What are some good games for low end PC's on Steam?

SashaS

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About a week ago, I downloaded Steam onto my laptop, for the sake of trying something new and so far I love it. The community integration, the flawless design, the achievements and badges and trading cards, its all pretty awesome and I like that there is a vast community for every game there is. My only problem is that my laptop is extremely old and slow, as I will indicate below.

At the moment I have 1 game, Terraria. I love it but just to give you a perspective of how bad my laptop is, I have to run it at minimum settings at 800 x 600 resolution... on my 1080p display. Its a shame but because its a retro style game, its still playable and I really love the game itself. Its the main reason I decided to start playing games on my laptop as opposed to my console. I did add a few games to my wishlist for when I can afford them, namely Counter Strike: Source, Badland and some farming game. I also have Minecraft (non Steam game) but its become rather mundane.

My specs go as follows, but bear in mind that if you were to buy these components brand new and put them into a case, they would obviously perform better. Its just that my laptop is very old.

Quad core Intel i5 (I believe its a really old one)
4GB RAM
Integrated Intel Potato GPU
AMD Video card (does this even matter?)

I hope there is someone else that shares my struggle that can perhaps point me in the right direction. What games do you know of, available on Steam, that a low-end device such as mine can run? Thank you!

My Steam profile link: http://steamcommunity.com/id/goldminim/
Feel free to add me as a friend.
 
I did once share your struggle. Before I bought my first proper gaming PC my main go to drive both for work and gaming was a decent Asus laptop.

So, I've played a lot of The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth -- damn, I've played it for more than 300 hours -- which should run just fine on your system. You know, you just missed a promotion where you could've gotten Limbo for free. If you're into point and click puzzle games, then Puzzle Agent and Puzzle Agent 2 might interest you.

Hmm. Maybe Portal might run on your system? I'd advise on trying its demo first :) I have this weird game Ghost Master in my inventory collecting dust. Maybe you want it? Not sure if the game is any good but going by the specs it should run just fine.

By the way, welcome to the glorious Steam platform :) Don't rush buying any Steam games right now, though. Soon there's going to be Summer sale.
 
Same I have that problem too, and I can't even run tf2 at lowest settings. I try to play less graphic intense games like Brawlhalla or Vox Populi. Brawlhalla is really fun because almost any computer can run it, and it's a cool Smash-like game that is wayyyy better than smash.
 
Your hardware is not soo low end. The potato GPU is the only thing that is dragging you from playing most 3D games of the previous gen. You can play Torchlight 2 and Wizardry 8 with
those specs. I think, Gothic I & II would run smoothly there. Definitely, you can play
Unepic, Divine Divinity and Tales of Maj'eyal without any issues too. System Shock 2 is also available for steam, is an old sci fi first person shooter with strong rpg and survival horror elements, is regarded as the grandaddy of Bioshock saga. The fist Deus Ex is also a good choice, and since It's pretty old ( early 2000), will run at 60 fps. Undertale will run in exchange of almost nothing from your PC resources.

There are several more. But I will leave my suggestion up to there. Feel free to ask for a specific game.
 
You can probably run many indie 2d titles just fine. Stuff like Castle Crashers, Battleblock Theater, Stardew Valley should have no issue.
 
What kind of games are you into? Would be good to know that. But I would also recommend to get a new Laptop / Computer, or start to save for a new one and it doesn't even have to be the most expensive one.
Otherwise I would agree with what has been said already in some older titles and some 2d games.
 
I must say, Stardew Valley and The Binding of Isaac look awesome. I also found this tower defense game called Kingdom Rush which seems pretty fun. Thank you all so much for the suggestions! I have realized that there is a lot of games that I CAN play on my laptop. I do intend to save up for something better of course, Steam has motivated me to do so given the prospect of being able to play so may awesome games with a mouse and keyboard as opposed to a controller. Thanks again, I appreciate the feedback.
 
Minecraft, Runescape, and League of Legends low video quality settings maybe playable on your PC. But, I think Minecraft, Runescape, and League of Legends are not available on Steam, and you need to get them from their official sites.
 
Punch Club is a great retro-looking kind of strategy-simulator game, you are basically trying to become a fighting champion. There is a lot of story involved too, so it's really addictive. Another one is Super Meat Boy, you've probably heard about that one. It's a platform game, really, really hard and challenging! What I can say is, you can get a game on Steam and until you've played them for 2 hours, you can just return them and refund your money, giving bad performance as the reason. They'll give you your money back after few hours. But remember, the funds won't come back to your bank account, they'll be there on your Steam account.
 
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