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Hey everyone, I got pointed in your direction to ask about hardware.

I currently have a Nvidia 8600 graphics card but it runs in conjunction with an intel duo core 2 1.6ghz processor. I'm finding it hard to run some the games that I wish to play and I just wanted to know what is the cause of this. Is it the fact the processor cannot handle it, or is it that the card is just not up to scratch or both?

Also would it be worth buying upgrades as I have a laptop, or just buying a new laptop completely?

Any advice would be well received!

First of all, welcome!

If this is a laptop, I think you'd have to buy a new PC. You *can* upgrade the CPU on most laptops, but it's not cost-efficient, and if you have a 1.66GHz Core 2 Duo, the fastest you'll get is probably a 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo because your laptop probably uses Socket M. That's prohibitively expensive, and you're still stuck with the 8600 graphics. If that laptop has not had a graphics failure to now, consider yourself pretty lucky, by the by, as the GeForce graphics from that era tend to have a manufacturing defect.

So you're probably stuck buying a new computer. What games do you want to play, and how big of a machine do you want?

Martin richards wrote:

Hey everyone, I got pointed in your direction to ask about hardware.

I currently have a Nvidia 8600 graphics card but it runs in conjunction with an intel duo core 2 1.6ghz processor. I'm finding it hard to run some the games that I wish to play and I just wanted to know what is the cause of this. Is it the fact the processor cannot handle it, or is it that the card is just not up to scratch or both?

Also would it be worth buying upgrades as I have a laptop, or just buying a new laptop completely?

Any advice would be well received!

Save up and buy new.

Buying a laptop for gaming it's not the most cost effective, but it may depend on your habbits. If you NEED to trade performance for portability than so be it, buy a laptop.

If not, a desktop will give more performance for the same amount of money (generally speaking).

What budget do you have for your new machine?

I have a very similar setup. (Dell Vostro 1500 that I bought in 06 or 07, I think 06). It has a Core 2 Duo T7300 (2ghz I think, and I use a free program called ThrottleStop to push that to 2.2ghz). I have upgraded the ram to 4GB, and my 8600m GT is the 256mb DDR2 variant. I also upgraded to a 7200rpm HDD a few years back. About a year ago my GPU finally croaked (I had been 'baking' it in the oven when it failed on me previously, but this became a tedious task to do every 6 months or so, since removing/replacing the GPU requires you to crack open the whole laptop). I replaced it with the same model for $30 from ebay, and have overclocked it a small bit for better performance. My native screen res is 1280x800.

In my personal experience, this setup will still game. The low native res is what really makes this possible. I can play Skyrim on this laptop at a combination of medium-low settings at native res with very little issue. I played the campaign for Starcraft II without issue (can't remember exact settings, but they were medium I think). I can't recall a game that I absolutely could not play on it. I had to set Metro 2033 to ultra low, or bump the res to below native to play it, but that's about it. You may try doing a system wipe and starting fresh. I know on mine I ended up using a Dox nVidia driver from here (http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/ ... -releases/) and turned off powermizer and other throttling settings.

Use the above tools at your own risk, it will cause your laptop to generate more heat, but if the vents aren't blocked then things shouldn't get to nuclear meltdown range.

Hey,

Thanks for the info everyone. I originally bought the laptop to play world in conflict, I could play it on nearly full spec but it did crash a lot like that so i reduced it. Also games like 'The Witcher' I could play this but at lower specs again.

'The Witcher 2' is out this year so I'd like to play it on a better system and I think from what you said I might just buy a new laptop altogether, I say laptop because I do move around a lot. I could probably at a push reach around £1000 but would that even buy a laptop with good enough specs to play that?

Just a quick scan of Amazon UK says yes, you can get a nice machine for games for under your budget.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-i7-2630QM- ... 138&sr=8-2

Quad-core Sandy Bridge processor and nVidia 540M graphics. The 540M occupies the same mid-range discrete graphics category that your 8600M GT occupied 6 years ago. It's way way way way way faster. The CPU is nearly as fast as you can get in a laptop. I don't know anything about Acer's build quality or whether this particular system has the other features you want, but from a purely gaming perspective it should do really, really well.

If you're looking for a good gaming laptop under £1000, I'd give serious consideration to checking out the Dell UK Outlet. Picked up an Alienware M17xr3 myself for £850, couldn't be happier - it's a refurbished model, apparently, but all I've found is a very minor scuff on one corner which you can't even see unless you're looking for it . They sometimes have M11x and M14x models in the outlet too, which are smaller screens (m17 = 17", m14 = 14", so on). They're designed as gaming laptops, and since Dell acquired Alienware, they're much better supported and built.

If you do buy a new laptop don't purchase one with graphics slower than the GeForce GT555m (or 635M, basically same thing) or equivalent Radeon option. There's no point in buying a new laptop just to not play new games, the 540M would be murdered by The Witcher 2. It'd be an exceedingly poor experience.