Need help with new laptop and games

[Deband]

I got this laptop for my mum the other day.

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.206-7691.aspx

Problem is it won't launch the few games I've tried on it. Which are Plants vs Zombies and the free Peggle on Steam. Since both are really low spec I thought they'd both work no problem. When I try and launch them I just get a black screen then have to reset the pc.

Things I've checked so far are Windows update, graphics drivers and DirectX version. That's about as far as my limited pc experience goes. Any ideas BG?

Thanks

[Stee]

From what I can tell your graphics card is integrated, Intel GMA 4500M. Integrated graphics cards aren't good for gaming and most likely it may not be powerful enough to play the games you listed. I'm not sure though, so you might want to research just how powerful your integrated card is.

[Deband]

Thanks for the reply. I did wonder about that.

[The Stig]

FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU CCCCCCCKKKKKKKK

And I was the one to recommend you that laptop via PM.

I was under the impression both games did not require a lot of CPU/GPU.

A quick dig showed me that this particular GPU can run it, but will choke on some levels.

Although other factors can come into play here which may be affecting why the game won't run (people have got PvZ running on netbooks), but cannot be determined without inspection (actually feeling it) of the laptop.

You're still within your rights to return the laptop though, although I am sorry that it turned out like this. The official site specifies it needs 512mb RAM and a 1.2ghz CPU, DX8. This laptop exceeds all that and technically should run it. Peggle has even less requirements than specified above.

Did you nip to your local Tesco to buy it? If so throw it back at them and we'll make room for about £100 more on a semi decent laptop.

[Deband]

Np man

Any suggestions for a different one?

[The Stig]

I'm looking around but if we want a sure-fire way of getting those 2 games to run with no disruptions it seems we need £500-600

What's your thoughts/willingness to spend more? However I'm confident with a bit of tweaking/investigating we can get the games to run on the current laptop. But also a quick search on Google reveals this to not be a unique problem to you, a few others are getting it too.

Did you get both games off Steam?

[Deband]

Yeah got them both off Steam. Doesn't need to be these 2 games for her. They are just 2 fairly low spec games I played a bit recently. Maybe I should just look at non Popcap Games?

[The Stig]

Hmm, is PvZ available as a standalone? My research earlier shows there's a standalone demo, are you able to try that and see if it runs?

Also, this black screen issues seems to persist with Steam related stuff rather than anything else.