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Used thinkpad ok for casual retro gaming?

Hi, want to buy some used hardware to run with Linux (Gnome DE ON Mint, Debian OR ElementaryOS). Mainly Office use, transcoding, but also for casual gaming Half-life 2 and maybe some more modern games.

Are Thinkpads with integrated GPUs sufficient for that? Any nice alternatives which are sturdy and can be upgraded?

TIA!

Image of T495
meliante ,

Which ThinkPad? It can either run things wonderfully or not at all depending on the specs…

just_another_person ,

Depends on the GPU and how current you want to get with the titles, but yeah, should be fine. Just search around with the specific model name to double check it’s Linux compatibility.

data1701d ,
@data1701d@startrek.website avatar

I’ve been enjoying my Thinkpad E16 that I got brand new from Best Buy. startrek.website/post/13283869

data1701d ,
@data1701d@startrek.website avatar

I don’t know about other games, but it wasn’t too terrible playing Civ 6.

bjoern_tantau ,
@bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de avatar

Stay away from the Thinkpad T580 with the Geforce MX150. It’s horribly throttled and can’t even run Quake 3 properly although it should actually be capable of running Doom 2016.

Might be the same with the T480.

finley ,

Depends on the specs and the games. Possibly/probably.

potentiallynotfelix ,

generally a thinkpad should be fine, but you’ll want a 1.7ghz+ cpu, aswell as a dx8.1 video card for half life 2

sturlabragason ,

Geforce Now on my thinkpad is what makes modern games work.

wallmenis ,

I can reliably play wii on an x230. I am pretty sure you can go ahead and play unless it is ps2 or xbox og or anything newer (wii/gamecube excluded)

cmnybo ,

Modern games are not going to run well. Look for a Thinkpad with a Thunderbolt 3 port (make sure it actually has 4 PCIe lanes, some only have 2) and use an eGPU. Retro games will run fine on integrated graphics though.

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