a question about external graphics cards for laptops

Hey, I have a Dell Inspiron E1505 with an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 - which, of course, is not supported. My question is what kind of external graphics card do I need to look into getting? I never know whether I can play for a long time without crashing or if it'll crash right away.

And are these crashes bad for the system? When the crash sends the computer into safety mode? And then when, once in a while, I get the dreaded blue screen? Is it a nuissance or is it dangerous?

Thanks.

You should really check your rendering preferences in the SL client 1st. The defaults are probably far too high for your internal card. I run a laptop inworld when I travel and it is ok, not great, but workable. But keep your setting to a minimum, open your preferences in the client. Set your cache to 200 megs, your bandwitch lower, to something like 200 kbps, take off all your shiny, localized lighting, high rez terrains, anything you can really. Limit your draw distance as well. I don't know specifics on cards in SL but the Lindens do compile a list of incompatable cards. As for preffered cards, I wish they had a list but they don't.

As for crashing, of course that's bad, especially if you are seeing fatal pop up screens. SL did a number on my tower last year with a series of unstable clients and I had to rebuild it all from the ground up. Not hardware, all software, has to reinstall everything from the ground up to get my performance back, such is life i suppose.

Willikers, I've wrestled with the Intel graphic chips for a long time too! Condolences.

The possibly destructive issue here is heat, which can destroy your lappie's RAM. You get extra heat with SL because the Intel chips force the CPU to do most of the rendering. It's best to use a cooling dock or "chill mat", which basically is just a set of fans that the laptop rests on top of - they can be gotten for 20-40$ at any big outlet computer store. If you have a small fan at home, it can even be helpful to prop the computer up on coasters or something and blow air under it.

Crashing to bluescreen is always a risk, and yes, in the process of such crashes OS corruption is possible.

re: cards -- be sure to check the flavor of bus that your expansion slot supports. Not all slots will accomodate the PCI-X interface that a decent card requires. Dell probably has a recommended set of cards for that laptop already - check them out first.

I am not aware of external 3D graphics cards for laptops. Even replacing them on the Motherboard is pretty unusual, I think.

is there someone that you owe a big favor too, that wants a laptop? give them yours, and then buy a new one.

you can get usb and if you dig deep enough in a computer graveyard maby a scsi one

they only do 2d, and they are SLOWWWWWW

Hey, thanks to all of your for your replies, suggestions and condoleances. We spoke to someone from Dell who said they were supposedly trying to put some sort of external graphics adaptor for laptops on the market by the end of the year. I've lowered my preferences - thanks for the suggestion - and for the information of others struggling with this problem, I'll be back on later to let you know if this helps the crashing problem.

yea its probally the same thing everyone else has, usb 2, 2d

great if you want an extra monitor ...

but theres no external interface fast as pcie (or even agp) so the chances of any decent 3d action is quite slim

+ to keep cost's down its probably going to be a craptastic chip, s3, intel, trident?

Well.. the prices on those are insane, youre better off getting a desktop, if you want speedy gpu , laptops is not the way to go.

http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadroplex.html
prices start at $17,500

I seen a few external ones, they are pretty weak , usb and nothing really good , but it still beat a onboard one~.~ if you wanna pay that much.

The T61 thinkpads and a few other computers have pcie expansion ports (in docking stations in the Thinkpad's case), which can accomodate graphics cards from ATI and Nvidia. An improvement over having Intel chips, but costly and generally not worth it, as the graphics cards sold for that limited form factor are not terrific.