NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB

Its just not possible im afraid.

Hi and welcome to Discussions,

the graphics chips of the MBP are soldered onto the mainboard (logic board) and can not be replaced.

And please, don't use all Upper Case. It's known as 'shouting' and not very polite.

Regards

Stefan

No need to yell.

Unfortunately you can't upgrade the graphics card, you have to consider the type of work you will be doing before you buy the machine.

Hi Isaac,

since there are only a handful of Notebooks in the market, which allow a change/upgrade of the graphics chip, and all of them are Windows-Notebooks, your choices are limited.

For use with the apps you mentioned the 9600 is a good graphics chip.
You should consider to upgrade the RAM memory to the max since all these apps do benefit a lot from that.

And maybe upgrade the harddisk to a bigger one.

Regards

Stefan

I'm surprised that no one has pointed out that you actually have 512 MB of video RAM when using the 9600M GT, and 256 MB video RAM when using the 9400M. You shouldn't really need to upgrade (which is good because you can't), because the 9600M GT is quite powerful for laptop graphics. I haven't had performance issues for any of the games I own. It even runs Oblivion with most graphics turned up, and at a pretty high resolution.

speaking of Oblivion... I run it on my 9600 using the "Unofficial Cider Port" wrapper, so I don't have to use WIndows, and it still runs good on the 9600... most Windows games I run using Wine or Crossover or Cider (official ports or home-made) all run really nice... people call it a "low to mid range" card for gaming, but I haven't had any problems, it runs great.

This is not true on the new models to the best of my knowledge. Is there not a 256 integrated and 256 9600?

Only the top of the line one has 256 integrated and 512 9600? No?

You are right... never mind.

The 9600 is always 512MB.

Actually no...!

All machines have an integrated 256 9400, the mid range 15 has a discrete 256 9600, and only the top of the line 15 and the 17 have the discrete 512 9600 chip.

See here: http://www.apple.com/ca/macbookpro/specs.html

With the certainty of revealing my ignorance, can someone tell me when is the 9600 used vs 9400? Whenever I look at system profiler is always says no display connected to the 9600. And if two displays, both connected to the 9400. Does it only work with certain types of displays? or applications? or connections?


NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT:

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 512 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0647
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 3436
gMux Version: 1.7.10
Displays:
Display Connector:
Status: No Display Connected
Display Connector:
Status: No Display Connected

When you go into System Preferences > Energy Saver on machines with the two choices you have the option for "Better battery life" or "Better Performance" and this is what toggles one card on and the other off. After you make your choice, you'll need to logout and back in for the changes to take over.

Thanks. For future reference - can you tell me where this is documented?

I was unable to find anything in the manual, or from http://support.apple.com so perhaps someone can provide an Apple published link. I actually just discovered it when fooling around with a 15" demo model in the store when the unit first came out. I do vaguely remember that during the Keynote where the problem was introduced that it was mentioned or discussed.

Hi J Lewis,

I know this thread is kind of old now, but I figured I might post this anyways. Its a link to the support document you were looking for regarding switching between the MacBook Pro's NVIDIA 9400M and 9600M GT graphic cards. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3207

I also have a question overall regarding playing Oblivion on the MacBook Pro: for those of you who have played it on a machine with 256 MB of VRAM, what resolution could you play it at and how many fps did you get? Also, does anyone know how much of a performance increase there is when playing with a 512 MB configuration instead? I got a 2.66 GHz 15" and I'm wondering what other people's experiences with these graphics configurations are.

Thanks