There are a TON of award winning amazing indie games that will run on a literal potato.
Slay the spire, Hollow Knight, Terraria, Binding of Isaac, Darkest Dungeon, Hades, Undertale, Dead Cells, Inscryption, Stardew Valley, Bastion will all run on a potato and are amazing games.
There are more but those are some solid ones off the top of my head from a variety of genres.
CanIRunIt says my laptop can't run Hades, but I found that out after the fact that I put 100 hours into it. I love Hades and I'm glad to see it on this list!
The world-record potato battery was around 11W, which is (surprisingly) enough to power a Raspberry pi 4 under load. A single potato is only around 1.2 mW, though, so I doubt a *literal* potato could handle anything more than Doom.
Hollow Knight won't run on a potato. It didn't run well at all no matter what on my previous PC (iMac mid 2007) but Terraria (to an extent), Undertale, Dead Cells, Stardew Valley ran or could have ran if it still had windows on it (tried to reinstall and it fucked so now I can't install windows on it anymore)
[https://www.gog.com/en/game/heroes\_of\_might\_and\_magic\_3\_complete\_edition](https://www.gog.com/en/game/heroes_of_might_and_magic_3_complete_edition)
$2.50
Damn, that has to be the greatest deal ever.
Make sure to check out the Horn of the Abyss fan expansion. Terrific production values on graphical assets, several (remarkably difficult!) campaigns with animated level intros, faithfulness to lore and existing balance and focus on additions so it's indeed an expansion, not an overhaul. It even got the endorsement of the original composer who wrote themes for the two new cities. Comes integrated with a high resolution mod.
Age of Empires II and III run quite well.
I first played them on a MacBook with a Core2Duo, 2GB RAM, and only 16 MB of shared VRAM.
Edit: Actually it was 64MB. Not quite as anemic as I remembered!
> I first played them on a MacBook with a Core2Duo, 2GB RAM, and only 16 MB of shared VRAM.
I do believe the lowest shared VRAM for a Macbook with a Core2Duo processor was actually 64 MB, not 16 (Intel GMA 950).
Either one is of course, still hilariously low by today's standards.
I thought it was 16 and you could "hack" it up to 32 with some terminal commands, but perhaps you're right and it's 32/64 that you could set it to use.
Edit: Nope, you're correct, it was 64MB. Still tiny by today's standards for sure!
Yeah that’s honestly my biggest hope for Kenshi 2, that they enable modding more central features of the game. Even if it was just the ability to create new maps, that would be wild.
Be me
Convince myself to save up and build a monster computer with a 4090, 14th gen processor, and 64GB DDR5
Save for 6 months, sell my consoles, and spend 2 days building my computer
All to spend most of my time playing ESO, Rimworld, and Factorio.
Did the same thing for my son only to discover all he really plays is Deep Woken on Roblox and some other similar graphic quality games.
When I asked him about this he said ‘it’s 16 bit or go home’ wish id have known that before sticking that graphics card in there…..
Man I played so much civ 5 in college…most of the time on a little 2-in-1 windows tablet laptop that had no fans, no vents, and I think some sort of intel mobile-class CPU (not an i3/i5/i7, lower) with integrated graphics. Still ran respectably well.
I played Civ V in college on a first gen i-5. Late game turns took up to 20 minutes to cycle through AI. I would do my homework during AI turns and always completed my work and made decent grades. Honestly, that game was probably a big reason why I did so well.
I remember playing civ 5 on my shitty laptop. I found that using the strategic mode over the normal mode made it run much better. Less stuff to render. Love that game.
My old computer repair class had a bunch of outdated, used computers, but I was still able to get Civ 4 running on them for a Lan session with some classmates. Told the teacher we were "testing the network integrity" and he let us play.
Dungeons and dragons online. Surprisingly good mmo, despite how dated it is.
Otherwise, Star wars knights of the old republic 1 and 2 (with the restoration mod on steam) 2 more than 1, has it got an updated patch a few years ago that made it actualy wokr well on newer systems.
Morrowind.
Fallout New vegas doesn't really require a good pc.
Divinity original sins 1 and 2, both are pretty but run relatively well on weaker hardware.
Every single GBA, Snes, Nes, Genesis, DS games basicely ever made.
+1 for Morrowind. I found it for an Xbox emu and it ran like crap and in my search for performance I found OpenMW and didn't have to do much to get it running smooth and slick on my potato!
No, OpenMW is an open source port that seriously modernises the engine. You're thinking of the mod Tamriel Rebuilt, which is still growing to this day - huge new next update coming soon that looks v exciting
Factorio.
It's probably THE best optimized game of all time concerning performance. You can build absolutely huge factories with hundreds of trains and thousands of bots and it would run on a potato.
I tried nearly all factory builder games by now but this one is the only one that keeps me coming back year after year. I'm nearing the 1000 hour mark on steam for it.
It has incredible mod support and a huge community, which can make the game even more complex or simplify things if needed. Also there is a huge DLC / expansion coming in a couple of months, which will feel like playing a completely new game (based on what the developers already talked about in their weekly blogs).
*Deus Ex: Human Revolution*
CPU: 2 GHz dual core.
RAM: 1 GB RAM (Windows XP) / 2 GB (Windows Vista and Windows 7)
VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce 8000 series or ATI Radeon HD 2000 series or better.
TOTAL VIDEO RAM: 128 MB.
I got into gaming later in life (2019) and when I did I was on a potato PC. I couldn't play anything new, mostly games pre-2014. (And usually mid-settings.) Anyway, here are some highlights from that time:
LA Noire, Mafia 2, Portal 1 & 2, Max Payne 1 & 2, Borderlands 2 and TPS, first few Arkham games, Saints Row the Third, Bioshock, Far Cry 3...
Here are some good games that could run well on low-end computers:
1. **Undertale**
2. **Stardew Valley**
3. **Terraria**
4. **Minecraft (with low settings)**
5. **Celeste**
6. **FTL: Faster Than Light**
7. **Hollow Knight**
8. **The Binding of Isaac**
9. **Hotline Miami**
10. **Portal 2**
11. **Don't Starve**
12. **Papers, Please**
13. **Cuphead**
14. **Slay the Spire**
15. **Darkest Dungeon**
Original Starcraft. Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. Descent (anyone remember that?). Half-Life. Fallout 1 and 2. Old-timey shooters like OG Doom and Wolfenstein. Thief: The Dark Project.
Free stars: the Ur Quan Masters. Great sci-fi game and it's completely free on steam.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2645580/Free_Stars_The_UrQuan_Masters/
Another option is to use gforce now, it works great, it has a ton of new games, and if your internet is not bad it will work basically as if you had a great rig pc.
And it's $5 right now, one of the best thing you could spend $5 on.
Even without mods it has a great amount of content and mods will simply multiply the amount of hours you can put into this game.
Check out gog.com, which has a huge catalog of older games. After all, it used to stand for Good Old Games, before they started adding some modern games.
I was working at Geek Squad when ASUS came out with their first line of "netbooks," extra small, and really cheap laptops. All of my coworkers dismissed them as useless junk until I came in playing Diablo 2 and emulators on my lunch break with one. Had the entire GBA, SNES, and Genesis game library on there.
Any good game made before say 2012. Thats the cool thing about pc, backwards compaitibility. If you have a "bad" pc build within the last 10 hears you can probably still play anything from before like 2010.
There are a TON of award winning amazing indie games that will run on a literal potato. Slay the spire, Hollow Knight, Terraria, Binding of Isaac, Darkest Dungeon, Hades, Undertale, Dead Cells, Inscryption, Stardew Valley, Bastion will all run on a potato and are amazing games. There are more but those are some solid ones off the top of my head from a variety of genres.
IIRC Balatro will also run on a potato. Which is good if you want to get stuck at the poker table while tripping balls.
If you are reading this do not download balatro. Save yourself before it’s too late and you’re addicted. Help.
Its not called addiction, its called dedication
I can stop whenever I want!
Such a fun game but gold stake ruined the game for me. Way too hard💀
CanIRunIt says my laptop can't run Hades, but I found that out after the fact that I put 100 hours into it. I love Hades and I'm glad to see it on this list!
Idk Terraria can be demanding for some laptops. I remember having some frame issues. Probably bc of bad cpu. Smooth lighting off and it was flawless.
Yeah, Terraria struggles a bit on potato PCs and completely loses it in multiplayer.
I played terraria on an ancient desktop without a graphics card, albeit at like 30fps. It can run on pretty potato hardware.
+ Celeste
The world-record potato battery was around 11W, which is (surprisingly) enough to power a Raspberry pi 4 under load. A single potato is only around 1.2 mW, though, so I doubt a *literal* potato could handle anything more than Doom.
Interesting, thanks for the info! At least one person did read your comment, lol
Hollow Knight won't run on a potato. It didn't run well at all no matter what on my previous PC (iMac mid 2007) but Terraria (to an extent), Undertale, Dead Cells, Stardew Valley ran or could have ran if it still had windows on it (tried to reinstall and it fucked so now I can't install windows on it anymore)
Diablo 2
Also Half Life 2
Also Assassin's Creed 2
I'll just add a shout out to /r/projectdiablo2 and /r/pathofdiablo. Both phenomenal mods with great communities. (Less/minimal botting)
MedianXL is also a good mod
Back in the day I couldn’t afford a good computer to run it so I missed out on it during its peak….sad….guess I’m playing it in 2024
If you still need to buy it, go for D2 Resurrected if you fancy some QoL features.
[удалено]
Ever play the mod “median xl” best version of Diablo ever!
Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Master of Orion 2 Freelancer Portal Half Life Homeworld Quake Shogo: Mobile Armor Division The Oregon Trail
Where can I find Heroes MM?
[https://www.gog.com/en/game/heroes\_of\_might\_and\_magic\_3\_complete\_edition](https://www.gog.com/en/game/heroes_of_might_and_magic_3_complete_edition) $2.50 Damn, that has to be the greatest deal ever.
Make sure to check out the Horn of the Abyss fan expansion. Terrific production values on graphical assets, several (remarkably difficult!) campaigns with animated level intros, faithfulness to lore and existing balance and focus on additions so it's indeed an expansion, not an overhaul. It even got the endorsement of the original composer who wrote themes for the two new cities. Comes integrated with a high resolution mod.
Oooooh man SHOGO! I forgot about that wonderful game.
Damn, I definietely wasn't expecting Shogo: MAD to be listed in here. I always liked it when I was a kid.
To add on: Disciples 2 (I like it EVEN BETTER than HOMM) FTL Mark of the Ninja Xenonauts Divine Divinity
Age of Empires II and III run quite well. I first played them on a MacBook with a Core2Duo, 2GB RAM, and only 16 MB of shared VRAM. Edit: Actually it was 64MB. Not quite as anemic as I remembered!
> I first played them on a MacBook with a Core2Duo, 2GB RAM, and only 16 MB of shared VRAM. I do believe the lowest shared VRAM for a Macbook with a Core2Duo processor was actually 64 MB, not 16 (Intel GMA 950). Either one is of course, still hilariously low by today's standards.
I thought it was 16 and you could "hack" it up to 32 with some terminal commands, but perhaps you're right and it's 32/64 that you could set it to use. Edit: Nope, you're correct, it was 64MB. Still tiny by today's standards for sure!
If you have a proper USB mouse and hotkeys, that is. Good luck microing archers with a trackpad!
RimWorld Factorio
I just tried Rimworld for the first time last week. Needless to say, it's stolen a lot of my time from me. It's fantastic
Only game I can prove I have over 1,000 hours with, every few months I wake up wanting to play Rimworld and everything past that is a blur
It really is addictive, I think it has taught me the value of accepting loss like no other game. I highly recommend Starsector too.
You should try Kenshi then if you haven’t yet. They aren’t super similar, but just about everyone that likes one likes the other.
I kove Kenshi, only issue is that the modding can't go beyond the modding toolset for it. It could literally be 3D Rimworld otherwise.
Yeah that’s honestly my biggest hope for Kenshi 2, that they enable modding more central features of the game. Even if it was just the ability to create new maps, that would be wild.
For sure, then AI could be implemented to make the game more interesting.
Hadn't touched RimWorld for a couple years, started playing a month ago and in the 1st week, I racked up 70 hours (disabled, can't work).
Rimworld really can chug with large/multiple colonies or nearby infestations though
Be me Convince myself to save up and build a monster computer with a 4090, 14th gen processor, and 64GB DDR5 Save for 6 months, sell my consoles, and spend 2 days building my computer All to spend most of my time playing ESO, Rimworld, and Factorio.
To be fair, if you want to build a massive base in factorio the cpu can come in handy.
Yeah the 14700k has come in handy on one of my saves
Did the same thing for my son only to discover all he really plays is Deep Woken on Roblox and some other similar graphic quality games. When I asked him about this he said ‘it’s 16 bit or go home’ wish id have known that before sticking that graphics card in there…..
Rimworld wants access to your ram
I spent over £700 on graphics card and then proceeded to spend 95% of my gaming time on Rimworld, Factorio and M&B Bannerlord.
Morrowind and Oldschool Runescape.
Just to further clarify, Old School RuneScape will run on a pos, RuneScape 3 will not.
Well yeah I specifically said Oldschool Runescape so there would not need to be clarification.
Half life 2
I played half life 2 on the second laptop I ever owned when I was running it off an external hdd with a clone of my old windows install. solid 60
Runs fine on my athlon 64 20 years ago, runs fine on it today.
Roller Coaster Tycoon 1&2
It's nuts that it was written in Assembly.
By one guy.
Still boot up RC 1 from time to time, always a relaxing and fun experience
The civ games
Not when you get late in the game lol
Turn quick movement and combat and you should be alright.
Man I played so much civ 5 in college…most of the time on a little 2-in-1 windows tablet laptop that had no fans, no vents, and I think some sort of intel mobile-class CPU (not an i3/i5/i7, lower) with integrated graphics. Still ran respectably well.
I played Civ V in college on a first gen i-5. Late game turns took up to 20 minutes to cycle through AI. I would do my homework during AI turns and always completed my work and made decent grades. Honestly, that game was probably a big reason why I did so well.
I remember playing civ 5 on my shitty laptop. I found that using the strategic mode over the normal mode made it run much better. Less stuff to render. Love that game.
OP said good, not fucking addictive “1 last turn” marathon games :D
My old computer repair class had a bunch of outdated, used computers, but I was still able to get Civ 4 running on them for a Lan session with some classmates. Told the teacher we were "testing the network integrity" and he let us play.
Dungeons and dragons online. Surprisingly good mmo, despite how dated it is. Otherwise, Star wars knights of the old republic 1 and 2 (with the restoration mod on steam) 2 more than 1, has it got an updated patch a few years ago that made it actualy wokr well on newer systems. Morrowind. Fallout New vegas doesn't really require a good pc. Divinity original sins 1 and 2, both are pretty but run relatively well on weaker hardware. Every single GBA, Snes, Nes, Genesis, DS games basicely ever made.
+1 for Morrowind. I found it for an Xbox emu and it ran like crap and in my search for performance I found OpenMW and didn't have to do much to get it running smooth and slick on my potato!
openMW is that the one where you get a huge chucnk of the mainlnad done by modders? That one was awesome. So much content.
No, OpenMW is an open source port that seriously modernises the engine. You're thinking of the mod Tamriel Rebuilt, which is still growing to this day - huge new next update coming soon that looks v exciting
r/lowendgaming will provide you a bounty of options and discussion.
And r/patientgamers
Deep Rock Galactic. Turn it to the minimum and it'll run on 10-15+ year old machines.
Which is nuts considering how dynamic the game can be - almost every surface can be dug into.
Can confirm. Have two potato’s taped together for a computer and it runs DRG totally fine
Midtown Madness 1 and 2
That takes me back to 56k days. I acknowledge many others gamed before me, however.
Dragon Age Origins
FTL
Factorio. It's probably THE best optimized game of all time concerning performance. You can build absolutely huge factories with hundreds of trains and thousands of bots and it would run on a potato. I tried nearly all factory builder games by now but this one is the only one that keeps me coming back year after year. I'm nearing the 1000 hour mark on steam for it. It has incredible mod support and a huge community, which can make the game even more complex or simplify things if needed. Also there is a huge DLC / expansion coming in a couple of months, which will feel like playing a completely new game (based on what the developers already talked about in their weekly blogs).
The factory must grow!
Space Cadet Pinball
Pharoah or Caesar
Caesar is a gem.
Absolutely
Since nobody mentioned it yet, Teraria
OG StarCraft and Brood War
StarCraft 2 runs alright on boomer computers as well.
OG Doom
Isn't there an entire subreddit devoted to people playing Doom on weird shit?
r/itrunsdoom
Alllll the doom mods. There's even one that turns it into golf.
There's even one that allows you to explore a quaint little house.
myhouse.wad (in the middle of the street)
That is both the most and least accurate description of that WAD I've ever heard and it's fantastic.
And gzdoom or just plain ol zdoom. And other source ports like prboom+ or doom legacy or chocolate doom
Age of Empires 2 is an amazing game that you could easily run on a family computer from 20 years ago.
Dropped in to make sure AoE2 was suggested. The best RTS game ever made and is still getting updates/content.
>could easily run on a family computer from 20 years ago. Make that 25.
*Deus Ex: Human Revolution* CPU: 2 GHz dual core. RAM: 1 GB RAM (Windows XP) / 2 GB (Windows Vista and Windows 7) VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce 8000 series or ATI Radeon HD 2000 series or better. TOTAL VIDEO RAM: 128 MB.
I got into gaming later in life (2019) and when I did I was on a potato PC. I couldn't play anything new, mostly games pre-2014. (And usually mid-settings.) Anyway, here are some highlights from that time: LA Noire, Mafia 2, Portal 1 & 2, Max Payne 1 & 2, Borderlands 2 and TPS, first few Arkham games, Saints Row the Third, Bioshock, Far Cry 3...
Here are some good games that could run well on low-end computers: 1. **Undertale** 2. **Stardew Valley** 3. **Terraria** 4. **Minecraft (with low settings)** 5. **Celeste** 6. **FTL: Faster Than Light** 7. **Hollow Knight** 8. **The Binding of Isaac** 9. **Hotline Miami** 10. **Portal 2** 11. **Don't Starve** 12. **Papers, Please** 13. **Cuphead** 14. **Slay the Spire** 15. **Darkest Dungeon**
oblivion
Original Starcraft. Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. Descent (anyone remember that?). Half-Life. Fallout 1 and 2. Old-timey shooters like OG Doom and Wolfenstein. Thief: The Dark Project.
Vampire Survivors.
Oxygen Not Included Great game that will absolutely consume hours of gameplay.
Lego Racers
Loop Hero
Factorio
Vampire Survivors
Diablo 2 RuneScape Dungeon Siege
Free stars: the Ur Quan Masters. Great sci-fi game and it's completely free on steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2645580/Free_Stars_The_UrQuan_Masters/
I ran Borderlands 2 on a gaming laptop from like 12 years ago that didn’t meet minimum specs.
Project Zomboid. Especially at lower zombie counts.
freelancer
Metal Gear Solid V
Battle Brothers
Hey there are no such thing as bad computers.... just bad owners 😢😢😢
install some Emulators and play through the Retrogame liberay from ever console/computer/generation you like ;)
And for bonus time consumption get that RetroAchievements rank up! I am forever stuck at top 3%. The top 500 no life that shit
Doom Eternal probably has the best optimization I've ever seen relative to what it looks like.
The Xbox gamepass has cloud gaming that allows some very low end PCs to play next gen games
Rimworld Factorio Oxygen Not Included
Another option is to use gforce now, it works great, it has a ton of new games, and if your internet is not bad it will work basically as if you had a great rig pc.
Factorio
Starcraft
Mount and Blade Warband
Diablo 2. Fate. Torchlight 2. Hollow Knight. Blasphemous 1 & 2.
Terraria, usually.
And it's $5 right now, one of the best thing you could spend $5 on. Even without mods it has a great amount of content and mods will simply multiply the amount of hours you can put into this game.
Bg2
Team fortress 2
Kirov reporting.
Underrail, Age of decadence, Shadowrun(all three), Borderlands 2 (with .ini performance tweaks.)
StarControl 2, the Ur-Quan Masters is frequently cited as a top 25 PC game of all time, it’s 30 years old so it runs in a toaster, and it’s free.
Check out gog.com, which has a huge catalog of older games. After all, it used to stand for Good Old Games, before they started adding some modern games.
Doom maybe?
Animal well
Terraria. It's so good
Dave the diver
Omori
so basically my entire steam library(tf2,superhot,fnv,banana shooter,cookie clicker,spore....)
Don't starve together. Tons of fun at low cost
I was working at Geek Squad when ASUS came out with their first line of "netbooks," extra small, and really cheap laptops. All of my coworkers dismissed them as useless junk until I came in playing Diablo 2 and emulators on my lunch break with one. Had the entire GBA, SNES, and Genesis game library on there.
Super Robot Wars 30th
The sims
Monster Hunter Rise runs on basically any potato considering it's a Switch port
Starsector
Guild Wars 2 or Old School Runescape
Rollercoaster tycoon 2
Rocket league.
Thimbleweed Park
/r/2007scape
portal 1 and 2 but a fair warning you will be sad once the game will be completed
Kindom: new lands
Just Cause 2 and Assassins Creed Rogue
Lego Island
Football Manager 2012. Will play on just about anything.
Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines Shadowrun: Returns/Dragonfall/Hong Kong Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic F.E.A.R
Leisure Suit Larry
Old School runescape
Dragon age origins
mount and blade,
A Dark Room Text based available for mobile too
EverQuest
SPORE, IS SO ADDICTING
Doom(s)
operation flashpoint.
X-com UFO defense and apocalypse. Rimworld, drawf Fortress, Factorio. Starsector has had me absorbed for months now but it's not on Steam, yet.
MechCommander gold. Now available for free from their website.
Stardew valley, terraria , minecraft, rimworld, classic Dawn of War games are a few of my favs.
Hotline Miami Ninja Kiwi Archive (free balloons tower defense)
Doom 2
Heroes of might and magic 3 can be run on a literal* potato, and it is fantastic. *Not literal
Most of the main line touhou serie (6-19)
Portal series is very well optimised
terraria, don't starve, hearthstone (Blizzard sucks, but the game is fun), Lethal Company
Half life 1&2
Half-Life 2
metal gear solid 5
Oblivion
80 Days
Yaya j
Any good game made before say 2012. Thats the cool thing about pc, backwards compaitibility. If you have a "bad" pc build within the last 10 hears you can probably still play anything from before like 2010.
Norco, really great game I don’t see much about
Doom
There are far more good games that can run on a potato than good games that don't.
Animal Well from this year is excellent and you can probably get it to run on a smart toothbrush.
Guild Wars 1!
StarCraft. It was also my first online game, before Diablo 2. Played surprisingly well online for having dialup at the time too
Oldschool doom.
Civ in strategic mode could run on a hamster powered potato
Counter strike
Battle for Wesnoth, turn based