Help Me Help My Son Play KOTR

[furashgf]

My son has a laptop Compaq Presario C700, running windows professional x64 w/ 2GB of memory. He's got the new MMO "Knights of the old republic" but the graphics are very jerky and make the game unusable. I've tried killing extra running services, killing Aero-themed desktops, and reducing the size of the screen/depth, all with no luck.

• Is there any way to "upgrade" or add a graphics card externally. e.g., in the same way you can turn an internal disk drive into an external USB drive with a kit, is there some add-on graphics processor I can buy that the system can use. I don't think it supports adding graphics processor directly, and don't know if such a thing exists.
• Would simply going up to 4GB (which the x64 will be able to address) help?

Thank you for your help

 

[Maguscreed]

There is no sensible cost effective way to upgrade the graphics on a laptop.
While it is possible. It's really just not feasible.

If it was a desktop the problem could be easily solved with a graphics card upgrade, wouldn't even have to be a terribly expensive one considering the swtor uses direct x 9 graphics meaning a older graphics card would be an effective upgrade.

Sorry to say you just don't really have any options with the laptop.
They aren't really designed for gaming anyhow as they suffer from heat issues.
The real gaming laptops that can handle the heat and have the military grade components are ridiculously expensive as well.

 

[furashgf]

Sad answer, but the truth hurts sometimes.

What's the best way to get an inexpensive desktop/monitor that will run a game like this? I don't have $1000 sitting around. I know it's not by walking over to the local PC shop.

 

[Maguscreed]

6 months ago you could build a decent little gaming pc for about 500 bucks.
Since the floods messed up the hard drive market, the price of hard drives has kind of messed everything up at the moment though.

I would make a new thread specifically requesting input on that front. People love responding to that kind of thread.