Must-play games for low-end PCs?

[QueenMasako]

Let me preface this with my PC specs so you understand what I mean by "low-end" because apparently to most people that means "not the latest Nvidia graphics card and 128GB of RAM"

Processor: Pentium Dual Core 1.8somethingGHz
Graphics: none. And by that I mean Intel chipset graphics with 0MB of VRAM
RAM: 2.25GB
OS: Win7 Pro 32-bit

I prefer casual games (like Harvest Moon, those Tycoon games and Sims) but I also like FPS games (Like Red Faction, Perfect Dark, Turok 3, DOOM, Quake), simulation games (For some reason Mechsuit games fall in this catagory, like Armored Core), racing games (like Gran Turismo and Top Gear Rally, not 'Murican Hillbilly Circle-Drivers) and RPGs that don't drone on with character development of characters that you hope just keel over (like Final Fantasy) or send you on extremely long fetch quests to make up for the fact that the game lacks actual content (Like Elder Scrolls games)

Sandbox-ism is a plus, but not required. Consider modability the same. (i.e., Elder Scrolls games, Far Cry)

[StaticSkull]

Skyrim

[QueenMasako]

At 11/24/16 02:51 PM, NightRaid-NG wrote: Skyrim

0.5 FPS with the Ultra-Low Graphics Mod. Belive me, I tried my heart out to run Skyrim

[StaticSkull]

At 11/24/16 02:56 PM, QueenMasako wrote:

At 11/24/16 02:51 PM, NightRaid-NG wrote: Skyrim

0.5 FPS with the Ultra-Low Graphics Mod. Belive me, I tried my heart out to run Skyrim

Terraria

[MiroDK]

You can try Stardew valley, which is a game inspired by the first Harvest Moon, it has a bunch of content and you'll probably enjoy it. Have you tried running Morrowind? It's dated, but if you can get past that, you'll find one of the best Elder Scrolls games made. Another RPG which is way old and hard to get into at first is Ultima VII, but it's regarded ad the best RPG ever. I played a bit and ended up dropping it due to work, but it's a cool game to get immersed into.

In the FPS genre, you can try System Shock 2, Bioshock is it's spiritual successor. I can't think of any more ATM which I'd recommend.

You can try the original X-COM games, I played the first one and it still holds up if you use OpenXcom for some tweaking.

[Painbringer]

Doom 3, Quake IV, Half-Life 2, CS, Portal, Prey.

Edit:
Also, Max Payne and the original Deus Ex.

[QueenMasako]

At 11/24/16 03:05 PM, MiroDK wrote: You can try Stardew valley, which is a game inspired by the first Harvest Moon, it has a bunch of content and you'll probably enjoy it. Have you tried running Morrowind? It's dated, but if you can get past that, you'll find one of the best Elder Scrolls games made. Another RPG which is way old and hard to get into at first is Ultima VII, but it's regarded ad the best RPG ever. I played a bit and ended up dropping it due to work, but it's a cool game to get immersed into.

I actually bought Stardew Valley from GOG last week. Learned that it will not run on my craptop. Needs some kind of graphics card. Not sure if I should ask about a refund or if I should put it on a flashdrive and let my friend play it.

I own both Morrowind (GOTY) and Oblivion. Oblivion only runs using the "TLB" console command. Morrowind works, and "dated" is a pretty good choice of words but oddly I prefer Daggerfall. Ultima is a bit too "D&D" for me. Elder Scrolls's dumbed-down RPG format is a little more my speed.

[QueenMasako]

At 11/24/16 03:07 PM, Painbringer wrote: Doom 3, Quake IV, Half-Life 2, CS, Portal, Prey.

Edit:
Also, Max Payne and the original Deus Ex.

Doom 3 won't run, confirmably. Had a hard copy last year, installed, couldn't initialize OpenGL. If ID is still running Quake on Doom's engines, I'm sure I'll have the same problem. CS is fine, but a bit boring. HL2 runs with heavy lag on those huge boat areas. Deus Ex works fine. I'll check out the rest

[QueenMasako]

At 11/24/16 02:59 PM, NightRaid-NG wrote: Terraria

Requires 128MB VRAM. I have no VRAM at all. Fun-looking game, though

[StaticSkull]

At 11/24/16 03:29 PM, QueenMasako wrote:

At 11/24/16 02:59 PM, NightRaid-NG wrote: Terraria

Requires 128MB VRAM. I have no VRAM at all. Fun-looking game, though

Minecraft

[QueenMasako]

At 11/24/16 03:33 PM, NightRaid-NG wrote:

At 11/24/16 03:29 PM, QueenMasako wrote:

At 11/24/16 02:59 PM, NightRaid-NG wrote: Terraria

Requires 128MB VRAM. I have no VRAM at all. Fun-looking game, though

Minecraft

That has significantly higher system requirements than the last one you recommended

[Mace121]

The Magnum Opus of PC Gaming: Chip's Challenge.

[iMini]

At 11/24/16 03:29 PM, QueenMasako wrote:

At 11/24/16 02:59 PM, NightRaid-NG wrote: Terraria

Requires 128MB VRAM. I have no VRAM at all.

I don't think this is the case, would it even display anything if you didn't have any VRAM?? Even if it's not the case that you do have physical VRAM, your chipset should reserve some amount of RAM from your regular old RAM.

I'm gonna recommend The Binding of Isaac ("Rebirth" if you can), and also classic Doom.

[Cyberdevil]

Oni! Great game. Should run fine with lower too.

Also the third-gen GTA games if you haven't tried those: III, Vice and SA, though last one might not run at the best settings. Oh, and definitely Serious Sam - the first and second encounter. They both work impressively well on old machines aaand Unreal Tournament, 2004 or older.

Really a ton of games you could play on that! All the good classics too, like Day of the Tentacle, or Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem, Marathon, Monkey Island, Resident Evil, Worms, Colin Mc Rae, Mega Race, Carmageddon...

[Jackho]

I'd mostly just recommend emulation, as they usually rely on CPU rather than GPU. Any NES, SNES, Megadrive etc. will work, up to and probably including the PS1. There's an endless amount of good games right there. Try the GBA Castlevania games for one, actual Harvest Moon. Maybe Gran Turismo 2.

some actual PC games

-FTL: Faster Than Light - not entirely sure if this will run but the graphics are extremely simple, it's all basically still images. Extremely addictive rogue-like that encourages a million replays. Everyone loves it. If you've ever wanted to roleplay a space commander and have a phrase like "re-route engine power to lasers" actually mean something tangible, this is your game.

-PopCap games. Peggle and Plants Vs. Zombies in particular. I've put an embarrassing amount of hours into both games and used to play them on a 2003 desktop. If you haven't played them, prepare to waste a lot of time.

-Fallout - may take some effect to get into and it's quite short for an RPG, but the level of freedom is still impressive and the story is great.

-Half-Life and its expansions - I first played through these on a complete piece of garbage rom like 2000 so I can't imagine them not running. Really solid FPS that still holds up. Opposing Force is even better than the base game according to many, while Blue Shift is the weaker of the three.

-Metal Gear Solid, there's an actual PC port and it works quite well. This game is a masterpiece if you haven't played it, a cinematic epic of genetic destiny, morality, manipulation, loads of plot twists. The stealth gameplay is good but the story is the main focus.

-Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee - one of my all time favourites, cinematic platformer similar in spirit to Another World. Weird sense of humor, brilliant world and art design Very very good level design, fairly high difficulty

-HuniePop if you can run it, it's fun enough. Semi tongue-in-cheek hentai game with Bejeweled-esque "match the stuff" gameplay, difficulty ramps up really fast and requires a decent amount of thought and skill.

-World of Goo - Puzzle game with great music, good art, a weird story and weirdly strong atmosphere. One of the earlier charming indie games. Should run well, but I'd only pay for it if it's quite cheap.

-X-COM - the old ones, take your pick.

-Katawa Shoujo and Fate/Stay if you don't mind long, wordy visual novels. Both have h scenes but they're not the selling point.

Someone else mentioned point n click games as well, if you can put up with them definitely try Monkey Island and some Sierra games.

At 11/24/16 03:22 PM, QueenMasako wrote: I actually bought Stardew Valley from GOG last week. Learned that it will not run on my craptop.

Shame. In case you didn't know GOG offers a 30 day refund so definitely get that. Steam has a refund option too, no questions asked if you have less than 2 hours played, so you can try a lot of these risk free.

[QueenMasako]

At 11/24/16 04:23 PM, iMini wrote:

At 11/24/16 03:29 PM, QueenMasako wrote: Requires 128MB VRAM. I have no VRAM at all.

I don't think this is the case, would it even display anything if you didn't have any VRAM?? Even if it's not the case that you do have physical VRAM, your chipset should reserve some amount of RAM from your regular old RAM.

I'm gonna recommend The Binding of Isaac ("Rebirth" if you can), and also classic Doom.

I do have VRAM, but it's all shelled out to the system. The shared memory can't be augmented, neither from the BIOS or the system. Lack of options... that's the power of Intel.

That's why I'm looking for old games; most require almost no VRAM to run. Take "Red Faction" for example: 60 FPS, smooth. Only runs with the Pure Faction launcher and fixes since I upgraded to Windows 7. "Red Faction 2" has some noticeable framedrops. I definitely will try Binding of Isaac. 2D games like that generally will still run, despite my specs.

And I do have Doom on DOSBox. Played all three chapters. Lived up to the hype, considering it's one of the granddaddies of the FPS genre. Still holds up, in my opinion.

[QueenMasako]

At 11/24/16 07:15 PM, Jackho wrote: I'd mostly just recommend emulation, as they usually rely on CPU rather than GPU. Any NES, SNES, Megadrive etc. will work, up to and probably including the PS1. There's an endless amount of good games right there. Try the GBA Castlevania games for one, actual Harvest Moon. Maybe Gran Turismo 2.

Believe you me, if I don't already own it in the form of my dad's massive (though, mostly Japanese) retro collection, I have it downloaded. I have hard copies of pretty much every Akumajo Dracula/Castlevania game up to the GBA ones, the N64 and PS1 Bokujo Monogatari/Harvest Moon games, and GT2.

I will check out that FTL game. I can play a few roguelikes without getting bored. One of my favs is actually Pixel Dungeon on android, and Powder on almost everything else.

[QueenMasako]

At 11/24/16 04:30 PM, Cyberdevil wrote: Oni! Great game. Should run fine with lower too.

Also the third-gen GTA games if you haven't tried those: III, Vice and SA, though last one might not run at the best settings. Oh, and definitely Serious Sam - the first and second encounter. They both work impressively well on old machines aaand Unreal Tournament, 2004 or older.

Really a ton of games you could play on that! All the good classics too, like Day of the Tentacle, or Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem, Marathon, Monkey Island, Resident Evil, Worms, Colin Mc Rae, Mega Race, Carmageddon...

I do have a lot of the old DOS classics, Biohazard 1&2 (RE) and San Andreas. San Andreas worked better on XP than Win7, but it's playable. The older GTA games just seem so much more dated by comparison. Unreal Tournament has so many clones and recycled engines that I'm sure that I've played it just by proxy.

[Cyberdevil]

At 11/26/16 03:54 PM, QueenMasako wrote: I do have a lot of the old DOS classics, Biohazard 1&2 (RE) and San Andreas. San Andreas worked better on XP than Win7, but it's playable. The older GTA games just seem so much more dated by comparison. Unreal Tournament has so many clones and recycled engines that I'm sure that I've played it just by proxy.

I agree GTA III in particular feels pretty dated, not just graphically (too much gray), but with the funky controls, and no map, but I've had tons of fun with VC even after I got into SA. Not sure how it'd work with that old a computer btw, but with mods you can change those two games pretty drastically. Not just via graphical enhancements, but with scripts for added functionality (from the newer games), added vector points for increased detail, and limiter increases - it becomes a whole new world!

The other games though: Serious Sam? Oni? Among all those I listed, I'd recommend those two most.

[Auz]

It seems your PC is about as good as my laptop (except I got a 2.2 GHz Dual Core). Anyway, I can recommend the following:

Valve's games do not seem to be too demanding so you will probably get Portal and Half-Life 2 to work. Otherwise your PC will definitely be able to run Half-Life 1, which I think you will enjoy.

Bioware's games are not too demanding either I found. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic will most likely run fine on your PC. Mass Effect might be a bit laggy, but still playable. I even got Dragon Age to run decently on my laptop, but see if ME works first.

Bioshock might be playable for you on low settings.

Fable is an all right action/RPG you might like since it doesn't feature much character development or long fetch-quests as far as I remember.

System Shock 2, Deus Ex, and Thief are some classic FPS/RPG games that will certainly run fine on your laptop.

Not sure about racing games, but maybe you'll like GTA: Vice City (especially since you prefer sandboxism).

Then there's plenty of good indie games with low spec requirements, but Terraria is the only one I can think of that sort of meets your preferences.

[CaptainJackTHAC0]

Diablo or torchlight

[YonusBahtzee]

Hotline Miami and Shovel Knight I believe are both very basic games and are a shit-ton of fun. I'd strongly recommend both.

[vannila-guerilla]

Basically any pixelated game will work. You should be able to play games 15 years old or older as well, like Team Fortress Classic.

[Kwing]

You should be able to run some old games like Age of Empires II or the original Diablo. Visual Boy Advance also runs amazingly well on almost any computer, so that opens up a host of games.

[Gimmick]

At 11/26/16 06:07 PM, Auz wrote: It seems your PC is about as good as my laptop (except I got a 2.2 GHz Dual Core). Anyway, I can recommend the following:

Same here, got an entire list of -mostly casual- games that were, for obvious reasons, mostly 2D.

Hmm, OP, how about...
* Motocross Madness
* Midtown Madness
* older FF games - IDK about you but with a similar integrated config I got FF7 and FF8 to run ok on my PC
* Arx Fatalis if you can get it on GOG
* The original Prince of Persia 3D (remember playing it a looong time ago on a PC that would be considered crap by today's standards, but I doubt it's available nowadays)
* AssaultCube, which is designed specifically to run on low end machines (FPS)
* Secret of Monkey Island and other adventure point-n'-click games (eg. Night of the Hermit also comes to mind)
* Mortal Kombat

I've got a ton more but it'd be rather spammy to put it all here.

Valve's games do not seem to be too demanding so you will probably get Portal and Half-Life 2 to work. Otherwise your PC will definitely be able to run Half-Life 1, which I think you will enjoy.

Muh Team Fortress 2 :x

[Gimmick]

Oh, and if you're into long-running open games then Dwarf Fortress might be up your alley. Don't expect anything in terms of graphics, though.

[Nithael]

Terarria is a great game, shouldnt be that demanding, same for starbound, FTL, Kingdom Rush is pretty good too. Majesty is a good fantasy kingdom simulator/RTS game, Postal, Plague Inc, Sid Meier's Pirates, possibly republic commando as well.

[Phronemophobia]

I agree with The Binding of Isaac and Shovel Knight. I'll toss in Evoland 2, Steamworld Dig,if not SW Heist, Citizens of Earth, Fist Puncher, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Pony Island, Reigns, Retro City Rampage, Rogue Legacy, andUndertale. Each one is interesting in its own right, though I'm not sure what you would actually enjoy, so I spammed a list of them. Take your pick, or ignore me entirely. I don't care.

[ADR3-N]

You may be able to get the older Age of Empires and Age of Mythology games to work, although Age of Mythology is a little slow on my computer, it could be because it was made for 32 bit Win XP, and I'm running 64 bit Win 7. I highly recommend the Geneforge series -- fantastic storytelling. If you're into dungeon crawling RPGs, you may try Fate.

[cuttyflame]

At this points, you might as well get a new pc. This is not called low end pc, this is called work pc, something that is made for work and not for gaming.

Just wait for the end of the years sales after Christmas and you might find some good deal. i got mine at 66% and can run most of the game at low setting except new games who dosent focus that much on optimization