Where do I look for game compatibilty

[hanaleia]

I am looking for a laptop for my husband for Christmas. He will do work on it but also likes to play LFD2 and Dragon Age. I can only afford about $500, but i think I have found a good laptop. Acer Aspire 5551-4937 15.6" Notebook, AMD Turion II P520 (2.30GHz), 4GB DDR3 Memory, 320GB HDD, DVD Super Multi-Drive, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - LX.PWK02.115
However I cant decipher if the video card will be sufficient. The merchant only has the name of the video card Mobilty Radeon HD 4250 listed under the specs. I have checked several websites including Radeon manufacturer but am a bit frustrated as I dont understand how to relate it to the games he would like to play. I dont want to have to keep asking the kind people here at techspot,"Will this one work?" Is there a tutorial that I can read to understand how to tell if a laptop will suit his video needs? Thank you so much for taking the time to help.
Sincerely,Hanaleia

 

[JMMD]

That GPU is not really recommended for gaming. It'll certainly play them but they'll need to be turned down to the lowest settings.

 

[LNCPapa]

There's no real way to decipher it other than keeping up with the always changing model numbers. ATI and nVidia are the two big players... with their current generation cards in the 5xxx (ATI/AMD) and 4xx (nVidia). So right away you see you're in a previous generation of cards - and that's not accounting for the fact that mobile video cards are always slower than their desktop counterparts. The next think to take into account is the second digit in the numbering scheme - that usually tells you the class of card you're getting in that generation. ATI/AMD's gaming offerings typically start in the 7's and nVidia typically starts in the 6's.

 

[JMMD]

I usually use this site for reference if I'm not familiar with a card:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

Laptop's suck for gaming; if possible, use a desktop.

The 4250 will certainly work, I'd imagine it would look quite poor though.