Hey everyone,

I’ve been experimenting with running lightweight games on low-power CPUs paired with integrated graphics, and I’ve noticed that performance can be hit-or-miss depending on system optimization. I wanted to start a discussion on the best ways to fine-tune system settings for smooth gameplay without upgrading hardware.

Some key areas I’ve been tweaking:
Adjusting power settings in BIOS to unlock more performance.
Tweaking Intel Graphics Command Center for better frame rates.
Using third-party tools to reduce background resource usage.

One specific game I’ve been testing is [Pokemon Infite Fusion], and after a few optimizations, it runs much better even on older systems. If you’re interested, you can check it out.

Would love to hear your insights—what tweaks have worked for you when running games on integrated graphics or low-power CPUs?

MOD NOTE: Link removed.

 

That's a decent list. I'll add disable unnecessary services including telemetry and program updates. Disk defragmentation speeds up loading times a bit. If not using internet, disable all network connections. Aside from automatic services, close all processes competing for CPU usage or memory. Lastly, start with a fresh install of the operating system then optimize.

 

Disk

Disk? What is that?

 

Disk? What is that?

The OP looks like a bot spam message to a game link that was removed by a mod.

 

Disk? What is that?

HDD - Hard Disk Drive

What did you think it was?

 

HDD - Hard Disk Drive

What did you think it was?

 

HDD - Hard Disk Drive

What did you think it was?

It was sarcasm. I haven’t used one in at least a decade. Windows 10 is totally unusable from a hard drive. If you want the biggest boost in performance you can imagine, replace it with current technology (flash memory.)

 

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...-disks-find-out-the-open-source-way-with-fio/
How fast are your disks? Find out the open source way, with fio
There are versions of the testing program for Linux, Windows and Mac.

/dev/sda1 2306181348 274577252 1914382160 13% /ldrv
/dev/sda1 2048 4688224255 4688222208 2.2T Linux filesystem

root@hpdesk:/ldrv# fio --name=random-write --ioengine=posixaio --rw=randwrite --bs=4k --size=4g --numjobs=1 --iodepth=1 --runtime=60 --time_based --end_fsync=1
random-write: (g=0): rw=randwrite, bs=(R) 4096B-4096B, (W) 4096B-4096B, (T) 4096B-4096B, ioengine=posixaio, iodepth=1
fio-3.38
Starting 1 process
Jobs: 1 (f=1): [F(1)][100.0%][eta 00m:00s]
random-write: (groupid=0, jobs=1): err= 0: pid=27797: Sun Mar 2 07:28:27 2025
write: IOPS=12.7k, BW=49.4MiB/s (51.8MB/s)(7009MiB/141782msec); 0 zone resets
slat (nsec): min=1149, max=406017, avg=4150.19, stdev=2438.80
clat (nsec): min=587, max=227721k, avg=24018.40, stdev=209963.34
lat (usec): min=11, max=227724, avg=28.17, stdev=209.99
clat percentiles (usec):
| 1.00th=[ 15], 5.00th=[ 16], 10.00th=[ 19], 20.00th=[ 21],
| 30.00th=[ 22], 40.00th=[ 22], 50.00th=[ 23], 60.00th=[ 26],
| 70.00th=[ 27], 80.00th=[ 28], 90.00th=[ 28], 95.00th=[ 29],
| 99.00th=[ 36], 99.50th=[ 40], 99.90th=[ 65], 99.95th=[ 251],
| 99.99th=[ 412]
bw ( KiB/s): min=30304, max=187216, per=100.00%, avg=131720.74, stdev=22833.56, samples=108
iops : min= 7576, max=46804, avg=32930.19, stdev=5708.36, samples=108
lat (nsec) : 750=0.01%, 1000=0.01%
lat (usec) : 2=0.01%, 10=0.01%, 20=14.26%, 50=85.57%, 100=0.09%
lat (usec) : 250=0.03%, 500=0.05%, 750=0.01%, 1000=0.01%
lat (msec) : 2=0.01%, 250=0.01%
cpu : usr=8.81%, sys=8.98%, ctx=1799032, majf=0, minf=243
IO depths : 1=100.0%, 2=0.0%, 4=0.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
submit : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
complete : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
issued rwts: total=0,1794277,0,0 short=0,0,0,0 dropped=0,0,0,0
latency : target=0, window=0, percentile=100.00%, depth=1

Run status group 0 (all jobs):
WRITE: bw=49.4MiB/s (51.8MB/s), 49.4MiB/s-49.4MiB/s (51.8MB/s-51.8MB/s), io=7009MiB (7349MB), run=141782-141782msec

Disk stats (read/write):
sda: ios=0/363911, sectors=0/14348896, merge=0/131, ticks=0/30182459, in_queue=30182460, util=67.60%

WRITE: bw=49.4MiB/s (51.8MB/s), 49.4MiB/s-49.4MiB/s (51.8MB/s-51.8MB/s)
--fsync=1, forcing the operating system to perform synchronous writes
WRITE: bw=16.3MiB/s (17.1MB/s), 16.3MiB/s-16.3MiB/s (17.1MB/s-17.1MB/s)
Not too bad for RAID 60 rust drives for 2.2TB on this home workshop workstation.




Low power: Orange PI running Home Assistant

SD card Lexar 64GB microSDXC UHS-I U1 Class 10 633X High-Performance Memory Card

WRITE: bw=4810KiB/s (4925kB/s), 4810KiB/s-4810KiB/s (4925kB/s-4925kB/s)
--fsync=1, forcing the operating system to perform synchronous writes
WRITE: bw=914KiB/s (936kB/s), 914KiB/s-914KiB/s (936kB/s-936kB/s)

Slow but low power ~4W idle.