The first thing you should do it to call compaq or check compaq doc to see
if the intergrated video is able to disable or not. if it doesn't (very
likely to happen), you will have no way to upgrade at all.
There is one thing for sure, the intergrated graphice uses "shared memory",
means it takes upto 8M of memory away from system RAM, so that if the system
has 64M of RAM and the graphices uses 8M, you only have 56M RAM for system
use.
If you don't care about games, then there is no reason to get a PCI card
unless you want to release the "shared memory".

Jun Qian

----- Original Message -----
From: "Reuven Freuman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2000 2:40 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Should I upgrade integrated Video Controller?


> I just purchased Compaq Presario 7598. It includes an integrated 2X AGP
> 3D graphics controller with Intel 810e chipset, with up to 8 Mb ram.
> Compaq describes it as "integrated 64-bit hardware-accelerated 3D
> graphics".
>
> The motherboard has only PCI expansion slots available. I am primarily
> interested in resolution, contrast and clarity, not really games.
>
> Questions:
>
> 1.  If I upgrade to a PCI card - would I gain anything?

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