I have a non-gaming PC with moderate specs. It’s an HP Touchsmart all-in-one desktop with 4GB RAM and an Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 2.0GHz processor. The graphics card is the biggest issue. So the game can’t require cutting edge specs. I’m running Windows 7 64-bit, by the way. I prefer FPS games. I haven’t played any games in years. Back in the day I loved games like Half-Life and Max Payne. Any thoughts?
Online or story-based?
I know you said your GPU is the problem, but can you let us know exactly what it is so we have a better idea on what you can play on it?
If you liked Ha;f-Life you’re likely to like Half-Life 2 and HL2 - episode 1 and episode 2. Team fortress 2 is great, and easy on the system specs. Multi-player only though. Portal is not an fps, but it’s a lot of fun and it is a first person game. Get steam if you don’t already have it. All of those games and more are available for download there (each for under $20).
Battlefield Heroes is a free online shooter. Its a very fun easy to pick-up game. You will need to download punkbuster.
My GPU is:
Name Mobile Intel® 965 Express Chipset Family
Adapter RAM 384.00 MB (402,653,184 bytes)
Installed Drivers igdumd64.dll,igd10umd64.dll,igdumdx32,igd10umd32
Driver Version 8.15.10.1912
Wow you weren’t kidding. That’s an integrated chip, what’s worse is that it’s an intel integrated ship. I’m not sure if half-life 2 will run on it. Or any of the games I mentioned. If you enjoy gaming you might want to invest a little bit into a proper video card. A 9800 GT or one of the 4700 from ATI will let you play any game you want for under $90.
You can get a pretty decent mid-range video card nowadays for $100 or less, assuming you have the appropriate slot in your motherboard. I would recommend that before trying any FPS on that system, unless you’re going with the really really old games (Steam has quite a few available, and very cheap, as mentioned above). I suggest installing Steam and just browsing.
This card in this PC isn’t upgradeable. I’m not a gamer, I was just thinking it’s been a while since I played anything on the PC and I was curious if there was anything out there.
You more or less don’t have a video card. Sorry.
That’s one of the main thing that sucks about cheap prebuilt machines - they shave a few bucks here and there by leaving out essential things like A PCI-E slot
Sure, but I never bought this for gaming. It’s a 22" touch screen all-in-one that sits in my kitchen for internet and basic computer stuff. It’s actually an awesome PC for that. I don’t have a lot of time for games, and when I do I play Wii stuff with my kids. I’ve just had the itch lately to blow the crap out of some aliens or other bad guys…
Far Cry is one of the few non-ancient good FPS games I can think of that should run on your PC. It’s not like Half Life or Max Payne though, it’s more of a sandbox shooter set on tropical islands. There’s a demo for it IIRC.
Sorry, but I don’t even think Far Cry will run smoothly on an Intel GMA at native resolution (online specs say that is 1440x900 - kind of low for a 22") - you’ll likely have to drop the resolution to at least 1280x800, and the detail levels way down, to eke out even 25 frames/sec - those all-in ones typically run a low-power laptop CPU, and slower RAM, to reduce heat buildup. So not only are you bottlenecked with an anemic graphics system, the RAM is running at 667 instead of 800, and the processor likely has
Since you have a Wii, you may want to check out some of the newer FPS titles if you’ve got a hankerin’ for some shooty-explodey gameplay - here’s Gamespot’s list of Wii FPS games.
Even though most of my FPS action is on the PC, I’m betting that in your case the Wii will provide a more satisfying gaming experience than your current PC (especially if you have a big TV). There’s nothing more frustrating than getting fragged because your FPS game is running like a slideshow. Then again, I have no idea how goofy the Wiimote/nunchuk combo is when playing FPS games, compared to the good ol’ keyboard/mouse combo.
Sorry, something got chopped off the first paragraph of my post and I didn’t see it before the edit window closed.
I meant to say at that “the processor likely has a smaller cache.” Which does make a bit of difference in some games.
My resolution is at 1650x 1080 (the max), not that I expect it to make a difference. Thanks everyone. I may try Far Cry just to see if it works.
Painkiller might run pretty well on your system. When it was made it was a modern FPS with gameplay that was a deliberate throwback to the run-n-gun madness of old-school shooters. You can download a free demo through steam. If you like it the full game is a mere ten bucks.
You might also give Half Life 2 a try. The source engine scales really well for lower end hardware. It came free with the orange box and was giftable, so tons of people have an extra copy. If you ask nicely I’m sure someone around here will offer theirs up (I gave mine away long ago, sorry).
Nothing remotely modern is running on that. That chipset was built for 2D with some very basic 3D acceleration tossed in. Focus on flash games or 3D games released 7 or 8 years ago. Doom II perhaps. Half Life 1.
You’re exaggerating is big time by saying “doom 2 perhaps” - the game was from 1994 and didn’t use graphical acceleration at all. I’m pretty sure modern CPUs could cope with it 
You’d probably have a reasonable time running anything made up through at least 2000, and games after that with reduced settings.
But yes, it’s essentially almost like having no 3d video card at all - even grabbing a crappy video card from 6 years ago would leave you in better shape, but that doesn’t seem to be an option.
The problem is that some stuff will run (terribly probably), but he’ll get to a boss or some area with some unsupported feature or something that will crash that game and that will be it. Better safe with older games or non 3D games.
Quake Live. Period. I win.
Seriously, you will definitely be able to play it on your machine and it will look and run good. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it is basically Quake 3 (best game ever) made to run in a web browser. Oh, and it’s free. I was part of the closed beta a year ago and it is a lot better now. There are a lot of people playing and the matches are a blast, especially Clan Arena. The skill matching still needs some work but that is also vastly improved. If your internet sucks you can even play against bots.