Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950

I'm about to buy a laptop (Dell Inspiron 640m), mainly to do sound mixing and stuff, but also a little bit for gaming. I was wondering if anybody knew about the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 graphic card's capabilities. I'm getting a very good processor (Dual Core 2) and 2GB of RAM, so I'm guessing I'll be able to allow up to 256MB of my system's memory for the graphics... Will that be good enough to play games like Final Fantasy XI?

Thanks

Jam it back in, in the dark.

If at all possible, you want to get a real video card. We can use a very basic example to illustrate why. Let's say that you have a hardware failure with your integrated video, what do you get to do? Replace your entire motherboard. What do you do if you have a hardware failure with your standalone card? Just replace the card.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Although it's an acceptable video card for the laptop, russ's theory may be more likely with a Dell. I'd avoid their laptops like the plague. I have an Acer with the Radeon Xpress 1100 in it and it's pretty good.

Additional Spam:

Quote:

The GMA 950 is Intel's second-generation graphics core. It is used on the Intel 940GML, 945G series, 945GT chipsets. Most of the changes relate to video decoding, adding support for VLC, iDCT, hardware motion-compensation, and dual video overlay windows (1 HD + 1 SD). The core clock was bumped slightly to 400 MHz, which increased peak pixel fill rates to 1600 MPixel/s. The 950 has more video memory than the 900. The 900 only has up to 128MB (Integrated), whereas the 950 has up to 224MB (Integrated). The 950 was created with Microsoft Windows Vista's Aero interface kept in mind and will easily run Vista Premium. The 950 lacks Hardware Transform and Lighting technology, which reduces performance for many 3D graphics applications. The 950 will perfectly run most older games that do not require a Hardware T&L. The 950 outperforms the GMA 900 but falls behind the ATI Radeon Xpress 200. It is easily adequate for 2D applications such as watching movies and basic 3D applications, but less suitable for high-end gaming.

So when it comes to gaming, it's not that impressive, especially if you've got a Core2Duo. Yes, integrated video sucks, we know it, but it cuts down on costs. If you're into any modern gaming (read 2006), this isn't what you want.

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Even with the breakthroughs of the Intel GMA 950, I would still recommend something along the lines of a 7xxx GeForce Go. Even if you don't plan on modern gaming (ie: >2004), you will want it for Vista or emulated games like the PlayStation or Nintendo 64. You'll want more video memory if you want to enable anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, or large resolutions.

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Get a real video card, and don't buy from gay companies like Dell/HP/etc.

http://powernotebooks.com is the only good laptop company I've ever seen. And I can say from experience, dell laptops are gay.

I was speaking idiomatically.