Thinkpads Forum

hi,
i have bought a new 23744wu - t42p(with 32mb ati radeon graphics card) and i play the demo version of the game doom 3 but it seems to be moving in frames. it is very slow.
i read on doom3 website that it needs 64mb graphics card.
but i have a desktop computer which has a 32 mb graphics card and the game simply does fine. why ?????

if i want to improve the performance on my laptop with doom3 game then what shld i do ?
how abt having a pcmcia graphics card and where can i find one ? can i avoid spending the extra money on graphics card and get it done with some software/firmware/driver upgrade.
i am new to this forum and thanx in advance for the help

YOu have a T42p and graphic card is only 32MB 7500?

I thought all T42p came with 128MB fire GL..

It is not a T42p, it is a normal T42, and yes, DOOM3 will be very slow on a 32MB 7500 card. You cannot get a faster PCMCIA graphics card (for humanly reasonable cost, at least), or "upgrade" your 7500 with software (try the Omega Drivers, wont help too much though).

Basically, if someone sold it to you as a T42p go back and demand a refund, if you chose and bought it you are out of luck. Sorry

hi thanx for the correction. it is a t42. i still want to know if i can play doom3 game on my machine with clarity. any hardware or software alternative is welcome. pls give me clear options cost wise and performance wise and i am sure that many of u would have faced this problem with newer more demanding games coming into the market.
i didnt go for the 64mb graphics card as i got this laptop in a deal and wanted to get this deal. so i only can upgrade.
thanx.

As previously suggested, you may want to try the Omega drivers. While I have not had any experience with Doom3 on a 32mb Radeon 7500, I have had experience with the 16mb card in my X31 and World of Warcraft (not fantastic performance, especially in highly populated areas; definately playable at a low resolution). You will not be getting stellar performance with all of the graphic options turned up, but Doom3 scales quite well (ie - it will sacrifice eye candy for performance on older hardware). I would recommend you turn off ALL of the eye candy in Doom3 (shadows, lighting, etc.) and lower the resolution to the absolute minimum. As for driver setup, you will notice an 'Advanced 3D' tab in the advanced display properties. You can specify a 'High Performance' setting for Texture Preference, and Mipmap Detail Level. Also ensure the Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering are turned off, or set to application preference.

After changing your driver and game configuration for maximum performance, try running Doom3. If you are happy with how it is performing, you can start raising the resolution and turning up the world details until you have a good balance of image quality/performance.