3D Games on the thinkpad? Yes- With a catch...

[echorobotics]

The cool things about ThinkPads is that UltraNav. Absolutely prefect for instant 3D gaming. So lets say you want to play F.E.A.R. on your older ThinkPad... Lets check the specs:

About 1.7 GHz Pentium M- Thats decent enough!
128 MB of VRAM- Double the minimum...perfect!
Pixel Shader- 2.0!
3 GB of HDD space left- DUH
512 MB of RAM- You would at least have 1 gig...

So why does CanYouRunIt.com say you can't play cool 3D games like F.E.A.R. or FarCry? Because, the Intel Graphics that most ThinkPads had around the time of release of these games don't support T7R and Vertex Shading. WHY NOT!???!?!?! NVidia has had T&R and V-Shading well before 2005! And Intel, in 2005, STILL DID NOT!

But hey, don't panic. CanYouRunIt is not ALWAYS right. On low settings, these games utilize different textures and shaders that make graphics much less impressive, but if you're like me, you know that graphics don't make the game. I was able to play F.E.A.R. on my Z60t with no problems or overheating. Just bad graphics.

BUT don't think that it could run Aero on Vista or 7... There are no WDDM drivers. There never will be.


Questions or comments about the graphics in specific ThinkPads? I got answers probably...

[ajkula66]

echorobotics wrote:

Because, the Intel Graphics that most ThinkPads had around the time of release of these games don't support T7R and Vertex Shading.

And how have you deducted that most ThinkPads at the time had Intel graphics?

Most of the inexpensive models, yes.

The rest of them (likely a majority) had ATi graphics that are quite decent for gaming purposes AFAIK...