Will integrated video card cause problems in non-game apps?

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AirForceElite

Senior member
Nov 8, 2004
268
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Hey guys.
I am stuck with 2 laptop.

First its an AMD 64 X2 1.6GHz laptop with 1 gig of ram. It comes with integrated Nvidia 6150 video card.

The other is Intel Core Duo 1.6GHz with 1 gig of ram. It comes with Intel GMA950.

I have already decided that gaming on a laptop = needs money.
I decided to drop gaming on a laptop altogether. I dont want my laptop to play games, but I do want battery life and light weight.

I was told on many other forums that integrated video cards are best for battery life...but then again, I want to run certain applications, and dont know if Intel GMA950 will do the job.]

Apps, i want to run:

Photoshop, playing DVD, watching movies (non-dvd), Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas and most importantly, VISTA AERO interface

Will any of the above mentioned programs require a dedicated video card (even though it is low end) or will it be fine with integrated Intel GMA950?

Please help me guys, as this decision will affect which laptop I will buy.
Once again, I want light weight and good battery life, but i do not want to sacrifice the ability to run the above mentioned programs.
 
M

MercenaryForHire

Lifer
Jan 31, 2002
40,819
2
0
Originally posted by: AirForceElite
Hey guys.
I am stuck with 2 laptop.

First its an AMD 64 X2 1.6GHz laptop with 1 gig of ram. It comes with Nvidia 7200 dedicated video card.

The other is Intel Core Duo 1.6GHz with 1 gig of ram. It comes with Intel GMA950.

I have already decided that gaming on a laptop = needs money.
I decided to drop gaming on a laptop altogether. I dont want my laptop to play games, but I do want battery life and light weight.

I was told on many other forums that integrated video cards are best for battery life...but then again, I want to run certain applications, and dont know if Intel GMA950 will do the job.]

Apps, i want to run:

Photoshop, playing DVD, watching movies (non-dvd), Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas and most importantly, VISTA AERO interface

Will any of the above mentioned programs require a dedicated video card (even though it is low end) or will it be fine with integrated Intel GMA950?

Please help me guys, as this decision will affect which laptop I will buy.
Once again, I want light weight and good battery life, but i do not want to sacrifice the ability to run the above mentioned programs.
Click to expand...

Post the exact models of the two laptops in question, and their respective prices, and we'll be better able to tell you which is the better choice. :)

For what you're asking - the GMA950 will be just fine, though it will nab a bit of your system memory to do it. Maybe 32MB at max, none of that stuff is GPU-intensive. The Core Duo (T2050/T2060/T2250?) is also probably the better buy as far as battery life is concerned.

- M4H
 
R

Roguestar

Diamond Member
Aug 29, 2006
6,045
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Aero will want a decent graphics card but for all the rest of that 2D stuff you should be perfectly fine.
 
M

MercenaryForHire

Lifer
Jan 31, 2002
40,819
2
0
Originally posted by: AirForceElite
Intel GMA950
http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetai...=laptop%5F1000%5F1499&logon=&langid=EN

Nvidia 6150:
http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetai...=laptop%5F1000%5F1499&logon=&langid=EN

i cant decide if i really need Nvidia 6150 which is also integrated (but still much better than GMA 950) if i dont plan to play any games.

I think better question would be: What advantages would Nvidia 6150 bring over Intel GMA 950
Click to expand...

1. You can probably get better deals elsewhere - check in-store at your local FS/Staples to see if they have similar models. Or try pricematching. :)
2. GF6150 isn't much better than the GMA950, actually. You'll get some compatibility for it being an nVidia GPU, so applications/games will recognize it as having more features - but it's too slow to take advantage of them. PureVideo might be useful for DVD playback though.
3. C2D vs Turion X2 isn't even remotely fair. Regular CD has an edge over the Turion X2 clock-for-clock, so even the rock-bottom T5200 will take the X2 out behind the woodshed in speed and battery life. The GF6150 > GMA950 won't be enough to make up for this.
4. Canada FTW! :D

- M4H
 
A

AirForceElite

Senior member
Nov 8, 2004
268
0
0
Mercenary, thanks.
I really dont know what to think anymore.
I have been told that Nvidia 6150 will be able to run todays games on lowest settings, and GMA950 will not. Now you say that 6150 isnt much better than GMA950, which means it cant run games even on lowest settings?

I went to future Shop, and this is what they have:
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/prodde...gid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10081884&catid=

Good model, but it doesnt even have ExpressCard or PCMCIA slot...which sucks to be honest. Its kind of outdated not to have ExpressCard.

And i found this:!!!
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/prodde...gid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10081159&catid=
It is same price as BestBuy model, but it has 2GB of ram instead of 1GB (but 100GB hdd instead of 120GB)! thanks a lot for pointing me to FutureShop, they got much better deals than BestBuy.

Now, the only thing i need to do is decide Nvidia 6150 vs GMA950. If i can decide that, i am pretty much buying laptop from FutureShop....you cant beat 2GB of ram over 1GB for the same price.
 
M

MercenaryForHire

Lifer
Jan 31, 2002
40,819
2
0
Originally posted by: AirForceElite
Mercenary, thanks.
I really dont know what to think anymore.
I have been told that Nvidia 6150 will be able to run todays games on lowest settings, and GMA950 will not. Now you say that 6150 isnt much better than GMA950, which means it cant run games even on lowest settings?
Click to expand...

They're both going to be at about identical levels of power - which is to say, they'll both be able to run semi-recent games (Far Cry, Doom 3, HL2) on their lowest settings at 20-30fps. If you're lucky. Games like Oblivion and FEAR are out of the question. :p

For IGP solutions, the more RAM the merrier. There's a YouTube video of someone playing HL2 on a Macbook (GMA950) with 2GB of RAM, and it's moving along pretty damned nicely - except for the flashlight. ;)

I went to future Shop, and this is what they have:
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/prodde...gid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10081884&catid=

Good model, but it doesnt even have ExpressCard or PCMCIA slot...which sucks to be honest. Its kind of outdated not to have ExpressCard.

And i found this:!!!
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/prodde...gid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10081159&catid=
It is same price as BestBuy model, but it has 2GB of ram instead of 1GB (but 100GB hdd instead of 120GB)! thanks a lot for pointing me to FutureShop, they got much better deals than BestBuy.

Now, the only thing i need to do is decide Nvidia 6150 vs GMA950. If i can decide that, i am pretty much buying laptop from FutureShop....you cant beat 2GB of ram over 1GB for the same price.
Click to expand...

Check in-store as well; sometimes there's promotions or "manager's specials" that you won't find online. And there's always the "clearance models."

- M4H
 
S

StopSign

Senior member
Dec 15, 2006
986
0
0
Originally posted by: Roguestar
Aero will want a decent graphics card but for all the rest of that 2D stuff you should be perfectly fine.
Click to expand...
Aero runs butter smooth on my GMA950. My laptop has a T5600 in it.

Maybe Aero isn't as graphically intensive as people make it out to be?
 
A

AirForceElite

Senior member
Nov 8, 2004
268
0
0
Mercenary, when you say that nvidia 6150 is not that much better than gma950, are you talking of personal experience? i think i am gonna actually buy a 8GB flash drive, and install World of Warcraft on it, and plug it into laptop and play and see how each one peforms (World of warcraft doesnt use registry..so u can install it on any USB flash drive and play wherever this is USB)
 
M

MercenaryForHire

Lifer
Jan 31, 2002
40,819
2
0
Originally posted by: AirForceElite
Mercenary, when you say that nvidia 6150 is not that much better than gma950, are you talking of personal experience? i think i am gonna actually buy a 8GB flash drive, and install World of Warcraft on it, and plug it into laptop and play and see how each one peforms (World of warcraft doesnt use registry..so u can install it on any USB flash drive and play wherever this is USB)
Click to expand...

Not on the GF6150 - but from the benchmarks I've seen and discussions here, it performs similarily to the GMA950.

Anyhow, I thought you said that gaming was a secondary or even tertiary need of this machine? They're both going to run pretty much identically in the 2D/Aero realm, and playing anything more recent than Q3A is going to be wholly unsatisfying. ;)

Oh, and WoW is going to run like crap from a flash drive regardless of the GPU. :p

- M4H
 
A

AirForceElite

Senior member
Nov 8, 2004
268
0
0
Will 7200/7300 somehow improve the gameplay?

i know i mentioned no games in first post, but just assuming that there is a laptop available that has 7200/7300 in it which is a dedicated card, will it at least somehow play todays games on lowest settings?
 
gsellis

gsellis

Diamond Member
Dec 4, 2003
6,061
0
0
What I dislike in the price range is the HDD. 5400 is better than 4200, but with a premium NLE, it can be dicey. Using Liquid as the example, if I capture DV via firewire (did not check those for firewire - do they?) I can drop frames with a 4200 on a lappie. As DV comes in, it is split into a video file and 2/4 PCM WAV files through the logger. Those files are processed by the CPU and audio processor. So, normal loggers can drop frames because of what they do with the streams and SMPTE timecodes. A basic logger that just creates a DV-AVI file is fine (EZ Capture util in Liquid).

The nVidia video might work better with Vegas/Premiere than the 950, but I have never seen benchmarks saying one way or the other. Check both Sony and Adobe's forums for guys who might already have one.
 
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