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Gaming on a Low-End Machine
AkimboEG
Mr. FancypantsWears very fine pants indeedRegistered User regular
Mr. FancypantsWears very fine pants indeedRegistered User regular
Fellow Forumites,
My X58 motherboard has recently fried itself. Until I get a new one, I'm currently working on an old lappy.
It's a Compaq with a 1.4Ghz Pentium D and 1 Gig of RAM. The graphics unit is whatever Intel GPU comes with a 965 laptop board.
I'm looking for a way to fix my gaming thirst, and I obviously can't run anything Steamy on it. I went through my old games, and the Indie Games thread, but I'm looking for something a bit more substantial.
So, any recommendations for good games that can run on my machine? Hopefully something single-player that can suck me in for a week or so.
My X58 motherboard has recently fried itself. Until I get a new one, I'm currently working on an old lappy.
It's a Compaq with a 1.4Ghz Pentium D and 1 Gig of RAM. The graphics unit is whatever Intel GPU comes with a 965 laptop board.
I'm looking for a way to fix my gaming thirst, and I obviously can't run anything Steamy on it. I went through my old games, and the Indie Games thread, but I'm looking for something a bit more substantial.
So, any recommendations for good games that can run on my machine? Hopefully something single-player that can suck me in for a week or so.
Give me a kiss to build a dream on; And my imagination will thrive upon that kiss; Sweetheart, I ask no more than this; A kiss to build a dream on
AkimboEG on
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Touhou 11
Fallout's available from GOG.com. It'd be worth checking there for other games as well, there's a lot of awesome older games that should run well on that hardware. Personally I'd recommend Jagged Alliance 2.
LucasArts adventure games if you've got them, although they don't tend to last long.
The performance was mostly crap but it's doable.
Edit: it dropped to like, 1 fp3s during the finale, but it still performs alright most of the way through and still one of the best games I've ever played.
Zmud is awesome.
Spelunky is also a good choice
General tips:
Games!
I've managed to cram on it:
- All the old 2D Command and Conquer games (from before they jumped the shark with Generals)
- All the classic FPSes (everything from Wolfenstein to Duke3D to Unreal Tournament to Quake 3 Arena to System Shock 2 to Deus Ex)
- The old Fallout games
- Freespace 2
and a ton of other stuff.
Gaming didn't start with the Source Engine. There's tons of stuff to put on low-spec machines.
Suggestions like Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Deus Ex, etc'... though all great games, I've already played through them (several times). I'm looking for something fresh.
Melty Blood looks intriguing, though securing a copy could prove troublesome. Touhou isn't really my kind of thing. Worms is a great suggestion, I just can't seem to find my Armageddon CDs.
As for the Indie Games thread, it tends to focus more on, well, miniature games. I've probably had around four hundred deaths in Spelunky, and though it's awesome, I'm looking for something with more meat to it.
I think I've got Full Throttle lying around here somewhere. I'm tempted to find and install it, but if I remember correctly, last time I played through it only lasted a couple of hours.
The main issue is I've recently replayed through most of my better low-spec games. Aquaria, Cave Story, World of Goo, Puzzle Quest, and a few more.
What's the requirements on Mount & Blade? I remember trying out the earlier beta versions, and it seemed to have a nice thing going.
Also worth trying (if you like city building) Sim City 4 and its rush hour expansion, quite enjoyable. But it really up to what kinds of games you like.
As for Mount and Blade, I don't know if it will run or not but its worth a try using the demo. I would however suggest limiting battle size and using no shadows or anything like that.
It's free, but it's also very substantial. You could spend 100+ hours playing it if it tickles your fancy. It's a turn-based strategy game with RPG elements, quite similar to Fire Emblem.
Winrar.
Simcity 4 I couldn't reccomend on a machine like that, buty 3000 or 2000 should work perfectly
Not a miniature game by any measure if we're talking about replayability and gameplay mechanics.
...unless you're talking about the filesize for your intended game or, for that matter, the amount of graphics.
It is singleplayer and will certainly suck you in, chew you up and spit you out repeatedly over the course of the week.
Pretty much every Quake 3 engine based game ever made (Call of Duty, Medal of Honor: AA, Star Trek: Elite Force 1&2, Heavy Metal: FAKK 2, American McGee's Alice etc.)
Pretty much every Quake 2 engine based game ever made (Anachronox (BRILLIANT RPG), Soldier Of Fortune 1&2, Kingpin).
Some early 3D RPGs like Wizardry 8, Might and Magic 6, 7, 8, 9 etc.
There are too many games to list here, really.
But you'll need a pad, or a numeric key pad.
edit: As far as Simcity 4, I was playing rush hour w/ quite a few mods on a 1.4ghz w/ 512 ram with onboard graphics, ran more than fine @ 800x600. With full "effects" I could see it getting quite a bit more laggy.
Knights of the Old Republic has trouble with some laptop chipsets (effectively running at 0.25 frames per second and speeding and slowing rendering at will). I think this is mostly with ATi laptop chipsets, but others may have trouble.
Civilization 4 (and to a lesser extent 3) rely on a good processor to keep the game moving smoothly. You'll end up playing on smaller maps with fewer civs if you actually want to the AI to finish its turns in a minute or less. The problem won't get too bad until the later eras, but maybe you'll be so invested in the game at that point that you won't care.
SimCity 4 suffers from a similar problem as Civ 4. It's relatively CPU intensive - although paradoxically, it tends to work better on slightly older graphics cards (unless you fool around with the settings). You may not have much trouble with it, but it can be finicky. Similarly, SimCity 3000 has a few problems as well (I found it impossible to play with the disc in the drive since it would constantly freeze up every 20 seconds or so...which required a work around), but it still plays very well and works well on hardware once you've gotten around a few problems.
Your specifications seem like they should be able to run Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source without much problem (my laptop only has 512mb of ram and it runs them well enough with medium-ish settings).
Stone Soup seems jazzy. Not a big fan of dungeon crawlers that hate the players with burning rage, but I'll check it out.
Do the er...ladies of the evening still work in the middle of the street? That was a bit disconcerting when it was added in.
Hah! I ALREADY have it installed! I didn't lose the game this time!
Go and play cave story.
Not sure, haven't played in a few versions and right now I'm just hiding in my house practicing so I wont get pelted to death w/ rocks upon my first trip into town to play piano.
I love you. GodWars? :winky:
The SimCity 4 requirements list the "Nvidia TNT" as graphics hardware supported by the game. The OP's video card, though low end, is substantially more powerful.
Having an extra 512mb of ram can make a LOT of difference, performance-wise. In Guild Wars and Half-Life 2, boosting my ram eliminated a lot of stuttering.