Gaming on integrated graphics - my Radeon HD 4250 experience

Two years ago, i built my own system with a quad-core AMD Athlon II X4 645, a motherboard based on the AMD 880G Chipset, 4 GB of RAM, a 500 GB HDD and an Nvidia 8800 GTS 320 MB graphics card.

The card was somewhat old for the system, as it was second hand (gift from a relative). So, after some months playing top and demanding games like Elder Scrolls V:Skyrim and Racedriver:GRID the card died. Well, i remember being in front of a black screen and after restarting there were artifacts everywhere. Then, there was no signal from the card to the monitor and much the same situation appeared when i connected the card to my other system.
Searching online, i found guides suggesting putting the card in the oven (!!!), a solution i never tried. Nevertheless, to my surprise, baking the graphics card seemed to work for many (brave) users.
But, let's get to the point of this article. After the card died on me, i immediately decided to turn to the integrated graphics and give it a shot with some games. My system has an integrated Radeon HD 4250, which i thought would be capable of some light gaming. I've never been so wrong. Just kidding. Of course, i never tried to even start Skyrim but i managed to play GRID in low settings. The integrated graphics didn't struggle with Full Hd video playback and old and not demanding games like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Pro Evolution Soccer. Nowadays, i play a lot of League Of Legends and i get 9-23 fps in-game. Well, this is obviously a very low number but i find the game running smoothly so it doesn't bother me.
To sum up, i'm really pleased by the performance of the Radeon HD 4250. It's a reasonable solution till i get a new GPU.

Thank you for reading, comment below and have fun.

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Cheap gaming pc build guide

Let's cut to the chase. You want to build a gaming rig without spending too much euros (dollars, etc.). After an extensive research i've done the last few hours i concluded that the AMD platform is the way to go (and not because i am an AMD fanboy).
We'll use an AMD A-series APU ( Accelerated Processing Unit ) combining a quad-core CPU and AMD Radeon Graphics on a single chip; thus we'll have reasonable peformance and low power consumption.
For the motherboard we choose one with Socket FM1. AMD A55 chipset offers good performance/price.
As we put an APU in our low budget system there is no need for a standalone graphics card.
Putting 4 gigabytes of RAM in our system should be more than enough for everyday use and some quality gaming.
A 500 GB Hard Disk Drive will accommodate all of our files (games, music, movies, etc.) and leave us enough space.
It's critical that we use 400 - 500 Watts of power coming from a brand name psu, so that our system is stable.

Hardware|Model|Price(Amazon Price)

CPU: AMD A6-3670K (2.7 GHz) ~ 60 € ( $76.55 )

Motherboard:  MSI A55M-P33 ~ 50 € ( $47.99 )

RAM: Kingston 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 DIMM HyperX Blu ~ 30 € ( $36.67 )

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA ( WD5000AAKX ) ~ 53 € ( $54.50 )

PSU: Corsair Builder Series CX430 80Plus Bronze ~ 46 € ( $39.99 )

Drive: Sony AD-7280S ~ 21 € ( $27.87 )

Case: Antec VSK-3000E ~ 34 € ( $29.95 )

Total Cost: 294 € ( $313,52 )

Summing up, with a total cost that not exceeds 300 € we have successfully built a quad-core  system that can handle most today's games at mid-high settings in hd resolution.

Good luck with your setup, comment below and have fun.

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Prince Of Persia; The Sands Of Time on my netbook (gaming)

I thought it would be pretty easy for my netbook asus eee pc 1101(atom z520, 2gb ram) to run the first Prince Of Persia game. That wasn't the case here. Ok, at first it was lagging a hard time (i didn't count fps with fraps or other program but maybe i'll do it for another post) but i thought it happened because of the graphic settings. I turned everything at its lowest so all i had were low settings. The game begun to run much smoother at the beginning scenes at least. When i got to a scene of the game where many characters appear on screen (the first battle you had to use the dagger to retrieve the sand from your enemies) the game was unplayable. The whole thing seems strange to me as i run the game on 2gb of ram and i thought it would run smoothly at least at medium settings because its an old game after all (2003). I shouldn' t have waited for anything more from an intel gma 500 graphic system. I'll try to play the game with 16-bit colour setting instead of 32-bit as i have heard that helps a lot and i'll report to you.

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Asus Eee Pc 1101HA; My very first netbook (Hands-on review)

I'm not the guy that buys every new gadget in the market nor the one that changes his computer system every year or something like that. Frankly, i have my computer system for 3 and a half years now and i feel like having a strong bond with it despite its specs that are considered low-end nowadays. Nevertheless, i wanted to buy a small notebook to help me with my studies and be ultra portable. Also, i didn't want to spent a fortune for it and i didn't mind so much about the features it had. The only thing i wanted from the netbook i was going to buy was to run a version of Windows 7. The netbook i chose to buy is an Asus Eee Pc 1101HA featuring an 11,1 inch screen with resolution 1366x768HD,an Intel Atom Z520 at 1,33GHz, 2GB of ram(great for a netbook) and 250GB HDD that can reach up to 750GB of space using ASUS Webstorage Service. As an ordinary netbook it offers a high resolution web-cam, vga-out port, 3 usb ports, card reader(ms/pro duo), wifi n connectivity for even faster internet access and extreme portability. What this netbook offers more than other netbooks is its long lasting battery life that can reach up to 9 hours using Super Hybrid Engine, so you won't worry if you get out of battery any time soon after you unplug it.

Also, i found its keyboard really ergonomic, so this netbook will be helpful enough to write a blog post while you are on your way somewhere. What is more, Windows 7 fit perfectly with Asus Eee Pc 1101HA and for me is a good introduction to this operating system. Finally if you really care about environment and saving money as well this portable gadget is suitable for you as it has an energy star.

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