Laptop graphics card help

Psychedout

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4
Hello,

I recently got a laptop from my parents because I've been wanting a computer that can play new games instead of games from the 90s.

Anyways, the graphics card doesnt have enough video ram for most current games. It has 64 mb, and most current games have a minimum of 128. I can still run these games with a minimum requirement of 128 however, on low settings (UT3, Bioshock, and Oblivion all work, crysis demo runs like a snail on lowest settings possible). I was wondering if it was possible to upgrade the Video ram without upgrading the graphics card (the graphics card is in the motherboard - its a nvidia MCP67M (Geforce 7150m / nForce 630m). This graphics card is in the motherboard, so i cant just easily replace it. I'm wondering if there is something that can be added to the computer fairly cheaply to increase the video ram, or if the whole motherboard that the graphics card is replacable (I don't know much about comps, i'm still learning)

Thanks for any and all help.
 
I'm afraid not :(

Laptops are impossibly hard to update hardware for.

Since the chips are built into the motherboards on most units, changing stuff like the graphics card becomes an impossibilty :(

Some laptop manufacturers do offer a card slot that allows you to upgrade the graphics, but I'm afraid one like yours won't.

It isn't just the memory that matters though, since this will only really help with texture cache, and other bits of information like that, which also sticks by resolution size.
64mb was great back in the day, when resolutions were pretty low in games, and texture sizes weren't pushed so far.
Nowadays though, 128mb will only get you so far even, and 256mb's of video RAM has become the norm.

This is just because of increased resolutions, and texture sizes, and other complex geometry patterns the video cards are now faced with.

This really only leaves me to say that, with that laptop you have, though great for older games, can't and will not be up to the challenge of top of the range games today (Crysis especially), as setting to a lower resolution and texture res can only get you so far.

EDIT:

This type of thing does give you some hope though:

http://gomeler.com/2007/01/07/asus-launches-external-graphics-card-for-laptop/
 
You could increase the amount of system memory the laptop has, then allocate more memory to the video.

But then, if the laptop has a large enough amount of RAM already, say 1GB or more, you could enter the BIOS and allocate more memory the the video system.
 
Thanks for the quick responses.

The laptop has 1983 mb of ram, so it has quit a bit more than a gig, how do I allocate it to the video system?

Thanks again
 
Alrighty

Doing that wont hurt my laptop, will it? If it doesnt have any chance of hurting it, I might be able to figure it out


Thanks
 
It worked perfectly. the BIOS only seemed to let me change it to 32mb, 64, and 128, but im gonna check it out to see if it can go higher.

Thanks a bunch, really appreciate it
 
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