Laptop graphics cards

ID:185382
 
Feb 17 2006, 7:45 am
Does anyone know of any buyable graphics cards for laptops? I really want to play WoW. I found the name of one called the mobility radeon 9600, but I am not sure if it is buyable. Any suggestions?
Feb 17 2006, 7:49 am
The last person I knew who tried WoW on their laptop ended up with a burned desk and a whole lot of wasted money.
Feb 17 2006, 7:53 am
In response to Nadrew
argh, that usually means i am going to have to rebuy a desktop computer....WHY!WHHHHHHHHHY!
Feb 17 2006, 7:56 am
In response to Tazor07
I'm sure there's a stable way of doing it, but I have yet to see a laptop with the power to run those kinds of games for more than an hour or so (automaticly shutting down due to heat or overall just running out of resources, or simply igniting =P) but I'm not the most knowledgable person as far as laptops are concerned. Just personal experience.
Feb 17 2006, 8:38 am
In response to Nadrew
Nadrew wrote:
The last person I knew who tried WoW on their laptop ended up with a burned desk and a whole lot of wasted money.

I play WoW fine on my laptop.
Feb 17 2006, 8:41 am
In response to Nadrew
My friend from the army came up a few weekends ago and bought a $1600 "gaming" laptop from Best Buy... it played CoD2 and such just fine :)

I think you just have to find a laptop that suits your needs.

Also, games + laptop = no battery life

~Kujila
Feb 17 2006, 1:19 pm
In response to Nadrew
I have a friend with a gaming laptop that runs WoW just fine - it's actually replaced his desktop for all purposes except long-term data storage. (His desktop has a bunch of large hard drives in it.)

It actually runs faster than my desktop. =( Sucks up power like you wouldn't believe, though - battery life is about 40 minutes or something. =P
Feb 17 2006, 1:52 pm
In response to Crispy
Ya, on top of that, WoW is not a power sucking game. You don't need much in graphics to run it. The box says "32mb 3D accelerated graphics card". That is a very weak card.
Feb 17 2006, 5:14 pm
In response to Crispy
Got more information on the friend about this, he had another program running in the background behind WoW that was pretty hard on the system too without realizing it and noticed about one second too late. (Apprently the automaticly shutdown didn't work =\) so it wasn't just WoW, I just saw WoW as the only thing running from my chair =P.
Feb 18 2006, 1:36 am
In response to Crispy
WEll i currently have a $800 gateway laptop with a celeron m. Any ideas on if the game will work, i do not want to buy it and have it not work :P

If you need any more details on the specs, just ask and i will attempt to find them.

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Feb 18 2006, 1:08 pm
In response to Tazor07
Celeron eww =(

My friend Chris has a nice laptop. We were playing Need For Speed:MW, WoW, City of villains and other games on it over my network at home just fine. He has a 3800+ Athlon 64 in it though.
Feb 18 2006, 4:45 pm
Tazor07,

Except in extremely rare cases you cannont upgrade the graphics card in a laptop. You will simply need to get a second laptop (or desktop) if you want more graphic horsepower.

Since you describe your laptop as an $800 Celeron M powered notebook I would venture to guess that it only has an Intel Integrated graphics processor. These IGPs are only really good for 2D applications (Ex. Microsoft Office). I would be surprised if the Intel IGP is capable of providing an enjoyable WoW experience.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

~Das Falke
Feb 20 2006, 9:56 am
In response to Kujila
Yes my friend is going to build me an alienware, i just have to buy the hard drive and ram. Oh another question, any idea how much ram costs :D
Feb 20 2006, 2:34 pm
In response to Tazor07
depends on what kind, but usually costs about $50 per stick of 512 megs and ahh $70 to $100 for 1 gig sticks. Of course it depends on what kind and where you get it... and these prices are at like stores. It's probably a hella cheaper at newegg or something.