Could anybody tell me if the ATI X1100 is capable of playing games such as Oblivion on low settings? I'm unsure if it has any of its own dedicated ram, some sites say it has 64mb of dedicated GDDR2 and then up2 192mb of shared ram, other sites say only shared ram up2 256mb. Its a laptop I'm looking at but as its to do with the graphics card I thought i might get more of an answer posting in this section. Thanks Kingdavies
Not even likely with minimum settings, which IMHO ruins games and totally changes them from what the designers intended. The most basic entry level laptop video on offer from Intel, ATi or nVidia are simply designed to do energy efficient desktop work and features like DX9 are simply there to score extra ticks on their spec sheet in order to promote sales. The X1100 runs at 300mhz with 4 pipes, you should find X1300 benchmarks easier to find and that's around 50% faster clocked. For reference the old desktop mid-range were 6600GT which ran at 500mhz with 8 effective pipes (more than 3 times the core power). Current mid-range desktop cards are 7600GT @560mhz with 12 effective pipes (more than 5 times the core power) and 7900GS @450mhz with 20 pipes (more than 7 times the core power). In an area where 20% is often considered a significant speed boost you can appreciate why these low-end gfx chips are not up to the task of gaming. If you want to play a game, even at a pretty minimal level you should really look for something using at least mid-range gfx such as X700, X1600 or 6600 (or obviously better). These faster gfx chips tend to demand much higher pricing though so to stay on budget you may do better looking second hand for something using the Radeon Mobility 9800 or ideally GeForce Go 6800 (or similar). Even so they aren't as thin, light, quiet nor portable and they don't last as long on battery. Unfortunately if you want to game you really have to consider how much you really need the portability of a laptop. At least with laptops you don't have to worry too much about the CPU as it's the gfx chip and RAM which are sure to be the most limiting factors. EDIT: Some links below for you. Looks as though you really need a P4 3.0ghz (or equivilent) with 1GB RAM and for 1024x768 medium details gfx chips like ATi: 9800, X700Pro, X800 or X1600 ... nVidia: 6600GT or 6800. X1300 and similar are likely to have severe issues running with low details at 800x600. http://forumz.tomshardware.com/games/IV-Oblivion-ftopict11284.html http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=924363&topic=27071162
If you want a laptop that can play games, go with one that has a Mobility Radeon x1300, x1400, x1600, or one with a GeForce go 7300 or 7600!
