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Hello everyone,
I have a small tech question for y'all.

I would like to play stalker on my laptop. Now it requires a nvidia 5700.

My laptop has a generic default GPU that other wise fulfills all the graphical requirements (Dx9 support, over 128 ram, and so on)

Now the question is, can my laptop still run the game? According to Can You Run It, it can't due to the mismatch, but I would like to make sure.

I would generally regard that as accurate. You can also always look up the requirements to run the game and see what minimum GPU is needed.

Generally, for video games, a GPU upgrade is going to give you the highest percentage increase in performance.

VermGho5t wrote:I would generally regard that as accurate. You can also always look up the requirements to run the game and see what minimum GPU is needed.

Generally, for video games, a GPU upgrade is going to give you the highest percentage increase in performance.

yes, but here's the thing.

My laptop GPU matches the system requirements perfectly. No problem with that.
However, the Can You Run It (found here http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx) keeps saying that it won't work, because the Laptop GPU isn't a nvidia whatever. And that's the confusing thing.

What GPU does your laptop have?

That site might be having issues due to a huge list of factors, some being the version of your video drivers to the browser you're running.

AresX8 wrote:What GPU does your laptop have?

That site might be having issues due to a huge list of factors, some being the version of your video drivers to the browser you're running.

Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family

And as I said, it always meets the graphical requirements (sufficient ram and so on), but the site keeps failing it because its not a nvidia or whatever.

I'd ignore the website tbh.
Some of these sites are specifcailly aligned with gfx card makers and will say something like "Needs a Nvidia card!!!" because they support Nvidia or whoever.

Stalker is the old game set around Chernobyl right?
How old is your laptop and how high spec is it?
It should run Stalker fine assuming its not ancient, however bear in mind its a choppy game overall, it wasnt coded particularly well. I ran it back in the day on a high end desktop and it was still choppy and rough in places.
Just a caveat to consider.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another alterntive is to try and get a free demo of it (Steam maybe?), try it on your laptop and see if it runs ok.

Ratius wrote:I'd ignore the website tbh.
Some of these sites are specifcailly aligned with gfx card makers and will say something like "Needs a Nvidia card!!!" because they support Nvidia or whoever.

Stalker is the old game set around Chernobyl right?
How old is your laptop and how high spec is it?
It should run Stalker fine assuming its not ancient, however bear in mind its a choppy game overall, it wasnt coded particularly well. I ran it back in the day on a high end desktop and it was still choppy and rough in places.
Just a caveat to consider.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another alterntive is to try and get a free demo of it (Steam maybe?), try it on your laptop and see if it runs ok.

Ok, I'll give it a run.
My laptop isn't too old. Its a Win7 64bit Dell latitude E6400, so it may be fine.

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/intelgm45/sb/CS-029450.htm

Bear in mind though that because its an integrated card and not a dedicated gfx unit, it'll leech of your laptops memory too.
So if its as 128 RAM which isnt brilliant tbh, it'll use some of your laptops general RAM to help out.
I'd suggest running absolutely nothing in the background as a result.

How much RAM does the gfx have overall? 128?
How much RAM does your laptop have?

Well if you don't mind having the game on low, crappy settings then you MAY be able to run it. Onboard laptop gfx cards are usually really s**te and depending on your RAM, it will probably stuggle alot of the time. Canyourunit and yougamers (i prefer yougamers tbh) can compare it with the system requirements BUT don't really take into consideration what settings and resolution you can play it, also it can say you meet the requirements even if you will really only get low FPS.

Ratius wrote:http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/intelgm45/sb/CS-029450.htm

Bear in mind though that because its an integrated card and not a dedicated gfx unit, it'll leech of your laptops memory too.
So if its as 128 RAM which isnt brilliant tbh, it'll use some of your laptops general RAM to help out.
I'd suggest running absolutely nothing in the background as a result.

How much RAM does the gfx have overall? 128?
How much RAM does your laptop have?

like 775 mb apparently.
2.00 GB physical ram

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

AresX8 wrote:What GPU does your laptop have?

That site might be having issues due to a huge list of factors, some being the version of your video drivers to the browser you're running.

Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family

And as I said, it always meets the graphical requirements (sufficient ram and so on), but the site keeps failing it because its not a nvidia or whatever.

Don't bother. That won't run any of the STALKER games.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:yes, but here's the thing.

My laptop GPU matches the system requirements perfectly. No problem with that.
However, the Can You Run It (found here http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx) keeps saying that it won't work, because the Laptop GPU isn't a nvidia whatever. And that's the confusing thing.

That's like being a little bit pregnant. Either it matches, or it does not. If you have an integrated graphics card, than it doesn't match the system requirements, at all.

Ratius wrote:I'd ignore the website tbh.
Some of these sites are specifcailly aligned with gfx card makers and will say something like "Needs a Nvidia card!!!" because they support Nvidia or whoever.

Respectfully, this absolutely, 100% horrible advice. Which is kind of par for the course for the computing advice I've seen on Dakka Dakka - you guys need to head to Tom's Hardware or Guru 3D or someplace like that with your computing questions. While it's true there are fanboys and shilling of the type you reference, it's chip designer based, not implementation based, and that's the real issue here.

Look, here's how it works. There are 2 kinds of graphics cards: discrete and integrated (this is simplified, before I get jumped on for being imprecise).

A discrete graphics card consists of a graphics chip (GPU), it's own dedicated memory (VRAM), and is an all-in-one package. It slots into your computer via a port that is designed for it (on a desktop, this is a PCI express 2.0 port, on a laptop it varies or it's hardwired onto the board). The makes of these graphics cards vary but they have a GPU made by either Nvidia or ATI (AMD).

The other kind of chip, integrated, is just a GPU somewhere on your motherboard, and instead of having it's own VRAM, it uses your computer's RAM. Integrated chips are very, very cheap to implement and it's why so many low-end computers have them. As a matter of fact, the newer Sandy Bridge Intel processors actually have integrated graphics right on the CPU, so you don't even need a separate chip! Cost savings extreme for OEM's. There are integrated chips using Nvidia, ATI, but mostly at this point, Intel GMA. This is what you most likely have - a Intel 4500GMA or something very similar.

Integrated chips by nature are significantly less capable of doing things. That's why they cost so much less! Integrated chips are good at displaying your graphic output, and using some on-chip code, and under very specific circumstances they can accelerate very specific kinds of video streams, which is why they boast of being HD ready. There are virtually no integrated Intel chips that are capable of running graphically intensive modern games at acceptable framerates with acceptable settings, period. There are newer hybrid boards that use an Nvidia or ATI GPU but are otherwise integrated that will be somewhat more successful, but as a rule, an integrated chipset will not deliver good gaming performance because laptop memory is much, much slower than actual, dedicated video ram (DDR3 vs GDDR5). .

Finally, the main question of, will it run Stalker? What version of STALKER are we talking about? Generally speaking for most games the GPU is the absolute most important factor there is, with some rare exceptions (Supreme Commander preferred a strong CPU since it had an enormous amount of physics). Some games will flat out refuse to install on unsupported hardware, but this is rare. More likely, if this is the older STALKER, it will install and run, and you will have to turn down the resolution enormously, turn off most effects, etc, and still will never really get an acceptable framerate. That might be OK for puzzle games, but I'd prefer not to play an FPS in this conditions.

Assuming we mean STALKER: Shadow of Chernyobl, then here's what you're likely to experience. Decide for yourself if you'd be happy with this.




If you mean STALKER: Call of Pripyat. they have a benchmark when you can get here. It's 440mb.

Oh wow...that made me nauseous.
Thanks for the detailed answer, Ouze. Looks like I'll have to wait till I get my desktop back.

Respectfully, this absolutely, 100% horrible advice. Which is kind of par for the course for the computing advice I've seen on Dakka Dakka - you guys need to head to Tom's Hardware or Guru 3D or someplace like that with your computing questions. While it's true there are fanboys and shilling of the type you reference, it's chip designer based, not implementation based, and that's the real issue here.

Was going to link to Toms, have been there since 2005 but it is a site for those that have a basic level of knowledge imho. Its a gak gfx unit and laptop vs Stalker, Ouze, basic knowledge, no offense Cthulu

Look, here's how it works. There are 2 kinds of graphics cards: discrete and integrated (this is simplified, before I get jumped on for being imprecise).

A discrete graphics card consists of a graphics chip (GPU), it's own dedicated memory (VRAM), and is an all-in-one package. It slots into your computer via a port that is designed for it (on a desktop, this is a PCI express 2.0 port, on a laptop it varies or it's hardwired onto the board). The makes of these graphics cards vary but they have a GPU made by either Nvidia or ATI (AMD).

Ratius

Bear in mind though that because its an integrated card and not a dedicated gfx unit, it'll leech of your laptops memory too.
So if its as 128 RAM which isnt brilliant tbh, it'll use some of your laptops general RAM to help out.

The other kind of chip, integrated, is just a GPU somewhere on your motherboard, and instead of having it's own VRAM, it uses your computer's RAM. Integrated chips are very, very cheap to implement and it's why so many low-end computers have them. As a matter of fact, the newer Sandy Bridge Intel processors actually have integrated graphics right on the CPU, so you don't even need a separate chip! Cost savings extreme for OEM's. There are integrated chips using Nvidia, ATI, but mostly at this point, Intel GMA. This is what you most likely have - a Intel 4500GMA or something very similar.

Integrated chips by nature are significantly less capable of doing things. That's why they cost so much less! Integrated chips are good at displaying your graphic output, and using some on-chip code, and under very specific circumstances they can accelerate very specific kinds of video streams, which is why they boast of being HD ready. There are virtually no integrated Intel chips that are capable of running graphically intensive modern games at acceptable framerates with acceptable settings, period. There are newer hybrid boards that use an Nvidia or ATI GPU but are otherwise integrated that will be somewhat more successful, but as a rule, an integrated chipset will not deliver good gaming performance because laptop memory is much, much slower than actual, dedicated video ram (DDR3 vs GDDR5). .

Finally, the main question of, will it run Stalker? What version of STALKER are we talking about? Generally speaking for most games the GPU is the absolute most important factor there is, with some rare exceptions (Supreme Commander preferred a strong CPU since it had an enormous amount of physics). Some games will flat out refuse to install on unsupported hardware, but this is rare. More likely, if this is the older STALKER, it will install and run, and you will have to turn down the resolution enormously, turn off most effects, etc, and still will never really get an acceptable framerate. That might be OK for puzzle games, but I'd prefer not to play an FPS in this conditions.

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/intelgm45/sb/CS-029450.htm

Bear in mind though that because its an integrated card and not a dedicated gfx unit, it'll leech of your laptops memory too.
So if its as 128 RAM which isnt brilliant tbh, it'll use some of your laptops general RAM to help out.
I'd suggest running absolutely nothing in the background as a result.

It will run Stalker pretty well but I asked what are his specs?
Never quoted res or framerate etc Ouze, I (arrogantly - agreed) took it that his CPU/GFX to be minimum for Stalker, c'mon its so goddam ancient it cant but run it.

CTS - everyone will give you advice on PCs/laptops till your eyes bleed, get a free demo mate like I said early on and try it out
Assuming we mean STALKER: Shadow of Chernyobl, then here's what you're likely to experience. Decide for yourself if you'd be happy with this.

Sorry Ouze, I loathe quote battles but its 2am :(

Ta me tuirseach

Ratius wrote:Sorry Ouze, I loathe quote battles but its 2am :(

Ta me tuirseach

Aw, we cool /fistbump

Hehe cúpla pointí mo cairde