help needed; Guild Wars

First

Thank you for the lj gift, lavvyan! IT IS DELICIOUS!

Second

Help. Help.

Okay, after talking it over with my mom, who is a GuildWars addict (this never stops making me happy; I keep telling her my geek cred goes up astronomically when my mother is online gaming), I decided to get Child Guild Wars as well. All right, this shows my not-so-bright side; I forgot completely that I had to upgrade Mom's computer to do it.

Child has an Inspiron B130, onboard chip for video, Intel 915GM. From what I read, it's going to crash hard when he tries to play. I upgraded his RAM to 1 G, but I've looked everywhere and there's no way to do anything about the onboard video problem; there's no way I can do an upgrade without jsut doing the motherboard and from what I can tell, it would cost more to do that than get him a new laptop. I checked John I to see if it was possible on him and no, the Inspiron 6000s have the same bottleneck.

So my question for those who play or can give an informed opinion:

Are there setting on the game I can adjust so he can play? Or an upgrade that won't cost as much as a new computer? Seriously, give me directions and I'll learn to sauter; he really wants this game and he and my mom want to play together, which is so adorable it actually fills me with vague sugar-related shock.

I actually considered just shelling out for a desktop, but then I remembered I'm sane. I also thought about seeing how much I can upgrade Brian, my old desktop, but I bought him in 2003 and I'm pretty sure it would cost even more to bring him up to spec. Plus, his primary purpose is regulating the network and his new purpose after the new year will be as a backup when I get a new hard drive installed, as well as network resource.

Help? Please?

Comments

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

Looking at the boards, it won't necessarily crash, it'll just play kind of crappy, probably not reasonably playable.

Problem with notebooks is that unless a video card is designed for that model specifically, it probably won't work. I really doubt if it'll have a slot. And it's not the kind of thing you can solder on manually. It would require replacing the motherboard. :-/

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread184898.html

It would probably be possible to upgrade your old PC to make it playable, Guild Wars doesn't need great video, just 64 megs onboard, if you at least have an AGP slot and P3/P4 processor in Brian, it should run. What are the stats on the old desktop?

[dossier.livejournal.com]

If there's an AGP slot on the motherboard, adding a suitable graphics card might be the least expensive solution, bypassing the onboard video altogether.

[swordage]

If you're thinking a new computer would run about a grand, I can do nothing better than point you at newegg.com. They do parts, as far as I know, from cases to RAM, and buying parts is a hell of a lot cheaper than a whole computer, and usually better quality as well. Assembling one is pretty darn easy, and almost everything is color-coded. I believe my current computer cost $300, almost on the nose - it's well over a year old and still nearly top of the line. I play Final Fantasy XI, also an MMO, with all the setting maxed out, and I've never had any real lag problems. I can check exactly what I have in there if you want suggestions, I'm sure it's even cheaper now.

[suaine.livejournal.com]

For one thing the game is surprisingly old-tech friendly - you can adjust the settings down pretty far and make it playable on fairly old systems. I can run it on my office specc'ed 2005-laptop when I keep it from overheating ;)

But - Guild Wars is possibly the most beautiful game in existence and you will soon find yourself itching to buy those upgrades instead of food for the family. It's true!

[lavvyan.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. No one should be without cookies. ;)