a better graphics card

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Zetaro · #1 Post by **Zetaro** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 5:42 pm

There has to be a way to either increase the memory size of the graphics card or get another graphics card for for this laptop, their just has to! i know you cant upgrade the graphics card and external graphics cards don't seem to exist. does anyone know of any ways that i could increase its power?

thinkpad t40

twistero · #2 Post by **twistero** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 6:19 pm

If it were a T400/410/420/500/510/520 with express card slot (as the forum title may suggest), you could use an external video card. But a T40? I don't think so.

wolfman · #3 Post by **wolfman** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 6:25 pm

Zetaro wrote:There has to be a way to either increase the memory size of the graphics card or get another graphics card for for this laptop, their just has to! i know you cant upgrade the graphics card and external graphics cards don't seem to exist. does anyone know of any ways that i could increase its power?

thinkpad t40

Unfortunately, no, it's likely time for a new laptop. Welcome to the forum BTW.

Zetaro · #4 Post by **Zetaro** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 7:45 pm

thanks and poo. well i don't have the cash to afford another computer. the last laptop i got was just few years old and it doesn't work any more. but from what i hear you can allocate memory to the graphics card so long as its integrated. i'm not sure that you can do that with this laptop but i wouldn't mind trying it if i knew how.

wolfman · #5 Post by **wolfman** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 8:43 pm

Could you give us an idea what you are doing with the laptop that requires the extra video RAM and it might give an idea if there are other suggestions we could make?

#6 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 9:33 pm

You can replace the T40 motherboard with one that has more GPU horsepower (either 64MB or 128MB videoram).
Check my motherboard list for part numbers: http://theboardroom.info/ibm_list.htm

Zetaro · #7 Post by **Zetaro** » Fri Jul 13, 2012 12:16 am

well i want more vram because i wanted to play some awesome games like no more room in hell. but i cant because every game now days needs at least 512mb vram and even then theres no promise that the game wont be laggy. im just without any good games to play cuz my xbox went out a few months ago and my older brother lended me his but my little bro is always on it. so now im just sitting in a dark room with nothing to do......i guess my only option is to buy a new computer and deal with it for 7 to 8 months....and maybe not even then.

#8 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Fri Jul 13, 2012 6:11 am

You'd be better off with a desktop.
Other than those from Alienware, laptops are not suited for gaming.

BoydWiggins · #9 Post by **BoydWiggins** » Sat Jul 14, 2012 11:47 am

RealBlackStuff wrote:You'd be better off with a desktop.
Other than those from Alienware, laptops are not suited for gaming.

Not true at all. Companies like Malibal make insanely powerful laptops for just about any need; and they are cheap.

Zetaro · #10 Post by **Zetaro** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 9:21 pm

my older has a alienware laptop and it runs great! but didnt want to spend $1200 on something like that.

ajkula66 · #11 Post by **ajkula66** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 9:45 pm

BoydWiggins wrote: Not true at all. Companies like Malibal make insanely powerful laptops for just about any need; and they are cheap.

You're kidding, right?

Just went to their website and a fairly basic 15.6" offering ran me close to $2K...with a 1-year warranty...

Orclas · #12 Post by **Orclas** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 6:22 am

RealBlackStuff wrote:You'd be better off with a desktop.
Other than those from Alienware, laptops are not suited for gaming.

QFT, unless we're talking about some very old (or simple) games and on a T40 you can forget just about any decent game which was released the last 8-10 years.

To OP: Sorry to hear your frustration and sorry to point out the bad news, but you may just as well know and that it's not only the 512Mb VRAM which is the problem. Here we go with an example:

The last game I really played was World of Warcraft, which launched in 2004/2005. First computer I played on was a P4 with a 6600GT GPU and with the following benchmarks:

CPU: ~400
GPU: ~250

T40 on the other hand:
CPU: ~300
GPU: ~85

As you can see, the T40 would have been quite far behind an average desktop with a mid level GPU already then and there's no way that desktop would run any "real" games released the last five years, much less the T40, which would have choked on most new games already back then.

Your best bet would be to try to source a cheap 3-5 year old desktop with a decent GPU, that way I'm sure you could find some games that would run decently (although no really recent releases, except for example WoW, which is made to also run on old'ish hardware).

Zetaro · #13 Post by **Zetaro** » Sat Jul 21, 2012 10:23 am

hey the weirdest thing just happened, i was just playin' around and i got one of the games i wanted to play to work and i was like how is this possible, it didnt work before. i looked at the VRAM again and it went UP?!?!?! i wonder what i did to make that happen? it went from 32mb to 276mb....hmmm curious.

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