What video cards are you working with on all of these systems? People tell me all the time that they have "really powerful systems" and then they are using an extremely basic video card (they've been fooled by the high number in the marketing) that may or may not be able to run games they way they want to.
Most laptops these have Intel GMA HD which are oriented around running Aero desktop in Windows 7 and hardware accelerated PowerPoint (for the nifty 3D transitions) and not really capable of handling games. Some do have fancier nVidia and AMD cards in them... is yours one?
|