Before you buy a graphics card for gaming

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Purchasing a PC/laptop graphics card can be a daunting task for those that aren't familiar with all the technical lingo that has become part of every decision regarding computer hardware. Here are some things you should know before buying a video card for gaming:

Update Your Drivers

If you're thinking of replacing your card because you're having problems running a certain game, make sure you have the latest version of the drivers for your current graphics card. You will find the latest drivers for your card available for download from the manufacturer's Web site.

Chipsets

For the purpose of gaming, two developers of 3D graphics card chipsets have come to dominate the market: nVidia and ATI. Certain games will run a little better on one chipset than another - something you might want to consider before deciding which way to go. Some laptops even allow for end-user upgrade of the graphics card. Some modern laptops offer the capability of upgrading the graphics card. E.g. some laptops have Nvidia MXM-IV (Mobile PCI Express Module) for easy upgradeability to new generation of graphics technology. Absolute cutting edge is a laptop with Scalable Link Interface (SLI) technology from NVIDIA. SLI is a brand name for a multi-GPU solution developed by NVIDIA for linking two (or more) video cards together to produce a single output. Top end gaming laptops also have 1GB DDR-3 video memory.

AGP vs. PCI-Express

A long time ago the Advanced Graphics Port (AGP) replaced the Peripheral Component Interface (PCI) as the standard way to connect the graphics card to the motherboard. PCI-Express is a new and faster form of PCI, which is replacing AGP as the standard for graphics card slots. PCI-Express offers roughly twice the data transfer rate of 8x AGP. You can't put a PCI-Express card in an AGP slot or vice versa, so your motherboard will have to have PCI-Express if you want to use a PCIE card.

Hard Disk and Onboard Memory

512 MB of memory is, at the time of writing this, about the minimum for a gamer looking for a new card. When it comes to memory, more is always better, although it does raise the price of the card. 256 MB cards are still common, but it's worth looking for 1 GB or even 2 GB of memory if you want to run games at high resolutions.

Current state of the art laptop drive is a 7200RPM SATA drive, which can support a burst rate of 150 MB/sec. Every respectable gaming laptop should have at least a 7200RPM disk.

While CPU performance is one of the first things people talk about when talking about performance of any computer, it may not be the most important thing for a gaming laptop. If you find yourself making a tradeoff between CPU speed and Memory size - most likely you will be better off opting for higher memory. Of course, CPU performance (both frequency and cache size) does matter. Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB with 64-bit) is a decent choice for a gaming laptop.

Framerates

As the term implies, framerate is an indication of how many frames per second your system can display. The rate not only varies from game to game, it is also affected by the game's settings and the action taking place at any given moment in the game. Framerate is, in some ways, the ultimate test of a video card's speed, so a lot of sites compare cards on this basis. The fastest cards in this regard are usually the most expensive as well.

DirectX

While you may need the latest version of Microsoft DirectX (DX) software to run a game, this doesn't necessarily mean that your card must be fully compatible with the latest version of DX, you simply won't be able to use certain graphics features. When in doubt, look for the specific chipsets that the game you want to play supports.

Resolution of the Screen

For modern gaming laptops, SXGA+ (1400x1050) or WSXGA+ (1680x1050) are the low-end of the resolution. Aspect ratio (ratio of width to height) is also an important consideration. Historically, the standard aspect ratio was 4:3, but more and more laptops are now coming out in the widescreen format (i.e. 16:10). Not all games support the widescreen format. E.g. Warcraft III can play in widescreen format, but images are basically stretched. You will need to check your favorite game titles to see what native resolutions they support.

Need to save those laps from burning!

With high performance comes heat. Form factor of a laptop does not allow for quick heat dissipation. One strategy here is to complement the built-in cooling in a laptop with an external laptop cooler. Some of these coolers offer other features (e.g. doubling up as a USB hub, memory card reader and storage compartments).

Running with Penguins?

While things are improving for gamers on Linux, but still state of affairs is far from at par with Windows. In the past availability of drivers for video and sound cards was an issue. Although now NVIDIA and ATI do provide drivers for their graphics chips. Availability of game titles is the biggest issue for Linux laptop users. Cedga from Trasgaming bridges the gap a bit by allowing Windows based games to be run on Linux systems. Cedega is a fork of Wine with a focus on DirectX (you can first try to see if your game will work on freely available Wine - before deciding to pay for Cedega). Of course, the best would be if game publishers provided direct support for Linux - i.e. create OpenGL based games.

Need good batteries

While playing you will push on both the CPU and the GPU, and each of their fans - with considerable disk activity. All of this will result in maximum possible strain on the battery. So, if your objective was to be able to play on a coast-to-cost plane ride, make sure to upgrade the battery to the highest number of cells available for that laptop.