Updating a Graphics Driver in a vintage 2008 MacBook Pro

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Good Afternoon! My son is a big fan of STEAM, especially Portal 2. The Vintage 2008 MacBook Pro we have runs on OX 10.6.8 but has only a ATY Radeon X1600 in it, and Steam's minimum specs call for a Radeon 2400 or higher to run their program. Would anyone know if this upgrade is achievable in this old of a machine? Would their be physical room for it? Any idea of how big an investment in money and labor such an upgrade would be? Thank You very much for your time. :)
 
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G'day and welcome to the forums.

Only if you upgrade the computer alas. To have that card must be an even earlier model from early 2007 as all 2008 models had the nVidia 8600M GT and in 2009 went to 9600 version.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=565617
 

bobtomay

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Pretty sure I played Portal 2 on my '06 MBP with the X1600 in it. Can check when I get home.
 
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Good Afternoon! My son is a big fan of STEAM, especially Portal 2. The Vintage 2008 MacBook Pro we have runs on OX 10.6.8 but has only a ATY Radeon X1600 in it, and Steam's minimum specs call for a Radeon 2400 or higher to run their program. Would anyone know if this upgrade is achievable in this old of a machine? Would their be physical room for it? Any idea of how big an investment in money and labor such an upgrade would be? Thank You very much for your time. :)

According to Valve, the X1600 is not supported for a few games, with Portal 2 explicitly being one of them.
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5376-EOSB-3763
 

bobtomay

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15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
It appears Steam has updated Portal 2 since I last played it - more than a couple years ago.

Alas, harry is correct - as with most notebooks, not possible to upgrade the video card and the X1600 would be a late '06 model - manufactured thru June '07 when they moved to NVidia cards.
 

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