Laptop Video card Upgrade

[Czartastic]

Alright so I recently purchased Civilization V for the PC and it wouldn't start, apparently because my graphics card isn't powerful enough. I asked 2k support and they said my graphics card was a "Intel(R) HD Graphics Family"

I am running Win 7 x64 on a Dell XPS L502X laptop.

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2520M CPU @ 2.50GHz

and I believe I have 8 GB of RAM.

all I need to know is if I can replace/upgrade my current graphics card to accommodate for gaming. I am not looking for anything too extravagant. In terms of money, anything under $150 would be fine.

Ask anything and I will try my best to answer.

 

[JDFan]

Only a few select Laptops can upgrade video chips (on laptops the video card circuitry is incorporated into the MOBO and can not be swapped out in most cases) and those that can be a very expensive to upgrade (since you have to buy the upgrade directly from the maker of the laptop and there is no competition they charge a significant fee for the ability !!)

Also are you sure it is in fact an Intel chipset ??? Acording to the DELL website that laptop has either a Nvidia GT525 or Nvidia GT545 chipset -- either of which should be capable of running CIV V -- What was the specific error message or describe what happens when you try to launch the game.

 

[Czartastic]

Only a few select Laptops can upgrade video chips (on laptops the video card circuitry is incorporated into the MOBO and can not be swapped out in most cases) and those that can be a very expensive to upgrade (since you have to buy the upgrade directly from the maker of the laptop and there is no competition they charge a significant fee for the ability !!)

Also are you sure it is in fact an Intel chipset ??? Acording to the DELL website that laptop has either a Nvidia GT525 or Nvidia GT545 chipset -- either of which should be capable of running CIV V -- What was the specific error message or describe what happens when you try to launch the game.

That's the thing, there was no specific error message. All I got was a black screen and after a few seconds it stopped responding or didn't do anything all together. After a while of troubleshooting, I eventually went to 2k support and they asked me for my system specs. They said my graphics card is not used for playing games, and I quote...

"The system needs a dedicated graphics card to play this game. What you have is;

Card name: Intel(R) HD Graphics Family

This is an integrated chipset that emulates the features of a GPU, but is intended more for general computer use as opposed to playing games."

 

[JDFan]

There's the thing though --- According to Dell's website the XPS L502x laptop has Nvidia graphics not Intel Graphics !! (Do you know which it actually has ? What does it show on a DXDIAG report (go to the start button and enter DXDIAG.exe and then run the program After a bit of time press the Save All Information button (this will save a text file named DXDIAG.TXT to your desktop -- open it with Notepad Go to the Display Devices section and it will list what the system has. If it says Intel HD Graphics then you might be out of luck (since Intel refuses to add Hardware Transform and Lighting support so many games will not run on their chipsets) but if it says Nvidia GT525 or 545 then it is not the video chipset that is causing the problem and you might be able to get it working.