I have a Samsung lappy with AMD E1-1500 and on board graphics. Is there hope of upgrading some of its components, on the cheap, so I can play some decent games? I would like to play Alan Wake without stuttering video.
Recommend an upgrade on the cheap
spychiatrist on 11/06/2014 - 22:27
Comments
Just get some cheap ass used Xbox 360 and game from Ebay.
First thing is dial down your graphics settings for the game.
Second thing to do is re install Windows from scratch. A lot of PCs are hobbled by downloaded malware or crapware installed by the manufacturer. Doing this will almost certainly help a bit.
Does your laptop have a HDD light? If it is flashing a lot when the stuttering occurs, it is possible your laptop us running out of RAM or could benefit from an ssd.
But it is more likely that your laptops processor is struggling with pumping out textures in 3d, and there is nothing you can do about that. Laptop CPUs or GPUs are generally hard or expensive to upgrade.
Do you mind posting the model number?
Short answer - No
Long Anser - No it's not worth spending any money upgrading components when the bottleneck in your system is the AMD E1-1500Probably true. But first you need to prove that the bottleneck really IS the the E-1500. I've seen Atoms run a lot better with an OS refresh and a little more RAM.
http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/CYRI/Requirements/alan-…
Minimum game requirements are pretty low, but the performance of your CPU is also bottom end. Best saving your coin for a new machine.
If you really wanted to proceed this route - grab a cheap SSD, at least 4GB RAM and clean install of Windows without the Samsung bloatware will help. Also check the temperature its currently running at to ensure its not thermal throttling itself at all.
His specifications however do not meet the min requirements.
A Core 2 Duo (desktop processor) is faster than the E1-1500. The 8800 GT too, is also several times better than the integrated GPU. With such a low end CPU and GPU, upgrading the memory does nothing to help gaming performance — see Scubacoles' comment.
I don't recommend the RAM upgrade, 4GB of RAM won't do anyting to impact the framerate issues he's having. If he already has 4GB going beyond that won't make a difference (the game is 32 bit anyway).
The best he can do is to tweak the graphics through INI files and see if it can be lowered any further than what the game's setting allows.
I also recommend the low end gamer subreddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/lowendgaming/
discussions on what games to play on low end machines and how to optimise graphics settings.
Thanks for all your inputs! Just checked the laptop and it's an:
AMD APU E1-1200 (which makes it worse, I think), with Radeon graphics
4Gb RAM
64bit
Win 8.1I was hoping I can "splurge" $100 and it will give a big boost. LOL
You'd be better off driving around your neighborhood on hard rubbish day. You'll find a desktop with more power and gaming capabilities and save your $100!
A $100 SSD will give you a big boost - but probably not for gaming.
There are only 2 things you can upgrade on a mainstream laptop, that's the HDD and RAM.
The AMD E-series CPU is pretty much soldered in and it's not socketed. There's not much room for upgrades on consumer-grade laptops usually, whitebox laptops like Clevo on the other hand are easily upgradable since they use socketed CPU's and may feature interchangeable MXM GPU's.