Laptop graphics

[Ken Ibold]

My son has a Toshiba Satellite L655 laptop (4 megs of RAM) that he would like to enhance the graphics on for game playing.

When he plays certain games, the video gets choppy and lags the sound a bit. To me, that sounds like an overworked graphics card. However, I don't know if this model has a separate graphics card that can be upgraded. Anybody?

Would one of the external USB graphics goes-intas suffice? He has an external monitor he can use if we go that route.

The computer says the video processor is Intel 64 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10, speed is 2294 mHz

 

[rpadula]

Ken,

There are about 30 different Intel-based models of the Toshiba L655 series!

http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/satellite/L650/available-models

All but one use the Intel integrated graphics, which has no video memory of its own, but shares with your system RAM. They don't seem to have any expansion slots either.

You're pretty much SOL.

 

[Arbiter419]

All but one use the Intel integrated graphics, which has no video memory of its own, but shares with your system RAM. They don't seem to have any expansion slots either.

You're pretty much SOL.

Yup, 'fraid so.

 

[Ken Ibold]

Would goosing up the RAM help at all?

 

[Henning]

Would goosing up the RAM help at all?

Depends on the OS and what he has right now. IIRC the 32bit OS will only work 3GB ram, the 64 bit system will handle more. Whether it helps any, I'd be guessing, but if he only has minimum memory, it's worth a shot as it's all you have to try.

 

[jesse]

Would goosing up the RAM help at all?

With the games? Not if the video card is not up to snuff.

 

[Ken Ibold]

Depends on the OS and what he has right now. IIRC the 32bit OS will only work 3GB ram, the 64 bit system will handle more. Whether it helps any, I'd be guessing, but if he only has minimum memory, it's worth a shot as it's all you have to try.

It's a 64 bit processor with 4 gigs of RAM. Not sure how much will fit in it.

 

[Henning]

It's a 64 bit processor with 4 gigs of RAM. Not sure how much will fit in it.

It's not just about the processor, the OS counts as well. If he's running Win7 64bit, he'll be able to take more, but if that's what he has, I doubt adding more will help, but??? Anyway, it's really the only thing you can do with laptops as far as upgrades go. That's why gamers and sim guys still build towers because it allows you to upgrade components.

 

[jandersen]

USB graphics cards are pretty cool, but USB bandwidth is way too small to do any decent gaming.

 

[Ken Ibold]

Thanks guys. When he got his computer last year, he was all hot to get a laptop. I guess he learned something.

Experience: That thing you have just after you needed it.

 

[Keith Lane]

Thanks guys. When he got his computer last year, he was all hot to get a laptop. I guess he learned something.

Experience: That thing you have just after you needed it.

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.....
True in planes and in parental advice as well.

 

[Ken Ibold]

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.....
True in planes and in parental advice as well.

I'm giving him something of a hard time. When he picked out his computer and still now, I endorsed his pick. When he goes to college in a year it will be worth more to him than the value of playing games on it this summer.

 

[Paul Allen]

I'm giving him something of a hard time. When he picked out his computer and still now, I endorsed his pick. When he goes to college in a year it will be worth more to him than the value of playing games on it this summer.

When he goes to college in a year it will be outdated and time for you to buy him a new one.

 

[JOhnH]

My suspicion is that more memory would help, if your system and OS supports it.

I suggest going to crucial.com and having it scan your system. It will tell you how much memory you have. eg: two 2gb simms or four 1GB simms or whatever.
It will also tell you how much your system can handle and suggest potential upgrades. You can buy the memory from them, or just exit and take the info they give you and buy it wherever you want. Their prices are ususaly very good and their quality is good too, although I prefer to spend an extra few dollars to support a local merchant.

If you have a 32 bit system, you might be able install up to 4gb but you will only be able to address about 3.5GB of that. Anything over that will be wasted. If you have a 64bit system your OS will be able to handle huge amounts of addressing space, but your device will limit you to a very finite number of limited size simms. Crucial can help you figure out if you can add more.

 

[Henning]

My suspicion is that more memory would help, if your system and OS supports it.

I suggest going to crucial.com and having it scan your system. It will tell you how much memory you have. eg: two 2gb simms or four 1GB simms or whatever.
It will also tell you how much your system can handle and suggest potential upgrades. You can buy the memory from them, or just exit and take the info they give you and buy it wherever you want. Their prices are ususaly very good and their quality is good too, although I prefer to spend an extra few dollars to support a local merchant.

If you have a 32 bit system, you might be able install up to 4gb but you will only be able to address about 3.5GB of that. Anything over that will be wasted. If you have a 64bit system your OS will be able to handle huge amounts of addressing space, but your device will limit you to a very finite number of limited size simms. Crucial can help you figure out if you can add more.

Ok, went there, I have 6GB they recommend 8GB. Not sure if I'll do it, but maybe...

So, they gave me these two options...

http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=E1A8307BA5CA7304

GB Kit (4GBx2)
DDR3 PC3-8500 • CL=7 • Unbuffered • NON-ECC • DDR3-1066 • 1.5V • 512Meg x 64 • • Part #: CT1335143


US $65.99

8GB Kit (4GBx2)
DDR3 PC3-10600 • CL=9 • Unbuffered • NON-ECC • DDR3-1333 • 1.5V • 512Meg x 64 • • Part #: CT1335135


US $65.99

Can you explain the difference to me keeping in mind I have never read "technogeek magazine" in my life and don't understand "overclocking" and all that fun stuff....

 

[jesse]

Ok, went there, I have 6GB they recommend 8GB. Not sure if I'll do it, but maybe...

So, they gave me these two options...



Can you explain the difference to me keeping in mind I have never read "technogeek magazine" in my life and don't understand "overclocking" and all that fun stuff....

The second one is faster - if that'll make a difference or not depends on your system and the other memory you have in it.

 

[JOhnH]

As Jesse said, the second one is faster. If your system can handle it you will see a tiny bit better performance, IN SITUATIONS WHERE YOUR PERFORMANCE IS IMPACTED BY MEMORY SPEED.

If you system doesn't match up with those faster specs, the faster memory will be throttled back to pretty much the same speed of the first set.

Since you would be replacing all of your memory, it doesn't make much difference. If you were adding memory you would want to match memory module types.

And you must have 64 bit hardware AND OS to take advantage of that much memory.

 

[Henning]

As Jesse said, the second one is faster. If your system can handle it you will see a tiny bit better performance, IN SITUATIONS WHERE YOUR PERFORMANCE IS IMPACTED BY MEMORY SPEED.

If you system doesn't match up with those faster specs, the faster memory will be throttled back to pretty much the same speed of the first set.

Since you would be replacing all of your memory, it doesn't make much difference. If you were adding memory you would want to match memory module types.

And you must have 64 bit hardware AND OS to take advantage of that much memory.

Sony Vaio w/ Core i7 running 64 bit Win7 and a NVIDIA GFORCE video chip set.

 

[JOhnH]

Still a couple of things to consider.
First, the easy one; Are you running a 32bit or 64 bit version of WIN7
1. Click the START button
2. Right click on COMPUTER
3. Click PROPERTIES
4. click on the SYSTEM TAB.

You should be able to see if you are running 32 bit or 64 bit.
If you are running 64 bit, which I suspect you are because you already have 6GB ram, then you are good from a hardware and OS standpoint.

Then the hard question is whether or not your performance is being restricted by a lack of RAM. To be honest, the best way to find that out is to add memory and see if it gets faster. The alternative is to do a technical analysis on your current system and determine what is causing the performance bottlenecks. If you are CPU or network bound, more memory won't help, but if you are I/O bound, it will. Sometimes it is just poor programming. (We always used to blame the programmers first). Bring up the task manager and see if you can determine which resource is busiest.

But assuming you are running 64 bit windows, and you would like to see some improved performance, then spend the $69 and find out. If you are currently memory constrained, you should see a nice boost. If you are not memory constricted you may still see a little boost.

 

[Ken Ibold]

My son did the Crucial.com scan, and found that one 2 GB chip is the 8500 and the other 2 GB chip is 10600. His system can only handle 4 GB of RAM. It's a 64-bit Windows machine running Win7. My question is will changing the 8500 chip to a 10600 chip make any realistic improvement in rendering game graphics? Is it worth asking a poor teenager to "invest" the $30 on a flier?

 

[jesse]

No it's not worth it. He needs a better video card - which he can't get.

 

[gismo]

My son did the Crucial.com scan, and found that one 2 GB chip is the 8500 and the other 2 GB chip is 10600. His system can only handle 4 GB of RAM. It's a 64-bit Windows machine running Win7. My question is will changing the 8500 chip to a 10600 chip make any realistic improvement in rendering game graphics? Is it worth asking a poor teenager to "invest" the $30 on a flier?

Some systems can run each RAM slot at a different speed than the other (I think this requires the Gen2 iCore CPUs) without that capability the faster RAM module will run at the speed of the slower one. But there's also usually an advantage in populating the RAM symmetrically (equal size and speed in each slot) as this allows the memory modules to be accessed alternately (interleaved) effectively doubling the memory bandwidth if the CPU can handle that speed. As to the performance impact on video, that really depends on the graphics operations being performed. Anything that requires a lot of data replacement (e.g. playing videos, loading new scenes, etc) will likely see a performance boost with faster memory access, especially if the system is using Intel's integrated graphics controller. But operations like encoding/decoding and rendering/shading are typically CPU bound and won't be affected much by memory speed. That's where the dedicated graphics controllers with dedicated local memory shine and unfortunately that's also pretty common with action game programs.

And building on what Paul Allen said, if your son is going into an engineering program, the 3D CAD tools used today often benefit as much as games from high end graphic controllers, so when you buy that new laptop for college it might just be good for games as well.