Powerbook video card swap

[looloopoopie]

First off, I must admit - I'm a World of Warcraft junkie, and nothing can or will change that.

I play mostly while I'm at school on my Powerbook - the most recent revision before the macbooks. *cry*

I recently visited Hong Kong and saw the insane video cards that are installed in other laptops. I didn't think the video card on the Powerbook was that awful - until I saw those. Compared to the laptops I saw in HK, the PB video card is abyssmal. Granted, the PB is more of a workhorse machine than a gaming one, but I want to have my cake and eat it too.

I was wondering if anyone has had any experience swapping out PB video cards for a better one, if it's at all possible. Considering that laptop components are usually soldered on, I'm skeptical (and sad) that this can't happen. But there's always room for hope - and much improvement on the part of the PB video card.

 

[yellow]

<-- Fellow Junkie.

Unfortunately, it's not possible. The video on the PBs are integrated into the logic board.

 

[Counterfit]

The only way to upgrade the video on a Powerbook is to swap in a newer logic board. Unfortunately for you, the next revision came with a form factor change, so you're SOL.

 

[cluthz]

Yeah, WOW and powerbook isn't a great combination..
Luckily you can turn down spell effects in Wow now, now I reach 6-7 fps from vael room to broodlord.. *sigh*

And swapping gfx is not possible..

 

[gammamonk]

You shouldn't be that bad off. You have the 1.67Ghz? I have the 1.5 with 128meg video, and WoW is playable. I get around 20FPS at full res with reasonable settings. The video card in the powerbooks isn't that bad. The G4 is the problem. Make sure you have your mac set to "Better Performance." It makes a difference over "Normal."

 

[Lord Blackadder]

That's a negative on the GPU swap - some laptops nowadays do have removable GPUs, but the vast majority don't.