How important is the video card in a laptop....

[brhmac]

... for someone who needs a laptop for writing, Web design, graphics, iTunes and some iMovie use?

I really like the form factor of the 12" PowerBook and I just need a laptop to replace my G3 PB until I make the plunge in about a year for a G5 desktop.

I won't be doing any gaming on the PB, so the card that comes with the 12" seems fine to me. I read so many people carping about the 32 mb card, though, that it makes me wonder. I notice the 15" PB has 64 mb and a different card, but I've never understood the difference from one to the next (64 mb sounds more impressive, but does a nongamer need it?)



Thanks for your perspective. If there's a resource you could direct me to learn more about these video cards, would appreciate that too.

 

[thehuncamunca]

i do some light gaming GTA3 simcity 4 the sims etc on my PC with a 32MB GF2MX and it does the job perfectly
even the 9200 in the ibook would be fine for some light gaming so i wouldn't worry about the graphics card, the extra 32 MB won't help anything if you're not going to do gaming so the 12 inch pb card is more than enough

 

[hugemullens]

yeah, the 32 mb card in the 12 inch ibooks and powerbook is great for what its intended. Its not a gaming machine, but it still provides great grahpics well supporting quartz extreme. And the 12 inch powerbook can drive an external display in spanned mode. On a apple laptop the million dollar question is: does it support quartz extreme. All of them do. I am happy with the old geforce4mx in my powerbook, which is really a re-badged geforce2.

 

[virividox]

you wont be running halo with high fps, but it should do fine for light to med photoshop work