Dummy Help

[TKK]

Okay, little background. I am okay with computers, better than most my age "51" now question. I recently bought a Toshiba laptop, touch screen. I have recently become interested in a lot of games, not sure this is the right laptop for gaming, or if I can upgrade, or if it would be easier and cheaper to buy another laptop. I like the max payne series, I have 1 and 2 both play well on laptop. I also like GTA, but I am having lots of problems trying to get GTA 4 to load, it hangs on start up screen, I have read that it may be my graphic card. So questions, can I install new graphic card on this laptop, how hard is it, I have installed hard drives ect...
Now the specs
Toshiba Laptop Satellite, running windows 8.1
Adapter Information
Chip Type: Intel(R) Graphics Family
DAC Type Internal
Adapter String: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4400
Bios Information: Intel Video BIOS
Total Available Graphics Memory 1792 MB
Dedicated Video Memory 0MB
System Video Memory 0 MB
Shared Video Memory 1792 MB

if you need more info please post, and how to find
I have never done much with gaming before on PC, always played on Playstation and the like, always used laptop as business usage so that is really what I know, but I really want to start use for gaming. I am guessing the fact I have 0 dedicated Video memory is an issue, if I had know this would not have bought this laptop, it is a decent machine otherwise.
Thanks
Tim

 

[fralexandr]

there is no practical way to upgrade any laptop computers graphics card.

It's theoretically possible, since they usually use mxm standard sizes, but your laptop is using graphics integrated into the CPU, laptops have a thermal limit (adding a GPU may cause many of them to throttle/overheat), and the parts are not readily available (notebook gpus aren't easy to find).

It would be best to either buy/build a desktop capable of upgrading the graphics card, or buy a new laptop.

gaming laptops are expensive, but if you need the portability the lenovo y50 is a good place to start.
just be aware that laptop graphics aren't readily upgradeable, so will have limited gaming capabilities in a few to several years as games become more demanding.
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops.../y-series/y50/

 

[Denithor]

Gaming is one of the few remaining reasons people still build desktop computers these days. Power consumption and thermal dissipation are basically non-issues on desktop machine while these are huge problems for laptops. For this reason, they are very limited in the processor and video card they are able to use in laptops, meaning that most are not suitable at all for gaming.

 

[stahlhart]

Moving to General Hardware.
-- stahlhart

 

[mfenn]

Unfortunately that laptop isn't capable of playing most modern games reasonably due to it using the graphics integrated into the processor rather than a discrete card.

I agree with Denithor, building a desktop is still the way to go for gaming value. If you're interesting in building a machine, we can help you with that. If not, we can point out some prebuilts which can game as-is (or with a minimal upgrade like adding a video card).