Hi,

I'm thinking about buying The Witcher, but the only thing that stops me is IGP in my laptop.
Is it possible to run and play it on Intel Core i5 with HD3000?
For some reason demo doesn't even want to start on Win7-64, but AFAIR I was able to play it some time ago on slower laptop with previous generation of Intel GFX?

Thank you in advance for help!

R.

Yes. I have an Intel Core i5-2500K, 4 GB RAM and Win7 64-bit. I'm saving to buy a good graphics card in the future, but using HD Graphics 3000 it seems I don't need it for now.
The game (and others) looks and runs very good in 800x600 (40-45 fps) with almost everything in High and some in Medium (except for anti-aliasing and depth of field, which I recommend to disable, and shadows in medium) and also in 1024x768 (30-35 fps) with almost everything in Medium and some in High.

Beware though, if you're using a laptop to play modern games, your CPU will gain heat very fast. Maybe you'll need some external cooling (like that kind of "mini carpets" to put under your laptop that have 2 or 3 coolers).

My brother plays in his laptop, which by the way has an Intel Core i5-2430M (HP Pavilion g4-1285la with HD Graphics 3000) and he plays at 1280x720 at everything in Medium and some in High or Low (anti-aliasing disabled, shadows in low), and the games run pretty good (like 28-35 fps), except for the heating in the laptop.

If you do have any trouble running the game, you may want to check the sticky thread for how to bypass the minimum system requirements check. Many players are able to run the game fine once they get past this check.

Oops, I forget to say -and this is important- if you're getting a message saying something like "minimal requirements not met" and then the game won't load, that's because the Intel HD Graphics wasn't developed in the time of this game, and thus, isn't supported -although is more than enough to run this game-.

To bypass this:

- Don't launch the game from the launcher. Create a shortcut directly to the file "witcher.exe" from the game's folder (it's inside of "System"). Place the shortcut wherever you want.

- Edit the propeties for this shortcut, and edit the line that includes the "witcher.exe" and add this text: -dontForceMinReqs
It should looks something like this: "C:\Games\The Witcher Enhanced Edition Directors Cut\System\witcher.exe" -dontForceMinReqs

- Save and launch from this shortcut. The game should load now.

Sorry, but I don't know that, I don't own that game (yet), because I still need to complete The Witcher 1, and for now, I haven't decided if I get the second game for Xbox 360 or PC. But I think it should run, at least, in lower resolutions (up to 1024x768). I have tried many games for PC in the last months, and I've been surprised in the performace (in a good way) with the Intel HD Graphics 3000. If I was able to play Crysis 1 (in 800x600), Crysis: Warhead (in 1024x768), and the awesome Skyrim (in High to Medium 800x600 45-50 fps; Medium and some in High 1024x768 35-40 fps), I think it can handle The Witcher 2.

You should probably head to the Witcher 2 forum to ask that. I fear that it might not be playable... The Witcher 2 is fairly graphics-intensive. But I'm not familiar enough with the HD3000 to know for sure.

Bought & running :)
It works pretty flawlessly at 1366x768 with almost all details set to high :)
But I wouldn't try to run Witcher 2 on HD3000 - if it's as "good" gpu-optimized as W1, I wouldn't expect anything other than slideshow :)

Cool! :D

This game runs pretty good with Intel HD Graphics 3000, all my options are set to High, except for textures, anti-aliasing and depth of field, which are disabled by default, or set to Low.

I still think -or at least, have a little faith- that HD Graphics 3000 can handle TW2, since the games I have played on PC this year, all run perfectly up to 1024x768 with almost every option set to High and Medium and always getting over 35-40 fps, which is enough for me. I'm mostly a console gamer, that's why I haven't decided if I get the second game for Xbox 360 or PC. I use the PC to play the games I can't in Xbox 360, and point-and-click adventure games.

For now, I want to increase my RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB, and at the end of this year, get the better graphics card I can get as a gift to myself :D

Cheers, and happy gaming! ;)

EDIT:
As recently I've updated the video drivers, and noticed the game is now softer since the last time I played it (same settings as before), I used the utility Fraps, and is reporting in 800x600 between 80 and 110 fps during the game, and in the menu over 300 fps (O_O)U.
I guess updating the drivers did something good... :P

A new graphics card will likely make a much bigger difference than the extra RAM, but it may also be more expensive. You will also want to make sure that your machine's power supply has enough juice to power the new card.

Are you running on a laptop? Installing a new graphics card in a laptop might be tricky.

If you don't have a real graphics card then you may as well just get the Witcher 2 for the xbox 360 if you have it. The combat/gameplay is very different in Witcher 2 and seems very meant to be played with using a controller. BTW I played the first witcher on a computer with intel hd graphics as well, the only annoying things about xbox 360 version of Witcher 2 are the fact that there is no way to import the choices you made from witcher 1, the higher price, and the more frequent loading screens. Also since like me you primary use the PC mainly for games you can't play on the xbox 360 then at least for RPGs, there are no PC exclusives coming out any time soon that are worth the effort and money to put a new graphics card in your PC besides maybe Diablo 3 (even though I have no real interest in playing it, not into what the Diablo games focus on that much) which I'm guessing will have low requirements anyway. (There is an interesting indie RPG called Age of Decadence that when it comes out may be worth getting though that is a PC exclusive.)

(BTW, you have plenty of RAM for just about any game for your PC from what i know. I could be wrong here, but just about any recent computer can play any game out now if it wasn't for using integrated graphics instead of using an actual graphics card)

Thanks for your post Marcusmaximus, I'll keep what you said in mind :)

Really, just get a proper graphics card, it can't be that expensive to pick up something like a Geforce GTS450 or Radeon HD6670 (DDR5 version). It'll be far better than scraping a playable muddy-looking experience with Intel chipsets.

If you're using a basic laptop to play this...why? It'd be cheaper to use a PC in almost all cases unless you don't have to start with. Plus you can actually make meaningful upgrades to a desktop computer.

Dude, you posted in a topic that died in April just to bash the guy for his graphic card and legit technical question? Wow.

My bad, I posted on the wrong thread.

Nice of you to get upset at someone explaining why games play better on a dedicated graphics card though...