What kind of performance from Intel Graphics Accelerator 950,

D

dmize

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 29, 2004
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Im looking for a decent laptop for school, but i would also like to play some games on it. I know Im not in the market for a monster gaming laptop (i have a desktop for that) but i would like to be able to play some games ( World of Warcraft mostly) during my down time at school...

most of the laptops in my price range have Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950.. any input on what kind of performance I can expect from it?


thanks
D.
 
I want to say I've read arond here that you can get away with WOW at low settings, actually.

You won't be playing FSX or Crysis or anything, but anything a couple of years old or more should be doable.
 
I can play WoW on my GMA 900 laptop. It's at REALLY low settings, but it's playable. A GMA 950 should even be better.
 
There's quite a few cheap AMD based notebooks out there with Xpress 200/1100 integrated graphics, aren't there? They still suck, but they can run way more stuff then the GMA950 can... one of my friends pulled off Far Cry and even F.E.A.R. Combat on his X200M chip (though I didn't try the latter so I can't tell if he has a high tolerance for low FPS or anything). DOOM 3 is out of the question, though, from what I saw.
 
How well do steam apps run on it? Say CSS and Garry's mod. Those are the only two games I actually play...
 
I play WoW a lot on my GMA950 chip. Granted, all settings are on low, but my resolution is maxed. It runs good enough to grind and stuff. I raided a few times with it, it gets a little choppier, but manageable.

WoW is dependant on RAM/CPU a lot though. So a crap video card will still perform well.
 
Talonz said:
Very poorly. CSS at DX7, low everything gets 20-30fps IIRC.
Click to expand...

Thats just sad.
Guess I will have to look harder at what I can get for an economy laptop + different video solution.
 
well as for me im useing the laptop in my sig for school, yeah its huge to carry around in your backpack, i do photoshop stuff like that and play CSS in class :rolleyes:

On topic:

i would go something higher in video card then the 950 something like 7300/7400 for nvidia or ati about x200 like skipper said, i dont know much about the laptop video cards much...
i dont know how much you want to pay for it so cant help ya much on finding the right laptop.
 
When it comes to getting a laptop, believe me, paying a bit more up front is well worth it in the long run. You will never be able to upgrade the video, and the 950 can barely run games NOW. How will it run games 10 months to a year from now?

It's like the difference between getting a car with seats and a stereo or without them. It will still get you some places, but so uncomfortably that you will either start finding reasons to not go at all, or suffer.

I would consider buying a used laptop before I'd buy one with something like the 950 GMA.
 
The GMA 950 is not that horrible @ WoW i've got it running 1/2 decent on low settings @ 1280x800. In terms of other igp's the xpress 200m has better compatibility, and if you can find a lappy with it the Geforce 6150 is about the best integrated igp you can get.

As others have said if you can find room in your budgest even a geforce 7200/7300 or x1300 would be a big jump.
 
SILVR 6 has it right here: just about anything is a big step up from the GMA950. That said, to get the sort of performance you'd get from even a mid range desktop card, you're going to have to shell out quite a bit.

The one thing you should consider is what games you'll be playing... I had a laptop with Intel Extreme C(g)raphics 2 for a while and while it couldn't run anything recent fine (even Neverwinter Nights had some frame rate drops), it did run quite a few older games fine, such as Shogo, my Command and Conquer: The First Decade pack, and, with a decent CPU, DOSbox, which will get you a lot of classic games running. In a way I actually enjoyed having such weak graphics because it gave me an excuse to replay some classics.
 
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