Recommendations on new video card for non-techie?

Hi all - I am having "hair explosion" and other "smearing" type problems. I use an older video card: ATI Mobility x300. It appears I *may* need a new card given the recommendations on the SL site for system requirements. EDITING BECAUSE ACCORDING TO SL REQUIREMENTS, I AM IN "COMPLIANCE" From Knowledge Base: Any ATI Radeon card, model 8500 or higher, is compatible. (This includes models such as the 8500, 9700, X300, but NOT models such as the 320 IGP or Xpress 200)

I would like advice on which card (if any) would work better.

My system is a Dell D610 notebook with Intel Pentium M 1.73Ghz, 795 Mhz, 512 MB of RAM running Windows XP. I only run SL on it with no other apps running or windows open.

My only issue seems to be with polysomethingorother (can't remember what this is called) and "smearing"...

Thoughts? Or do I need a whole new system (hope not).

Thanks in advance.

Unfortunately, very few notebook computers allow you to upgrade the video card. The Latitude D610 offered two choices when you bought it (either Intel integrated graphics, or the Mobility X300), but Dell doesn't offer any choices for upgrades.

You should try getting the latest ATI driver. Dell is sometimes slow about offering driver updates, so you might also try getting a new one elsewhere. Unfortunately, ati.com doesn't offer drivers for Dell notebooks, but you can try the Omega drivers (www.omegadrivers.net).

Thanks, Shirley. I am not technical so am rather nervous about installing a new driver with any risk of messing it up Anything I should be cautious of?

Also - ATI seems to have driver downloads on its site. Unless this is not where I should be https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894

This is a good thread about updating drivers.

ATI has a section on their site for downloading drivers. Unfortunately, when you go to the section for "notebooks with ATI graphics", you discover that they only support downloads for certain manufacturers, and Dell is not one of them. You can certainly go ahead and try the driver on the site anyway; it might work on your machine or it might not.

If you ever COMPLETELY mess up the video drivers on your system, it's not that difficult to straighten it out. I have found Driver Cleaner Pro (available at www.drivercleaner.net) to be effective; you use it to remove the existing drivers, and then do a fresh install.

I believe that one of the hacks in the Omega drivers is that they have been unblocked to work on all systems; that's why I mentioned them. They're really ATI drivers with slight modifications: working on more systems, allowing overclocking, and allowing the use of Radeon drivers on FireGL cards.

The techies here might wonder about that last one. These days, the chips on ATI's workstation line (FireGL) and their mainstream line (Radeon) are very close relatives. But some software, including Second Life, refuses to run on a FireGL card because it's not recognized as supported hardware. Using a Radeon driver allows those programs to run.