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Laptop video card reccomendations?

J

Jim Bancroft

Senior member
Hi guys,

I've been out of the laptop market for a few years. My 5 year old Inspiron has been rock-solid, but the graphics card is limiting me when it comes to OpenGL and DirectX shaders. I want to develop more of these on the portable and not my desktop.

I don't need blazing speed, but DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 2.0 compatibility is a must for my purposes. I see that Dell is shipping the GeForce 8400M GS on their midrange Inspirons these days. Are these any good for my purposes?

I don't need the *best* laptop graphics card out there with the most memory or pipeline processors. I do need it to be good enough to run the latest vertex and pixel shaders, or at least close to that.

What would you recommend for someone in my boat, who wants a decent priced laptop with good DirectX and OpenGL support? Many thanks.
 
Originally posted by: Jim Bancroft
Hi guys,

I've been out of the laptop market for a few years. My 5 year old Inspiron has been rock-solid, but the graphics card is limiting me when it comes to OpenGL and DirectX shaders. I want to develop more of these on the portable and not my desktop.

I don't need blazing speed, but DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 2.0 compatibility is a must for my purposes. I see that Dell is shipping the GeForce 8400M GS on their midrange Inspirons these days. Are these any good for my purposes?

I don't need the *best* laptop graphics card out there with the most memory or pipeline processors. I do need it to be good enough to run the latest vertex and pixel shaders, or at least close to that.

What would you recommend for someone in my boat, who wants a decent priced laptop with good DirectX and OpenGL support? Many thanks.
Click to expand...

If you need DirectX 10.1, then you have no option but to look for a Radeon Mobility 3xx0 or 4xx0 series chip. These are the only chips that support DX 10.1, Nvidia has no products nor any plans to offer 10.1 chips.
 
Originally posted by: Bateluer
If you need DirectX 10.1, then you have no option but to look for a Radeon Mobility 3xx0 or 4xx0 series chip. These are the only chips that support DX 10.1, Nvidia has no products nor any plans to offer 10.1 chips.
Click to expand...

Thanks for catching me. I don't need DX 10.1 to do my thing; DX 10 is fine.

 
A geforce 8400m gs is ok because it is well balanced but if u need more power for dx10 games a geforce 8600gt will double the power but drain battery faster
 
Originally posted by: Fbbam
A geforce 8400m gs is ok because it is well balanced but if u need more power for dx10 games a geforce 8600gt will double the power but drain battery faster
Click to expand...

Also, I'd be wary of an Nvidia mobile GPU right now, nearly all of their 8x00 series and most of their 9x00 series were defective.

A Mobility Radeon 3650 may be a better choice than the 8600M GT. Info

Their charts also rank the MR 3450s and 3470s significantly above the 8400GS chips as well.
 
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