's shared and uses a full gig of ram (thus using all 4 gigs) will this card still play the games my desktop with it's 1 gig of video ram can play?..

( I don't mind not multitasking and only running bare services for windows so my thinking is windows 7 wont demand much while I am playing my games)

I would be happy if it at least had the performance of my 512 mb ati card I used to have.. will i even get that with the shared memory?

How bad is the 128 compared to the 256 MB dedicated video ram?

If I need to upgrade this video card in the laptop.. is that even possible? Is it on board video? Does my machine come with an agp or pci slot for another card? I looked but cannot seem to find the info.

Thanks

 

The ATI Radeon 4200HD is a step up from the 3200HD, definitely. The video ram only matters if you run games at high resolutions, so unless you are running on an external monitor you shouldn't have problems.

The 4200HD is good enough for most people, if all you want to do is play some light games, or world of warcraft or soimething, than it is fine.

 

Thanks for the input..

I don't play light games.. No online games and no Steam games. I want to at least be able to play Oblivion doom 3, wolfenstein 2009, aliens vs predator 2010 version, stalker call of pripyat..

Of course I don't expect to be able to play these on high settings but medium would be nice.

oh and here is the specs page for my laptop if anyone can help answer the question about the video card upgrade:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...ry&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&product=4125444

The OS is 64 bit which I understand needs at least 2 gigs of ram.. so to make the video card right now work well I would need to upgrade the ram it seems asap.

You say high resolution.. I don't know what that means laptop wise..( not used to laptop screens vs desktop monitors) I play all my games on my desktop at 1024x786 no higher.. but I know for my desktop a 128 dedicated video memory would fail miserably.. so whats the difference?

I plan to use the default resolution at what the laptop is set at now for my games. ( 1366x 768)

Looking forward to learning more from you guys about all this.

 

unfortunately its a bit too late now since you already bought the laptop. but it is definitely far too weak to play any of the games you mentioned (except some 800x600 resolutions and mininal details).

first thing to look for when choosing a notebook with some gaming in mind is a dedicated gpu.

the ati hd3200 & hd4200 both are integrated graphics "cards", which means theyre bottom-of-the-line, when looking at ati or nvidia (with intels gfx theres no choice since all of them are integrated, and none of them can be used to play the games you mentioned by now).

so when intending to do some gaming on your laptop (and games like oblivion, alien vs predator etc. are both extremely demanding games, with respect to their release dates) you MUST look for a laptop with dedicated graphics.

the nomenclature of atis and nvidias graphics cards reveals you basically everything you need to know about a graphics cards performance (both desktop and notebook gpus, however, when comparing these you always have to know that the performance of a notebook gpu is approx. at the level of the next-lower class desktop gpu).

the first digit is the gpus generation.
the present (most recent) generation for ati gpus is 5, for nvidia its 4 (3 for notebook gpus since the gt400/gf100 for notebooks areont out yet)

the second digit is the most important one, its the performance class.
here, when looking at ati gpus, 1-5 is the lower-end (1 & 2 being integrated), 6 is mainstream (already good for gaming!), 7 is the performance class and 8 is high-end (9 being ultra-high-end, but only for desktop gpus).

the third digit just says whether its a higher clocked model of a class or the reference model or what kind of memory is used (ati: 3 low, 5 middle, 7 high)

the fourth digit is mostly 0 and its not important to look at.

so to sum it up here are 3 gpu models..
ati mobility radeon

4200 - 4=previous generation, 2=integrated > impossible to play these games!

5670 - 5=present generation, 6=mainstream, 7=higher clocked than 5650 > good for playing games, however no high resolutions and low-mid details on new games (no problem with oblivion, but probably no anti-aliasing possible)

5830 - 5=present generation, 8=high-end, 3=base model of the high-end class, meaning lower clocked and use of weaker GDDR3 memory instead of GDDR5 like in 5850 & 5870 > great for playing any game, but even this one couldnt handle some games like crysis & metro 2033 on 1080p resolutions and high AA settings with maxed details.

nvidia
basically the same, but there the new gpus have a 3-digit name,
230M being a "entry-level" but still quite good (comparable with the ati 5650) from the 2nd generation back
360M mainstream-lower high-end, previous generation (for notebooks still the most recent generation)
480 most recent generation, high-end, for now only as a desktop gpu available


now regarding your situation...
theres no hope with an integrated gpu (hd4200) since theyre part of the chipset and/or soldered onto the motherboard.
even if it were a dedicated gpu, you cannot upgrade a notebooks gpu unless it has an MXM module, and this you only can upgrade with a gpu of the same MXM version.

even worse, if you had an MXM module and found a gpu with the same MXM version youd like to upgrade to, HP's bios whitelist limits you to the gpus provided by HP for your notebook model, so unless you can buy this notebook with the desired gpu from HP, you cannot install this gpu into it.

and regarding the video memory - for your resolution 1366x768 you definitely need at least 256mb GDDR3 vram, better 512 or 1024 and best GDDR5 in order to play alien vs predator on this resolution.
you can lower the resolution, but then it looks very ugly since lcd screens have their native resolutions (1366x768 in your case) and any other resolution cannot be displayed with an integer ratio (1:1 or 1:2).

the shared memory is ok for some applications but for games it is far too slow, so whether you have more than 1gb of shared vram or not, it doesnt matter if your gpu isnt strong enough and if its not dedicated video ram.

 

Very informative necrophyte.

I notice you didn't mention the ram at all just the chips abilities. If the 4200 used all 1 gig of shared ram, would it not play those games as well as they do on my desktop 512?..(provided I am able to give windows all it needs) The desktop 512 card I used was an ATI 2600 HD Pro.

I would play Oblivion Doom 3 and Crysys on mid setting with no problems. in fact, I held off trying Crysis cus everyone said it was video ram hungry but I didn't see any big deal with its ability to run on mid settings. I didn't use higher than about 4 AA though which for me was good enough to stop all noticeable jaggies.

So you see why I would think the 4200 with using a full 1 gig of shared memory should work fine.. at least to my thinking.

I wanted this laptop now and only had 400 bucks to spend.. I thought I could find something that would suit my needs for games on medium settings. I can still take it back to wal-mart for a refund for the next 14 days if I can find something better.

 

GPU memory doesn't really benefit games as majority of GPUs cannot even optimally use the amount of memory available. A 128-bit card wouldn't notice any difference in performance above 256MB for example. Shared memory is even worse since it uses system memory.

 

thats what i answered but didnt really go into detail about in my last sentence - no matter how much video ram you have (be it dedicated or shared), if you gpu isnt powerful enough (the gpu itself and/or the bus, which is the "connector" between the gpu and the memory it uses), it cannot use this memory efficiently enough.

so when looking at the bus, a 128bit bus doesnt have enough throughput for the gpu to use more than lets say 512mb of ram efficiently. efficiently means that theres no noticeable delay because the bus and its width bottlenecks the data stream. so if a gpu isnt a good performance class, it doesnt have much video ram, neither a strong bus between the gpu and the memory.

and the worst "bus" is that between the integrated gpu and system ram, thats even weaker than the gpus own bus, even if its a 64bit one... shared memory is useful for apps like photoshop, but its just bad for anything that needs to be processed in realtime, like games. you can compare it very well with the OS using your pc's ram and then paging the rest onto the hard disk. this paging is extremely slow compared to the ram since the hard disk is far slower. so rather add more/faster ram than let the OS page memory to the disk to optimize system memory performance. the same with the gpu, but there unfortunately you cannot replace the vram or the bus.. better a strong gpu with a strong bus and 512mb dedicated vram and no shared memory than an integrated gpu with a weak bus and 256mb dedicated and 1500mb shared memory, if you want better gaming performance.

and regarding your hd2600 desktop card, its a very good gpu, considering its age. afaik the 2000-series were very bad in AA, but if you can set AA to 4x thats great for that gpu. however, like i said before, you cannot compare a desktop gpu with a notebook mobile gpu. a 512mb radeon hd2600 is probably at the same (sole) performance level as a mobility radeon 4650 (maybe the memory of the 4650 is better), and thats 2 generations newer and the 4000-series are famous for their excellent performance. but it would beat almost any mobility radeon 2000 and 3000 series... even the #800 ones. so inside a notebook you really need a very powerful gpu if you wanna compare its performance to a desktops.

 

I will echo the others on memory.

An Ati 5830 Mobility with 256mb will by far outperform, say, and HD4200 even with 2GB of memory.

SHopping for video card performance based on it's dedicated memory is like buying a car based on it's ability to get you to work, on average, faster everyday.

You can drive a Ferrari F430 to work everyday or you can drive a Prius to work everyday. Guess what? You wont get to work any faster in the Ferrari.

If anything, the Prius will get you to work faster because it will be more reliable and simplier to operate. The ferrari will require you adhere to more strict operating parameters such as warming up the engine, maintnence, more likely to break down on the drive to work.

OK, off topic, I think I made my point...

 

Thanks Folks..

Not understanding the Bus issue I was afraid it was the 128 of ram that would cause problems. The 4200 uses 128 bus speeds. Since my last post I have been able to play Oblivion on medium settings and it runs very well.. I was surprised... must be the video processor/bus combo cus my older 256 wouldn't even do that.

I don't really need the extra tall grasses or the bloom or HDR effects because i'm just using the laptop when i'm away from my desktop an need something to do. Next I will test a few other games.. as long as they can play without bottlenecks I wont mind if the settings are turned down a bit.

For eye candy I can always go back to my desktop that has a mere 4 gigs of system ram and a 5750 with 1 gig of ddr5 video ram.. a low end version of their higher card but for the price this card kick azz. I can play all new games on it with medium to high settings.. Accept for Second Life.. that app is the worst hog.

So now I wont worry so much about the 128 MB dedicated V ram if my other games and things like Hulu play at least as good as Oblivion does. hehe.. I still might take this back and get a better machine if I can find one.

You guys have helped me understand all this much better and I hope you guys have a few beers and much attention from you lady friends.. you deserve a good turn.

 

4gb ram is average among consumer pcs now and definitely not too less.
and a radeon 5750 with 1gb gddr5 indeed kicks azz, and its not a low version of any higher card but the radeon 5700 reference gpu which seems to be the best price/performance player since 4770 among all radeons!

im surprised about oblivion playing well on a 4200, its probably due to the 1366x768 resolution and very good in-game detail settings, lowering those features that really eat up your fps, like shadows on grass, texture details and all the distance settings especially.

 

Gothic 3 seems to play well on medium settings too.. Star Trek Elite Force 2 and Postal 2 Share The Pain, also have graphics that look great for their age and they play flawlessly.

It's late so tomorrow I will test:

Morrowind with Enhanced graphics mods (brings it up to about 2006 graphics wise),

Half Life Source - A version of half life with enhanced graphics running on the HL 2 engine ( not the same as black mesa.. BM will be better but this is close)

Virtual Pool 3 DL Edition,

Deus Ex,

Jedi Knight Outcast, and Jedi Knight Jedi Academy and a few others.. I have high hope for these since they are all older games yet all have good graphics.

Hulu and Movies seem to play fine.. if this system keeps this up, I will be happy with it till I can get something better.

I haven't tweaked the OS yet but I plan to use the Smart Utility tool from thewindowsclub.com and Autoruns by Sysinternals to disable any unwanted services that may run while the games are running. Going to make a bare bones OS for games, movies and internet only.. everything else is going out the window.