[awesty]

So my laptop has a really crappy video card. It doesn't support "Transform & Lighting" and it has Vertex shader version 0.0

I had a look on ebay and there only seemed to be video cards for desktop computers. Is it just as easy as swapping a desktops video card or would I be better off just waiting until I upgrade my laptop to a better one?

Also is there any (reliable) sites were I could buy one?

[1lacca]

Usually laptop video cards are not upgradeable. There were a couple of standards, like MxM, but it is not common, and I am not sure if an upgrade card was ever manufactured (there were some diy laptop manufacturers where you could assemble your laptop from parts, but I'm not sure if they are even in business).
If your laptop doesn't have T&L my bet is that it does not even have space for that. So I would say that you are out of luck here, but maybe I'm wrong.

[jjhaag]

I'm with 1lacca on this one - upgrading a laptop video card is usually not possible; if by some chance it does happen to be, you can expect that it will be quite expensive to do so.

Generally, it's tough to get good/great graphics in a laptop. A good desktop graphics card is a power hungry beast that throws out a ton of heat - in the desktop setting, that's okay, because most cases have plenty of room inside for circulation, and a bunch of fans for ventilation and cooling. In laptops, there is essentially no space, and adequate cooling can be a huge issue. So you're taking a price/performance hit in a laptop on a couple of fronts - everything has to be physically scaled back to actually fit in the case ($$$), and generally performance (more or less proportional to power consumption) has to be scaled back so that you don't wind up frying everything inside your box.

You'll probably need to wait until your next whole-computer upgrade to get a better card. However, you can expect to be paying way more than you would for comparable performance from a desktop, and the technology is liable to lag behind the desktops by about 12 months.

-jjh

[Thorian]

Sorry most likely it is time to replace the laptop. the video cards are most likely soldered to the main board.

Unless you have a specific asus or alienware that were sold on the upgradeability feature that never caught on. Alienware may have a upgrade card for their version of that laptop

[max302]

Chances are that if your laptop has a shitty video card, the rest of the machine is just as shitty, and you should probably shell out and buy a whole new machine.

The newer machines with the Nvidia 630i for mobile is a really good deal IMO.

[awesty]

I guess I am stuck with what I have then.

[Thorian]

sorry mate I hate to be the bearer of bad news.