Though You Can Play Games on a Non-Gaming Laptop, First Take These Adjustments
For optimal performance, match your games to your laptop's specs, even if it means lowering the graphical fidelity or playing older, slower-paced games.
Performance can be significantly increased by adding an eGPU or upgrading your RAM, provided that your laptop is built with upgradeability in mind.
You can play video games for extended periods of time with accessories like cooling pads, external SSDs, and portable battery packs.
It is not necessary to have a gaming laptop in order to play games; all you need to do is make some thoughtful selections, minor adjustments, and maybe a few cheap extra purchases. Even the most uninteresting business laptop can be transformed into a gaming console with enough willpower.
Your Gaming Experience Is Determined by the Games You Play
Let us take a look at your hardware needs and evaluate how your present or potential laptop compares before searching for issues within the laptop itself.
Examine the suggested specifications for the games you want to play and the ones you presently play to get started. AAA games with a lot of graphics, like EA SPORTS FC 24, will demand a lot more power from your PC than a game like Ori and the Blind Forest, which runs well even on a low-end PC.
However, this does not imply that you must play only outdated games. Playing different genres can also have a big impact. Turn-based games, for instance, are easier for players who prefer battle genres than real-time combat. With turn-based games, you can get away with lower frame rates without sacrificing the overall experience because there is less of a focus on fast-paced action. This helps your PC.
This is not always the case, though; some games, especially the latter act of Baldur's Gate 3, really test your CPU. In a similar vein, slower-paced strategy games and city builders such as Cities: Skylines II can quickly become hardware torture tests.
It does not, however, follow that you should not try older games just because you are not required to play them.
Thanks to technological advancements, these will not only be simpler to play on your laptop but also provide an insightful look at the sources of inspiration for contemporary games, some of which are truly hidden gems.
A 2009 "new to me" game and a 2004 game I used to play as a child are two of my current favorite games.
Verify Your Specifications
Suppose you enjoy playing AAA games with high visual fidelity, but your laptop is merely a normal model that falls short of the specs.
Changing your settings appropriately is one simple way to fix this.
To some extent, though, this can negate the point of playing these games. Reducing the rendering resolution, lowering the quality settings to medium or low, turning off ray tracing, and utilizing any available upscaling technologies—such as AMD's FSR or NVIDIA's DLSS—will be your main priorities.
Investing in an external GPU, or eGPU, might be a better option.
If you choose this course of action, you should exercise caution to avoid constricting your CPU, as this could result in significant latency problems.
Because eGPUs are such expensive hardware, choosing the incorrect one might be a costly error.
RAM is another area that laptop gamers should focus on. This serves as the short-term memory of your computer, retrieving data when needed. The majority of regular laptops have only 8GB of RAM, which is often regarded as the minimal amount need for gaming.
That being said, for a more comfortable experience, gamers are advised to have at least 16 or 32GB of RAM.
If you are not already inside this range, find out if RAM expansion is supported on your laptop.
However, RAM specifications go beyond available capacity. Additionally, you should examine the kind and speed of your RAM.
As is widely assumed, RAM speed will not significantly improve performance for the average gamer, but knowing the kind and speed of RAM will help ensure that your new RAM is compatible with your existing laptop.
After taking care of the GPU and RAM, storage is the next item to consider. Your unique needs will dictate how much storage you need, as is the case with many other aspects. You might be able to get by with the 512GB of SSD storage that is gradually becoming the laptop minimum, depending on how many games you would like to have available to play and how much space your games take. Nonetheless, it is usually recommended for gamers to have between one and two terabytes of storage, particularly if they value being able to play many games at once.
The majority of gaming laptops are nearly as easy to update as a desktop PC and come with the recommended amount of storage. However, as we have seen with RAM, typical laptops also come with more possibilities for upgrades.
If you can not expand the storage on your laptop, you may always use cloud gaming services like NVIDIA GeForce Now and Amazon Luna. If you are not into cloud gaming or it is not available where you live, you can clear some space by getting an external solid state drive. It is important to remember, though, that creating one yourself will probably be a better experience.
Enhance Your Configuration Using Accessory and Peripherals
A USB-C docking station is an essential component of any laptop gaming setup because it provides additional connectivity choices.
Additionally, certain docks support pass-through charging.
A portable battery pack might be a fantastic substitute for the dock you select if it does not support pass-through charging as a way to address low battery capacity.
Many common laptops make the promise that their batteries may last for up to half of the day on a single charge, however this is only true for people who use extremely basic, daily programs.
Once your dock is configured, you can begin connecting all of the wonderful accessories. The best peripheral for laptop gaming is a controller, but wireless keyboards and gaming mice are probably what people who like a keyboard and mouse should acquire.
The small keyboard and uncomplicated trackpad are just not enough for the average gamer. These parts are usually of poor quality and do not have the same level of feedback, precision, or mobility as gaming mouse and desktop keyboards.
A gaming headset is an additional fantastic laptop gaming equipment. Even while laptop speakers have generally gotten better, having a gaming headset can still mean the difference between hearing someone approach from behind you and being caught off guard.
Gaming headsets are available in wired and wireless versions, just like many other devices. Although many gamers find that wireless headsets are more convenient, most believe that wired headsets offer superior sound quality.
A decent cooling pad is definitely something your laptop will appreciate after all of these modifications. Most typical laptops may rely on the airflow generated by their shell design to keep everything cool because of their small form factor.
Because of this, rather than emphasizing cooling components, most manufacturers concentrate on overall design. Nevertheless, gamers demand far more from their laptops than the average user does, therefore it is best to assist your system whenever you can.
It is not necessary to replace all of your hardware or purchase every accessory. The best course of action is to get into some games and deal with any problems that come up as you go. Above all, do not forget to have fun when transforming an ordinary piece of gear into your mobile gaming sanctuary.