Probably better looking for something used. A 200 dollar laptop will run nothing and then disintegrate into dust
this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2026
14 points (85.0% liked)
Games
24543 readers
183 users here now
Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)
Posts.
- News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
- Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
- No humor/memes etc..
- No affiliate links
- No advertising.
- No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
- No self promotion.
- No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
- No politics.
Comments.
- No personal attacks.
- Obey instance rules.
- No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc..)
- Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.
My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
Other communities:
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Two to 3 year old off lease business laptops can hit that price point and are often available with graphics cards. Might be an option also.
Get a used one off ebay or something. No way anything new will be worthwhile in this price bracket.
Try a used Dell Precision series from the past 6 years. That should be roughly in that price point and will probably be an old business cast off with either decent integrated graphics or a real graphics card depending on how patient you are about waiting for a good deal. They are solidly made with aluminum cases and made to take a beating. I have a Precision I bought used from 2012 that's still going, and just got another from 2020 for about $230 usd with shipping. Mind you this is a US perspective and I don't know much about international markets.
For the games you listed, probably, yes. Anything made after 2015 or so, probably not. Anything more modern will require something near and around the $400 price point just to be acceptable.
Whatever you do, make sure it has an SSD. Any SSD will do. Do not get one with a hard drive.
2005 or so games programing went to shit. Before that you would plug in some ridiculous low res and anything would run. I used to play the equivalent of fgunz.net on something with 512mb vram and that was competitive full 3d 60fps. Before that there is ofc Quake and Doom which runs on toasters. Smh
New probably not. Used maybe.
How are you with GNU/Linux and how do you feel about paying nvidia a fee every month?
I know we're mostly against cloud subs here, but not all of us can afford graphics cards.
My recommendation is probably: buy a thinkpad on ebay and use geforce now. $200 laptops aren't going to get you very far these days at all. Focus on storage.
I am not too computer savvy, I do want to switch to linux but it may have to wait for a bit.
How much more would I have to pay for a laptop to be able to play these games? My old laptop played them just fine, until the cooling fan broke. That was 500 dollars or so, but bought back 15 years ago before they cheaped out on everything more.
If the problem with your old laptop is just that the fan broke, you might be better off just getting a new fan. If you're near a big city there's probably a repair shop that will do it.
... although I guess 15 years is a pretty old in computer years. When my laptop died recently I went with a second-hand thinkpad for $300 (edit: not as old as I thought it was, it's from 2021.) But that was a year ago before prices for everything went crazy.
No way. Most you'll get is something like cataclysm running.
Probably not anything modern. But you can probably get some yesteryear stuff like stardew working without any issues.
Used market or retro hand helds might be a better deal nowadays.
On a quick conversion, 200 USD is half what people ask in my country for a new, marginally decent laptop. If quality of the laptop you're considering getting is on par, I doubt it'll run anything big from after 2006. At most I can see it being used as a machine for emulation, playing simpler indie games, and playing older Windows games.
Also, with such a laptop, I'd be considering already either some very light Linux system, or Windows XP or Vista.
A quick online search found some Rog Ally's for 400. Save up a bit more and find something like that, or older used gaming laptops. You won't be happy with current $200 laptops.
Unlikely but you may find a unicorn.
If you're sticking with the old games then there's a chance.
The Intel ARC graphics has potential. https://www.notebookcheck.net/These-are-the-slowest-and-fastest-Intel-Arc-8-laptops-money-can-buy-after-testing-over-35-different-models.984956.0.html
Anything under 16GB of ram is likely a waste of money. (But with the ram shortage anything new might be unreasonably expensive or sold out)
Your best bet would be the used market and using a line of credit to pay off the computer. Could you afford more over an extended period?
Check this out.
https://www.newegg.com/hp-zbook-15-6/p/1TS-000D-1PSS6?item=9SIADT2KGZ0423
Given the current price of RAM and SSDs, I don't see how a $200 laptop is even viable to sell. Unless it is barely scraping by on specs or comes loaded with craplets and spyware.
Just doing a quick search, all I'm seeing is stuff in the $350 range with 4 or 8 GB of RAM. I'm not familiar with the genre of games you play, but I don't think they would run well on that. Or run at all. Haven't even looked at the gpu or cpu specs.
I would try to find something used and compare specs against the min and recommended hardware requirements for the games you play.
Maybe with geforce now. It's a cloud streaming gaming game service.
Or don't give your money to a corporation that's going all in on AI and data centers (which will wreak havoc on our already incredibly strained ecosystem).
Not to mention that Geforce Now is a subscription like Game Pass.