Discussion What are some games that can run on cheap laptops?

[Order 66]

I came across this thread: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/75-great-games-that-run-well-on-a-cheap-laptop.109424/ from 2010, but I would like to hear some suggestions from the community for games that would belong on an updated list.

 

[COLGeek]

There are lots of lists that contain games that work well on systems using integrated video adapters, I would expect inexpensive laptops to largely do the same.

What do you say to limiting the cost of the laptop to under 1000 USD?

 

[Order 66]

There are lots of lists that contain games that work well on systems using integrated video adapters, I would expect inexpensive laptops to largely do the same.

What do you say to limiting the cost of the laptop to under 1000 USD?

I would agree to that. I would also be interested to know, in the case of more modern games, what you would have to do to get playable framerates on some low-end laptops. My experience of trying (and failing) to get Fortnite to run on my lowly celeron n3350 and intel hd 500 graphics comes to mind. I ran that game at 800x600 at 33% resolution scale at the lowest settings possible at 18 fps. I think it would be fair to say that my experience gaming on cheap laptops has been sub optimal to say the least.

 

[USAFRet]

I would agree to that. I would also be interested to know, in the case of more modern games, what you would have to do to get playable framerates on some low-end laptops. My experience of trying (and failing) to get Fortnite to run on my lowly celeron n3350 and intel hd 500 graphics comes to mind. I ran that game at 800x600 at 33% resolution scale at the lowest settings possible at 18 fps. I think it would be fair to say that my experience gaming on cheap laptops has been sub optimal to say the least.

That level laptop is below "cheap".

I've had a couple at that level.
Note taking and email...thats about it.

 

[COLGeek]

That is a very low-end system, so I would have equally low expectations of its gaming prowess. With more capable and modern inexpensive systems, AMD and Intel have improved iGPU performance quite a bit.

For that rig, text dungeon crawler comes to mind. @USAFRet will know what I mean.

 

[Order 66]

That is a very low-end system, so I would have equally low expectations of its gaming prowess. With more capable and modern inexpensive systems, AMD and Intel have improved iGPU performance quite a bit.

Part of the reason why my next system, an old HP workstation with an i5-6500 and RX 550 felt so incredibly fast to me at the time, I went from not being able to play Fortnite at all (without a micro sd card, my laptop didn't have enough free space to install the game) to being able to play it at 1080p performance mode at 100+ fps.

 

[Eximo]

If you start looking at back catalogs, emulators, etc there is an endless list.

Used to play lots of old titles on an AMD e-350 embedded board.

SNES/NES emulators, DosBox, and natively pretty much any DX9 game, including at the time World of Warcraft at low settings 1152x964 or whatever that weird resolution is. Any year 2000-2006 game essentially was playable.

Late model machines with DX12 and Vulkan support on integrated graphics, you need only start perusing Steam to find hundreds of low requirements titles that are playable.

 

[COLGeek]

I'll drop this here for consideration:

Steam Curator: iGPU Gamer

Dedicated Steam Curator for low end systems using Intel HD 405 (close performance with 4000/ 3000/ & BayTrail). You can use this as a reference tool if you have low spec pc. Contact: igpugamerchannel@gmail.com

store.steampowered.com

 

[Order 66]

If you start looking at back catalogs, emulators, etc there is an endless list.

I should clarify, that I'm specifically not considering emulators, since that is something that has already been covered, not to mention I want to narrow it down a bit to just PC games.

 

[USAFRet]

I went from not being able to play Fortnite at all (without a micro sd card, my laptop didn't have enough free space to install the game)

I need to get 9 people to a location 1.5 hours away.
I have 2 hours to do it.
I have a Mini Cooper.

Not Gonna Work.

 

[Order 66]

I'll drop this here for consideration:

Steam Curator: iGPU Gamer

Dedicated Steam Curator for low end systems using Intel HD 405 (close performance with 4000/ 3000/ & BayTrail). You can use this as a reference tool if you have low spec pc. Contact: igpugamerchannel@gmail.com

store.steampowered.com

Interesting, that would've been a godsend for me back when I was using my intel HD 500 laptop.

 

[Eximo]

The annoying ones right now are the lost era of games from the mid-90s. Early DX titles from like version 1 to 7, and sometimes 8 have real trouble running on modern OS.

I've been meaning to give PC Em a try for some of that.

https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/status.html

 

[USAFRet]

Interesting, that would've been a godsend for me back when I was using my intel HD 500 laptop.

You would have still had a bad time, trying to run from the microSD card.

 

[Order 66]

The annoying ones right now are the lost era of games from the mid-90s. Early DX titles from like version 1 to 7, and sometimes 8 have real trouble running on modern OS.

I've been meaning to give PC Em a try for some of that.

https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/status.html

speaking of which, I cannot get Star Wars the Force Unleashed to stop crashing. The game is basically unplayable because of the fact that the game crashes either before or soon after I load in to the level. I heard something about small page file sizes being an issue, but I know that's not the issue because I changed the pagefile to 8192 MB and it made no difference.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

would like to hear some suggestions from the community for games

last time we had a lasting power outage through some hurricane i ended up installing a bundle of the Shadowrun games on an old cheaper laptop.

was cool to see the series again, don't think i had played any since the 90s on the SNES.