Hey all, I'm looking to buy a used Windows 7 or 8 laptop off eBay or something. I'm curious if most of the old gems on here would be fine with an integrated graphics card or if I should focus only on dedicated graphics cards. Thanks!

I'd say the majority yes - there are a few that suffer issues to to drivers etc, but my Intel HD does fine with the majority of stuff, and with a few tweaks / fixes here and there on others. Same with newer games too (there are always exceptions however).

Can you be more specific on what games / kind of games you want to play? - might help highlight any potential problems.

I think it will run most of those games.
Make sure you browse thru some games here and check their system requirements just to be certain

i have a laptop with integrated graphics card and works with a lot of games(modern ones), but im not an expert in these things, so i might be wrong

Hope it helps
good luck

It depends on how old the game is. Early 2000's games and before will be fine. Anything newer is likely to cause a problem (with the exception of most indie games).

A word of warning though from experience - you may start with older games but the promotions are so tempting that you'll want to buy newer games. I'd recommend having a look at a low end graphics card to allow some newer titles to run.

Thanks for the responses. Mostly, I'd be playing older 3D stuff like the Thief games, Deus Ex, HOMM, and any newer stuff would probably not be too intense, like Witcher and Blackguards. Sounds like an Intel Graphics card would be just fine for my needs. Appreciate it!

If the Integrated Graphics card is at least as powerful as an Intel HD 4000, then the answer to your question is YES. In your shoes, I'd avoid laptops with Integrated Graphics weaker than an Intel HD 4000.

Agreed. The 4000 and up appears to be compatible with most games, from what I've seen.

You could also get a laptop with an AMD A-Series or E-Series APU, it comes with an integrated Radeon GPU that is compatible with every games. Some games are allergic to Intel graphics and only run properly with nVidia or AMD/ATI chipsets...

▪ AMD A-Series APU Processors
▪ AMD E-Series APU Processors

(Click on "Model Comparisons and Product Specs" to get all the CPU and GPU specifications)

same goes for radeon - ive found often when i research a game before buying that often the radeon chips are as problematic as intel if not worse. either way either chip should do the job requested

It depends on your definition of older but roughly speaking anything up to about 2002-2003 should run without problems, even FPS games.
My Intel integrated graphics are even worse than the HD 4000 but as long as I stay clear from modern 3D games it's fine. XCOM Enemy Unknown on lower settings is about the limit of what I can run with these integrated graphics. As for shooter games, if a game looks like Far Cry or better I won't try it.

I don't know why you're saying that. I had many Radeon cards in the past (the latest one being a HD 5850), and I never had a single issue with a game (including The Saboteur). The trouble with the Radeons (and it was the same for nVidia at a different time) was their earlier drivers, but the new ones are far better now.

The new Intel HD 4000 series is decent and more powerful than its predecessor, but for some recent games, you'll have to tweak the game settings to get an acceptable framerate. There are, unfortunately, some older games that are hardcoded to verify if the computer is equipped with an ATI or nVidia card. For DOS-based games, this is not a problem, because DOSBox mostly relies on the CPU and has no trouble with Intel GPU's for the rendering.

As you said, if his intention is to play with older games, any modern GPU is more than adequate.


There are two things I could suggest him:

1) He could take a look at the minimum/recommanded specifications of every games he's intending to play, and if Intel is clearly not supported, check the developers' websites for patches. Here's the official <span class="bold">playable games list for Intel&reg; HD Graphics 4200/4400</span>, compiled by Intel on January 6, 2015.

2) He could also check on Youtube for gameplay videos of games running on Intel GPU's (for example, a search for <i>"The Witcher 2" "HD 4000"</i> returned this <span class="bold">gameplay video</span>. Here's the same game with a <span class="bold">HD 3000</span>).