Laptop Video Card Help

[theultimatenoob]

I own a Dell Inspiron 15R laptop. While it runs older games like Halo, Quake III: Arena, and others perfectly well, the graphics card cannot run higher end games like Fallout 3, Call of Duty: World at War, Brink, etc. (although oddly enough it runs Portal 2 fine and Duke Nukem: Forever at the lowest graphics settings).

So since I'm a gamer, I need to upgrade my video card. Right now I have a Intel(R) HD Graphics card, which is what came with the laptop. If anyone could please suggest what I should buy to upgrade, that would be greatly appreciated.

 

[purple stain]

Unfortunitly most Graphics on laptops cannot be upgrade.Only special types of gaming laptops can that be done on.Not a regular Dell laptop.

 

[jaguarskx]

I'm afraid you are stuck with what you have.

I am guessing you have a 1st generation Core i3 or i5 CPU which means you have an Intel GMA 4500MHD. That is not good for games at all.

If you have the 2nd generation Core i3 or i5 CPU, then that means you are using the Intel HD 3000 graphics core which is 2x better than the GMA 4500MHD. It's roughly equivalent to a desktop Radeon HD 5450. That graphics core is inside the CPU. It cannot be upgraded either.

BTW, Fallout 3 have issues with the Intel HD 3000 graphics core. The game will not even load. Maybe if Intel releases a newer driver it will fix the issue; then again maybe not.

 

[Youngmind]

You could try using ViDock to use an external video card, but you probably won't be able to bring the videocard just anywhere because it'll be exposed.

 

[theultimatenoob]

Well, this sucks. Thanks, though. I was all set to open up the laptop to take out the card , too. Good thing I didn't.

The main issue is that I'm stuck with this laptop for at least two years, and while I can run older games on it no problem, because the card is simply Intel HD Graphics, I have to play a guessing game every time I want to buy a new game, trying to figure out if I can play the game or if my card is too inferior.

 

[purple stain]

You should always go with a desktop if you play games.To me, Laptops are only good for Internet usage.

 

[theultimatenoob]

And if I had that option, I would have a good desktop in a heartbeat. The issue is that I'm enterig college, so a laptop is all I can have right now.

 

[purple stain]

Well I'm sorry theirs not much you can do.

 

[theultimatenoob]

Best answer selected by theultimatenoob.