R40 Video Card Help/Suggestions

[AgitatedMuffin]

Hey everyone?

I'm having somewhat of a problem, and apologies if I am posting in the wrong area.
I purchased a game a few hours ago (deleted music and such to make space for it and everything), but when I tried to run it, an error appeared telling me that my video card (ATI Mobility Radeon) is basically no good.

I suppose my question is:
Is the R40's video card able to be removed and replaced and if so, what would be the best choice for this model on a moderate ($50-$150) budget?

And..
If I bought from Best Buy, would they be willing to do the switch for me since I'm technically incapable? (Answer optional...)

Thanks so much for your time and patience!

[Terrahawk]

The quick answer is, unfortunately, no. Whatever video chip you have in the R40 is what you're stuck with. The best R40 chip as far as I recall is the ATI Mobility Radeon 7500. That chip is getting very old now.

[emeraldgirl08]

The Radeon 7500 can only do 16 or 32mb of video RAM. The games I know of require at least over 200mb of video RAM. They also require more capable processors such as a Core2Duo.

The laptop you have is more adept at running office tasks and web browsing. I used to have a T30 with the Radeon 7500 card and that would get hot whenever video came into the picture! Overall the bottleneck for my applications was the GPU. Rendering video or detailed graphics skyrockets the CPU usage to the nineties which in turn raises the laptops temp!

If you have a dedicated gaming system I'd stick to that and leave the T30 for light internet use, emailing, light media use, and office tasks. It may be best to remember that the Thinkpads are basically business laptops. They are not created or designed for intense gaming purposes.

Edit:

On the bright side. I did have W7 running on my T30 w/ ATI Radeon 7500 but there was no way to enable aero. I didn't need all the eye candy anyway so that was a no-brainer for me

[AgitatedMuffin]

The quick answer is, unfortunately, no. Whatever video chip you have in the R40 is what you're stuck with. The best R40 chip as far as I recall is the ATI Mobility Radeon 7500. That chip is getting very old now.

Shucks...

I guess the next best thing to do is to buy a new, up-to-date laptop to avoid issues as this in the future...

Thanks so much, Terrahawk!