Portal 2 Causes Display Driver To Crash

[Syrexide]

Okay, so a few days ago I tried to play co-op with my friend but while it's loading the screen keeps going black and restores then this goes on forever following with a pop up message saying "Display driver has crashed" or something along those lines. It stops if I find a way to close Portal 2. On the menu It's fine. If you'd like to see my system specs, use the little drop down menu in the corner of this post.

~Syrexide

 

[archer]

Hi Welcome to Sevenforums.

Is this only happening with Portal 2 or any other game? Update your Intel GPU drivers. Look for CPU temps.

 

[Contrabardus]

Okay, so a few days ago I tried to play co-op with my friend but while it's loading the screen keeps going black and restores then this goes on forever following with a pop up message saying "Display driver has crashed" or something along those lines. It stops if I find a way to close Portal 2. On the menu It's fine. If you'd like to see my system specs, use the little drop down menu in the corner of this post.

~Syrexide

What you have is not a good gaming laptop.

Your GPU isn't good enough for Portal 2 and is causing a bottleneck that is crashing the game. That's your problem. The minimum requirements state that you need a GeForce 7300 and the Intel GMA X4500 [what you have in your Dell] isn't good enough for the game. It's got similar stats to the 7300 but is the lesser card of the two. It also cannot be upgraded because Laptops like yours have the GPU soldered into the motherboard.

You might be able to run singleplayer sort of okay for a bit. It's a little less taxing than the multiplayer component. Though I wouldn't expect it to run very well. I don't recommend it as you'll be stressing your GPU quite a bit and might shorten it's life.

Your other components are fine, you have enough Ram and your CPU is better than 1.7 [but still below the recommended 3.0].

Never rely on minimum requirements, because they are only enough to run the game without crashing for a bit and not enough to actually play a game.

My advice is to uninstall Portal 2 from your laptop and play other things until you get better hardware. Your laptop is not good for games and your GPU is more for business applications and video. The 4 series GMA X4500 GPU will always be a bottleneck and cause these kinds of problems for you. The X4500 has a good core speed, but it's not a dedicated card and shares resources with other components. Despite having a lower core speed the GTX 7300 required to run the game is a dedicated GPU, and has far superior memory.

The only solution for playing Portal 2 is to get a new laptop with a better GPU in it.