Low-end/Integrated Graphics Gaming Thread.

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zamardii12

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Hey everyone, I figured i'd start a new thread about something I wanted to ask anyway. I have a beast desktop for at-home gaming, but I just bought a laptop for school/work. It has a i5-7200U, 8GB Ram, 256SSD, and Intel HD 620 Graphics.

What I want to know what are some games that work on low-end systems? I went through my Steam catalog and only installed Unreal Tournament 2K4 so far, and I was hoping some of you would have some suggestions on games that are fun and playable but not graphically too dependent that work good on lower-end hardware.
 
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New takes on old school RPGs (like Wasteland2, Shadowrun, Tyranny) should work.
 
Hyper Light Drifter
Axiom Verge
Momodoru
Shadowrun Series
Console/Arcade games under emulation
 
dvsman said:
New takes on old school RPGs (like Wasteland2, Shadowrun, Tyranny) should work.
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Shadowrun sure, Tyranny maybe (I haven't tried), Pillars of Eternity sure. I have doubts about WL2 though, back when I tried it, my GTX 570 couldn't really handle it that well, it took a 970 for the heavy lifting.

Trails in the Sky should also work, and it's controller friendly too.
 
Yeah I was just guessing on Wasteland 2 myself. I ran it on my main rig but it didn't look anything special, so definitely YMMV.
 
surprisingly a lot works. There was an old thread (a year ago maybe?) that had a good list in it, but im not sure what to search for.

Most indies work. I know diablo 3 worked on my low end (Surface 2 pro with i5 4200u)

There are a lot of games that surprisingly do well on low end.
 
Legend of Grimrock II is fantastic. And only 1GB.
 
More than you'd think will work pretty well. Integrated GPUs are getting pretty competent these days, particularly with the 7 series chips. Particularly if you are ok with turning the resolution and details down, you can run a whole lot. Notebookcheck is a good site for getting some benchmarks for a whole range of stuff, and seeing how it compares to other cards.

Some modern, AAA games they list that work well on it are Overwatch, FIFA 16, DOTA 2, The Sims 4, Rome Total War 2, CS:GO, Anno 2070, and World of Warcraft. To be sure, you are talking about turning down resolution and details in all of them, but they all run at acceptable framerates when you do.

A game I've tested on my Intel 630 (which is only a tiny bit faster) is Torchlight 2 and it runs fantastic, at full resolution.

Any game that doesn't really make use of 3D and just uses the card for basic operations should run great. People already mentioned the Shadowrun series but also things like Stardew Valley, Dust, Freedom Planet, Master of Orion, and such all ought to play extremely well.

You can also just look at some older games that you either missed, or would enjoy replaying. The 620 is roughly on par with mid-range desktop or high end laptop hardware from the GTX 200 days, so 2009 vintage. Thus anything from around that general timeframe ought to run fairly maxed out. Fallout New Vegas would be an absolute favourite of mine from that general era.
 
Honestly older/weaker laptops are perfect for GoG backlogs. The smaller screen sizes lend themselves better to the lower resolutions of days gone by, and the lack of DRM means a possible lack of connectivity isn't an issue. They also tend to be easier workloads, saving battery life
 
Sycraft said:
More than you'd think will work pretty well. Integrated GPUs are getting pretty competent these days, particularly with the 7 series chips. Particularly if you are ok with turning the resolution and details down, you can run a whole lot. Notebookcheck is a good site for getting some benchmarks for a whole range of stuff, and seeing how it compares to other cards.

Some modern, AAA games they list that work well on it are Overwatch, FIFA 16, DOTA 2, The Sims 4, Rome Total War 2, CS:GO, Anno 2070, and World of Warcraft. To be sure, you are talking about turning down resolution and details in all of them, but they all run at acceptable framerates when you do.

A game I've tested on my Intel 630 (which is only a tiny bit faster) is Torchlight 2 and it runs fantastic, at full resolution.

Any game that doesn't really make use of 3D and just uses the card for basic operations should run great. People already mentioned the Shadowrun series but also things like Stardew Valley, Dust, Freedom Planet, Master of Orion, and such all ought to play extremely well.

You can also just look at some older games that you either missed, or would enjoy replaying. The 620 is roughly on par with mid-range desktop or high end laptop hardware from the GTX 200 days, so 2009 vintage. Thus anything from around that general timeframe ought to run fairly maxed out. Fallout New Vegas would be an absolute favourite of mine from that general era.
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I was meaning to ask about Torchlight and Torchlight 2. Steam doesn't list them as being controller compatible. Is that the case? I would prefer to not have to worry about bringing a mouse with me if I can avoid it.
 
Sometimes you have to be careful, for instance on my Intel HD 4000 machine here at work, it'll run CS:Source just fine but has trouble with Enter the Gungeon for some reason. Graphics aren't always a good indicator of performance.
 
MavericK said:
Sometimes you have to be careful, for instance on my Intel HD 4000 machine here at work, it'll run CS:Source just fine but has trouble with Enter the Gungeon for some reason. Graphics aren't always a good indicator of performance.
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Agreed, nor is 2D vs 3D. My laptops will all run several older 3D games quite well, but struggle a bit with some of the more elaborate newer 2D games. The 2D games I listed a few posts up all work great on mid-range laptop hardware (including integrated graphics HD3000ish).

I'm guessing in some cases, 2D games are actually using a 3D engine and surfaces to draw pseudo-sprites, scenery, etc. and maybe they're heavily using fill rate / memory transfer-heavy stuff. Just a guess though.
 
J3RK said:
Agreed, nor is 2D vs 3D. My laptops will all run several older 3D games quite well, but struggle a bit with some of the more elaborate newer 2D games. The 2D games I listed a few posts up all work great on mid-range laptop hardware (including integrated graphics HD3000ish).

I'm guessing in some cases, 2D games are actually using a 3D engine and surfaces to draw pseudo-sprites, scenery, etc. and maybe they're heavily using fill rate / memory transfer-heavy stuff. Just a guess though.
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Anno 2205 will run decently on Intel HD4400 (in fact, it will run better on it than nVidia Fermi - which used to be my default); however, nV Maxwell or better (let alone Pascal - my new default) will put a waxing on it. Still, integrated graphics no longer necessarily means "bad/awful".
 
Diablo 2, any of the Quake games, Neverwinter Nights, Doom3, Shogo, System Shock 2, Deus Ex.

There are likely newer games out there as well, but I rarely play anything new so I cannot recommend anything. My recommendations came from you listing UT as something you installed.
 
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