Underpowered laptop gaming list. Which games work and how well on laptops.

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zamardii

2[H]4U
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Well, I can't speak for anyone else here but I have a good gaming rig at home with which to play games on but not on my laptop. And since I end up using my laptop a lot more and taking it with me I have tried many PC games to see how they run and most of them don't run well at all.

So, let's make a list of our laptop specs and games and how well they run. Old games count too because the whole point is to get games that run well on underpowered laptops (integrated graphics, weaker gpus... etc)

Acer Travelmate 5520

AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile TL-60 2.00 GHz
2.5GB RAM
Windows Vista Ultimate 32x
ATI Radeon X1250 (integrated)(sucks)

Half Life 2: Lowest settings lags too much to be consistent
Braid: Even at lowest resolution runs at a constant 20fps or less which isn't good enough and does not have enough graphics settings to lower anything, but the resolution.
Doom 3: Lowest resolution and settings is playable on some parts but looks horrible and lags at times
Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Actually quite playable at lower resolutions with some graphics options turned on
Crayon Physics Deluxe: This is the game I play most of the time. Runs well and looks good, although very simple looking.
Hitman Contracts: Even at lowest settings is unplayable laggy.
 
My laptop specs are practically identical.

Here are a few ideas:

Civilization 4
Diablo 2 /w Exp
Fallout 1/2
League of Legends
Peggle
Sins of a Solar Empire
Warcraft 3

All those run fine on my:

AMD Turion x2 56 (1.8Ghz)
2 Gigs of DDR2
ATI 1150m
- Windows XP Pro 32bit -

(My laptop came installed with Vista but I chose to hunt down the necessary
drivers and go with XP. A wise choice, if I do say so myself.)
 
If you can't run HL2 smoothly basically means that you are stuck with CS and contemporary games. Maybe starcraft?
 
Dell Inspiron 1501
-AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-50 (1.6GHz)
-2.0GB PC2-5300
-ATi Xpress 1150
-WinXP MCE

-HL2 and HL2Ep1 run fine (max settings, I think), with Ep2 and Lost Coast getting a bit of stuttering, and none of the "ultra eye-candy".
-Bioshock: Not happening, the Pixel Shaders aren't up to snuff (2.0 v. 3.0)
 
the biggest issue with that laptop is vista and 2.5gigs of hard drive space.. i have basicly the same laptop but made by toshiba.. all the same hardware but only 2 gigs of ram.. most of my games lag like heck with low settings.. switched to windows 7 on it.. took the memory usage from 1.1GB to 550mb in windows and none of my games lag now.. even going back to XP would be just as good of a choice if you didnt want to use windows 7..
 
Gateway MD2614u
AMD Turion X2 @ 2.1Ghz
ATI HD3200 IGP
3 GB RAM
Vista 64
15.6" WXGA 1366x768

off the top of my head:
RTCW (high quality)
COD2 (low quality)
BF1942 (high quality)
BF:Vietnam (med quality)
HL2 (med quality)

all of these were at 30-40 fps minimum because i can't usually tolerate anything less. business trips are great for re-discovering old classics :D

by the way, Notebookcheck is a great site for laptop reviews and benchmarks. for example, if you want to know how well a Geforce 8600M GS graphics card performs look at their benchmarks HERE (also a great tiered system catagorizing notebook GPU's).
 
Got a macbook pro summer 2009 with 9400 or 9500 graphics? Anyone know what kinda games run on it?
 
horrorshow said:
My laptop specs are practically identical.

Here are a few ideas:

Civilization 4
Diablo 2 /w Exp
Fallout 1/2
League of Legends
Peggle
Sins of a Solar Empire
Warcraft 3

All those run fine on my:

AMD Turion x2 56 (1.8Ghz)
2 Gigs of DDR2
ATI 1150m
- Windows XP Pro 32bit -

(My laptop came installed with Vista but I chose to hunt down the necessary
drivers and go with XP. A wise choice, if I do say so myself.)
Click to expand...

At what settings are you playing with Sins and Civ 4 ? Low or medium ? I've been planning to buy a laptop with a GeForce 8200m IGP in it, which is a little better than your 1150m.
 
Get Galactic Civilizations 2. That was the last game my previous laptop could play.
 
I got a Vaio FW460J
I play all my games @ 1600x600 maxed out except for AA.
Here are some games that might be playable at lowest settings.
Battlefield 2
Half-Life 2
CounterStrike:Source
Call of Duty 4

@ OP: I wouldn't even look at any big title games released after 2005.
I recommend looking though the Flash Games forum subsection and try and pick up some fun games that will make time go by.
A lot of those websites can be really fun.
 
Excalibur55 said:
At what settings are you playing with Sins and Civ 4 ? Low or medium ? I've been planning to buy a laptop with a GeForce 8200m IGP in it, which is a little better than your 1150m.
Click to expand...

I try to run everything at the laptop's native res (which thankfully is only 1280x800 heh)

Sins, I run pretty much everything on low.

Civ4, I run everything at medium (but with a little bit of high/low settings mixed in etc).

Really if it wasn't for my low native res, I'd be screwed. It's one of the main reasons I picked up the model I did.
 
Tested to work on Crappy X3100 w/ core 2 @ 2.133, 3gb ram.

Sim City 4 (Med/High)
Fallout 1+2 w/ High Res patches on 1024x768 res
Plants Vs Zombies
Age of Empires 2
Starcraft (Obviously)
Defcon (Add the War Games Mod)
Crayon PhysX

I am also trying to get a decent gaming library, not sure how those ATI IGP stack upagainst the x3100, but i assume it trounces it lol.
 
toshiba satellite m305d-s4831:

amd turion x2 rm-70 2ghz
ati hd3100 igp: 500 mhz core / 800 mhz mem / 256 mb ded.-1919mb shared ddr2 - 32-bit mem. bus/ 40 SPUs
1280x800 native res. (most of these games only offer only up to 1024x768 since they don't support widescreen resolutions)
cat 9.10
4gb
win 7 ultimate 64-bit

*highest settings unless stated otherwise*
quake live - very playable
battlefield heroes - playable on super low/ somewhat playable on low
heroes of newerth beta - playable on medium settings / advanced graphic options enabled except reflection&refraction / no AA
warcraft 3 - playable
unreal tournament - very playable
ut2003 - playable
ut2004 - playable on medium-high settings
fear 1 - playable on low-medium settings/ no AA
half life 2 - playable on medium settings/ no AA
wow - playable on medium-low settings/ no shadows/ no AA
world of goo - playable
de blob - playable
braid - playable
switchball - playable w/ bloom off, motion blur off, no AA
wolfenstein: enemy territory - playable

havent tested yet but should be playable: [UPDATED]

halo 1 pc - playable
quake 3 arena - doesn't install
soldier of fortune 2 - untested
aliens vs. predator 2 - untested
no one lives forever 1+2 - #1 doesn't install, #2 is playable with medium shadows (requires 1.3 patch to be installed for in-game sound to work properly)
contract jack - playable with medium shadows
max payne 1+2 - #1 doesn't install, #2 is playable w/ 4xAA
heavy metal fakk 2 - playable
giants citizen kabuto - playable, but some very strange constant fps drops for no reason (perhaps needs to be patched)
sacrifice - playable
mafia 1 - doesn't install
call of duty 1 - playable
rainbow six 3 raven shield - playable
battlefield 1942 - somewhat playable with most settings lowered
black and white 1 - playable
starcraft 1 - playable
serious sam 2 - untested
return to castle wolfenstein - untested (wolfenstein: et is playable, so this game should too if it installs properly)
anachronox - playable
ghost recon 1 - untested
freedom force 1/ 3rd reich - untested
ground control 1 - playable with free version from fileplanet (the retail version doesn't run properly)
empire earth 1 - untested
gta 3/ vice city/ san andreas - untested
doom 3 - untested
need for speed underground 1/2 - untested
splinter cell 1/pandora tomorrow/ chaos theory - untested
jedi knight 2: jedi outcast/ jedi knight: jedi academy - untested
messiah - doesn't install
star trek: new worlds - doesn't run
battle engine aquila - playable in sp/ not playable in split-screen mp
gunmetal - unplayable
 
Last edited:
Mine is Intel X3100 integrated

HalfLife2 ~5-10fps
BioShock 1-2fps
Crysis 0-1fps (Slideshow)
FarCry ~10fps
FarCry2 0-1fps (Slideshow)
Left4Dead ~5-10fps

Starcraft 60+fps !!!!!!!
Tetris 60+fps !!!!!!!
Windows Minesweeper 60+fps !!!!! Yeah!
 
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