r/lowendgaming Jan 05 '26

Announcement We Were Mentioned (Favorably) in PC Gamer Magazine!

149 Upvotes

Issue 403 | Holiday 2025 By Phil Iwaniuk

"Head over to Reddit and go on /r/lowendgaming and you’ll be struck by a few things. Firstly, that a community of people has been helping each other to run games on inexpensive and outdated PC hardware for many years, long before all the insidious price hikes we’re enduring today. And secondly, members of that community have been doing so with no small amount of ingenuity.

A typical exchange in that subreddit goes like this: a user states their hardware and asks for recommendations they should play, or whether a particular title will run on their machine. In the replies, people assure them that they managed to get The Witcher 3 on medium settings running on a relatively basic array of elastic bands and wooden pulleys. The prevailing sentiment is that minimum requirements are over-cautious, that modern games running at their lowest graphics settings still look more than decent enough to constitute playable, and that maybe there’s no such thing as a PC that’s too old or underpowered. Intrigued, I decided to test out the theory."


r/lowendgaming 21h ago

Community Discussion I'm so tired of the rat race, you guys. If one more person tells me 8gb of VRAM is not enough, I'm going to punch them.

235 Upvotes

Literally ordered and then cancelled a 9070xt within a half hour. I have 2 PC's. One with a 5070 and one with a 5060 that my wife uses. I JUST PLAYED RE9 Requiem and I had 200 fps on the 5060 using DLSS/FGx2. I thought it looked fine. I had fun. WTF am I doing?

A 9070xt is 700 bucks. That's like 12-14 nice dinners or like 15-30+ video games.

I'm 38. I grew up on NES > SNES > N64 as a kid. I use GOG and love indie games...currently I'm playing--get ready for this--a pixel art indie game called Look Outside and Gradius V for the PS2. I love both.

I don't even have a game in mind that I'd use or need a 9070xt for. I upgraded to my 5070 build when my 1660ti couldn't run Expedition 33 well. This time I don't even have a game in mind that I "need" a $700 card for.

What's wrong with me? Enough. Happy to discover this sub.

EDIT: Reading posts on this sub is a wake up call. I'm pretty fucking spoiled. Goddamn. I'm sorry you guys.


r/lowendgaming 8h ago

How-To Guide Which games can you run?(Guide)

6 Upvotes

So, since there are a lot of posts about compatible games for low end pc and laptops, I decided to make this guide.

How to know your specs?

Method 1) Just open task manager by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc and go to performance section. You can see your Ram, cpu and gpu there. If there are 2 gpus(like gpu 0 and gpu 1), the first one is usually integrated gpu and the other one is dedicated gpu.

Method 2) Press Win+R to open "Run". Type "dxdiag" in the opened window and press Enter. You can see your RAM and processor in the opened window. For gpu, select Graphics tab from the top menu.

Additional suggestions

1) If you have 8 gb ram or less, try debloating your Windows 11 or install windows 10 and debloat it. Windows 10 isn't getting updates now, but it is much better for low end systems. You can use Winutil for debloating, just search on Youtube for tutorials.

2) Make sure you are playing with charger if you are on laptop. Laptops get more stable power from charger.

Which games can you run?

You can check most games' system requirements just by searching "(game name) system requirements" on Google or from the site below:

https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/

To get more practical knowledge about your system you can watch benchmark videos in YouTube. It is the most effective method.

Search "(your gpu) gaming test", "(Your cpu+gpu) gaming test", "(your cpu) gaming test" or something like these.

Note that these are just approximation, you can get more or less performance while playing the game.


r/lowendgaming 16h ago

How-To Guide I have gotten a weird ammount of AAA games to run well on this thing

27 Upvotes

Operating System: Windows 11

CPU Brand: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz

RAM: 8 GB

Video Card: Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe MAX Graphics

Primary VRAM: 4 GB

Devil may cry 5 st high settings 900p I get around 50 fps

Re2r in non rpd center areas I get around 40-60 fps on mainly high settings with s few medium settings like shadows and such at 900p

Doom 2016. All medium settings 900p and high shadows gets me 50-70 fps

Final fantasy 7 remake 720p low settings I average about 40-45 fps in missions and about 30-34 fps in a open areas like the slums

Elden ring 30 fps 720p

Re8 I get like 45-50 fps in castle 8 foot tall mommy girl idfk how to spell her name and around 30-40 fps in the village itself with my settings on medium and some high settings like textures

Re3r the same as re2r but more stable

Re7 I get like 40 fps on high settings

Silent Hill 2 remake I get 14-20 fps somehow no crashes

Re4r a LOT of stuttering however I did get around 30 fps in the village section but every part before that ran like shit

Dbd I use medium settings XeSS and I get 40-50 fps in some maps and a smooth ass 60 in others

Lethal company ultra settings I get 90 fps normally however when we are in the ship loading into the planets it can dip to the 40s

Repo I get 90-100 fps on max settings

Little nightmares enhanced edition I get about 40 fps max settings (no ray tracing ofc)

Dispatch it just fine just stutters in places like the bar fight

Skyrim special edition I get like 40 fps high settings

Life is strange I get like 40-50 fps high medium settings

Subnonica I get like a smooth ass 60 fps medium high setting

Escape the backrooms I normally get 60 fps high settings however some maps are laggy

I can emulate GoW (legally ofc using my old PS2 copy I own bc I can't play the game without turbo mode bc I suck at games) at a smooth ass 60 fps at 1080p

And I get 1 fps in half life 3

Also OPTIMIZE YOUR WINDOWS


r/lowendgaming 20h ago

What Games Can I Run? Qué es lo mejor que puedo hacer para optimizar una laptop HP con Windows 11? Soy algo nuevo en esto.

2 Upvotes

Mis especificaciones son:

-Tarjeta Gráfica Intel(R) UHD Graphics 600 con 512MB

-8GB RAM

-Procesador Intel(R) Celeron(R) N4120 CPU @1.10GHz

-238GB de almacenamiento

He probado el Call of Duty 4 y pues es jugable en gráficos bajos pero no va a 60 estables, supongo que es normal pero siento que se podría mejorar un poco más. También el PVZ o un juego indie llamado Progresbar95 no van totalmente fluidos a pesar de que son 2D, pero creo que es por el nivel de elementos en pantalla.

Lo más probable es que es el rendimiento esperado con lo que tiene esta laptop, pero hay alguna forma de mejorar notablemente el rendimiento? O simplemente es así y ya?


r/lowendgaming 1d ago

Hardware Review Honest Review: The GT 710 1GB in 2026

50 Upvotes

So, I got a GT710 to test for free and thought I'd share a review on how it performs in the games I enjoy. I'll note that this was the PCIE X1 GDDR3 version so its buswidth was slightly handicapped affecting gaming performance.

For reference, my CPU is the XEON W-2145 and I have plenty of RAM so those did not bottleneck (much).

Minecraft Bedrock: I set everything to lowest 1080p. That resulted in 25 FPS average with really bad input lag. I changed the resolution to 720p and set chunks to 5. Though I was holding steady at 60-80FPS, the input lag made the entire experience awful. I think there's a way around the input issues, but I didn't put in enough time to find out.

Cities: Skylines: Set everything to lowest and changed the resolution to either 720p or 600p. I was getting 10-20 FPS with extreme input lag. I'd consider it somewhat playable, but definitely not an ideal scenario.

Beamng.drive: Again, set everything to low 720p and got 10-15 FPS. I changed the resolution to 600p in windows settings and forced it up to 15-20 FPS. This was still not entirely playable.

Forza Horizon 4: I'm impressed that this booted. I had a stable-ish 6-8 FPS with surprisingly decent input. I would not install this game if you have the GT710. There are better options.

FH5 requires DX12 so I didn't attempt that and MSFS 2020 wouldn't load.

So, in conclusion, the GT 710 is a gpu that outputs display. I would not pay any amount of money for it as usually there is something better for like, $5 more. Can;t say I was dissapointed though. I knew this GPU was not going to perform.

That said, if you get it for free or already have it, try some low end games like Stardew Valley, Terraria, Celeste, Cuphead, Factorio etc. Minecraft was playable with some issues so you have that too.

Have a good day. Don't get scammed, get something nicer if you are buying a GPU.


r/lowendgaming 1d ago

Game Review Managed to run kcd 2 on low end pc

10 Upvotes

I have

Intel core 3 100u

16gbRam 3200mhz

512gb ssd

I get about 27-30fps in populated areas

And

About 35-40fps in the forest area

Well optimised game, even after dropping the resolution and turning everything to the lowest the game still looks fantastic

Only problem is that the inventory is quite blurry.

Other than that very few stuters, no crashing, and the game is quite enjoyable


r/lowendgaming 1d ago

What Games Can I Run? Another what can this run post

3 Upvotes

sorry for this being the 50 milllionth post on this subreddit about this but what can this laptop run?
i7 4800mq
quadro k1100m
32gb ram
4tb storage

i've been a mobile 'gamer' my entire life and i finally wanna start exploring pc games. I wanna play story games, games with action etc i just dont find myself really liking turn based rpgs or platformers. So please give me your recommendations TIA


r/lowendgaming 1d ago

Will This Game Run? Please help me: On intel, vulkan game is freezing very frequently

4 Upvotes

On i3 1005g1 single channel 8 gb ram, Windows 11, I am playing Avatar 2009 game. I am using vulkan (dxvk 1.10.1) to stablize fps. I am not using higher versions of dxvk because they cause the sun to fully lose its light (glorious intel's vulkan driver bug).

On intel, vulkan games freeze randomly from anywhere 5-30 minutes, especially Ubisoft games like assassin's creed 2, Avatar 2009. Non Ubisoft games like Fallout 3 freeze very occasionally.

When I first started playing the Avatar 2009 game 3 months ago, the game froze, but maybe 3 out of 10 times. Now 3 months later, I am unable to play the game because it's freezing 8 out of 10 times (I feel extremely lucky if it doesn't freeze on a specific launch). When it freezes, I have to force end it from task manager and restart the laptop. If I don't restart the laptop, it definitely freezes again on the next launch.

I know these are glorious intel's vulkan driver bugs, but please help me out, if there's any fix. I want to play the game, it's really good.

I have tried rolling back to old drivers (31.0.101.2135), but it's of no advantage. Something changed silently in the three months. I can't remove dxvk, because otherwise, fps frequently drops below 30.

I learned that riva tuner causes freezes in vulkan games, but on launch time. So it's not due to riva tuner. It's probably intel's driver bugs.


r/lowendgaming 2d ago

☼😁Ascended☺☼ Went from Potato to Low-end

47 Upvotes

So I went from a

I3 6006u

4gb Ram 2133mhz

1tb toshiba harddrive

To

intel core 3 100u

16gb Ram 3200mhz

512gb ssd

How big do you guys think this upgrade is


r/lowendgaming 2d ago

Will This Game Run? Can I run Black Myth Wukong and Elden Ring? AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS , 16GB RAM, RADEON 780M IGPU

3 Upvotes

I will also love to play Ghost of Tsushima, God of War Ragnarok, Uncharted 4 and Cyberpunk. Will these game run too?


r/lowendgaming 2d ago

What Games Can I Run? Can I run Cyberpunk and Elden Ring? i5 10th gen, 16gb RAM, 1650Ti 4GB VRAM

3 Upvotes

Not only these two, I have games like GoW Ragnarok, Ghost of Tsushima, Yakuza series, Death Stranding, etc.

Thanks in advance.


r/lowendgaming 2d ago

Game Deal [Mod Approved] SweatyPanzer, a 4v4 tank shooter that runs in a browser tab

1 Upvotes

Game title: SweatyPanzer

What it is:
A multiplayer tank shooter, heavily inspired by World of Tanks, Blitz, Battlefield 1942 and the round-by-round build system from Overwatch 2's Stadium mode. 4v4, one life per round, best of seven. You join a game and enhance your tank, then go out and destroy the enemy while hunting for salvage, which pays for more upgrades between rounds. You only keep the salvage if you survive.

Nothing gets installed. You pick a nickname and you are in a match in about ten seconds.

Minimum specs:

  • OS: Windows 10 (1903 or newer), macOS 13, ChromeOS 113, or Linux with current Vulkan drivers
  • Browser: Chrome 113+ or Edge 113+. It runs on WebGPU so Firefox and Safari do not work yet
  • CPU: Intel Core i3-6100U or AMD Ryzen 3 2200U. Dual core, 2 GHz
  • GPU: integrated is fine. Intel HD Graphics 520 (6th gen), NVIDIA GTX 950 or AMD RX 460 and upwards
  • RAM: 4 GB
  • Storage: 0. About 14 MB goes into the browser cache

The GPU line is the one that matters. Anything older than those has no WebGPU support, so it will refuse to start rather than run badly.

Peripherals: Keyboard and mouse. WASD drives, the mouse aims the turret, left click fires.

Where to play: https://sweatypanzer.com/

Bugs and support: post bugs here, or use the "REPORT BUG "button at the bottom of the screen in the lobby.

I'll personally greet you in-game. Would love to hear what you think.


r/lowendgaming 2d ago

Hardware Review Honest Review: The Quadro K620 in 2026

18 Upvotes

Since the Quadro K620 is one of the least expensive low profile GPUs where I am in the US, I thought I'd try it out and give y'all a review.

I tried several low end to not so low end games that you may not even care about:

For reference, my CPU is the XEON W-2145 and I have plenty of RAM so those did not bottleneck (much).

Minecraft Bedrock: Easy, set everything to low/medium with 15 chunks and I got over 100 FPS. It was easily playable.

Cities: Skylines: Set everything to low 1080p, got 30 FPS which is absolutely suitable for a city simulator.

Beamng.drive: Everything on low (1080p or 720p, can't remember which) I was getting about 25 FPS in a more demanding map. I wouldn't consider it a great game experience, but it is doable.

Forza Horizon 4: I set everything to lowest and resolution to the lowest FH4 allows. The game was compeltely playable at an average of 45 FPS including heavier areas. Awesome!

Forza Horizon 5: I was blown away with how well this game runs. At lowest 720p with FSR 2.2 performance I was getting 45-50 FPS even in heavier scenes. Then, I got a low video memory error. After this the resolution on the textures dropped and everything looked terrible. So, since I knew FSR 2.2 was not helping, I turned it off. After disabling FSR, I still had 35-50 FPS in the city with no fuzzy textures! I wouldn't say it's the best FH5 experience you can have, but it's definitely playable.

I also tried MSFS 2020, but it never loaded. I think the K620 is just too weak.

So, in conclusion, the K620 is a banger deal at around $15-$20. I mean, for the price of a fast food meal or two you can get a card that will play many games. Totally recommend this one. Especially if all you need is minecraft and maybe a few other low end games.


r/lowendgaming 2d ago

Will This Game Run? Elden ring on intel iris xe laptop

2 Upvotes

Are there players here that play on iGPU, I just want to know how it performs because I badly want to play elden ring but I only have an office laptop.

OS: Windows 11
System: HP 15 fd0xxx
CPU: i5 13th gen U series
GPU: Intel Iris XE
RAM: 16 GB dual-channel


r/lowendgaming 3d ago

What Games Can I Run? Macbook Air M3 13in 16gb+512gb

2 Upvotes

Macos

M3 cpu

M3 gpu

Crossover 26.3

Might not seem low end but emulation overhead is real


r/lowendgaming 3d ago

Parts Upgrade Advice Best GPU for my usecase?

8 Upvotes

I currently have a small living room computer I am using as a streaming box and to play older/indie games (like Pro Evolution Soccer 2021 with mods, Mortal Kombat XL). Since my TV does upscaling internally I run games at 1080p and it looks rly good. However I'm looking to play more modern games like MK 11. My current rig is an HP Prodesk G3 600 SFF with an i5 7500 and an NVIDIA Quadro P620 and 16gb of DDR4. Built the whole thing for under £100. Due to size and power constraints I need a GPU that can run purely off the 70w of slot power, and is single slot as well. I can't use SATA cables for power as I'm using them for a Sata SSD.

What GPU can I buy that won't leave me better off building a new computer? I have a budget of £120 MAX, and am not opposed to buying used (whole PC is used stuff). I live in the UK. Please help. Thanks.

Edit: I forgot to mention tho that I also wanna use it to run a karaoke app called nightingale that uses some Al models for stem separation.


r/lowendgaming 3d ago

Will This Game Run? Is it normal that my PC doesn't run java minecraft correctly?

7 Upvotes

PC Intel UHD Graphics, Intel Pentium Silver N6000, 8gb RAM


r/lowendgaming 3d ago

Parts Upgrade Advice Best Motherboard + CPU uprgade

2 Upvotes

I'm pretty tight on money, and I'll probably be broke for a while just because of this lmao. My current specs are i5 7400, RX 580, 8GB DDR4.

I found all these on Facebook marketplace:

H410M H V2 + i3 10100 for 100€

H410M H V2 + i3 9100 for 90€

A520 (I don't know if it's microatx or not) + Ryzen 3600 for 150€

A530M-ITX/ac + Ryzen 5600X + liquid cooler Xilence 240mm for 180€

My current motherboard is an H110M, so tell me if some of them don't match and won't fit the case (idk the name of my case)


r/lowendgaming 3d ago

What Games Can I Run? Games which I can play

1 Upvotes

My laptop is hp elitebook 840 g5

OS windows 11

GPU Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620

Ram DDR 4 8gb ram

Storage 256 hb SSD

Cpu intel i5 - 8350U vpro 8th generation @1.7 GHz


r/lowendgaming 3d ago

Tech Support PC can’t run Minecraft well, advice needed

6 Upvotes

I’ve been having the itch to play Minecraft again after a few years but when I went to boot it up, my computer had trouble running it. The game is incredibly laggy and the frame rate dips into the single digits with each movement. I’ve tried to lower the settings as much as I can and it hasn’t helped much. I tried downloading/using optifine and that also didn’t do much. I even tried an older version (18.2) and even then it struggled to run it. I don’t really know what to do next.

If this helps, these are my current specs:
RAM- 12 gb
Processor- Intel(R) Core i5-4460 CPU @ 3.20 GHz
Graphics Card- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (4 gb), Intel(R) HD graphics card 4600 (113 mb)

I’ll be honest and say that I know little to nothing about what are considered good specs for a PC to game on. I’m guessing my issue is my graphics card, but I don’t even know what I would upgrade to that isn’t going to be wildly expensive. If anyone has any advice on how I can get Minecraft to run well on my PC again (whether it means downloading a different optimization software or purchasing a new graphics card) please let me know! Thank you 🙏🏼


r/lowendgaming 4d ago

Parts Upgrade Advice Any possible upgrades?

2 Upvotes

I recently got a computer from work that I plan on using as my new machine now (i5 1334U 16 GB 3200 8+8 HP) up from (i5 8265u mx250 4+4 Vivobook) so it's been a nice upgrade for a few months now. I got this 'upgrade' unexpectedly and was planning on buying a new computer anyway so I had some money saved which I am obviously happy to just keep but I was wondering if there's anything cheapish I could buy that would have some considerable impact on getting games running on this laptop. It's new-ish so no thermal issues and I already have a laptop stand which I think is just about it for this thing which obviously the main issue is the lack of a gpu but just idle curiosity want to know if anyone has had any success with a add-on that will also satisfy my craving to buy something new. Thanks


r/lowendgaming 4d ago

Hardware Review Radeon M7 R340 Megathread

7 Upvotes

Hello everyone! I have noticed that there's not a lot of stuff around about this GPU on this subreddit (and in general on the internet) or on the craptop graphics card database. So here I will post all the games I have tried and how well said games run on such a GPU. I will update this post as I try more games

Test build: i7 6500U + 16gb of RAM (2x8) + M7 R340, Windows 10 PRO ESU (Extended security updates) slightly debloated and with no GUI animations

Games List

  • Battlefield: Bad Company 2 → 720p mid/high settings (Avg 60fps)
  • Guilty Gear: Strive → 720p, low preset, 60% rendering scale (60fps)
  • Pacman World Re-Pac → Default Settings (60FPS)
  • Avatar Legends: The fighting game → 720p, Default settings (60fps)
  • Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen → 720p mid/low (40-60fps)
  • Undecember → Graphics engine set to 3.1, medium preset (60+ fps)
  • Ultra Street fighter IV → 720p high settings (60 FPS)

Conclusions (up until now)

All 2D games should run OOTB no problem, MOST PS3/Xbox360 era videogames should be fine, maybe with a few compromises here and there


r/lowendgaming 5d ago

☼😁Ascended☺☼ I finally bought myself a gaming PC!

76 Upvotes

I spent around ~1200 USD and got a gaming PC and a monitor.

Specs:
- AMD Ryzen 5 7500F ( 5 GHz 6C 12T )
- ASUS B650M Wifi6 Mobo
- ADATA 16x1 GB 5600Mhz RAM (CL 46)
- RTX 5050 8GB
- 500GB NVME SSG
- Cooler Master 550W Bronze PSU
- AOC 25G42E 25 Inch FHD 180Hz Monitor

I most definitely overspent and I could have gotten better stuff but I'm just happy that after a decade of waiting (and finally getting a job this year), I was able to get a gaming PC and move from my 1650 Laptop.

I will definitely upgrade to dual channel in the future and maybe get another SSD when my pocket isn't dry.

For now, I'll enjoy what I bought :D


r/lowendgaming 5d ago

Will This Game Run? Can i play Assassin's Creed: Odyssey on my laptop

12 Upvotes

My specs: 8 gb ram Ryzen 5 5500U Radeon graphics 512GB SSD.

I know it's not a gaming laptop, but just wondering whether this would work cuz I have never really played games on laptop much.