Question about gaming on my laptop

[Atvar]

I currently have a sony VGN-FZ140e core 2 duo with 2 gigs of ram and the intel 965 integrated graphics chip.

I recently installed steam and purchased portal, figuring it would run ok on this laptop. Even with everything turned to low and in 800x600 it runs like garbage. I am not expecting great gaming but it should at least be playable I would think. I am reading about people playing bioshock on this chipset and I can't even get portal to run.

I am running windows xp, not vista so I don't know if that makes a difference. I grabbed the latest driver from intel's site just to make sure and it's still a no go. Is there anything anyone can think of?

 

[robisbell]

welcome to gaming on a laptop, per sony "This notebook features the integrated Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 and 224MB of shared video memory?drawn from the main system memory." it means you really only have about 1.75 GB of ram at most, so, depending on what bloatware is preinstalled and running, and the version of OS, will determine how much ram is actually available for the game. I'd remove all unnecessary preloaded software then, run CCleaner, then try running, if it was my pc.

 

[Atvar]

no bloatware. Formatted and installed clean xp. It was loaded out of the box though

 

[robisbell]

well, what programs are installed besides steam, that autostart at bootup?

 

[Atvar]

steam is the only program that starts on boot.

 

[Atvar]

I just ran ccleaner as well and let it do it's thing.

 

[robisbell]

CCleaner has 2 option that have to be run multiple time each "Cleaner" and "registry" till they can hit 100% without any errors.

 

[Atvar]

yep did that

 

[robisbell]

hmm, I just think it's the fact you're using probably about 1GB of ram to try and run the game, I'd have to recheck the redommended memry for Portal is, as well as the graphics.

 

[Atvar]

Can't find the reqs for portal at the moment but I looked up half life 2 which portal is based off of and the min is 256 megs of ram max 512 and min dx 7 graphics card max dx9 with 256 megs of memory. It just seems I should get at least playable performance. I don't know, I might be wrong

 

[robisbell]

min for Portal is 512, and recommended is 1Gb of free ram. and with that X3100 graphics been placed below many other laptop video cards, I'd say you've a nice video editing or watching machine, but as for gaming, no one recommends a X3100 for gaming.