Confused: Laptop Graphics Card (ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics)

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j4ke002

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PLEASE DO NOT REPLY: Confused: Laptop Graphics Card (ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics)

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS TOPIC. My answer has been found now and this topic isnt needed anymore.




Hey everyone. I posted on this forum a few months ago about my laptops graphics card and I am a bit confused. Please read this whole post before replying, because I have a variety of questions. (Also please read the edit at the bottom)

My laptop has an integrated graphics card called the ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics. From what I have read on this page, I believe it would be possible to add this graphics card to my laptop using PCI-E.

Before you say that is impossible (which it probably is), I have used the 'System Info for Windows' to check and see if my laptop has a PCI-E slot. Although it didnt look like there was much, it did say there was 1 PCI slot

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So here are my questions:

1) From this info, do you think it is possible to add a graphics card to my laptop?

2) Is the PCI slot in my laptop full sized or just a mini one? I cant tell.

3) Would it be worth adding the new graphics card (my laptops graphics are poor at best)?

EDIT: I now know its not possible to add another graphics card, but is there any way to increase my graphics performance?
 
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nope, sorry, but pci and pci-e are different, and the 3200 should do anything other than gaming and some intensive programs.
 
It is impossible to add a graphics accelerator to a laptop (it is not a graphics card) because it is not a standalone component as it is on a desktop, but instead a chip on the mainboard, ie integrated graphics. Unlike a desktop where you can simply place a new one in, on a laptop the chip is on the motherboard, so therefore can not simply be swapped. The only way to upgrade graphics performance on a laptop is to get a new laptop
 
jonnyp11 said:
nope, sorry, but pci and pci-e are different, and the 3200 should do anything other than gaming and some intensive programs.
Click to expand...

So the PCI slot that SIW was reffering to is not PCI-E? I thought that maybe SIW categorized them all into PCI.

However, if that is the case, then I am stuck with no gaming for a long time.

Is there any other way I could increase my graphics performance? The only other thing I tried was increasing the amount of shared memory was being used by the Graphics Card using BIOS, but there was no option for that in the BIOS settings.

I am not trying to run games like Crysis. I am however trying to run my gamecube and ps1 emulators, which run at a slowish speed. I also have a little bit of trouble playing minecraft sometimes, however is often runs at 60FPS on good settings.
 
Aastii said:
It is impossible to add a graphics accelerator to a laptop (it is not a graphics card) because it is not a standalone component as it is on a desktop, but instead a chip on the mainboard, ie integrated graphics. Unlike a desktop where you can simply place a new one in, on a laptop the chip is on the motherboard, so therefore can not simply be swapped. The only way to upgrade graphics performance on a laptop is to get a new laptop
Click to expand...

On the graphics card website, it says that this integrated card can use another dedicated card for gaming, and then switch back to the shared graphics card for office applications.
 
there's nothing you can do really.

and for your reply to astii, there is no slot so you can't add a new card in so that information is useless.
 
jonnyp11 said:
there's nothing you can do really.

and for your reply to astii, there is no slot so you can't add a new card in so that information is useless.
Click to expand...

It says there is 1 PCI slot. Is it possible that it means a PCI-E slot, since there is no other sections for PCI slots in the report?
 
What model of laptop do you have? Most likely the pci slot is dedicated to the modem or wireless card. Or it could be the expansion slot on the side of it. The pci slot in laptops can be quite confusing for most people.
 
johnb35 said:
What model of laptop do you have? Most likely the pci slot is dedicated to the modem or wireless card. Or it could be the expansion slot on the side of it. The pci slot in laptops can be quite confusing for most people.
Click to expand...

My Laptop is called the Toshiba Satellite L450D-128. Here is a link.

I have not tried opening the laptop yet, since I am new to computer hardware etc and am afraid that I will be left without a laptop if I do something wrong.
 
j4ke002 said:
On the graphics card website, it says that this integrated card can use another dedicated card for gaming, and then switch back to the shared graphics card for office applications.
Click to expand...
What it's simply saying is that the chip does have this capability if there indeed is a dedicated graphics card (or "accelerator" I should say) on the system. However, there isn't another GPU in your laptop nor does there appear to be a way to connect an external one (these do exist but are rare, expensive and very few laptops have external PCI-E interfaces), so you seem to be out of luck.
 
hackapelite said:
What it's simply saying is that the chip does have this capability if there indeed is a dedicated graphics card (or "accelerator" I should say) on the system. However, there isn't another GPU in your laptop nor does there appear to be a way to connect an external one (these do exist but are rare, expensive and very few laptops have external PCI-E interfaces), so you seem to be out of luck.
Click to expand...

Oh. Well is there any way to increase my current graphics card's performance? I am also looking at buying this computer for heavier gaming and my current laptop as an office/light gaming computer on the go. Is the computer I mentioned any good for gaming? If so, is it a good deal?
 
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It is an ok system, but you can get better for the price.

There is no way to get better graphics performance from your laptop
 
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