Intel Modern IGP (X3000, X3100, X3500)

Yes, an 8600GT would be a good card to get. About equal to a 7600GT and able to play most newer games at 1024 x 768 or 1280 x 1024 with medium, high, or highest settings. I know, I own a 7600GT that has served well for games in my parents' computer. The 7600GT is almost the exact same card as the 8600GT. I'd have to guess that the processor(AMD dual core 3800+ @ 2.4GHz) is about equal to yours if not a bit slower.


Here is the 8600GT:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130085

This card can play newer graphics intensive games at high or medium settings at a good resolution. Here is a list of the ones I KNOW to work at higher settings.

-Far Cry(All high or Ultra @ 1280 x 1024 4xAA 8xAF)
-Doom 3(Ultra @ 1280 x 1024 4xAA 8xAF)
-Star Wars: Republic Commando(All high 1280 x 1024 2xAA 4xAF)
-FEAR(Maximum without soft shadows 1024 x 768 4xAA 4xAF)
-Call of Duty 2(Max 1024 x 768 2xAA 4xAF)
-Call of Duty 4(runs okay, not great medium-high @ 1024 x 768 2xAA)
-Star Wars Battlefront I&II(Both maxed @ 1280 x 1024 2xAA 8xAF)
-Half Life 2 and Ep 1(runs these amazingly well @ 1280 x 1024 4xAA 8xAF)
-Half Life 2 Ep 2(runs good, not amazing Max @ 1024 x 768 4xAA 4xAF)
-Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion(go to tweakguides.com and follow the guide exactly. runs 35-50FPS outdoors, 40-90FPS indoors with all distance sliders at 65%. 1024 x 768 res)

On a 17-22" LCD monitor these games look amazing and play silky smooth for the most part. Very few jagged lines w/ 2xAA and almost none w/ 4xAA I'm sure there's some I forgot, but you can run high settings @ 1024 x 768 2xAA for almost any game out. The only exceptions are Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 as far as I KNOW.

 

Thanks again for ur quick response..

Now my last question is how u measure fps of a game is there any tool for that ?

 

it depends on the game, its usually a console command, or a command line parameter... depends on the game...

 

Yes, Fraps. http://www.fraps.com/

 

so is there a way to add a video card to a laptop? or am i stuck with what i have?

 

Nope, laptop video cards can't be upgraded other than in very special cases, and these special cases involve having a dedicated graphics card already installed.

 

it seems like its possible, i used PC Wizard and they said I have a PCI Express 16x port avalible... which would match what intel has on their site... http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/intelgm965/

 

OK!

I am completely new to all these.....so i was wondering

Can these graphics cards perform the task like movie capture from Handy cams.. or we have to get seperate card.

thanks is advance.

 

If it's a laptop, it isn't possible, engage. If it's a desktop, it is.
manjil: I'm not entirely sure, but the general idea seems to be no, get a separate capture card, they're not that expensive.

 

Some laptops do have upgrade slots that can potentially be used for video cards. The bigger problem is actually finding a laptop video card. I think I mentioned it in this thread before. The video cards are extremely rare and can be fairly expensive. Laptop cards are primarily restricted to eBay.

Try to open up the back of your laptop(carefully). There are covers over several different ports/slots. See what kind of expansion slots you have.

 

Don't forget though, that the cooling system for the card needs to match that of the laptop - if it didn't come with a graphics card, there probably won't be a means of cooling it.
Example:
Note that the graphics card comes with heatpipes that are an exact fit for the laptop.

 

Id have to take the whole thing apart. I wanna upgrade the processor eventually anyways. Just gotta figure out what would work and how much I wanna spend...

 

Well, I can tell you now, that upgrading a laptop CPU isn't going to yield big benefits as the cooling systems often can't cope and the chipset may not be able to support the newer CPU. Additionally, as I've mentioned before adding a new card will be next to impossible. Realistically if you're fed up with integrated graphics, it's time to buy a new laptop.

 

Yes, integrated graphics can get you by for a while, but if you truly call yourself a gamer(in any sense of the word) then you owe it to yourself to see these games in full glory.

Get a new laptop. Maybe build a new desktop? Might be cheaper and play games even faster.

 

Amen to that.

 

eh... no luck on the new machine, i'm broke! i lucked out getting the one i have on Black Friday... plus gaming is tough out here cause i'm still stuck with dialup... so the most i really do is LAN with my friends at my house...

as for putting a new processor in, this is what i wanna get: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819111328

and this is what i have: http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sspec=slaec

i've looked up the specs on my board and it should be no problem: http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gm965/index.htm

 

Ok!

I was looking around and i found this nx8500GT from msi. This was with my friend and he wanted to sell his pc...So i asked him to give it to me.
Now it is running good for me currently. But i plan to buy beeter card in the future. It is okay for now though.



For now i wantet to ask a question what is SLI ??

It was written in the board sli ready!!

Thanks.

 

engage: Assuming your motherboard won't need a BIOS update or have some other incompatibility, why are you changing the CPU anyway? You won't see much of a benefit for gaming with a new CPU because it's the integrated graphics that are holding you back.
manjil: The 8500GT is slow on legs. It'll do you for now and it beats integrated graphics, but do upgrade, it'll be worth it. SLI is nvidia's method of letting you use two graphics cards at once to increase the performance. Unless you own high end cards though, it's not worth it as it's cheaper to get a single card that's better.

 

its not nessacerily for gaming, just overall increase... i do alot of encoding and such on here. and that would be essentually a 1ghz increase over the two cores. so the performance increase would be immmense. never mind the increase in bus speed and doubling the L2 cache.

 

The core 2 duos aren't really much faster than core duos mhz for mhz, but the clock speed increase will benefit you some.