Dedicated Memory question.

It's not laptops I keep track of so much, as it's Oblivion that I keep playing over again, and experimenting with.

This is part of a reply (mine) on the GameFaqs Oblivion forum:

Recommended:

* 3.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor (A64 3000)
* 1 GB System RAM
* ATI X800 XT, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series, or higher, video card

Minimum System Requirements:

* Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows XP 64-bit
* 512MB System RAM
* 2.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor (XP 2200)
* 128MB Direct3D compatible video card and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver;
X 800 GTO, NVIDIA Geforce 6800 GT
* 8x DVD-ROM drive
* 4.6 GB free hard disk space
* DirectX 9.0c (included)
* DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
* Keyboard, Mouse

I haven't visited the Bethesda official site lately, so I don't know whether they finally stopped lying about Oblivion's requirements or not. Here at GameFAQs, the old thread stickied at the top includes the following list of "supported" video card series, many of which don't even come CLOSE to running the game in an enjoyable manner (as per my notations)=

Supported Video Card Chipsets:

* ATI X1900 series
* ATI X1800 series
* ATI X1600 series
* ATI X1300 series (Nope, very slow)
* ATI X850 series
* ATI x800 series
* ATI x700 series
* ATI x600 series (Sorta -- but quite slow)
* ATI Radeon 9800 series
* ATI Radeon 9700 series
* ATI Radeon 9600 series (all but the "XT" are quite slow)
* ATI Radeon 9500 series (note that it's faster than the 9600, and it doesn't
have any "9550" in the family)
* NVIDIA GeForce 7900 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 7600 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series (Only the 6600 GT is "almost" good enough)
* NVIDIA GeForce 6200 series (Extrememely Slow)
* NVIDIA GeForce FX series (Worst of all - Crawls along in slow motion)

After adding some newer ones, it is far easier to view the bad ones, at least, in order of their performance capability, this way=

Published Video Card Chipsets:

(Note, this upper part is still separated into AMD up here)
(The two 38** cards go here)
* ATI X1950 series
* ATI X1900 series
(The Radeon HD 2900 goes here)
* ATI X1800 series
(The Radeon HD 2600 goes here)
* ATI X1650 series
* ATI X1600 series
* ATI X850 series
* ATI x800 series

NOTE: the "Practical Minimum" ATI Radeon is the X800 Pro (or the 9800 XT)

* ATI x700 series
* ATI Radeon 9800 series
* ATI Radeon 9700 series
* ATI Radeon 9500 series (does not include the 9550)

(The GeForce 8800 goes here)
* NVIDIA GeForce 7950 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 7900 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series
(The GeForce 8600 goes here)
* NVIDIA GeForce 7600 series

NOTE: the bottom end of "Practical Minimum" is the Geforce 6800 GT card, and my *performance sorting* starts from there on down =

* NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series (Only the 6600 GT is "almost" good enough)
(The GeForce 8500 goes here)
* ATI x600 series (Sorta works -- but quite slow)
* ATI Radeon 9600 series (all but the "XT" are VERY slow)
(The Radeon HD 2400 goes here)
* ATI X1300 series (Nope, very slow)
* ATI X1550 (Nope, very slow)
* NVIDIA GeForce 7300 series
* ATI Radeon X550
(The GeForce 8400 goes here)
* ATI Radeon X300
* NVIDIA GeForce 6200 series (Extrememely Slow)
* ATI Radeon X1050
* ATI Radeon 9550 (Worst Radeon VGA that actually has SM2)
* NVIDIA GeForce FX series (Worst of all - Crawls along in slow motion)

Look where a desktop 8400 is, and consider that a laptop version always gives up some performance in comparison.