Apparently my laptop's video driver/card is behind the times for Minecraft, so before I can even see what all the fuss is about, I have to upgrade it.

mobile intel (R) 45 express chipset family is the one my Display shows me, so if any of you can help me makes sense of this and find out what the update/upgrade for it is, I'd be very grateful.

 

Yes it sounds like an integrated chip. Sometimes laptops can be upgraded with no problem, but it depends on how they did the inside of your box. Newer ones often leave room for an upgrade option, but usually on older ones unless a seperate card is already in there to be swapped out you're screwed.

Minecraft is too much for you to run? Really? It's like less then cellphone game graphics Turn the view distance down, and the graphics to basic and you should be fine no matter what.

 

It's L450D-113. I just checked and it is indeed an integrated card.

I'm playing games like WOW, Warcraft 3, Red Alert with no problem. But Minecraft keeps shutting me down, and when I asked, that's the reason they gave me: "Your video card needs updating." :facepalm

Edit: Though strangely, my Counter-strike is also bad graphics in comparison to my previous laptop.

 

What's your laptop model? As Middy said, some can be upgraded; others can't. For instance, I own two virtually identical Dell laptops (one with an intel processor, the other with AMD), and the Intel one is upgradable (but it already has a discrete card), and the AMD one isn't; it's stuck with integrated graphics.

 

I wouldn't waste the money on a vid card just yet, if you can play any of those and not minecraft, something else is wrong. Post on their forums or search for their tech help subforum, I refuse to believe you can play WoW but not minecraft and it be your pc's fault.

 

AFAIK, WoW doesn't use Java...Minecraft does, and Java is a little system whore.

 

Thats true, Minecraft after a little but often uses a gig to a gig and a half of RAM for no apparent reason. Why in the hell is this game being done in Java anyway, I really didnt get that. The platform is drastically limited, uses a ton of resources as you said, and has major issues. Would like to see someone take Minecraft, and make retarded high def textures that could be scaled down to what they are now, and slap it on a better platform.

But that still doesn't explain why he's being told to update, not for Super Nintendo era graphics

 

I think, and don't hold me to this, that LWJGL that Minecraft uses is very graphics-card heavy.

I agree though...I'd love to see Minecraft written in C or C++ (heck, even Python...).

 

That might explain it, just piss poor coding platform. I did notice on my kid's computer which is running a 8600 GT that I have to put the graphics on the lower setting and dial in the draw distance some, otherwise fast movements by the player lead to choppy as hell framerates.

Sad really, when they're running Borderlands maxed out.

 

Meh, fuck it. I'm not gonna waste my precious college student funds on this game or buying a video card. Have fun without me lads.

 

Can you play the web browser version of it?

 

Yeah, Java isn't really intended for games past simple stuff.

C++ is basically whats needed for any semi-serious game development.

Even then, it's usually much easier to get a license for a game developer's platform and do it in their platform that has already been developed.

I would try and track down the latest drivers for your integrated video card, that might help. If it doesn't, you can get an external graphics card, if you have an expresscard slot that is. There is a cool project website that describes the needed steps to plug in a desktop graphics card in a chassis and then the required hardware to plug it into the expresscard slot. The results completely destroy pretty much every mobile graphics card even with the slower 1x PCIe slot available to the expresscard slot. Not sure about the newer mobile cards though.

So yeah, that's your only real option, get an external graphics card if your laptop has the right connections able to be accessed. Even then you will be limited to desktop mobility with the external graphics card plugged in.

 

Nope.

/10 char-limit.