Will I fry my PC...

[Equasion]

Sorry if this is the wrong section, had to choose one.

Will I fry my PC if I install a game with pretty tough graphics requirements, even if I don't meet them?

For example...I have an integrated graphics card in my laptop (GMA 900)...would my computer fry if I attempted to install something which required, say a Radeon 8500?

Would I get some sort of warning?

Thanks.

 

[jcortes]

no it will just lag extremely bad it wont fry anything.

 

[FlashDude]

gma900 would actually be a step up from a 32mb radeon 8500,,

 

[Equasion]

See, how do you know that? I can't tell the difference between a Nvidia 700 or a Gefroce 7800 or whatever.

Are you really sure that my GMA 900 is even if not better than Radeon 8500+?

 

[FlashDude]

At the time the 8500's were new there was the intel extreme graphics. Since then there was the intel extreme 2, and now the gma chipset graphics, which use pci Express architecture. the gma900 was built specifically to handle Vista and in the right system can handle any game that the MSR's is a 5+year old 8500. If you load the game and you get errors (no direct 3d or open gl compatable graphics card) then the card isn't compatable. If it plays it It can't hurt your system.

 

[Equasion]

Hmm, thanks for the insight on that, I didn't know

However, suppose you didn't know the year of manufacture for GMA and 8500+. ****, even throw in the most fastest graphics card ( though we don't know it is the fastest) Is there a way, if we looked and compared the specs, of finding out which is the superior graphics card?

What should we look for? Graphics memory?

 

[Vybuni]

You can't really upgrade your laptop graphics card, so you shouldn't really bother looking into it. But to answer your question, you should look at the GPU, not necessarily the memory. Ususally when you buy a new/good card, it will have plenty of memory. That is to say, a 256MB 7900GT is better than a 512MB 6800GT because the 7900 has a better GPU, and the 6800 won't be able to take advantage of the 512MB of RAM.

 

[Equasion]

Thanks Vybuni

But how would I be able to determine which one has the better GPU? Do they have a listed processor speed, like how my Pentium chip is 1.6 ghz?

 

[COD2_fanatic]

no if you look at cards like Nvidia the higher the number model (6800, 7600, 7900) the better they usually are, but ATI on the other hand thats a different question as they're mid range card can be out done with a low end Nvidia