Not able to see shadows when I turn them on, help!?

[Luckeey]

Hello guys! 

I'm unable to see shadows when I turn them on firestorm and anyother viewer that I tried downloading. I did everything I could, but still my shadows doesn't work. 

My info:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2350M CPU @ 2.30GHz (2294.83 MHz)
Memory: 6052 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)
Graphics Card Vendor: Intel
Graphics Card: Intel(R) HD Graphics Family

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 8.15.0010.2430
OpenGL Version: 3.1.0 - Build 8.15.10.2430

Please help me! if the problem is with the graphic card, where can I download a new graphic card? 

[Rolig Loon]

Depending on what kind of laptop you have, you may not be able to upgrade your GPU.  The Intel HD series is an integrated chip, not a discrete card that you can replace, the way that you can in a desktop machine. 

If you search through the archival posts here, you'll find quite a number of trouble calls from SL residents with that hardware.  Integrated chips are getting better rapidly but they are designed, among other things, to conserve power.  When the chip enters power saving mode, performance drops.  Some SL residents have found that the chip does not switch back to full performance mode properly.

[Lindal Kidd]

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Luckeey wrote:  Please help me! if the problem is with the graphic card, where can I download a new graphic card? 

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Well, you can't download a graphic card.  A graphic card is a piece of hardware.  Your laptop, as others have said, uses "integrated graphics"...the graphics functions are built into the central processor chip.  Unfortunately, a great many laptops (and recently, a lot of desktop computers too) are built this way.  The only way to get better graphics with your laptop is to trade it in on a better laptop...one that has "discrete graphics", preferably an Nvidia or AMD/ATI Radeon graphics card.

But ANY laptop, even a "gaming laptop", will cost more than a desktop computer with equivalent performance.  Unless you simply must have the mobility of a laptop, I recommend a desktop computer for SL...and indeed, for any serious computer gaming.  A good gaming desktop will cost you a minimum of $500, and if you can budget $1,000, you will get much better performance.  More than that, and you are getting into the "nerdosphere"...you can spend $5,000 (or more) on a gaming rig, but most of that goes into impressing your friends, rather than tangible performance gains.