Yes, I still have the link from the auction on my Macbook Pro.

But read this - now I'm not sure if I still want to return the Acer laptop, or keep it -



Winfrey - which laptop is this review for?



Ok, Winfrey - will do like you told me to do. After I made this latest post here, I gave Baron Wittard Nemesis of Ragnarok about an hour's or so playthrough (on Win 7 64-bit), and I have no problems, that Compatibility graphics...(low-end HW detected) message did not appear at all when Baron Wittard and Black Mirror 2 were running. Tomorrow I'll print out a partial Black Mirror 2 w/t and give the game a playthrough, then I'll install Nikopol, Immortals of Terra, Rhem 4, and give these a playthrough.

EDIT - I noticed while playing Baron Wittard I felt quite happy and satisfied with how everything was (concerning the laptop) going.

Told Mom that laptops that have a separate 3D card in them are heavier, bigger, and thicker, to which Mom added "and they're more expensive." So will I need such a laptop to see me through the next 3 - 5 years if I stick to adventure gaming playing the latest releases?

Or should I keep this Acer laptop I bought from ebay and maybe in 5 years I'll have my computer tech job, so I'll be able to afford a newer laptop that has a separate 3D card and by that time these kind of laptops might be made smaller (more compact) and lighter in weight (b/c of more advanced computer technology that doesn't even exist at this time)?

Speaking of more advance computer technology, I recall 5 years ago when I still had my old laptop (March 2006) I was thinking of upgrading its 40 GB hard drive with a 500 GB hard drive, and my nephews tried to explain to me that putting a 500 GB hard drive into a laptop just wasn't possible, but I hung onto the idea, with the result I now have 2 laptops with a 500 GB hard drive - my MacBook Pro, and that Acer laptop I got off of ebay.

Will you need an expensive gaming computer with a discrete video card to play current adventure games?

No. Several people on this forum have done very well with mid-range laptop "cards" which are actually chipsets built into the motherboard.

Will you need an expensive gaming computer with a discrete video card to play games 3 to 5 years in the future?

A laptop with what is now considered a low-end video "card" is likely to struggle with adventure games in 3 to 5 years, where a laptop with what is now considered a high-end video card might not (assuming the laptop was still functional). But such high-end laptops are likely to be more than twice your budget, and the life span of a laptop is generally far less than that of a desktop.


I think you'll end up keeping this laptop because you can't return it. If you really want a gaming computer, you're better off building a desktop yourself. This laptop should play most current adventure games, though you may have graphics problems with some games the way you did with Alter Ego. As far as I can tell from what you've written, Alter Ego is still playable.

As of now, I believe I'm going to keep the Acer laptop, after all. I guess all of us boomers here just had to air everything out, and yes, Alter Ego is playable. I haven't touched that XP partition in the Acer laptop, but as soon as I get this issue of the XP NVidia driver not recognizing my laptop's NVidia card (on the XP side) solved I'm going to test Alter Ego on XP and report back to you guys, ok?

I found ***this Youtube video*** that compares Optimus technology with switchable graphics.
I think I'd rather have the switchable graphics.
I also found ***this article about Optimus*** which tells a bit more about it.

Cruise02, I just put that in there to give you an idea about how much a custom computer would cost you. I don't know much about them myself as I am not looking to buy one. The links to the gaming ones are on the left hand side under features if you want to look. It wouldn't be feasible for you to buy one here on this island, they are warranted by the owner for one year, he builds them, he fixes them, they don't go anywhere and are usually in and out in one day, a plus. The other Falcon place is in the northwest, http://www.falcon-nw.com/ they have some beauties and if I had money to burn, wow!!!

Since you already bought this Acer I think you should use it and not fret about how many years it will last you, and how many years it can still play games. In your case since you have so many others to use, it will probably "live" for a long time, but the games will fly on past it's capabilities, that is a given.

Well, then I hope the games won't fly past my Acer's capabilities until at least 5 years from now, by then hopefully I'll be working as a computer tech and will have the money to spend on a better, more capabile laptop. Also, Hawka, at the bottom of that Optimus article it says that currently, the Optimus drivers do not yet recognize all games that are thrown at it, so I suspect that that's why Alter Ego is running in low-end HW mode, as the driver doesn't recognize this particular game?

About that Falcon site, Hawka, these custom-build (this is one of the things I hope to do for when I have my computer tech job) laptops cost over $1,000 - too much for me to pay at this time.

EDIT - So far the seller hadn't gotten back to me but I just sent him a new email stating I've changed my mind about returning the laptop (after discussing it with you buddies here at GB) and that I wanted to keep the laptop, and that if I returned it I'd likely regret that decision later.

The reviews were for the 5745g.... I followed Drac's link took me to Amazon... click on the 23 reviews..... they like the video card.... link to Amazon

Winfrey, that's what I was reading earlier in the reviews of this laptop too. People were running all their high-demand games in full settings and this laptop could handle it beautifully. As I said, this laptop got very, very good reviews.

I noticed that when I was reading all these reviews on it, Drac and Winfrey. I'm now glad that the seller never got back to me on returning it before I sent him a third email, and in the latest email to the seller (sent earlier this morning around 7 a.m.) I told the seller I changed my mind about wanting to return it, that if I did return it I might regret it, and that I wanted to keep the laptop after all.

You're not going to get the XP/Optimus issue solved anytime soon -

Nvidia Optimus Review

Quote: At the moment, Optimus only works under Windows 7 with Nvidia graphic cards manufactured in 40 nm (most of the latest GeForce 200M and 300 graphic cards.

From the technical documents I've read for Optimus, the secondary IGP is basically a bridge used to offload video processing from the Intel processor. It does this by rendering the image and updating the primary IGP's frame buffer directly. So, the only thing your LCD ever really sees is the Intel processor.

The images you posted look more like texture clipping to me. Unfortunately, I don't have the game installed anymore, so I don't recall which in-game options were available that might affect it. I'll load it up later today and take a peak.

To make the whole thing even more complicated, the rules for utilizing the nVidia processor are controlled by software and aren't documented anywhere that I could find. If you're still using the driver's profile to force the use of the nVidia processor, and it's not working, it sounds like the technology is a bit flawed.

Alter Ego wasn't an overly demanding game video wise, have you tried removing the profile and just letting the PC do its thing?

No, never thought of this - how do I remove the profile? Where is it?

You pointed to it here -

Found out how to fix the graphic card settings -

I went to Control Panel > NVidia Control Panel > 3D settings > Highlight "manage 3D settings" in left pane, > In "manage 3D Settings" (right pane) go to Program Settings > Select a program to customize > Add > Computer > C:\ > Program Files (x86) > Viva Media (highlight this) > Open > Highlight game > Open > select game's shortcut-like icon > click on this > Open, and it takes you back to the Manage 3D Settings panel, from there where it says "select preferred graphics processor for this program", you have 2 choices - either the Integrated graphics or the high performance NVidia Processor, Highlight "NVidia processor" > Apply.

And then there's this:

I don't think the laptop will be able to detect the Nvidia chipset when you try to install the drivers if all the display connections go to the Intel. It seems like the Nvidia chip is just piggybacking on top of the Intel. The Nvidia has to work along with the Intel or not at all.

Yeah - I was curious just how nVidia was distributing their drivers for these configurations.

It turns out that they have Optimus specific drivers - you can't just download traditional driver updates for these laptops. And... in as much as they're only supported under Windows 7, XP will always be an issue.

All replies have been beamed aboard the spaceship and stored in the ship's computer awaiting printout by the ship's librarian who will assemble said printouts in book form for Captain Ag to refer to when troubleshooting any graphics card-intensive computers on his away missions to far-flung planets.

By the way, Captain Ag may be receiving another laptop computer (from a group of beings on a distant world) having requested this of The Most High King of the Universe in his cabin aboard the space cruiser, The Tami Rae.

From previous experience I think this translates to enough information for now.

**Latest update**

Mom told me my Penna. sister's family likely won't be buying new laptops for the next couple of years from now, thus at this time they're not getting rid of their old ones, but while at my Bible study teacher's house this afternoon I asked my Bible study teacher to ask around among her friends/relatives if anyone wants to get rid of a nice laptop that I'd be glad to take off of their hands that I'd be able to put XP on as well as have no difficulty in getting all the XP drivers for the hardware (which InlandAZ said doesn't exist for my Acer laptop's hardware) so I'd hopefully be able to play some of my XP games on, as well as tinker with VirtualBox, etc, and take with me on the bus to Barnes & Noble, Panara Bread, and my sister's house during holiday family gatherings (in addition to my Acer Win 7 laptop, although I'll take either the Win 7 laptop or the Win XP laptop with me at any one time, not both) and game on.

I'll be using this XP laptop for these games that won't run on Win 7 (at least, for me).

**latest update 2**

Since I found InlandAZ was right about not being able to find XP drivers for my Acer laptop's hardware, I think I'm going to delete the XP partition, restore the Win 7 partition back to orig. size, and create a Win XP mode using this how-to here -


Creating XP mode in Win 7 Home versions/Vista OS's


and try my non-win 7 running games (and a few other programs) in XP mode.

Also the ebay seller got back to me and said he's glad everything worked out for me (regarding changing my mind about returning the laptop and wanting to keep it).

That's simply using VMWare, isn't it?

And could you remember to let me know if you run into any games which will not play on Windows 7 that are not already listed in the Windows 7 and Gaming thread?

Since Jenny100 said XP mode doesn't make use of 3D graphics, I abandoned this idea, googled for using 1GB VRAM NVidia in VMWare Player, and I was lead to VMWare Player 3.0/3.1, which I believe I had for some time stored on my jump drive, so I deleted the Win XP partition, restored the shrunken Win 7 partition back to original size, installed my VMware Player 3.0 onto my Win 7 laptop, created a new VM using VMware Player 3, which I installed XP onto, installed 80 Days, AnaCarpi, Jazz & Faust, PR: Immortals of Terra on, and tested these. Of these, only 80 Days and AnaCapri run with no problems, but Jazz & Faust crashed after the intro sequence, and PR: Immortals of Terra won't even run.

When I first got my new Acer laptop, I installed PR: Immortals of Terra on it (in Win 7) but it wouldn't even start up/crashed. How do I tweak this game to run in Win 7? I have the 64-bit Win 7 in Acer laptop.

And what tweaks can I use to get Jazz & Faust running in either my laptop's Win 7 or my VMware Player's Win XP VM (it's not XP mode)?

There were patches for Jazz & Faust -

Jazz and Faust patch 2 (Windows)

Because it wasn't designed for Windows 7, try running it in compatibility mode for XP.

No, it's not XP mode -

If you don't know how to use compatibility mode in Windows 7, this is how. (It is NOT the same as XP mode, as Inland says.)

Right click on the game icon, select Troubleshoot compatibility and follow the prompts. I have had to use Windows 98 in some, but I would let the troubleshooter select at first and see what happens.

Inland, the link you gave me took me to Zdnet and they made me register to d/l the patch, then and it wasn't a d/l at all, but another link to Cnet where I tried again to d/l (after doing a search of Cnet) then I found the d/l link, clicked on it, and it made me wait a long time for the d/l to begin, but my d/l never started - nothing I do will start the d/l.

You're right - it doesn't work. I already have an account at ZDNet, so I tried it too.

Try the one from FilePlanet. You don't have to register, but you can if you want.

Jazz and Faust Patch 2 FilePlanet

Unfortunately there are many references that lead to --- broken links...

Goggle the name of the game+patch. You'll eventually find one like Drac's.