Graphics cards

[nick_pan]

My final informative post for the time being.

Graphics cards in Sony Vaios..

The question, 'can i upgrade my gfx card?' from what I can see is one of the most popular question on this forum..
The short answer, as many of you know is NO. Graphics cards are integrated onto the motherboard and therefore cannot be changed until we start seeing PCI Express slots in laptops in a year or two..

'Are there newer drivers for my gfx card? because i can't see any listed on the sony website..'
Currently NO..as Sony seem to be quite sluggish releasing new drivers for their laptop components. As far as i know, there are a few alternatives which ARE NOT SUPPORTED BY SONY.
For example, Omega have released their ATI Catalyst drivers which support a majority of ATI's mobility range.
You can get them here; http://downloads.driverheaven.net/index4.htm

A few things to mention about these,
a) They have reportedly messed up some peoples laptops so use them at your own risk
b) dont think updated drivers = better gfx
c) this set of drivers has overclocking utilities which is extremely unwise in a laptop due to overheating issues..
If you burn out of gfx card because you've overclocked it, its highly unlikely that Sony will fix it.


The drivers that come with most sony laptops are sufficient enough, and you should stick with them until there is an official driver update for their gfx cards..

Furthermore, rather than updating the gfx cards drivers, make sure u look out official game patches, for the game u wish to play, as in my experience, these often improve game play due to glitches which the game devs have now fixed.

Also make sure that your laptop is in good order before you try play any demanding game. See this post http://www.club-vaio.sony-europe.com/clubvaio/mvnforum/viewthread?thread=11565 , which shows u how to ensure your vaio is running at peak performance..

Finally, a laptop is a laptop. In this day and age, they will never be as powerful as a desktop so dont expect superb graphics in any game that you play. Laptop graphics cards are cut down versions of desktop graphics cards. A radeon 9600 for example, is alot more powerful than the ATI Radeion Mobility edition seen in laptops..

For this reason, dont be too hopeful. I would like to add, that as long as your willing to play with your gfx options set to MEDIUM or LOW, a ATI Radeon Mobility 9200, should still allow you play some of todays most demanding games; Farcry for example..

Happy gaming!

[kee-lo_]

ROFL that takes the biscuit.

The cheek of them...
Tell them you have updated it but no joy.

[nick_pan]

system analysis programs often correct errors of page files that have been increased by the user

restore it to its default size as making it any bigger is just wasting resources...

Furthermore, your comment about moving the sims into a bigger house resulting in your system crashing made me laugh

:smileygrin: however, you never know! that could be the case tho i seriously doubt it...

Email sony back (we're all doing it) and demand new gfx drivers cause this is getting ridiculous

[kee-lo_]

Furthermore, your comment about moving the sims into a bigger house resulting in your system crashing made me laugh 

Moving house always causes problems

[TygerTyger]

LOL that Sony email is hilarious. It looks very much like a template email from last year to me. You can almost hear the "Duhhhhhh whadda we do now boss?" in the background, cartoon style.......

Actually it may well be a big house that's crashing you it's not so ridiculous, bigger houses certainly eat considerably more resources as they did in the first game, it's possible it overloaded you I suppose...Be sure to disable Antivirus(turn off your internet connection first) and other similarly memory hungry programs.

I'm frankly astonished the Sony haven't said to you they are releasing new drivers, they MUST do if new programs simply don't work without them. Anyway, I'm going to email them with my vote for new drivers in my silver-tongued way. I'm sure I won't be the only one.

[kee-lo_]

As you have said before William playing games on a PC is riddled with issues anyway.

[Qarinx]

Actually it may well be a big house that's crashing you it's not so ridiculous, bigger houses certainly eat considerably more resources as they did in the first game, it's possible it overloaded you I suppose...Be sure to disable Antivirus(turn off your internet connection first) and other similarly memory hungry programs.

If you ask me, the house wasn't that big at all.. just a regular house that comes with the game. Adding family members is also a big no-no by the way..

I'm going to email Sony again, because I think that they offer really crappy support. Especially when I compare it to the support I got from EA Games. They looked at my dxdiag file, gave me lots of advice and told me that if the game still didn't work I could send them the dxdiag file again... but since I still haven't tried the game with an updated driver, I can't email them to ask them for more help.

[kee-lo_]

Actually I think it's Millhouse in charge of e-mail over there Tyger..... uuuuuuuuh hey Bart, lets get some squishiees.

[fotiselianos]

does anybody know what is the latest version of ati mobility 9200 I have an A series vaio and on driver update there is nothing about ATI drivers.
Does this mean that there is no driver update??

Also I would like to ask you about this driver modding program.ATI's catalyst drivers has stopped supporting models <9500 so how can I use catalyst drivers with the modding program?

thanx

[viliondzas]

Hi, im new to this forum.

I have a vaio GRT815M it has a nvidia fx 5600 mobile (64mb) video card, but nowadays its quite slow, and im thinking about updating it. I know that it is imposible to upgrade it... But i have an idea, i was wondering what size and connection uses my card, then search for a similar card (in size and connection) in new vaio models, ring up spares shop and order one.

What do you think?