Solved! Need advice on upgrading Dell Laptop

[skitheeast36]

I currently have a Dell Dimension E510 and cannot play any games at all. I want to start to get back into gaming and am planning on purchasing a desktop in the next month or two.

I also recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 15r i5 Laptop , 4gb Ram 640G HD,Intel HD Graphics 3000, up to 1.6GB Video Memory. I know this isnt a gaming laptop by any means, but I would rather put some $ into this than get a whole knew desktop. That way the desktop can be used for homework and web browsing while the desktop can be the one for gaming/portable for college.


I would like to play games like Diablo ,Left4Dead and others, but can't with my current desktop. Would it be better to invest in a whole knew desktop or upgrade my laptop. Id much rather put in 1-200 in my laptop than get a whole new desktop. If so, what would I upgrade?

Any help is appreciated, thanks so much! Im pretty new to laptops/desktops, but would like to learn more!

 

[jsc]

Laptops, in general, have very limited upgrade options outside of RAM and hard disks.

For any kind of decent gaming, you either need a big bucks laptop or a desktop system.

 

[WR2]

Intel HD Graphics 3000
Diablo & Left4Dead

Your laptop will run those games.
Half Life 2, Far Cry, World of Warcraft - older games like that, will run on low settings.

It won't be possible to upgrade the laptop graphics for better performance.


Why can't your Dell Dimension E510 not run games?

 

[skitheeast36]

Im guessing its the video card, I tried running COD World at War and it wouldnt even start up... Would upgrading my video card solve the problem?

 

[howardp6]

Sorry you cannot upgrade the video card. There is no dedicated graphics card in your laptop.

 

[skitheeast36]

Sorry you cannot upgrade the video card. There is no dedicated graphics card in your laptop.

And Im guessing putting 4 more GB of RAM wont really improve gaming either?

 

[WR2]

What video card do you have in the desktop?
What amount of RAM and which CPU?

 

[WR2]

Here is a review of a Dell Dimension E510
It had a Pentium D 820 2.8Ghz dual core CPU & 1GB of RAM and a ATI Radeon X600/256mb graphics card.
Your system could have different parts.

 

[skitheeast36]

Yep, all stock . What should I look to get for this to run at least some games...

 

[x Heavy]

And I think BF3 will not support mobile video anyway.

I would simply put together a desktop. But don't build what your ass cannot lift and carry to the lan.

 

[skitheeast36]

Would upgrading my video card be a solution to running some games, such as Left 4 Dead 2?

According to systemrequirements:

CPU
Recommended: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz
You Have: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz
PASS


CPU Speed
Recommended: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz
You Have: 2.8 GHz Performance Rated at: 31.136 GHz
PASS


RAM
Recommended: 1 GB for XP or 2GB for Vista/7
You Have: 1022.1 MB
PASS


OS
Recommended: Windows® 7 / Vista / Vista64 / XP
You Have: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (build 2600)
PASS


Video Card
Recommended: DirectX 9 compatible video card with Shader model 3.0. NVIDIA GeForce 7600, ATI Radeon X1600 or better

You Have: RADEON X600 (0x5B62)

Upgrade Suggested: Unfortunately, your Video Card does not meet this requirement.

Features: Recommended attributes of your Video Card

Required You Have
Video RAM 128 MB 365.0 MB
Hardware T&L Yes Yes
Pixel Shader version 3.0 2.0
Vertex Shader version 3.0 2.0



Sound Card
Recommended: Yes
You Have: SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC
PASS


Free Disk Space
Recommended: At least 7.5 GB of free space
You Have: 26.9 GB

 

[WR2]

A $30 graphics card upgrade would let you start gaming on your desktop.
XFX Radeon HD 4670
Would be a good idea to increase the RAM to 2GB as well.

 

[skitheeast36]

Sweet, I don't want to overdue it but I have ~100 to put into graphics card/RAM... 2gb of ram is what, 20$? Would getting an even better graphics card than the one mentioned above let me play on higher settings?

 

[WR2]

Yes it would. But you're also getting into the zone where you'd need to consider a power supply upgrade as well.
That 5 or 6 yeard old 305W power supply probably won't support the best graphics card you could afford.

It's probably time to start up a new topic in the Systems forum and ask for upgrading advice there.