Star Wars: The Old Republic and Intel HD 4600?

[ADwiv]

I tried running Star Wars: The Old Republic on my current laptop and when I clicked 'Play' it said that it was incompatible.

I have Intel HD Graphics. Sadly, the game seems to only be taking the 'dedicated' memory into consideration and not the shared memory. Is there a way to force the game to take the shared memory into account as well? Can I make it work on my current laptop (dxdiag attached)?

My second question is, if I go for the Intel i5 4440 processor, it has Intel HD 4600 Graphics. How do I know if this is good enough to run the game? How do I find out how much dedicated memory the 4600 graphics has? I wouldn't want a repeat of this incident to occur once I've made the purchase.

[ROBERT_U_Intel]

Hi Akshay

The game should run on your system. Here's a couple of things you can try.

In the system BIOS of your laptop, look for video or graphics settings. See if there is an option for dedicated graphics memory. If there is. set it to Max DVMT or whatever Gateway calls it.

Next, make sure you have the latest game patches/updates for the game if there are any.

Install the latest Intel HD Graphics driver for your system available here:

64-bit: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=24348 http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=24348

Please report back with your results.

Thanks

Robert

[ADwiv]

Robert_U wrote:

Hi Akshay

The game should run on your system. Here's a couple of things you can try.

In the system BIOS of your laptop, look for video or graphics settings. See if there is an option for dedicated graphics memory. If there is. set it to Max DVMT or whatever Gateway calls it.

Next, make sure you have the latest game patches/updates for the game if there are any.

Install the latest Intel HD Graphics driver for your system available here:

64-bit: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=24348 http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=24348

Please report back with your results.

Thanks

Robert

Which drivers are those? I ran the Intel driver update utility and it didn't suggest any drivers? Are you sure those are the drivers I need for my laptop?

And in the BIOS, I can only see the dedicated memory, there is no way to modify the values. Is there an alternative way to do so?

[JEFFREY_F_Intel]

This is a bug in the game - on integrated graphics devices all memory is the same in terms of performance and, per WHQL requirements, Intel must minimize how much memory is reserved exclusively for graphics at boot - e.g. only 32-64MB for basic book keeping. All other memory is supposed to be dynamically allocated from the operating system. There is a good reason for this - if graphics driver reserved say 1GB at boot just in case you wanted to run a game, that memory wouldn't be available for other purposes (Excel, etc) and you would experience more swapping between memory and disk due to memory pressure.

A correctly implemented game should be looking at how much shared memory is available.

HD4600 is certainly fast enough to play the game but that doesn't help if the game won't launch. There is nothing Intel can do in drivers to workaround this incorrect logic in the game. Please contact the game vendor and ask them to fix this. If enough of their customers complain, maybe they will listen and issue a patch..

As Robert indicates, there may be an option in some BIOS to force the BIOS to reserve more memory for graphics to trick the game into running. If the BIOS doesn't let you change DVMT PreAllocated, then you are stuck.

[ADwiv]

rootheday wrote:

This is a bug in the game - on integrated graphics devices all memory is the same in terms of performance and, per WHQL requirements, Intel must minimize how much memory is reserved exclusively for graphics at boot - e.g. only 32-64MB for basic book keeping. All other memory is supposed to be dynamically allocated from the operating system. There is a good reason for this - if graphics driver reserved say 1GB at boot just in case you wanted to run a game, that memory wouldn't be available for other purposes (Excel, etc) and you would experience more swapping between memory and disk due to memory pressure.

A correctly implemented game should be looking at how much shared memory is available.

HD4600 is certainly fast enough to play the game but that doesn't help if the game won't launch. There is nothing Intel can do in drivers to workaround this incorrect logic in the game. Please contact the game vendor and ask them to fix this. If enough of their customers complain, maybe they will listen and issue a patch..

As Robert indicates, there may be an option in some BIOS to force the BIOS to reserve more memory for graphics to trick the game into running. If the BIOS doesn't let you change DVMT PreAllocated, then you are stuck.

The driver link that Robert provided - is it for my graphics device?

Also, googling "SWTOR Intel HD Graphics" will show many who have succeeded in running the game.

[ROBERT_U_Intel]

The driver are the generic Intel HD Graphics drivers. It would appear that Gateway has installed customized drivers on your system that prevent using the generic driver. OEM's such as gateway customize the driver to work specifically with features of a system such as power management, display features, performance, etc. You can overwrite the customized driver however you would loose the customizations Gateway made to the driver and the system may not work as Gateway designed it to.

If you wish to test the generic driver you can overwrite the customized drive by following the step below exactly. If you do not like the results you could uninstall the generic driver and reinstall the customized driver. You may consider creating a restore point before proceeding.

Download the zip version of the driver mentioned above and follow these steps to install.

1. Login with administrator privileges

2. Open Control Panel

3. Open Device Manager

4. Click on "Display adapters"

5. Double click "Intel HD Graphics"

6. Click on the "Driver" tab

7. Click on "Update Driver" button

8. Click on "Browse my computer for driver software"

9. Click on "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer"

10. Click on "Have Disk" button

11. Click "Browse"

12. Navigate to the folder that you unzipped the Intel HD Graphics driver to

13. Navigate to the Graphics sub-folder

14. Double click the igdlh64.inf or igdlh.inf file <-- depends on if you have 32 or 64 bit OS</span>

15. Click "OK"

16. Click "Next"Driver should now be installing.

17. If successful, click "Close", Reboot.

Thanks

Robert

[ADwiv]

I'll give this a try. Will doing so allow me to change the values in the BIOS? What should I do once I've installed these generic drivers?

[ROBERT_U_Intel]

No, BIOS settings are built into the system by the manufacturer. You are only allowed to change what they give to access to. After installing the drivers just use your system as normal.

Thanks

Robert

[ADwiv]

I downloaded the zip version of the drivers but the Graphics sub-folder does not have a "igdlh64.inf" file.

[ADwiv]

Hello? I still require assistance

[ADwiv]

Can someone please help out?

[Scott_H_Intel]

Hi Dejavu619,

On this particular graphics driver Robert_U pointed you to, the INF file is "kit64ics.inf". As a general rule, there will be only one .inf file in the Graphics folder.

Please make sure you create a restore point before attempting this.

Thanks,

Scott