Gaming on an Intel Core i3 with HD Graphics

[onelifecrisis]

I'm stuck in the US for six weeks with nothing but this laptop to entertain me. Needless to say it can't even run a console port... but I'm wondering what it can run. Anyone got any advice? How far back would I have to go to find a game that can run of this piece of ****? Half Life 2? Half Life 1?

Doom!? :o

[Egan]

Don't suppose you like old school role playing games? I'm thinking of getting a new copy of Buldur's Gate 1 & 2 for my lappy.

[Dowly]

If you like old school adventure games, try Gemini Rue. Released month or so go, old school point & click game with retro graphics.

http://www.wadjeteyegames.com/geminirue.htm

[Herr-Berbunch]

What sort of game do you want? And do you have good interweb connection?

[onelifecrisis]

Baldur's Gate, eh? You think it'll run? I never played them but I heard they were good games.

Thanks for the link, Dowly. Reading....

P.S. I'm not really looking for specific game suggestions, but rather a specific time-period. I figure there should be a cutoff date (say, 2003 or whatever) before which this laptop can comfortably run games. Does that makes sense?

[antikristuseke]

My smartphone runs bladurs gate. Hope that answers your question

[onelifecrisis]

My smartphone runs bladurs gate. Hope that answers your question

Haha, yeah I guess so! Mind you, based on the testing I've done so far, the graphics card in your smartphone might actually be better than my Intel HD Graphics :damn:

[Egan]

[QUOTE=onelifecrisis;1632421]Baldur's Gate, eh? You think it'll run? I never played them but I heard they were good games.
QUOTE]

Don't see why not. All the earlier infinity engine games will probably be fine.

[Weiss Pinguin]

I'd say try running the demo for BF1942, which is about 2002-ish. Although I have no idea how intensive it is compared to other games from that era (era, lol :haha:)

[Mud]

Found this site a few days ago, some nice old school games there.
Most of them run on XP/Vista/7
Baldur's Gate is one of them

http://www.gog.com/en/catalogue

[onelifecrisis]

Nevermind, after trying old games like Half Life 2 (13fps on lowest detail) I eventually found a game that runs flawlessly: Torchlight! Quite impressive, especially for a 3D game that uses an open source graphics engine. Die, Unreal Engine! Die!

[Feuer Frei!]

@ onelifecisis,
try this website:
http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/

[onelifecrisis]

@ onelifecisis,
try this website:
http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/

Well I just ran "Can you run it?" for HL2 and it rated my laptop as off-the-charts (well in excess of the recommended specs) yet when I tried HL2 I got single digit FPS results. But thanks anyway :)

[stabiz]

You dont have a dedicated GPU and you are surprised games run like crap? :)

[onelifecrisis]

You dont have a dedicated GPU and you are surprised games run like crap? :)

Nope, not surprised that games run like crap.
Quite surprised that Torchlight runs well, though.

[seaniam81]

Nope, not surprised that games run like crap.
Quite surprised that Torchlight runs well, though.
Really? how can you be surprised Torchlight runs well? It was built to run with netbooks in mind.

Offical requirements;
Windows XP or later, x86-compatible 800 MHz processor, 512 MB RAM, 400 MB drive space, DirectX-compatible video card with at least 64 MB of addressable memory (such as an ATI Radeon 7200, NVIDIA GeForce 2, or Intel GMA 950)

Torchlight runs on my roomies P3.

[onelifecrisis]

Really? how can you be surprised Torchlight runs well? It was built to run with netbooks in mind.

Offical requirements;
Windows XP or later, x86-compatible 800 MHz processor, 512 MB RAM, 400 MB drive space, DirectX-compatible video card with at least 64 MB of addressable memory (such as an ATI Radeon 7200, NVIDIA GeForce 2, or Intel GMA 950)

Torchlight runs on my roomies P3.

Oh, I guess I am stupid after all. :O:

[Spike88]

Onelife, have you turned off unnecessary processes to get better performance? I am able to play Half Life 2 on medium on an old Intel 2 core 1.8ghz with integrated Intel graphics(well was able to until I got my new computer)

Most laptops have so many unnecessary processes running that you wont get your best performance. For example my laptop can't run shogun 2 right after a restart/full boot. But once I turn off everything that isn't necessary I can play on High.

If you don't know how, go to task manager(control+alt+delete :O:) and then processes. Filter to everything run by your user(ignore anything that's being run by system), and end anything that isn't important(Explorere, Taskeng, etc.) So it should look something like this:
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a108/Tetsou88/Processes.png
Everything in this picture(save firefox and steam) are necessary. This is probably 1/2 the list that I get when I do a fresh boot(I usually hibernate my computer to save from having to close everything again)

Alternatively you could do what Arc suggests, and edit MSconfig(or something) so they never start up, but I'm too lazy to do that. :O:

If that doesn't work, Deus ex is a great older game to play

[onelifecrisis]

Thanks Spike. :)

Yes, I'm familiar with the process of shutting down services and background programs, but that doesn't seem to be the problem here. There's not much running in the background (I stripped the laptop of bloatware after buying it) and I have 4Gb of RAM and a pretty strong CPU (Core i3-380M) for a laptop. I think the problem is just the crappy Intel HD Graphics.

What frame rates did you manage to get on HL2, and what screen resolution did you play at?

[Spike88]

Thanks Spike. :)

Yes, I'm familiar with the process of shutting down services and background programs, but that doesn't seem to be the problem here. There's not much running in the background (I stripped the laptop of bloatware after buying it) and I have 4Gb of RAM and a pretty strong CPU (Core i3-380M) for a laptop. I think the problem is just the crappy Intel HD Graphics.

What frame rates did you manage to get on HL2, and what screen resolution did you play at?


Frame rates I can't remember, but it was somewhere above 25 for sure. Resolution was 1024x768, as it was a desktop with the default monitor.

[onelifecrisis]

Found this site a few days ago, some nice old school games there.
Most of them run on XP/Vista/7
Baldur's Gate is one of them

http://www.gog.com/en/catalogue

Damn you, that site is going to be the end of me!! :stare: :up:

Memory lane here I come...

[seaniam81]

There is also Paradox's stuff. Almost all of their stuff will run on a laptop with Intel graphics. (HOI3/Vicy2 wont). Can check out http://www.gamersgate.com for more

[onelifecrisis]

There is also Paradox's stuff. Almost all of their stuff will run on a laptop with Intel graphics. (HOI3/Vicy2 wont). Can check out http://www.gamersgate.com for more

Thanks. I never knew Paradox had made so many games. Their catalogue is huge!