Gadgetory

is that they allegedly to us yeah helmet you need me go over her no parable for George great Toro hey guys and welcome back to hi we're unboxed as we all know thin and light ultra portable laptops are not gaming systems focusing more on productivity performance and battery life for workers on the go these sorts of laptops aren't equipped with enough integrated graphics horsepower to take on today's popular triple-a titles nimble machines like ultra books instead leave gaming to their big gaming laptop brothers which trade off portability for pure discrete GPU power while the integrated GPU in most Ultra portables isn't anything special that doesn't mean it's completely useless it's actually possible to game on an ultrabook it's just a matter of choosing the game and it's settings carefully such that it's not too intensive for the 15 watt Intel CPU in most low-power laptops with this in mind I went and tested 31 games on my Lenovo ThinkPad x1 carbon everything from modern triple-a titles to older 2d platformers to give you an idea of what games are actually playable on modern ultra portables the think that x1 carbon I used here is the entry-level model with an Intel KB like Core i5 7200 u processor 8 gigabytes of RAM and a 1080p display the i5 7200 u is essentially the base model you seriously you'll find in ultra portals with two cores four threads and a base clock of 2.5 gigahertz with a boost up to three point one gigahertz the integrated GPU is an HD 620 with 24 execution units clocked up to 1,000 megahertz all the testing you'll see in this video is reflective of the entry-level ultra portable experience but of course you can find laptops with more powerful CPUs like the i7 7500 U which delivers around 5% more graphics performance occasionally you might see Ultra portables with iris + graphics as well which use CP like the i7 75-67 you with double the GPU execution units but these laptops are rare so our testing is largely representative of most standard ultrabooks the first group of games I tested were modern triple-a titles ranging from new games like prey to titles like The Witcher 3 from a few years back all of these games were designed to be playable on at least Xbox one console hardware and all require some form of discrete GPU to meet their minimum requirements it wasn't surprising to discover that as ultra portables don't meet the minimum requirements to play any of these games that none could be placed at a reasonable quality level a number of games do load at all games like The Witcher 3 were plagued with horrendous input lag that made the game completely unplayable and every other title failed to hit even 25 frames per second at the lowest possible quality settings at a mere 720p resolution so as a quick example here's a look at me seriously struggling to play fallout 4 and up to a whopping 24 frames per second I guess if I wanted a cinematic experience I'd go through the new spider-man film but hey instead you know I'm still here benchmarking games and true how we unbox fashion as for prade don't even bother exploring tell us one because you'll be stuck with the sub cinematic experience at the lowest possible detail settings so it's safe to say that if you're trying to play a triple-a title released in the past four years on a modern ultrabook you're probably going to have a bad time considering Ultra portables can't really play modern games with much success I decided to go further back and intend to play a wide range of games from 2004 Grand Theft Auto Sion dress right up until 2013 Tomb Raider depending on the game in question it may come as a surprise that some of these titles are very playable and ultra portable if you're willing to sacrifice visual quality of all the games I tested from 2013 and earlier only two titles were largely unplayable Alan Wake didn't launch at all while Black Flag hovered under 30 frames per second at the lowest settings every other game though was playable I'll bet often at the low settings of 720p some of these older titles like oblivion and GTA san andreas were quite playable at 1080p while surprised it again like Far Cry 3 was comfortably playable at the lowest settings at 720p if I can to look at me zooming around the island of Far Cry 3 it's far from the previous experience at 720p with low detail settings but the game runs reasonably smoothly on something released just five years ago skyrim fans looking for yet another device to play the game on can actually hit 1080p here at 35 to 45 fps and that's a good choice consuming 720p can't consistently achieve 60fps my choice for the best experience of the pack comes from its preceding title though in Oblivion which runs at near maximum settings in the 50 to 60 FPS bracket so it's great to head back into that outstanding game to get a nice head of nostalgia I'm not a big fan of eSports titles personally but I did load three of the most popular ones onto the ThinkPad x1 carbon to see if they were playable on integrated graphics here are the results of the three games the only one I'd say isn't playable is csgo as you really want to play above 60 fps which integrated graphics simply cannot hit it's better news for both overwatch and rocket League though as overwatch is playable on the lowest possible settings if you're willing to put up with the occasional dip low 60fps in heavy combat while rocket League achieves 60fps without much issue at 900 P none of these tiles manage to hit in native 1080p but two of three being playable at lower resolutions is a good result nonetheless there are two categories of games that are almost always playable on low-end hardware like Ultra portables with integrated graphics indie titles and 2d games games are bought into either of these categories tend not to be particularly graphically intensive relative to modern triple-a titles so most can be enjoyed on laptops work with games from before 2013 most of these semi modern indie titles are very playable on ultra portable Hardware the experience some of these titles isn't ideal games like Bastion and Ori and the blind forest would be better at 60fps but can't manage that level of performance on integrated graphics and have limited if any graphics settings others like stardew valley are perfect for WIC laptop hardware so you see though check out our in the blind forest on laptop hardware this is a gorgeous game that will blow you away on integrated graphics FTL is a personal favorite of mine as it runs fantastically and doesn't obliterate your battery in the process which is to be expected from a mere two year game while ultra portables aren't as suited to gaming as true gaming laptops it's to possible to play a wide variety of games on the slow integrated graphics you'll find inside you may not be able to hit the best quality level of all the highest frame rates but setting games to the lowest preset and resolution can deliver decent playable results of the eight mantra play titles I tested none were playable however 10 of 12 triple-a games from 2013 or earlier could be played at low detail settings with 5 of those 10 running comfortably at 1080p 2 titles oblivion and GTA san andreas run at near maximum quality settings eSports titles were easier to run the modern triple-a games with both overwatch and rocket League hitting acceptable frame rates at low detail settings csgo was unplayable but only because it couldn't hit consistently or over 60 FPS the best category of games though as I mentioned earlier are the 2d and indie titles of the 8 games I tested only one failed to hit a consistent 30 frames per second brothers a tale of two sons while every other title ran reasonably well including newer 3d games like the witness the final tally of games stands as follows of the 31 games I tested 19 ran and were playable on the core i7 7200 u 7 of these games only run at resolutions below 1080p while 9 needed to be run at the lowest possible detail settings 7 games though ran at near maximum settings though five of those seven were indie titles that's a surprisingly good result for hardware that's known to struggle playing 3d games the lowest detail settings may not look the prettiest but heading into Skyrim on a laptop is still an enjoyable experience if you don't have proper gaming hardware available anyway that's it for this look at ultra portable gaming I hope you guys work something and now know exactly what you can play on your cable a power ultra portable if you like this content definitely check us out on patreon and our two in the next one