Playing on a laptop? Integrated Graphics Card Magicka F.A.Q.

[DJ Cryotek]

It's common knowledge that developers generally do not support integrated graphics cards. Why you people are giving them a hard time is beyond me. Get the demo first, maybe? Oh, wait, that would be the smart thing for a laptop gamer to do.

[Tapewormz]

Originally Posted by jfunk825

XNA may be the root reason for the poor performance, but that doesn't change the fact that the end result is unusually high system requirements.

Saying XNA sucks doesn't help people trying to figure out if it will work or not on their hardware.

It works on my integrated graphics card just as good as it works on my desktop. All of the crashes I experience are a direct result of casting certain spells. ie. vortex

[Tapewormz]

Originally Posted by DJ Cryotek

It's common knowledge that developers generally do not support integrated graphics cards. Why you people are giving them a hard time is beyond me. Get the demo first, maybe? Oh, wait, that would be the smart thing for a laptop gamer to do.

Hope you're not implying that I'm giving the developers a hard time.

[jfunk825]

Originally Posted by Tapewormz

It works on my integrated graphics card just as good as it works on my desktop. All of the crashes I experience are a direct result of casting certain spells. ie. vortex

Your 9800M GTS is not an integrated graphics card. It's a mobile product, but it exceeds the minimum requirements. It's not material to this topic.

[Nalle]

Why don't developers always answer in such honest manner?
Why can't Activision just say that they prefer sodomizing each other rather than caring about the customers' needs?

[pecet1]

Originally Posted by DJ Cryotek

It's common knowledge that developers generally do not support integrated graphics cards. Why you people are giving them a hard time is beyond me. Get the demo first, maybe? Oh, wait, that would be the smart thing for a laptop gamer to do.

Oh wait.. actually read my posts and see that demo worked fine, while full version not.

[bjj8383]

Wellllll according to ATI I have, and I quote, "the world’s fastest and most powerful mobile GPU ever designed", namely the ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5800. According to my GPU-Z analysis, my 5800 is comparable or flat out beats your two recommended minimum cards.

The following numbers go as: NVidia 8800, ATI x1900, and MY HD 5800:
Memory Bandwidth: 64.7 GB/s, 46.7 GB/s, 64 GB/s
Memory Clock: 1011 MHz, 725 MHz, 1000 MHz
Texture Fill Rate: 11.5 GTexel/s, 10 GTexel/s, 18 GTexel/s
GPU Clock: 721 MHz, 625 MHz, 700 MHz
Pixel Fill Rate: 11.5 GPixels/s, 10 GPixels/s, 11.2 GPixels
Memory Type: GDDR3, GDDR3, GDDR5
Shader: I don't know, Shader Model 3.0, Shader Model 5.0 (YES FIVE)

As you can see, from your suggested minimum requirements, I should have no problems whatsoever with my card.

And when I played through the campaign with my friends for 8 hours straight, 2 weeks after release, I didn't!!! (We crashed a few times but that was from your program.)

So riddle me this: after 30 minutes of campaign yesturday, while running no other programs, my laptop got SO HOT that it tripped a safety and shut my whole comp down.

Why.....???

[PS_]

Originally Posted by pecet1

But i tried DEMO, and worked fine. I feel cheated, how could I possibly know that full version will not work while demo worked like a charm?

If the demo "worked like a charm" on you're quite below spec's hw surely you should be able to run the game.

It's a bit strange as you're card is similar to the 4330, but with faster memory.
It is well below specs, so Magicka would lag, but according to MCFrog here the 4330 can run Magicka. ( With heavy issues, and I believe it's the game, not demo, MCFrog is talking about )
You're card should behave a tiny bit better. Maybe there's something else then graphics .... ?

What have you done to fix the problem and what error logs can be found ?

[jfunk825]

Originally Posted by bjj8383

Wellllll according to ATI I have, and I quote, "the world’s fastest and most powerful mobile GPU ever designed", namely the ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5800. According to my GPU-Z analysis, my 5800 is comparable or flat out beats your two recommended minimum cards.

The following numbers go as: NVidia 8800, ATI x1900, and MY HD 5800:
Memory Bandwidth: 64.7 GB/s, 46.7 GB/s, 64 GB/s
Memory Clock: 1011 MHz, 725 MHz, 1000 MHz
Texture Fill Rate: 11.5 GTexel/s, 10 GTexel/s, 18 GTexel/s
GPU Clock: 721 MHz, 625 MHz, 700 MHz
Pixel Fill Rate: 11.5 GPixels/s, 10 GPixels/s, 11.2 GPixels
Memory Type: GDDR3, GDDR3, GDDR5
Shader: I don't know, Shader Model 3.0, Shader Model 5.0 (YES FIVE)

As you can see, from your suggested minimum requirements, I should have no problems whatsoever with my card.

And when I played through the campaign with my friends for 8 hours straight, 2 weeks after release, I didn't!!! (We crashed a few times but that was from your program.)

So riddle me this: after 30 minutes of campaign yesturday, while running no other programs, my laptop got SO HOT that it tripped a safety and shut my whole comp down.

Why.....???

Why are you in this thread asking for help troubleshooting your system's heat problem? You are correct, your video card more than meets the minimum requirements for this game, which is why it plays the game fine as you mentioned yourself in your post.

You now have a heat problem. This has nothing to do with this topic, please go away. Ask your laptop manufacturer why your laptop suddenly overheats after 30 minutes of hard gaming when just a week ago it was able to do the same thing for 8 hours straight without overheating.

This is a thread for people trying to find out if their laptop is capable of running Magicka. Not for people asking for generic troubleshooting with their heat problem on a system that runs Magicka fine.

[bjj8383]

Originally Posted by jfunk825

Why are you in this thread asking for help troubleshooting your system's heat problem?

You now have a heat problem. This has nothing to do with this topic, please go away.

I'm in this topic because NONE of the other umpteen high-end games I play on a regular basis cause this problem or anything like it. I'm in this topic because this game, for all of it's amazingness, was made by a few guys in a basement and is known to have runaway memory problems, cause undue radical stress for no good reason, etc. Therefore the problem is magicka doing something it shouldn't, not my system.

The reason I put this here in the laptop thread and not elsewhere is because the developers make the blanket statement "laptops = bad" and so I wasn't sure that that didn't factor into this.

Originally Posted by jfunk825

The Witcher is an older game and the graphics card requirements for it pale in comparison to this game. A 6600 GT is their minimum requirement. Not only is this many years older than an 8800GT, it's also of the "consumer mid grade" line, not of the "gaming" line like the 8800GT.

The only way to answer the question as to whether or not you can expect to run this game is for you to find out exactly what graphics adapter you have. Once you know what adapter you have, look at this chart:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...rd,2857-7.html

Find the NVIDIA 8800GT on that chart. Then find your graphics adapter. If it's not on the same tier, the answer is no. If it's only one tier or so lower, you could give it a shot if you want, but do so at your own risk.

I've successfully played the game on an ATI 5650 mobile card, but not extensively so I can't say how well the performance holds up when things get hairy.

Hahaha...yeah. Triple the requirements for The Witcher is apparently 12 tiers below the 256MB 8800GT. xD Guess that settles that. Luckily (?), my laptop is dying and will need to be replaced soon, so I'll be able to be a bit more discriminating in my video card selection this time.

Thanks for the link.

[jfunk825]

Originally Posted by dpeizero

Hahaha...yeah. Triple the requirements for The Witcher is apparently 12 tiers below the 256MB 8800GT. xD Guess that settles that. Luckily (?), my laptop is dying and will need to be replaced soon, so I'll be able to be a bit more discriminating in my video card selection this time.

Thanks for the link.

Two things I will caution you to be careful on when shopping for a laptop with a good graphics card.

First, battery life. Good graphics cards suck power. If you intend to use the laptop in a truly mobile way (as opposed to being a portable "desktop replacement"), you may want to focus on laptops that include an IGP and the ability to switch back and forth. That way you can use the low power IGP whenever you aren't actively gaming to conserve battery life.

Second, when it comes to comparing price, be careful of some of the mainstream laptops that may have a decent card in them but otherwise seem much cheaper than any of the "gaming" laptops. Sometimes these guys just toss a quality graphics card in an otherwise standard build and fail to provide proper overall system cooling. HP in particular has been pretty bad about this. If you search, you'll find lots of people complaining that while the specs of their new HP are nice, the thing overheats within a hour if they push it hard. In most cases, HP does not acknowledge this as problem. Their responses tend to be something like: "While the hardware included in your model may be technically capable of playing games, gaming is not an intended or supported use of this product line.".

In most cases, people can work around these issues by taking cooling into their own hands using active laptop cooling pads or other methods, which isn't TOO bad since most people really are only doing hard gaming when setup at a desk anyway, but it's food for thought. If you want the best chance of having a trouble free gaming experience, you might be best served by going with something custom built or at least from a company that advertises specific gaming oriented models. You'll pay for it of course, but it might save you some headaches.

[CyanAngel]

Dear Paradox__rep:

I am fully aware that my IGP is inferior, that's why I brought a low spec game rather than buying something more graphically intensive. If I had the money to replace my laptop with a high spec computer I wouldn't be buying indy games. You are limiting your user and customer base and damaging your public reputation by operating this policy.

Any reason Why my laptop can't play this game.

Specs are

Intel i5 M460 2.53ghz
1024 (MB) NVIDIA GT420M GeForce
4gb ram

If this rig can run a game like minecraft which is even more indy then this one then why can't it run magicka

[daniel2201]

I have a GT220M, and ofcourse I tried the demo first.
The demo ran like a charm, so I bought the game.. But after playing aprox. 30 minutes- 1 hour, it started lagging and stuff.
At first I thought it was my CPU but that is a 2.2Ghz Duo so its above minimum.

So I opened the Nvidia control panel and put al the setting towards performance instead of quality, and what happend? No problems what so ever @1600x900.

Don't know if it is of use for you guys, but good luck with it!