As more and more of us switch from computers to laptops, one of the key questions asked by customers is ‘how can I improve my laptop for gaming?'
One of the first points to note is that advances in technology mean you don't need to have a dedicated gaming laptop to enjoy playing computer games. Serious gamers will still benefit from taking on-board all the appropriate technology that is available, especially if their taste is at the more cutting-edge side of the market. However, nowadays even notebooks are perfectly capable of providing excellent gaming platforms.
As far as technological advancements go, there have been many factors which have led to this improvable in the gaming potential of even the cheapest laptops. Foremost amongst these are the improvements that have been made to processors, such as the Intel Core i5. This is now available in budget machines, while the i7 and i9 processors are now available in mid to high range. However AMD's 7nm Ryzen 4000 CPUs have officially arrived at CES 2020. There's the 15W Ryzen U-Series, designed for ultra-portable laptops; and the Ryzen H-Series, a line of 45W chips meant for more powerful gaming. All these innovations help to propel gamers through multi-threaded games at an excellent pace.
As well as advances in processors, memory capabilities have come forward in leaps and bounds. A capacity that would previously have been unheard of for laptops, such as 1GB, is now available as standard. Not only that, it is also easy to upgrade any laptop's memory to 8GB or even more yourself.
The most noticeable area where there have been advances in the technology affecting gaming PCs has been through improvements to graphics. Intel's Graphics Media Accelerator was once the frequent target of complaints by gamers – but this has come on immensely. It can now be utilized for playing games that once would have required computers causing many thousands of dollars.
In order to get computer games performing at reasonable speeds, you really need to select lower quality settings. The one point to note is that there are the occasional games out there that demand serious hardware. Even this isn't necessarily as limiting as it first appears. Intel offers Core processors for gaming, Xeon for cloud computing, Atom for mobiles, Quark for Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Intel CEO Bob Swan whos was at CES 2020
recently said At Intel, our ambition is to help customers make the most of technology inflections like AI, 5G and the intelligent edge so that together we can enrich lives and shape the world for decades to come. As we highlighted today, our drive to infuse intelligence into every aspect of computing can have positive impact at unprecedented scale.
Your machine's desktop display is the biggest barrier to a favorable gaming experience. Best to drop this as low as it will go, until your reach the ideal minimum of 60fps. Experimenting with settings will eventually produce the optimum combination.