GFX Card

OK, so i'm thinking of buy a laptop, and it comes with 4 gbs of ram, has a intel core 2 duo processor so I know it can run just fine, but the video card it has seems kinda outdated:

ATI Mobility Radeon X1800

Is this card good for anything nowadays?

I suggest not going with ATI. I have an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870. I had to go through a whole lot of crap with Kyle helping me before I got CoD1 to work. You had to do a buffer override with some Dutch file and go through hell to get it to work. Now that it does work, it freezes every time I get shot (not killed though) or say a quick chat command. By the time it comes back, the guy has already killed you because your character is frozen in midair.

Get NVIDIA. Better card overall, no headaches, and you won't curse at your computer every time you get tagged in CoD.




Now about the Core 2 Duo processor... What's the GHz on it and what are you looking to do with your laptop besides CoD1?

Its only 2 GHz, i was mainly looking for more multimedia purposes with all my music and software and improving my vCoD game
...but Black Ops and Mass Effect capabilities would be nice =)

If you want to play Black Ops, I suggest moving on to a better laptop. (with NVIDIA gfx card )

ati gfx card works fine rom if you tweak it right
im on latest versions on best quality.

Default_33 wrote:

ATI Mobility Radeon X1800

Is this card good for anything nowadays?

The card its self is alright not the best. but if your planning to run bigger better games. you will want to upgrade Also if your looking to play the "better games" on a computer, go desktop. much easier to fix and its alwayse upgradeable (unlike a laptop). If your just looking for old games to run then it will do fine.

jared915 wrote:

Default_33 wrote:

ATI Mobility Radeon X1800

Is this card good for anything nowadays?

The card its self is alright not the best. but if your planning to run bigger better games. you will want to upgrade Also if your looking to play the "better games" on a computer, go desktop. much easier to fix and its alwayse upgradeable (unlike a laptop). If your just looking for old games to run then it will do fine.

Ya, I've decided with the desktop now, the laptop is gonna have to wait, since the model I want cannot upgrade GFX

dingo wrote:

ati gfx card works fine rom if you tweak it right
im on latest versions on best quality.

let me know what driver you're using. Exact number because if I update automatically, I can't run cod1 any more and I have to do a rollback.

and that would suck

Romanian wrote:

let me know what driver you're using. Exact number because if I update automatically, I can't run cod1 any more and I have to do a rollback.

Only happens because the new drivers can't really support the old games no more. thats why i have not updated mine. I got a ATI RAdeon 2600XT. have not had a problem with it yet.

desktop is really the way to go for gaming. unless you plan on playing great games with good graphics while on the move, then i would reccomend getting an alien ware laptop. but desktop works the best (my opinion). something goes wrong, you can fix it with ease, and with a big tower there is always room to do upgrades.

Is it possible to downgrade drivers?

Alienware?! The only thing worth the money from alienware is the case.
I have an Asus G73jh gamer laptop. I paid around $1,200 for it. It is muuuuch cheaper than an alienware. Why pay double the price for only a teensy bit more power?

You can see my specs on my Xfire page.

Romanian wrote:

Is it possible to downgrade drivers?

It is only possible to downgrade your driver by rolling back to the driver in the device manager if you currently updated your driver. but you can find an older version of your driver and install it. so.... in a sense. yes and no.

Sorry I didn't read this earlier. Haven't been on in a while. I love the cost/power ratio of ATI. I've never had issues with drivers for the 4870 while I did have a few with my old 9800 GTX Nvidia card. If you haven't bought the parts yet, I'd love to help as I build them at almost one a month now for other people in my school and such. I'll be out of town till Thursday, but I should be able to help that night or weekend.