Laptop...

TerrorFirmer

Basically this thread here. I bought a laptop with an ati xpress 200 128mb graphics card.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054948676

It will not run any game, even those that are six years old and would run on a 16mb card, at a playable level. So basically even though I bought the laptop for playing older games - as I knew it would not play new ones - I can't play anything whatsoever other then really old games from 1998 era.

Am I in my rights to return it to the store and say its unacceptable? Or will they tell me to fob off and Ishould have looked it up?

I did look it up but all the benchmarks were based on direct 3d games which runs fine. Its only opengl games that wont work (all the best older games and a a fair amount of new games are opengl)

thanks

jimmycrackcorm

HavoK wrote:

Basically this thread here. I bought a laptop with an ati xpress 200 128mb graphics card.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054948676

It will not run any game, even those that are six years old and would run on a 16mb card, at a playable level. So basically even though I bought the laptop for playing older games - as I knew it would not play new ones - I can't play anything whatsoever other then really old games from 1998 era.

Am I in my rights to return it to the store and say its unacceptable? Or will they tell me to fob off and Ishould have looked it up?

I did look it up but all the benchmarks were based on direct 3d games which runs fine. Its only opengl games that wont work (all the best older games and a a fair amount of new games are opengl)

thanks

I guess it depends on how long you've had the laptop. but if you're able to show how an inferior latop can run older games you have a string case.

TerrorFirmer

I've only had it three days. My friends 399 dell laptop easily outpeforms mine, even with the hideous intel integrated graphics

seamus

Well, the only thing is, 20 fps isn't terrible. It's perfectly playable.

Unless you're a hardcore gamer. I bought a laptop with the same chipset, and it plays WoW at around 20-25fps, and it plays Command and Conquer: Generals at fairly high settings. Both perfectly playable, and certainly nowhere near as low as when I was playing them on 32MB dedicated cards. No idea if they use OpenGL (though I'm fairly sure C&C does).

I'm not a mad gamer, so having 60fps and 12ms are not of much interest to me. Inbuilt cards will never, ever match the performance of a dedicated card, and especially when you jump into the world of laptops, the GFX card is one of the first places manufacturers will cut corners.

The only difference is that my machine is running a Turion M (64-bit). I'll try install Wolfenstein on it and see how it fares.

TerrorFirmer

seamus wrote:

Well, the only thing is, 20 fps isn't terrible. It's perfectly playable.

Unless you're a hardcore gamer. I bought a laptop with the same chipset, and it plays WoW at around 20-25fps, and it plays Command and Conquer: Generals at fairly high settings. Both perfectly playable, and certainly nowhere near as low as when I was playing them on 32MB dedicated cards. No idea if they use OpenGL (though I'm fairly sure C&C does).

I'm not a mad gamer, so having 60fps and 12ms are not of much interest to me. Inbuilt cards will never, ever match the performance of a dedicated card, and especially when you jump into the world of laptops, the GFX card is one of the first places manufacturers will cut corners.

The only difference is that my machine is running a Turion M (64-bit). I'll try install Wolfenstein on it and see how it fares.

Generals is Direct 3D, not OpenGL.

You are right Seamus - Shared cards will never match dediated cards. The problem here is however that the x200 has OpenGL issues. I was not looking to play new games - only really old ones! Again I will say Medal of Honor ran on all high settings on my old 16MB card!! I can't even get it running smoothly on low settings with the 128mb x200.

The worst thing is that its fine for Direct 3d games. Global Ops, Battlefield 2, Call of Duty 2, Far Cry, Unreal 2004 - all these games actually work fine on it. Its open OpenGL games that don't work correctly, regardless of age. This alone is an indication of the cards poor support and why I was so frustrated. Surely you could not tell me that a 16mb opengl card should be able to outperform a 128mb dx9 opengl card?

20FPS is ok for some games though you are right - it is totally unacceptable for online first person shooters though, whether your a casual or hardcore gamer

Anyway, to update this - I brought this back , spoke with a knowledagble guy in Pc World, and he agreed that the card was obviously flawed - I got a sony vaio instead with no hassle (with a Geforce 6400) so all is well.

wingnut

Have you tried using the Omega drivers, google them.

TerrorFirmer

wingnut wrote:

Have you tried using the Omega drivers, google them.

Yeah, tried them before I gave it back. Improved Direct3D performance a bit but didn't help with OpenGL at all....