Curse

Death By An Arrow · Jan 01, 2010, 08:44 AM // 08:44

So I believe I have the barebones hardware with my current laptop (it was an xmas gift, so its not likely got anything but the bare minimum).

I want to improve the quality of my GW visuals, and also for GW2 in the future (and I know the suggested req. aren't released yet, but just saying).

ANYWHO... so I found the model of my laptop on the internet and now I've got some questions. Since I am NOT a hardware knowledgable kind of guy, I need some guidance

1. It says that for Video, the "Max Allocated RAM Size" is 512mb. Can someone please explain what this means to me and how this involves what video card I would buy?

2. For my RAM it says 'Installed Size 512.0 MB / 4.0 GB (max)'. I understand that this means that I've got 512mb of RAM, but does the 4GB mean thats the most RAM I can have? If not, can someone please explain this to me as well

3. I've heard that if my video/RAM is integrated, I can not upgrade my laptop. It says that my Video is 'ATI Radeon X1250 Shared video memory (UMA)' and my RAM is in #2. Is my laptop integrated or not (I'm assuming it is not because I do not see the word integrated directly).

Sorry for all the questions, but I really am clueless when it comes to this kind of stuff. Thank you so much for the help!

moriz · Jan 01, 2010, 03:00 PM // 15:00

laptop graphics are not upgradeable at all, with very few exceptions. so basically, you are stuck with whatever you have. the most you can do is add more RAM.

Quaker · Jan 01, 2010, 06:22 PM // 18:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Death By An Arrow

1. It says that for Video, the "Max Allocated RAM Size" is 512mb. Can someone please explain what this means to me and how this involves what video card I would buy?

The video chip shares main RAM. The more RAM you allocate to the video (in the BIOS), the less you have for other things. It's probably set to 64Meg by default, so 64Meg of your 512Meg is assigned to the video (leaving only 448Meg for the system).
There is no video "card" in the usual sense - you can not upgrade the video. (Most laptops are like that.)
If you allocate more RAM to the video, you can increase your video performance somewhat, but be sure to increase the total RAM first.

Quote:

2. For my RAM it says 'Installed Size 512.0 MB / 4.0 GB (max)'. I understand that this means that I've got 512mb of RAM, but does the 4GB mean thats the most RAM I can have?

The laptop probably has two RAM slots with one 512meg RAM installed. The "4 GIG max" means that the most you could install would be two 2Gig RAMs.
Because of the shared video and only having 512Meg to start with, the best thing you can do to boost performance would be to get at least 2Gigs of RAM.

Quote:

3. I've heard that if my video/RAM is integrated, I can not upgrade my laptop.

The Radeon x1250 graphics is integrated into the ATI690 chipset. It is not replaceable or upgradeable.

Death By An Arrow · Jan 01, 2010, 06:52 PM // 18:52

Thank you both, I feel so much more informed about all this now

New question though:

Since I now know i can't upgrade my video card now but can still upgrade my RAM, what do you suggest I do to improve the visual quality? Or am i just simply stuck with what I've got and only able to make my laptop run faster?

Quaker · Jan 01, 2010, 07:36 PM // 19:36

As I said above, you may be able to increase the visual quality a bit by allocating more RAM to the video card. It wouldn't be a big change, but it should help a little.
Since the video does share main RAM, you would want to increase the main RAM before increasing the share.
If you put a 2Gig RAM into the machine, along with the original 512Meg, you could allocate the maximum 512Meg to the video and have the full 2Gig available to the system. The extra RAM would make a dramatic improvement in overall system speed.

Check the manual that came with the laptop to find out how to increase the video shared RAM (or, at least, how to get into the BIOS/setup). You basically need to get into the BIOS (setup) and navigate to the appropriate setting. Btw, you don't neceesarily need to increase the shared RAM all the way to 512Meg, even 128 or 256Meg would be an improvement.

RotteN · Jan 05, 2010, 01:21 AM // 01:21

The Radeon X1250 barely meets the "recommended system specs" for Guild Wars, so don't put your hopes up for it to be able to (properly) run Guild Wars 2.

According to some quick technical specs I pulled on this chipset, it can handle upto 128MB of memory. So there's really no need to stash an insane amount of extra RAM in their for the sole purpose of improving the amount of useable GPU-memory. However, since the Guild Wars specs recommend 1GB of RAM, putting in 1 or even 2GB wouldn't hurt at all (if you can find the right DIMMs to upgrade).

Keep in mind this chipset was never designed to handle games, but just give a smooth desktop experience (cfr. Windows Aero). You'll never get any superb graphics with it, no matter what you try.