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General discussion

Interesting question about laptop graphics card

Aug 2, 2004 7:37PM PDT

I have a HP compaq nx9005 which comes with a 64MB ATI Radeon IGP 320M. Now, my interesting question is, since the graphics card memory is shared memory, can I allocate more memory to my graphics card and so enhance its speed? Or do I need to purchase a new graphics card for that? If I need a new one, a) is it possible to upgrade (because I know laptops are much harder to upgrade than desktops) and b) does anyone have any ideas of the price of an upgrade?

Thanks in advance,
Adi

Discussion is locked

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Re: Interesting question about laptop graphics card
Aug 2, 2004 10:18PM PDT

You'll have to get into the machine's BIOS settings to see, but in laptops I've found no options for this one.

The answer so far with the units I've seen is "no". As to adding a graphics card to a laptop, for all the models I've seen, the answer is no. You won't see this on share memory video machines.

Bob

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Re: Interesting question about laptop graphics card
Aug 3, 2004 2:22AM PDT

Yes you can allocate more memory to the graphics card. You can go under the BIOS (By pressing F2 at startup), go under UMA Video Memory, and select the video memory you want. If you have 384MB RAM and above, you can select 128 shared video memory. However, if you have 256 and below, the higest you can go is 64. I have the exact same graphics card in my HP Pavilion ze4427wm, and if you are wanting to play ANY games on that card, good luck. Increasing the memory won't help that card perform any better. Good Luck.

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Re: Interesting question about laptop graphics card
Aug 3, 2004 4:40AM PDT

Choosing the video card option is the most important thing when purchasing a notebook as it cannot be upgraded easily (it is soldered to the motherboard).

Integrated video (shared) is the kiss of death for all intensive games. You are also losing part of your RAM to the video card operation.

32mb dedicated works well for most people but 64mb is better and only $50 more usually (if ordering custom like at HP/Compaq or Dell, etc) but some notebooks now have 128mb (ATI 9700 video card).

It is better to get the highest dedicated memory in the notebook (64mb is still the highest on most notebooks like the Toshiba M35S456 and Compaq X1000/HPZT3000 Pentium M notebooks (Centrino) and to save $ on a slightly slower processor, smaller hard drive, less memory up front, etc (as all these can be upgraded later if desired).