It really comes down to driver juggling in most cases. And it is not always all that obvious, requiring some personal experimentation for each specific configuration.
Also, mobile rigs can tend to present extra problems for egaming by economizing in critical areas, in low-reliably components, inadequate cooling, etc. trying to cut costs and deal with size restrictions.
If you scour the BSN technical forum thoroughly you will find several discussions about which are the so-called "preferred" graphics brands. There seem to be about equal pros and cons of the ati (i.e. AMD) vs. nVidia debate though you may want to experiment yourself. If you are handy with the Wayback Machine, you'll find even more!
The base issue appears to be how each company has provided service for the older games and their dependence on OpenGL support. One can get a more detailed grasp of which brand (and model) has the fewest headaches by perusing the Customer Support forums on the applicable vendor sites. Here you will get only a relatively small sampling, unfortunately.
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