Surprised at how good 3D PC gaming is without a graphics card

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lightheir
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Surprised at how good 3D PC gaming is without a graphics card

Post by lightheir »

I know all you gaming enthusiasts out there will likely already have dropped the cash for a Geforce or Equivalent dedicated graphics card to run the latest and greatest 3D-intensive games out there, but for the majority of you/us who do NOT have dedicated graphics cards, here's my pleasant experience from this weekend -

I have a 3-year old HP Envy laptop. No graphics card. A sticker on it says it was an Intel "Core i5" whatever that means - I know it wasn't some amazing CPU as the entire computer was $600 on Amazon 3 years ago, so it couldn't have been that bleeding edge.

I haven't played 3d games in quite awhile but just for kicks I logged onto my Steam.com account where I had bought Half Life 2 (a 3d older, but excellent first person shooter) and for curiosity's sake, installed it onto my laptop despite not having the recommended graphics card. I had played this game 5 years ago with a graphics card on a desktop, so I knew what it should play like.

I was expecting clunky frame rates or really jagged graphics, but was completely shocked to see that the game runs flawlessly on my non-graphics computer. Not even a single hiccup, and I replayed over half the game and it's runs absolutely perfectly.

I'm sure it would not be able to handle the absolute most latest/greatest games from 2016 without grinding down, but for sure, if it can handle a game like Half Life 2, I'll bet the integrated graphics on the PC can handle most slightly older (yet excellent) 3d and first-person shooter games. Plus, these games tend to be extremely inexpensive despite their accolades and high quality, which totally fits in Boglehead philosophy!

Hopefully this post will be helpful for those of you who are like me, in that we like video games, but are too busy to seriously invest in a dedicated and $$$ gaming computer, but were wondering if the lack of a graphics card would be a problem for some of these slightly older games - at least for my 3-year old $600 laptop - it's clearly not.
Fclevz
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Re: Surprised at how good 3D PC gaming is without a graphics card

Post by Fclevz »

It's probably got an integral Intel graphics processor. Haswell, or maybe even Broadwell.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_H ... s_Graphics
squirm
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Re: Surprised at how good 3D PC gaming is without a graphics card

Post by squirm »

The integrated graphic cpus are good enough for most people. I don't play games so I don't care what graphic chip it has.
The last time I cared was when I played Wolfenstein 3d years ago, when vesa bus was becoming popular.

The graphic cpus advance faster then the general cpu.
Last edited by squirm on Sun Oct 09, 2016 1:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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slayed
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Re: Surprised at how good 3D PC gaming is without a graphics card

Post by slayed »

Half life 2 is not just old, it's ancient. Released in 2004.
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LAlearning
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Re: Surprised at how good 3D PC gaming is without a graphics card

Post by LAlearning »

Agreed. A 12 yo game is not really a relevant benchmark. It'll run on win98...What matters is you have the hardware to do what you want.

Now back to Witcher 3 :beer
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sunny_socal
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Re: Surprised at how good 3D PC gaming is without a graphics card

Post by sunny_socal »

Yes, it has a "graphics card" (ie. a GPU), it's just a fancy one made by Nvidia. Much like luxury cars, things that cost a little extra before have become standard features. I find the integrated graphics completely adequate for casual gaming.
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lightheir
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Re: Surprised at how good 3D PC gaming is without a graphics card

Post by lightheir »

LAlearning wrote:Agreed. A 12 yo game is not really a relevant benchmark. It'll run on win98...What matters is you have the hardware to do what you want.

Now back to Witcher 3 :beer

I think THIS 12-year old game is a relevant benchmark for those like myself and other BHers who don't NEED the latest and greatest super high pixel density for a great gaming experience.

HL2 is one of the best FPS of all time and holds up extremely well in terms of overall gameplay (not just graphics) against modern-gen games, if not better than most of them.

And contrary to what you say, it did NOT run well on pre-xp era computers - I had a WinXP computer the last time I tried this, and HL2 was literally unplayable with a stuttering framerate in the low teens, so I doubt a Win98 computer could run it.

Had I known you didn't need a dedicated graphics card to run some of these older but awesome FPS, I would have jumped in a lot sooner.

Another huge benefit of these 'older but awesome' games - FAST loading times. I simply can't stand the 30+sec loading times that are the norm with the most bleeding edge games!
Afty
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Re: Surprised at how good 3D PC gaming is without a graphics card

Post by Afty »

A 12 year old game is not exactly a high bar. I would be surprised if a modern smartphone couldn't play HL2.
random_walker_77
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Re: Surprised at how good 3D PC gaming is without a graphics card

Post by random_walker_77 »

Afty wrote:A 12 year old game is not exactly a high bar. I would be surprised if a modern smartphone couldn't play HL2.
Agreed. And everyone's got a different definition of good enough, and it definitely depends on the games of interest.

I don't know how many people realize this, but the "prettiness" level of the graphics depends on the hardware. I believe many games will automatically tone down the graphics if they detect less capable hardware.
Mudpuppy
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Re: Surprised at how good 3D PC gaming is without a graphics card

Post by Mudpuppy »

As others have said, you have a graphics card: the Intel integrated HD graphics. And that chipset is about as powerful as stand-alone graphics cards were in the era Half Life 2 was released.

Here's the Tom's Hardware comparison chart of GPU power across the ages: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu ... ,4388.html

The slowest Intel HD graphics chipsets are about as powerful as the Nvidia 7300 GS, which was released a decade ago.

Edit: And just as a comparison, my DIY Steam machine has an R9 270 card in it, which is 4 tiers above the best integrated Intel chipset on the hierarchy chart and 16 tiers above the Intel integrated graphics on the CPU for that system. The dedicated graphics card does still have its place.
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mmmodem
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Re: Surprised at how good 3D PC gaming is without a graphics card

Post by mmmodem »

When it comes to tech, Moore's Law rules. Take a budget 2004 computer with integrated graphics and it should have no problem dispatching any game from 1992. I actually pretty amazed by how cheap entry level systems are. You can get a laptop for a $100 now and it'll run Half Life 2.
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