Your laptops last only one or two years? Wow. What brands, so that I know to avoid them? :)

I've had lots of different laptops, but usually they have been non-gaming laptops, sometimes business class. At least those business laptops tend to last long, I have a couple of over 10 year old laptops in use now.

ASUS G75VW is my first true gaming laptop, and it is now about 3½ years old I think. I'd say now it is showing its first "issue", occasionally giving some extra resonating sounds from the fan (it has two fans, one for CPU and one for GPU). The fans still seems to work fine, but I guess it is a good idea to start planning changing the fan when it starts producing extra sounds. If nothing else, at least get rid of those sounds.

I'd guess the first components to fail on laptops are usually either a fan, or the power adapter. Both are replaceable, fortunately. For what it's worth, I've also earlier had the CPU fan starting failing on my desktop PC (it also started to make irritating extra sounds), as well as the PSU fan.

One Sony, one Lenovo and one ASUS. OTOH, the cheap Acer laptops that my brother, his ex and my dad got all lasted man years.

The Lenovo should probably get a free pass because it was exposed to Chinese electricity, but still, it failed way too quickly.

Pretty sure I've seen something like that written on that Blof - Wat Zou Je Doen? song :P
Jokes aside, I'm pretty sure we'd all live more de-complicated lives that way, especially nowadays with so much tech savvy people and tons of stuff being shoved towards us :)
Then you're a master tinkerer, huh? :)
I really admire those who can lock their attention to details for more than 10 minutes, those who can build up stuff just by seeing others and then mimicking them. Nowadays I'd say it's a vanishing quality.
You're one of these "unusual" folks, I must assume! :)

I am. I've got a Intel HD 4000 in my current laptop and it runs plenty of modern AAA games (usually at medium settings) and other graphically intensive games at a perfect framerate. I had a list of games that I can run with zero lag in a similar thread but now I can't find it.

Sure I would love to have a overpowered desktop computer that is built specifically for gaming and audio work but that's a long ways off, and my little $400 laptop is doing the job just fine right now.

Thanks. I feel like it should be common sense.

I guess I'm just more affected by sources like this than most people apparently. I think it's messed up that people don't keep dire consequences like these on the back of their minds when they make decisions, but I guess we are still relatively disconnected from the consequences of our lifestyle choices.

That and like you, I'm a man of simpler (sane?) wants.

When it's still semi-stable (too unstable to work on, stable enough for short game sessions), I use them as backup machines to LAN party with friends when they come over if they forget (or don't have) their laptop.

After that, I bring them at a local computer store. They claim they reuse the parts they can and send the rest to be recycled. Admittedly, I haven't gone very far in verifying that claim.

If it was good for running games of its time (GPU that had all the needed features games from that era expected), then keep it around as a backup machine for playing those old games, in case they have issues on modern PCs, I have e.g. one old IBM ThinkPad (some kind of mobile ATI GPU which is pretty good for old Win98/XP era games) where I have Windows 98SE and XP side by side.

If the laptop is not suitable for gaming (e.g. some very old Intel graphics chipset which wasn't even designed for running 3D games), then install Linux Mint on it and give it some special purpose. E.g. I have one ancient DELL laptop with Linux Mint 17.2 XFCE, which I use mainly for keeping my local GOG game repository up to date with gogrepo.py.

If I leave a PC turned on for the whole night in order to re-download the gogrepo game details and/or download a few dozen gigabytes of GOG games, it is much nicer that a small, silent and power-efficient laptop is doing it, than a big monstrous desktop PC making lots of noise and blinking lights.

If the laptop is somehow broken and I don't feel like trying to repair it, recycle it.

Far Cry, Painkiller, Terraria, Quake 2. Doom, Descent, Wolf3D.

In short, yes. Because I only have performance issues, never compatibility issues. Which is funny because with some games, Intel HD chips will work more reliably than a brand new several hundred $$$ dedicated GPU. Modest Lenovo Yes, definitely matters to me.

15 years ago, I had a high-end gaming desktop PC with a fat ass 19" monitor and everything. Nowadays I use a cheap laptop. Smaller screen is better for eye fatigue anyway.
Space is also an issue. I live in a one room apartment which I'm perfectly fine with but I don't have space for a 3 monitor setup and a Godzilla tower or whatnot. Conserving electricity is also a factor because in Switzerland, electricity is expensive (just like everything else). Depends on how well a game is optimized. I can play classic AAA FPS games up to about 2003 perfectly on full settings as well as many brand new indie games. My aging 2.2 GHz Dualcore, 4 GB RAM and Intel HD Graphics can also handle demanding 3D games from 2004 up until until 2012 but the more recent a game is, the lower I have to set the graphics for it to run in a playable way. XCOM Enemy Unknown is the limit of what I can run on this system. I even have to reduce the graphics for some newer indie games like Expeditions: Conquistador or Cognition GOTY for things to run smoothly. I don't intend to change, either. For one, I simply can't afford it financially and I'm also not even remotely as crazy about gaming as I was 15 years ago. I spent $6000 on my gaming PC back then which was basically all my savings from summer jobs etc.
It's pointlessly inefficient to spend so much money on gaming. One could go the middle road as most people do but I decided to not half-ass things so I'm going the complete opposite way now. Low budget for hardware and software. $20 is the absolute most I'm willing to spend on any game, preferably it has to be $15 or less for new indies and $5.99 for classics. Definitely won't pay $10 for Wolfenstein 3D, I don't know what they were smoking.

With my cheap laptop I can play the majority of the GOG catalog with full settings. This laptop cost only about $300 and is about 3 years old. Of course I can't play demanding modern 3D games but by my backlog still has more than 220 games I haven't even installed and tried out yet so by the time I'm through with all these, I can buy another cheap laptop with integrated graphics that will run all the current AAA games. Even Witcher 3 will run perfectly fine on a low budget laptop 10 years from now.

Also, hardware has more staying power nowadays than in the late 90s / early 2000s. Back then, your new GPU etc was already out of date the moment you walked out of the store and you constantly had to upgrade system RAM.
With 4 GB RAM, I can play the vast majority of indie games even though my system is several years old. When I look at hardware catalogs, budget laptops still have only 4 GB. It seems like the hardware race in personal computing has slowed down considerably.

I expected my backlog to slowly decrease because I already have the essential classics and wouldn't be able to buy new games but they keep releasing more classics as well as indie games that run perfectly on this low end system. Meaning my backlog remains stable even though I massively curbed my game purchases.Thanks to cable internet, we now have access to a myriad of free games, abandonware and so on which all add to backlog.


Summary: As long as one doesn't need to play new AAA 3D games (and there's little reason one would need to), integrated graphics remain a viable option.

Nice selection of games btw :)
Simply amazing. Honest, straighforward and basically what I wanted to know. Great to hear from pc gamers from around the globe who believe this is a viable, cheap and space saving deal.

I know the pain, trust me.I KNOW! :P
It happens a lot. Probably indie devs have a secret deal, I mean, a lot in commom with Intel HD graphics :D

edit: we should create a GOGMIX for "games that run nicely on +HD4000 Intel HD Graphics" or something like that. It would help a lot, since it involves testing and stuff.

What games specifically?

For me upgrading the Intel HD4000 drivers to the latest ones made a world of difference. Some (GOG) games that had serious issues with the Intel GPU, suddenly started running perfectly, like Empire Earth and Gorky 17.

Not quite sure, but old OpenGL games might still be problematic for intel GPUs.

Satisfying!
I've been playing some new (non AAA) games that can run even on toasters and I'm delighted :P
Forget it. Driver issue. Just reinstalled it and now I'm kicking some major asses in Eador: Genesis :)
I was having issues with Chaser, btw.

And cool to hear that those games are running just as fine now. I wonder if Cossacks, another problematic game under intel gpus, will now run. Gonna test it asap :)

edit: forgot that I don't actually own Cossacks! :D


I'd enjoy building mine too but, unfortunately, buying hardware in here can be a bit messy.
Scattered parts in different areas of town, outdated hardware for the most part... crap :(

I feel that those highly customized pcs are much like tattoos; just, uh, dislike 'em. Don't hate is personally, though.

Why I'm keeping this thread alive (sorry for overposting), dudes? i'm loving to hear from you folks how you feel about integrated graphics. Personally - not a popular idea, I say - I'd love to play my stuff on a all-in-one pc, much like this one (cleavage not included/not this specific game, dudes :P)

Indie developers would be unwise not to ensure compatibility with Intel HD chips because people with laptops / low budget hardware are the perfect customer base for indie games. I think we are too numerous to be considered stragglers :)
And just because someone uses cheap hardware that doesn't mean they won't buy games: Last year, I spent more money on games than I paid for my laptop when it was new.

Yes, that would be great. Perhaps it would be more useful to have one official thread where everyone can chip in and a comprehensive list can be created. I'm especially interested in knowing which games do -not- run with Intel HD chips, or won't perform in a satisfactory way with a HD3000. My chip is "Intel HD Graphics" which is better than HD2000 and slightly less capable than HD3000.

you've just reminded me: (KULT) Heretic Kingdoms now runs without the spaghetti monsters with the latest driver updates. Must post in the subforum.

Ah, this is good to know thanks. Just so happens to be a game that recently moved up my priority list as the next-in-line backlogged RPG I'll have a go at.