Intel HD Graphics capable of... but won't play C&C:ZH

[phaxmohdem]

I've run into an interesting problem with the integrated Intel HD graphics in my ThinkPad T410 (or more accurately: problems with the software I'm trying to run on it).

I went to a friend's place to play a little old school Command and Conquer the other night, and discovered that both C&C Generals and Zero Hour will not run on the HD graphics chip. I installed C&C:3 Tiberium Wars on my ThinkPad, and it played great @ 1440x900 medium settings, and that game is much newer and more graphically demanding than Generals/ZH.

The GPU has more than enough muscle to play the game, it supports all the right technologies (up to DX 10 SM 4.0), but I think the game was simply designed to not play on ANY Intel graphics chipset due to the extreme sucktasticness of Intels IGP's when Generals/ZH was released. However now that Intel IGP's are capable of actually pushing a few pixels around I'm screwed out of be able to play my game.

I'm not hopeful, but does anybody know of a way to get around this? Is there a way to "trick" an application or the OS into thinking it has a different graphics chip?

 

[Zap]

It may have more to do with the game itself than with the Intel IGP. I've seen it being played on a Windows XP box with Intel IGP. Are you running Vista/7? I've seen some major issues with getting the game to work with the newer OSes, often with the game hanging or dumping w/o error/notification right after the initial splash screen. Is that what happens with your notebook? You can try running in WinXP compatibility mode, and running as administrator (right-click).

 

[Fox5]

Try updating the drivers?

 

[AzN]

Many games don't work on i3 HD gpu. I've tried playing bf2 and it kicks me back to desktop. Same with GTA4.