I have a half decent laptop which is struggling to run WoW, Why!?

[MosmoFX]

Hi, basically i have played WoW on and off for the last three years on 3 different computers/laptops, i have never modified and of said computer/laptops and have run WoW on their default hardware. I first played WoW on an old piece of S**T computer and it still run fine, not spectacular but there was no immense lag it just run fine.. and now i am playing on a HP Laptop which i paid £1000 for.. basically i ran the trial WoW and it seemed a bit laggy and i just dont get why, these were my results:

http://s569.photobucket.com/albums/ss138/Cosmofx/?action=view&current=WHYY.jpg&newest=1

So i know im babbling on but from looking at that and thinking logically i just cant see why im struggling whereas on previous computers its run fine, previous computers that were rubbish compared to my laptop atm! Can anyone help me please, it would be much appreciated! Thanks.

[Clavina]

You've got a terrible integrated video card, running the game on the lowest settings may help.

[waytofailself]

yeah, 64 MB of video memory is REALLY low. I'm surprised you can run WoW actually. Minimal settings are your best bet, but I'm not sure how northrend would treat you.

If you're going to get a laptop for gaming, you really need to make sure to investigate what you're getting. Oftentimes they're upwards of $2000 or so.

[Erinion]

I think "half decent" sums it up.

You seem to be testing your laptop for the wrong specifications. You're checking against the old vanilla WoW recommended specs. Since then the client has been upgraded (for everybody - whether you're running Vanilla Wow, TBC or Wrath) and along with it the specs have been upped.

For the MINIMUM specs now it states for GPU:

"Video Card
Minimum: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 32 MB VRAM (ATI Radeon 7200 or NVIDIA GeForce 2 class card or better)"

Your onboard x2300 is not up to the job. Although on paper it looks like it might meet all the criteria, remember that this is the MINIMUM specs needed to get it running. Unfortunately with laptops you're stuck with what you bought as upgrading (especially when all you've got is onboard graphics) is a nightmare.

Reducing the screen resolution should help, so will reducing the level of detail.

Putting more RAM in your laptop wouldnt hurt. Don't forget that Vista has a huge footprint and most people I know upgrade from their 2Gb immediately (32bit Vista will only use 4Gb of RAM including any video card RAM).

This is a classic case of paying for what you thought was great specs, but finding out they've sold you turkey. The laptop you've bought will struggle with most games released within the past year. As others have said, a "gaming" laptop (with dedicated graphics, more RAM etc) generally cost more than the "surf the net, do some word processing" one you've bought.

[Kalos]

For £1000 it sucks; sorry to say that but honestly I could easily have picked a £600-700 laptop that would hand that one its rear end in terms of gaming performance. It isn't half decent, it has a cheap bottom-grade intergrated graphics solution that probably costs less than £30 as a single component. For gaming, that laptop just....sucks, that is why it is performing badly, par for the course.

[Wintrow]

I run wow (including Northrend) on my work laptop:
Turion X2 (2Ghz)
2GB RAM
X1250 (also integrated)

It runs adequately because I set EVERYTHING except drawdistance to minimum.