External Video Cards?

Okay, let's say you have a laptop, and it's got Intel Extreme Graphics 2, an integrated graphics solution. You want to get a video card for your laptop, but you can't because your laptop isn't meant to be expandable to host a video card. Are the external solutions where you can hook up a video card via USB 2.0 or another connection?

Would you just hook up a USB device and it would display better graphics on the LCD?

Or are you hooking up the laptop to a video card which hooks up to a separate monitor?

(this would be cool if it's possible, I also have an integrated intel and would like better gfx)

I've never heard of being able to hook of a video card that way.
But why do you want to? If its for improved speed USB would probably end up slowing you down more anyway

Well, in order to use a external video card, the computer would have to be tricked into beliving that usb is a video card, etc, and usually, i have not seen a video card externally, except, for like Inputting video, like a external tv in adapter, or, tv out as in just displaying and not a actual video card, if something existed as a external video card it would probably be so expensive your better off getting a new computer with good video cards....

The problem with getting a external vid is you still have the one inside your laptop. Some how you sould have to tell your computer to rout all video to the usb and back, this is probly the worst idea. considering that usb maybe fast but travling the distance out and back would destroy the point of getting a fast card. you would have to get a really nice card to make up for the time. thats why vid cards are direcly connect to the mother board. that way they can have short distance to the proccesor. putting 5 feet between that card and the mother board is going to really slow it down.

plus, if your comp has a *plum* graphics card, I beat its USB 1.1 = usb 1.1 sucks a whole lot...

USB 2.0 can support speeds somewhere in the 480mbps range, so I don't think speed is a huge problem- and i really don't think 5 feet would cause the speed to detoriate that much. I've only ever seen video cards with 256mb of memory.

On my dell inspiron 5100 notebook that has an ATI graphics card and running windows xp, i am able to right click on my desktop, select 'properties', and on the 'settings' tab pick a display adapter- that is my guess on how the computer would be able to switch video cards.

And if a company like ATI, nVidia, or AGP ever game out with an external card, i'm sure they would provide software to configure it correctly.

I have also briefly read about possible future technology where a graphics card could be contained in a PC card, which most laptops are equipped with.

In my opinon, graphics cards can only do so much. Memory is usually an easy upgrade- i have upgraded my laptop's memory already to almost a gig. If you are looking for a truly upgradeable gaming experience, i suggest a desktop.

-replies are appreciated-

[quote="Sumen"]I've never heard of being able to hook of a video card that way.
But why do you want to? If its for improved speed USB would probably end up slowing you down more anyway[/quote]


What about other connection means, like firewire? (up to 800mbps).

The whole reason behind having a video card is taking all the video processing off the CPU and having all the calculations done by themselves on a GPU. (Graphics Processing Unit.) The reason you don't see any USB or Firewire video cards is despite the speed of the connections, it would still tax the CPU and it's bus down so much sending information back and forth from that external port.

Just my guess, but it sounds right to me anyway.

That seems like a logical statement, but the video card has its own memory. Firewire and usb connect to the motherboard, which would probably then display on the lcd either through the old gpu or a direct connection to it. I'm not seeing how the processor is slowed in the process.


do you agree?

Well, if it was still making the actual graphics connection through the old GPU, how would you have a performance increase? Thats like saying you could plug an external 3ghz processor into a pentium system, still use the old cpu, and have a faster computer. The system is still going to be bottlenecked by the old precessor.

Then how do you suppose it can connect to the lcd? Maybe the new gpu could do all the calculations and just use the old one as a sort of 'gateway' to the lcd? How else can you connect to the lcd? if you have video-in on your old gpu? it's still going through it, but i don't think it would make a difference.

It couldn't......that's my whole point. I don't think an external video card would work very well.

I agree. External Video Cards aren't a big possibility. Might as well get a new computer.

I was thinking that it could be connected to the existing vga port. Would come with a custom driver designed to make the onboard graphics card output data in it's raw format so an external graphics card could process...without any tac paid by my memory or my cpu

This would enable me to bring an ultra-portable to uni ect and then have decent graphics at home when i dock the laptop to a 24" 1080p lcd.

btw post if you know any 12"-14" laptops with 128-256mb DEDICATED graphics