For a long time, you only needed a dedicated graphics card if
you wanted to play the latest 3D games or for specialized work,
such as CAD. When Windows Vista was released, the rules changed.
At the time of Vista's release, only the newest integrated video
systems could handle Aero. You needed what was, until then, a
gaming video card for a good experience in Vista.  Computer
hardware advances, of course, and now even inexpensive computers
come with integrated video that meets Aero's requirements.
Consumers evidently believe that their existing video
performance is good enough, because in a release today a
research firm announced sales of GPUs have fallen by
drastically.  The release from Jon Peddie Research states that
about 72 million GPUs were sold in fourth quarter 2008, down
from about 101 million GPUs sold in fourth quarter 2007. Some of
the likely causes for the decrease are obvious; the economy
certainly isn't helping, and laptops are selling better than
desktops. Because laptops usually only have one