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[ZZMitch]

Well I have been getting into PC gaming more and more over the last few weeks on my Dell Inspiron 1420...

Here are the Specs-

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System Information
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Time of this report: 11/25/2009, 12:34:52
Machine name: OWNER-PC
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.090805-0102)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Model: Inspiron 1420
BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A09
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5850 @ 2.16GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.2GHz
Memory: 3062MB RAM
Page File: 1523MB used, 4803MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 10
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 6.00.6001.18000 32bit Unicode

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Display Devices
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Card name: Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family
Manufacturer: Intel Corporation
Chip type: Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family
DAC type: Internal
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2A02&SUBSYS_01F31028&REV_0C
Display Memory: 358 MB
Dedicated Memory: 0 MB
Shared Memory: 358 MB
Current Mode: 1280 x 800 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor
Driver Name: igdumd32.dll
Driver Version: 7.14.0010.1409 (English)
DDI Version: 9Ex
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 4/22/2008 01:11:32, 2580480 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: Yes

I have already been enjoying games like Audiosurf, Counter Strike, Plants vs Zombies, Torchlight and Civ4 at higher settings. I can also play some graphic intensive games like Red Alert 3 at low settings.

So my question is this, what are some of the best PC games that I can run at medium to high settings?

Thanks

 

[Gravijah]

World of---

 

[ZZMitch]

World of---

Goo?

 

[brain_stew]

So its Intel integrated graphics!?

gog.com is your friend in that case.

 

[volmer]

http://quakelive.com/

 

[eznark]

TORCHLIGHT

whoops, didn't make it past your spec list.

Divine Divinity is rad, and is on GOG.com. I've been playing it on my crappy laptop.

 

[Drek]

The 965 Express is shooting you in the foot here, FYI. I have an Acer Aspire with an Athlon X2 2.10Ghz, 4GB ram, ATi Radeon HD 3200 and I'm using it to play Dragon Age at medium settings and 1366x768 resolution. It runs The Witcher at medium to high across the board with the same resolution.

Given that, I would recommend:

Medieval II: Total War
Rome: Total War (especially if you can't run Medieval)
Baldur's Gate II + expansion
Planescape Torment
Fallout II
System Shock plus graphics mods
Titan Quest + expansion
Diablo II + expansion
Aquaria
Braid
World of Goo
Freespace and Freespace 2
Galactic Civilization II + expansion
Sim City 4 + expansion, if it doesn't run then go with Sim City 2000


Just a handful right off the top. Anything more than three years old should run pretty well I'd say, and if you go for strategy/sim games pretty much all should run at good levels with only a few exceptions.

Got to find a way to ditch XP though. Its going to eat up a bunch of your very vital memory and its not particularly fast. Upgrade to Windows 7 or "downgrade" to XP, Vista sucks and is now effectively dead with 7 out.

 

[petethepanda]

Yeah, GOG.com is a good place to start. Old Lucasarts point 'n clicks are great as well, if you can get your hands on them.

"Casual" stuff like Peggle and other Popcap games are a good fit as well.

 

[ZZMitch]

Got to find a way to ditch Vista though. Its going to eat up a bunch of your very vital memory and its not particularly fast. Upgrade to Windows 7 or "downgrade" to XP, Vista sucks and is now effectively dead with 7 out.

Ya, I am hopefully getting Windows 7 from a family member for Christmas.

 

[brain_stew]

Got to find a way to ditch XP though. Its going to eat up a bunch of your very vital memory and its not particularly fast. Upgrade to Windows 7 or "downgrade" to XP, Vista sucks and is now effectively dead with 7 out.

Crappy advice, memory is going to be the last of his concerns with a 3 gig system sporting integrated graphics. Vista's fine and its memory management is much better than XP's ever was.

 

[dionysus]

It amazes me that people will buy a blazing fast dual core or higher processor and 3+ GB of RAM coupled with intel integrated graphics. All that power is wasted if you don't have a balanced system. Its like buying a 500 hp car with a 3 speed automatic. It makes no sense.

 

[Zzoram]

Plants vs Zombies is on sale for $5 on Steam today. Buy it, it's excellent.

 

[ZZMitch]

Plants vs Zombies is on sale for $5 on Steam today. Buy it, it's excellent.

Already did

 

[Minsc]

It amazes me that people will buy a blazing fast dual core or higher processor and 3+ GB of RAM coupled with intel integrated graphics. All that power is wasted if you don't have a balanced system. Its like buying a 500 hp car with a 3 speed automatic. It makes no sense.

It's the industry's own fault. People understand for the most part RAM and CPU speed (larger = better).

GPU terminology? That shit is wack. You practically need a college class to understand the numbering behind all the GPUs.

It also doesn't help most companies are looking to make money and skipping out on a GPU is a very easy way to do so, since no one can really tell what it all means anyway.

 

[TheKurgan]

I have a very similar laptop (965 Express) and can play Torchlight. You won't be playing at max detail or without some FPS drops but it is still worth the $20 IMHO.

Note: I have Windows 7 don't know if that helps me on Torchlight or not.

 

[Zzoram]

I have a very similar laptop (965 Express) and can play Torchlight. You won't be playing at max detail or without some FPS drops but it is still worth the $20 IMHO.

Note: I have Windows 7 don't know if that helps me on Torchlight or not.

Torchlight has "netbook mode" which is basically for integrated graphics laptops.

 

[Drek]

Crappy advice, memory is going to be the last of his concerns with a 3 gig system sporting integrated graphics. Vista's fine and its memory management is much better than XP's ever was.

I'd disagree.

Most of the newer games he wants to play will work fine on an Intel 965 as long as he doesn't push for cutting edge features like HDR lighting and can live with little to no AA.

Vista is too bloated to handle the data effectively from my experience. But then thats only based off having a 2.0Ghz core 2 duo laptop with 3GB of memory and a Geforce 8800 running Crysis only marginally better than my previously mentioned Windows 7 system with an integrated card does.

Integrated graphics is pulling from that same memory pool, using an OS with bloated memory management like Vista only bogs it down further.

 

[Malio]

Came here for the 'Plants vs. zombies' and 'Torchlight' netbook mode recommendations.

Lots of the old-school RPG's work well on my laptop as well; Eye of the Beholder II, Wizardy games.

 

[DietRob]

I've been playing Zuma Revenge on my lappie all morning.

 

[Shambles]

I'd disagree.

Most of the newer games he wants to play will work fine on an Intel 965 as long as he doesn't push for cutting edge features like HDR lighting and can live with little to no AA.

Vista is too bloated to handle the data effectively from my experience. But then thats only based off having a 2.0Ghz core 2 duo laptop with 3GB of memory and a Geforce 8800 running Crysis only marginally better than my previously mentioned Windows 7 system with an integrated card does.

Integrated graphics is pulling from that same memory pool, using an OS with bloated memory management like Vista only bogs it down further.

Your computer is broken, and the 965 chipset is garbage that will only run old games decently or new games like torchlight which are meant to be scaled down to netbooks.

 

[brain_stew]

Vbased off having a 2.0Ghz core 2 duo laptop with 3GB of memory and a Geforce 8800 running Crysis only marginally better than my previously mentioned Windows 7 system with an integrated card does.

Yeah, that didn't happen, no need to lie about something to try and prove your point.

 

[Rad Agast]

Get Torchlight, it's cheap and works on pretty much any PC you can find now a days. You can't get a better deal for the amount of content if you're only considering newer games.

 

[Diablohead]

http://quakelive.com/

I would have said this also, if you are willing to learn all the weapons again as they were nurfed beyond the moon.

 

[Odious Tea]

Machinarium and Torchlight. But, mostly Torchlight.

 

[wayward archer]

Spelunky
Dwarf Fortress
Baldur's Gate 1&2/Icewind Dale 1&2
Immortal Defense

 

[Pimpbaa]

I'd disagree.

Most of the newer games he wants to play will work fine on an Intel 965 as long as he doesn't push for cutting edge features like HDR lighting and can live with little to no AA.

Vista is too bloated to handle the data effectively from my experience. But then thats only based off having a 2.0Ghz core 2 duo laptop with 3GB of memory and a Geforce 8800 running Crysis only marginally better than my previously mentioned Windows 7 system with an integrated card does.

Integrated graphics is pulling from that same memory pool, using an OS with bloated memory management like Vista only bogs it down further.

You are either lying or your computer was fucking broken. My 2.1Ghz core 2 duo laptop with 4 GB of memory and a Radeon 4650 running vista runs games almost as good with the same settings as my 2.4Ghz core 2 duo desktop with 4 GB of memory and a Geforce 9800GT running xp (as long as I keep the resolution down).

 

[TheExodu5]

Got to find a way to ditch Vista though. Its going to eat up a bunch of your very vital memory and its not particularly fast. Upgrade to Windows 7 or "downgrade" to XP, Vista sucks and is now effectively dead with 7 out.

What? He's not going to have any memory isues at 3GB...

This just prove how unfounded and ridiculous the Vista hate is on the internet. People who have no idea about performance bash it like the above poster.

 

[Nome]

Warcraft 3 TFT
Heroes of Newerth Beta
Torchlight

If you like RTS/RPG sorta things

 

[Flachmatuch]

Deus Ex
Anachronox
System Shock 2
Starcraft

These games are still awesome, even in their original state, without any patches. I think your laptop can also probably play all of them while in sleep mode, at the same time.

 

[MattyGrovesOrMe]

DOSbox plus Sierra Adventure game collections - especially:

Quest for Glory
Space Quest
King's Quest III-VII
AGDI remakes for KQ 1-2 (DOSbox not required)

Also, Tales of Monkey Island series.

 

[IronFistedChampion]

Probably Pong.

 

[Gravijah]

Probably Pong.

Have you tried playing pong on an integrated graphics card?

 

[-tetsuo-]

Civilization 4

 

[naib]

Quake Live runs fine on my work laptop with a Intel 945GM Express. But I dumb it down to Lego Quake anyway.

 

[Drek]

Yeah, that didn't happen, no need to lie about something to try and prove your point.

Absolute fact. Different resolutions (1440x900 on the superior laptop, 1366x768 on the cheapo). Both at medium settings for the most part, ~30 FPS pretty solid and playable. The superior laptop did have AA turned on, but at the resolutions I run them both at it didn't really bother me much.

You are either lying or your computer was fucking broken. My 2.1Ghz core 2 duo laptop with 4 GB of memory and a Radeon 4650 runs games almost as good with the same settings as my 2.4Ghz core 2 duo desktop with 4 GB of memory and a Geforce 9800GT (as long as I keep the resolution down).

We have a winner.

What? He's not going to have any memory isues at 3GB...

This just prove how unfounded and ridiculous the Vista hate is on the internet. People who have no idea about performance bash it like the above poster.

He will with large memory demand games using an integrated card and vista.

Just what I've seen from my own experiences using a desktop with Vista an integrated shared memory card, a laptop running Vista with a discrete card, a desktop running Vista and XP with a discrete card, and a laptop running Windows 7 with an integrated card.

He can pad an awful lot of the integrated card's short comings with the extra memory that vista would eat up over XP.

Case in point, anti-aliasing. Most integrated cards shit the bed when you ask for any real quality AA. But higher memory will let you slide with better textures and higher resolutions so AA isn't nearly as important. There are tradeoffs he can make that will have a lot of games people assume aren't playable on integrated cards running at decently playable levels.

But hey, don't take my word for it and listen to all the people saying you need to play games from the mid-90's. I'm only running Dragon Age, The Witcher, and Crysis on a $400 laptop so I obviously know nothing about low budget laptop gaming.

 

[RJT]

gog.com is your friend

 

[eznark]

What? He's not going to have any memory isues at 3GB...

This just prove how unfounded and ridiculous the Vista hate is on the internet. People who have no idea about performance bash it like the above poster.

There is definitely unfounded Vista hate but I tried out XP, Vista and Windows 7 on my 3 year old integrated graphics Alienware and there was noticeable performance upgrades with Windows 7. It was snappier and I was able to run source games and Total War games decently. I'm not a filthy liar though so I won't claim Crysis was running just from installing Windows 7.

Although maybe Drek is just awesome, because I can't even get NWN2 to run on my laptop.

 

[TheExodu5]

I'd like to know what games out there that he can run will take up 2GB+ of RAM on their own.

Keep in mind you're comparing an HD3200 to an Intel 965. He's not going to be coming close to Dragon Age.

If you want to prove me wrong, open task manager and take a screenshot of the memory used.

 

[Flachmatuch]

But hey, don't take my word for it and listen to all the people saying you need to play games from the mid-90's.

Most of those games get recommended because they're still so awesome.

 

[Pimpbaa]

We have a winner.

Lowering the resolution only lessens the stress on the limited memory bandwidth 4650. Vista does not factor in that at all and games would run at the same performance in XP.

 

[ntropy]

unreal tournament 99. the telefrag remains the best kill in fps to date, so enjoy it on the go!

 

[eznark]

Oh! League of Legends. You'll be able to run that no problem. Also don't listen to GAF, Battlefield Heroes is entertaining.

 

[Drek]

There is definitely unfounded Vista hate but I tried out XP, Vista and Windows 7 on my 3 year old integrated graphics Alienware and there was noticeable performance upgrades with Windows 7. It was snappier and I was able to run source games and Total War games decently. I'm not a filthy liar though so I won't claim Crysis was running just from installing Windows 7.

Although maybe Drek is just awesome, because I can't even get NWN2 to run on my laptop.

NWN2 and The Witcher have the same engine, I have The Witcher running at 1366x768, high texture and medium lighting, medium shadows, 8x aniso, 0x AA, medium draw distance and medium animals. Can't recall the rest of the settings.

Runs very playable. I played it previously on a desktop with a 1.6ghz core 2 duo, 3GB of memory, and a Radeon 4570 (overclocked with 1GB of DDR3) running Vista and XP at different points. It ran best on the XP setup, not by a ton over the laptop with Windows 7, the Vista desktop was only marginally better than the Windows 7 laptop.

The ATi Radeon HD 3200 isn't a bad integrated graphics chip. You just have to tweak your game away from GPU intensive features like AA, high quality lighting, shadowing, etc.. Focus on resolution, texture quality, and frame rate. I can't speak for the 965, never tried one, but integrated doesn't mean "Popcap and GOG only".

I'm something of a glutton for punishment with PC games tweaking though. I had Morrowind running on an AMD Athlon 850mhz, 512GB of ram, ATi Radeon Vivo 64MB at medium to high settings across the board at about 40 FPS average (get into the mid to high 50's in the wild, lowest it got was about 23-25 in Balmora during the day with multiple NPCs on screen). Just had to put some work into changing the .ini file.

 

[TheExodu5]

Alright, here's actual evidence against the ridiculous memory argument:

That's Dragon Age on my machine. Running at 1680*1050, maxed details, 8x AA...everything as high up as it can possibly go. Taking less than 900MB. Now, I have a GTX 275 with 896MB of memory, so at most it's taking up 896MB of graphics memory (though I assume it would be taking far, far less than that since it can run maxed on a 512MB 8800GT without running out of memory).

So Dragon Age, a game which his laptop isn't really even able to play, would consume less than 1.4GB of RAM. Trust me when I say Vista is not going to eat up an extra 1.6GB.

 

[brain_stew]

I'd like to know what games out there that he can run will take up 2GB+ of RAM on their own.

Keep in mind you're comparing an HD3200 to an Intel 965. He's not going to be coming close to Dragon Age.

If you want to prove me wrong, open task manager and take a screenshot of the memory used.

Considering he's in a 32 bit environment, none of his games can use more than 2GB even if he wanted them to. A.K.A memory is not a factor in any way shape or form, Vista and 7's memory management is very similar in fact. There's been countless benchamarks from respectable publications, the performance gains in games in negligible.

 

[Drek]

I'd like to know what games out there that he can run will take up 2GB+ of RAM on their own.

Keep in mind you're comparing an HD3200 to an Intel 965. He's not going to be coming close to Dragon Age.

If you want to prove me wrong, open task manager and take a screenshot of the memory used.

I'd be surprised if he doesn't have other things running in the background. Or should he handicap the day to day usability of the laptop to make up for Vista's shortcomings?

And yes, the HD3200 and Intel 965 are not apples to apples as integrated cards go. Its why I didn't recommend DA, The Witcher, etc. despite the rest of his system being fairly close to mine.

But games like Medieval II just love you having lots of memory and it definitely doesn't require a beast of a GPU. I first played it on a system that had a shared memory Geforce 7300LE card and 2GB of memory with Vista. When I went to 3GB it improved performance noticeably. He could easily run that, probably at medium or better settings.

So maybe its just me but from all my experiences integrated cards work best when you give the system a lot of extra memory to slush around with, and Vista isn't real helpful in that capacity.

Thankfully he's upgrading to Windows 7 soon anyhow, so its not really an issue.

 

[ZZMitch]

Guys, guys, I have already bought and love Torchlight and Civ 4... I did write some stuff after posting my specs you know!

And yes, I do know that integrated graphics are crap, but it wasn't my choice in the matter...

My parents and aunt and uncle all pitched in and bought me this for Christmas out of the blue last year... I wish I could have told them the right lap top to buy if I had known.

 

[Drek]

Alright, here's actual evidence against the ridiculous memory argument:

That's Dragon Age on my machine. Running at 1680*1050, maxed details, 8x AA...everything as high up as it can possibly go. Taking less than 900MB. Now, I have a GTX 275 with 896MB of memory, so at most it's taking up 896MB of graphics memory (though I assume it would be taking far, far less than that since it can run maxed on a 512MB 8800GT without running out of memory).

So Dragon Age, a game which his laptop isn't really even able to play, would consume less than 1.4GB of RAM. Trust me when I say Vista is not going to eat up an extra 1.6GB.

1. You're in task manager, so your system isn't even handling constant game data flow right now.

2. You're using 73% of all system memory available. How much memory does your system have by the way? I'm guessing at least 3GB? Is he supposed to wipe everything short of Windows Explorer before he plays a game?

 

[zoku88]

.

If you actually check the memory usage of Vista/7 right after quitting a memory intensive game, you'll often find it taking something like 500MB of RAM. Given that he has 3GB, he'd never realistically run into a situation where he was hampered by limited memory for the purpose of running a game which can only take 2GB.

It's not like the memory usage of the OS is constant. That would be called poor memory management (something that XP kinda had, but Vista and 7 vastly improved the situation.)

 

[Drek]

Considering he's in a 32 bit environment, none of his games can use more than 2GB even if he wanted them to. A.K.A memory is not a factor in any way shape or form, Vista and 7's memory management is very similar in fact. There's been countless benchamarks from respectable publications, the performance gains in games in negligible.

Negligible in the fact that newly released Windows 7 shows small improvements over service packed Vista, yes.

And again, 2 GB in a single application. So again assuming he's nuking everything else just to play a game.

I'm actually not even saying that Windows Vista is total shit. But as a gaming platform it is inferior to both XP and Windows 7. Vista isn't a massive handicap but its enough so that someone running on the edge of their system's capabilities doesn't want to give up the "negligible" performance hit when there are other options.