Specs:
CPU: I5 2400 GPU: GT 730 2GB DDR5 RAM: 8GB Distro:
Any recommended games for my graphics card + how to make games smother - facing lad and screen shattering when I play CS:GO with game mode on!
With that kind of hardware, nothing you could tweak would help a whole lot.
You need an upgrade mate.
I agree with the other posters, your hardware is going to hold you back. But you could try switching to a lighter desktop environment like LXDE instead of GNOME. This user found a small increase in performance: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/dg87jp/does_the_desktop_environment_matter_for_gaming/
But they had somewhat beefy hardware. If you’re truly at the limit of your specs, 100% CPU/RAM usage, your performance increase could be even more.
xfce is good too.
Gnome is really heavy lol, I tried to run it on my raspi and it was so bad
my 10yo laptop struggles with it too
Lightweight DEs are cool and such, but if that’s the thing you’re saving on a lightweight WM (like xmonad, DWM or i3) will probably be the best bet
Honestly, you’re not going to have a lot of luck with recent games. The sandybridge i5’s were great back in the day but their time has come. I had a 2600 for a looong time but it’s been out to pasture for a couple years now.
Check out the “patientgamers” communities, they like to play older games that would run a lot smoother on your hardware.
I upgraded my 2600K to a 6600K and it felt like a 5x increase across the board. Same when I upgraded that to Ryzen 7 5800X
Your setup is close to my 2015 very-much-non-gaming laptop, so… I’d recommend retro gaming and/or modern 2D games. A few suggestions would be: Baldur’s Gate 1-2, Icewind Dale 1, Xenonauts, Battle Brothers, Wildermyth, Shadowrun Returns (and sequels), Into the Breach, Fallout 1-2. If you’re into programming games, that hardware should run everything by Zachtronics as well as Human Resource Machine and 7 Billion Humans.
Stardew Valley
Terraria
Into the Breach is a fun game. Command and Conquer 3 and you could get into emulation like Smash bros or Mario Kart.
Something like Slay the Spire should be easy to run, essential roguelike deckbuilder
celeste and hollow knight
The GT 730 is a very low power GPU, it is even slower than many newer integrated graphics. I’m assuming you mean you have an i5 12400 CPU since you also have DDR5 RAM, which is a good CPU on a modern platform. You should really upgrade you GPU and maybe also upgrade to 16GB RAM as many games require 16GB and having 2 sticks of memory also improves performance by running in dual channel.
I’d bet it is a typo stating ddr5, not on the CPU model. 8GB sticks of ddr5 are rare enough to find as singles, and 4gb sticks basically don’t exist - makes more sense if it is a DDR3 system. Plus, the GT 730 is basically only barely a graphics card, a lot of them are Fermi based chips (like gt 400 series from 2010)… They are dirt cheap video output for a machine that otherwise wouldn’t have any video out, but they get packaged by less than honest companies/people with other old hardware and marketed as “gaming computers” all the time unfortunately.
Ubuntu is not the limiting factor to this machine gaming, unfortunately. It is going to be choking itself on basically any games from the last 10 years :(
https://liquorix.net/ might give you a percentage or two in terms of responsiveness.
If you use gamemoderun it optimizes your scheduling to prefer the game to other processes, among other optimizations.
If you don’t have a budget to upgrade to a better laptop anytime soon, I recommend using a low ram distro, like Lubuntu and search for the best driver compatible for your GT 730. I believe this GPU barely supports Vulkan so demanding 3D games will mostly not run properly. You’ll have to stick with old AAA or indie games. Also, if using a Ubuntu-based distro, make sure the package nvidia-prime is installed to use your nvidia GPU instead of the Intel HD Graphics which are even worse. Good luck!
The main thing is to game at lower resolution and quality settings as much as possible while keeping . Somebody also suggested gamemoderun and that can help. My laptop with a GeForce 930m can barely run CS GO at 50fps at 720p low settings and the GT 730 is even weaker so keeping realistic expectations will also help you be happier with the performance you have
I think your best bet is Gameboy emulation for gaming, that GPU isn’t gonna be doing any 3D stuff any time soon unfortunately
switch to arch/debian + xfce/lxde/lxqt
also make sure to disable the 2400’s iGP in the bios so you’re not wasting ram on that
