External video card???

One way or another I am going to purchase Final Fantasy 14. I am faced with two options: to wait for 8 months until it comes out on the playstation 3, which is possible but would be exceedingly painful, OR I need to find a way to improve my laptop to the point that I can play it to my satisfaction.

Here's what my laptop's got: AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core QL-65, I have Windows 7 home premium, ATI Radeon 3100 Graphics, 3 GB RAM, like 200 GB of memory, 1406 total MB available graphics memory, and 256 MB dedicated graphics memory.

I tried the FFXI4 benchmark and it gave me a majorly shitty score like 200 and something (not even close to being able to run the game).

A dude at Best Buy told me that my video card is bullshit (although I don't know why cuz according to the the FFXI4 website it's sufficient) and he said the only solution was an external video card.

Is the benchmark and best buy full of shit and the game will run perfectly fine? or is an external video card the answer to my prayers? If so can you recommend one for me? (and I'm not buying a new computer so forget that) Pleas help an impatient final fantasy fan out.

well external graphics solutions do exist, but your laptop must have an express card slot available and you have to be willing to pay what these solutions cost. The ViDock for instance ranges from $200-$300 plus the cost of a decent video card, which will range from about $60-$150 for something most people would be happy with, all the way to up $700 for the best of today. So yea, if you are looking to spend about $300 and you have an express card slot on your laptop, then yea there are some great options.

However, there are no USB graphics cards or cardbus systems that will improve your gaming performance. Another option is IF your laptop has a mxm-type expansion slot internally. Most laptops will not have one unless they already come with a dedicated graphics card...which yours does not have...HD 3100 is an integrated solution built into the motherboard chipset.

So really, if you cannot afford the external option then you are pretty much out of luck. According to the official site the MINIMUM requirements call for an Nvidia 9600 or ATI HD 2900 series. Though these are old cards, today's equivalent will fall in the $60-80 range. The recommended graphics cards are not listed but are likely into the $150-$200 range depending on how high a resolution you wish to play and what you consider acceptable frame rates and detail settings.

Your HD 3100 do not come even close to the minimum graphics requirements so really your only options are going to be to invest a couple hundred bucks in external graphics (IF you have the express card slot), buy a new laptop (which you already ruled out), or just wait 8 months for the PS3 version.

I guess I'll wait it out seeing as how waiting is free. Thanks for your help.