Graphic chipsets

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

So right now I've got a HP ze5185 laptop (p4 2.4 ghz, 512 ram, radeon M6 graphics (supposedly 32MB dedicated ram)), I'm looking at potentially replacing a hard drive on a vaio pcg-k15 (p4 2.8 ghz, 512 ram, radeon 345M (supposedly 64MB shared)).

Which one do you think would be better as far as running newer games? I'm going to expand the ram in whichever one I end up sticking with, but I can't really find a lot of information comparing the 2. From what I do know, it seems like the hp has a much higher resolution screen than the vaio, and as far as repairs, all it really needs is some new fans inside. The vaio has a problem where it BSOD's intermittently, and re-installs of windows have about a 30% success rate as far as completing. On the vaio I ran memtest86 overnight and it didn't find any issues, so I assume it's either the motherboard or the hdd. In any case, anyone have any suggestions as to which one would work better for some simple older games.

Edit:Actually it looks like the M6 may only be 16MB dedicated even, though I'm not sure. It seems like if it was only 16MB dedicated it would have a hard time pushing the resolutions of sxga

 

[mtxblau]

I have two laptops with similar specs, but one has 32MB dedicated (Vaio VGN-s150) and 64MB shared (Evo N1015v) and I can say with absolutely certainty, the dedicated ram is much, much much better, above all.

As far as I can tell, Shared RAM is something akin to emulation. On my vaio, I can run GTA:Vice City @ 1280x800x32 without issue, but on the evo, it runs extremely poorly (below 15fps generally) at 640x480x16.

It's an older game, but it's a good reference (I think).

Also, I have a Dell Inspiron 4100 and I played GTA 3 completely through on it. It ran decently - faster than the Evo but definitely slower than the Vaio.

EDIT: Inspiron 4100 is a P3 1.2Ghz w/ 256MB Ram, 16MB dedicated Ram Ati card (7500 comparable, I suppose?).

16MB dedicated ram is a lot more powerful than you think. I also have a Armada M600 w/ 4MB of Ram (ATi Rage 3D) that I can run GTA 2 just fine.

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

Well, the thing is, it turns out the vaio can have up to 128MB shared... which is does now that I've changed the setting. So it's actually 16MB dedicated versus 128MB shared. And as I said before, the vaio has a 2.8ghz cpu versus the 2.4ghz in the hp. In addition, the vaio now has 1gig of ram (before the 128mb share so it's 800something now).

All things aside, the other thing the vaio has going for it is that only 1 of the cooling fans in the hp (out of 3) is still functioning, so the hp anytime I run anything has to sit on a mesh table so it can breath lol. As far as the graphics chipsets themselves go, I believe the chipset in the vaio is newer and may support more things in the hardware. Of course, heaven forbid ATI create something so that you can actually compare chipsets on their website. Also, heaven forbid that they keep a single naming convention so that you can have some idea as to what you're running in a computer.

In any case, I think I'm going to end up keeping the vaio as my main computer and formatting this one (my old hp) to use for dumb internet browsing and stuff, it doesn't have built in wireless like my vaio, it has less ram and a smaller hard drive, no dvd burner, a dimmer screen, and overheats lol.