graphics card help

Aimealamort · June 25, 2007, 06:19 PM

I play on a laptop most of the time, was a gift from my family. I'm pretty sure the graphics card sucks though, so i'm looking for a little advice on how i can improve performance.
my graphics is Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator 950 w/Ports. everything else is fine, i have plenty of ram, my processor is fine, im 99% sure its the graphics card.

i have all the settings turned down, but still experience a flickering of the screen. every twenty minutes or so my screen blacks out for about a second.

my os is vista, do you think installing xp or 2000 would improve this?

thanks

Spixder · June 25, 2007, 06:44 PM

Yep you need to get a laptop with a dedicated graphics card instead. Any graphics powered by intel is only good for games abt 3 to 4 yrs old such as war3 cs or diablo.

Wabbo · June 25, 2007, 06:54 PM

I'd suggest switching over to XP until Vista matures a bit, because graphics drivers for Vista are pretty new and not very efficient. A new graphics card for under $125 should be able to play WoW fine, although I'm not sure how'd you integrate that into your labtop.

Aimealamort · June 25, 2007, 07:14 PM

thanks you guys.
actually browsing the tech support forums for a long time, i found someone with the exact same problem and a solution!
apparently the card itself is ok, a few months before i got the computer there was a driver update that fixed the problem, and a month later another that messed it up again for some users, so im going to try to use the older update and see if it fixes it when i get home from work.

::crosses fingers::

Whymfrost · June 25, 2007, 08:20 PM

Until recently, upgrading a laptop beyond shoving another 512 meg into the extra ram slot was nothing short of impossible with most models. I've seen that the most modern laptops are designed to allow full access to all the internal workings via a large, revealing, removable panel. I would assume because of the work put into shuffling the innards of the laptop around to allow easy access to all the components, that it is now possible and a common practice to replace different components in the laptop.

Indeed, Vista is not up to par yet. I don't know it will ever be (Windows ME, anybody?).. in a short while, Microsoft will start spamming about Microsoft Vienna. As XP was to ME, Vienna will be to Vista. So they say.

Do the usual shutting down of all non-essential programs (run: msconfig from startbar and stop programs from beginning on startup.).. another trick you can try to gain 1 fps or so, is eliminate your desktop wallpaper. Make it a plain color. Also, I don't have any experience with Vista, but if you can temporarily shut down the explorer (ctl-alt-del and then shut down 'explorer' is how it can be done on older platforms) will save you some memory too. you can bring explorer back up by doing another ctl+alt+del and hit file-new task(run..) and type 'explorer'. hope this helps.

June 25, 2007, 06:19 PM	#1 (permalink)
Aimealamort Member Character Info Antlia 70 Undead Warlock Lothar US PvE Guild: Slackers Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/21/40	graphics card help I play on a laptop most of the time, was a gift from my family. I'm pretty sure the graphics card sucks though, so i'm looking for a little advice on how i can improve performance. my graphics is Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator 950 w/Ports. everything else is fine, i have plenty of ram, my processor is fine, im 99% sure its the graphics card. i have all the settings turned down, but still experience a flickering of the screen. every twenty minutes or so my screen blacks out for about a second. my os is vista, do you think installing xp or 2000 would improve this? thanks

June 25, 2007, 06:44 PM	#2 (permalink)
Spixder Member Character Info Akkarin 70 Human Warlock Nagrand Oceania PvE Guild: Sanctuary Profile: Talent Spec: 43/0/18	Re: graphics card help Yep you need to get a laptop with a dedicated graphics card instead. Any graphics powered by intel is only good for games abt 3 to 4 yrs old such as war3 cs or diablo.

June 25, 2007, 06:54 PM	#3 (permalink)
Wabbo Lurker Character Info Wabbo 70 Gnome Warlock Malygos US PvE Guild: Liquid Frostbite Profile: Blizzard Armory	Re: graphics card help I'd suggest switching over to XP until Vista matures a bit, because graphics drivers for Vista are pretty new and not very efficient. A new graphics card for under $125 should be able to play WoW fine, although I'm not sure how'd you integrate that into your labtop.

June 25, 2007, 07:14 PM	#4 (permalink)
Aimealamort Member Character Info Antlia 70 Undead Warlock Lothar US PvE Guild: Slackers Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/21/40	Re: graphics card help thanks you guys. actually browsing the tech support forums for a long time, i found someone with the exact same problem and a solution! apparently the card itself is ok, a few months before i got the computer there was a driver update that fixed the problem, and a month later another that messed it up again for some users, so im going to try to use the older update and see if it fixes it when i get home from work. ::crosses fingers::

June 25, 2007, 08:20 PM	#5 (permalink)
Whymfrost Member Character Info Nunchuck 70 Undead Warlock Moonrunner US PvE Guild: Sealab Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 41/1/19	Re: graphics card help Until recently, upgrading a laptop beyond shoving another 512 meg into the extra ram slot was nothing short of impossible with most models. I've seen that the most modern laptops are designed to allow full access to all the internal workings via a large, revealing, removable panel. I would assume because of the work put into shuffling the innards of the laptop around to allow easy access to all the components, that it is now possible and a common practice to replace different components in the laptop. Indeed, Vista is not up to par yet. I don't know it will ever be (Windows ME, anybody?).. in a short while, Microsoft will start spamming about Microsoft Vienna. As XP was to ME, Vienna will be to Vista. So they say. Do the usual shutting down of all non-essential programs (run: msconfig from startbar and stop programs from beginning on startup.).. another trick you can try to gain 1 fps or so, is eliminate your desktop wallpaper. Make it a plain color. Also, I don't have any experience with Vista, but if you can temporarily shut down the explorer (ctl-alt-del and then shut down 'explorer' is how it can be done on older platforms) will save you some memory too. you can bring explorer back up by doing another ctl+alt+del and hit file-new task(run..) and type 'explorer'. hope this helps. Last edited by Whymfrost; June 25, 2007 at 08:23 PM.