I recently stumbled upon a tool that claims to provide recommendations for optimal performance settings for various games on Intel Core i5 processors. The idea behind this tool is to give users a quick and easy way to check whether their system can run certain games at playable frame rates, taking into account the processor's capabilities.

As someone who wants to play games without breaking the bank or sacrificing too much performance, I decided to put this tool to the test using my laptop as an example. The device features 8 gigabytes of single-channel DDR4 RAM, which is a decent starting point for gaming. To get started, I copied the recommended settings from the Intel website and jumped into Skyrim.

To my surprise, the results were not exactly what I had hoped for. According to the tool, full HD resolution was recommended, as well as a mix of settings that should provide smooth gameplay. However, during my half-hour gameplay session, I averaged around mid-to-low 20s frames per second (FPS), which is slightly below the target of 30 FPS. While this may not be a catastrophic failure, it did leave me feeling a bit underwhelmed.

However, things improved significantly when I moved on to Left 4 Dead 2. The tool recommended 900p resolution with mixed settings, and I was excited to see how my system would perform. To my delight, the results were much more promising, with an average of around 43 FPS across multiple LANs. While there were some occasional frame drops to around 30 FPS, they were not too severe.

I have to admit that I was a bit curious about why 60 FPS wasn't set as the target for Intel's recommended settings. My hypothesis is that many CPUs on this list, including those with integrated graphics (IGPs), struggled to maintain high frame rates even when graphics settings were dialed back to their lowest levels.

In the case of Left 4 Dead 2, I found that the tool's recommendations paid off remarkably well. By matching the recommended settings, I was able to scrape by with exactly 30 FPS across multiple playthroughs. This is a decent performance, especially considering that this game can be notoriously demanding on systems.

What struck me as particularly interesting was the fact that Left 4 Dead 2 performed identically to Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) in terms of frame rates, despite the latter being more graphically intensive and widely supported by the Intel platform. It's possible that my system just happened to be well-suited for these specific games, but it's also intriguing to consider whether GTA 5 might not have been optimized for certain processors or configurations.

Moving on to CS:GO, I was excited to see how my system would perform in this popular multiplayer title. The tool recommended settings similar to those used for Left 4 Dead 2, and I was pleased to find that the average frame rate came out at around 37 FPS, albeit with some noticeable frame spikes due to certain parts of the benchmark test.

While I do have a few criticisms of this tool, it does seem like a useful resource for users looking to squeeze more performance out of their Intel Core i5 processors. It's great to see that there are indie titles on the list as well, which may offer a more accessible entry point for users who can't handle the demands of AAA games.

One area where I think this tool could be improved is in providing more detailed information about RAM usage, speed, and configuration. This would be particularly helpful for users with varying amounts of RAM or different system configurations.

Finally, it's worth noting that AMD has not yet developed a similar tool to provide performance recommendations for their APUs and Ryzen processors. Given the vast range of APUs available, including new releases like the Athlon and Ryzen lines, I believe this would be a valuable resource for users looking to optimize their systems.

In conclusion, my experience with this Intel Core i5 performance testing tool has been informative and occasionally surprising. While it's not perfect, it does offer a useful starting point for users who want to squeeze more performance out of their processors.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone and welcome to another video now hands up in the audience if you're still running Intel HD graphics I thought so now sometimes it can be hard to choose what settings to use when it comes to wanting to play some of your favorite games when using an integrated solution such as this the easiest thing to do is lower the resolution all the way down to say 720p as well as turn all the in-game settings to their absolute lowest now the while this is guaranteed to give you the best overall experience you may find that the game doesn't exactly look all that great and if your integrated HD solution is still performing quite well then it may be tempting to try and find a sort of middle ground that combines both performance with graphical fidelity this in itself can also prove quite challenging you might want to up the settings slightly but find that this makes your framerate drop below 30fps if only there was some sort of tool that would tell you exactly what settings you needed to use if you're running a Intel Core I series processor using onboard HD graphics well it turns out there is and it's been out for a couple of years now this is the gameplay intel.com website and here inter will tell you exactly what settings you need to be able to run your favorite games at a smooth 30 frames per second minimum simply put in your processor details all the details of the game you want to play and a few screenshots should come up detailing the settings that Intel recommend you use now this sounds like a good idea especially for those with Intel HD graphics in their system but immediately I noticed a couple of issues first of all this only supports Intel Core I serious processors so those of you with a Pentium or celeron and HD graphics can't really look at your favorite game or your processor here to determine which settings Intel think is best and second of all I know that some games can be ran on my Intel i5 6200 you CPU found in my budget Lenovo laptop here but unfortunately the website seems to tell me that settings for specific games are unavailable which is a shame that being said this tool seems like a pretty good idea for those of us who want a quick and easy way to check whether or not our games will run so today I thought I'd check it out a little bit using the aforementioned I 562 hundred you in my laptop and see what sort of performance you can expect if we go with Intel's recommended settings for some of my favorite games is the performance actually a playable one or our Intel overestimating what some of their core ICS CPUs can do well let's get into it and take a look now of course results will vary across different CPUs and setup so bear that in mind throughout furthermore nowhere does it state how much RAM Intel used in each situation and whether or not it was single or dual Channel though this probably varied from system to system my laptop for reference features 8 gigabytes of single channel ddr4 so does this tool help out well starting with Skyrim and the site seems to recommend full HD resolution which is good as well as a mix of settings after copying these to a tee and jumping into the game it seems we fell slightly short of 30 FPS averaging around the mid to low 20s throughout my half hour gameplay session a little disappointing but at all like this should always be used along with some common sense and a bump down to 900p would certainly iron out most performance hiccups the next title I tried was left 4 dead 2 in the past I found this to be quite unpredictable on certain hardware often doing either better or worse than I anticipated here Intel recommended 900p with a mix of settings and after once again making sure everything in game was set as such I jumped into a random level three different LANs in fact and combined the average from all of them averaging 43 fps our system certainly fared better here than in Skyrim and it's important to note that I did in fact see a few framedrops to around 30 FPS but not much lower so it seems this really was the perfect configuration to ensure we stayed above that threshold you may be wondering why 60 FPS isn't the target for Intel settings my explanation would be an assumption but I think it's because a lot if not most CPUs on this list along with their IGP you solutions couldn't handle 60 even if everything was turned way down in most games and I think the purpose here was to provide a sensible balance between graphics and gameplay the dirt for recommended settings weren't too far reminiscent of the very low preset and after making the changes it seemed they paid off we averaged exactly 30 FPS here a figure taken from a combined average calculated using fraps across three races in different single-player situations I have to say multi competitor events won't fare as well but you should just be able to scrape by in this title what's funny is that this performs identically nearly to GTA 5 yet somehow that is apparently unsupported by the 6200 you according to Intel maybe it's a case of not being tested with this particular chip though Intel if you are watching GTA 5 at 720p will average 29 fps finally it was the turn of csgo the results were actually taken from the Steam Workshop benchmark map which is very handy for anyone looking to test out their system and after matching the settings once again to the recommended ones the average came back at 37 fps though there were some huge frame spikes as represented here this was down to the part of the benchmark that feels the display with smoke and smoke absolutely tanks performance overall I like the Intel we're trying to help integrated GPU users by having this site readily available I also like the fact it has some decent indie titles on it too because they know you aren't going to be able to play all the triple-a releases out there that being said there is room for improvement the RAM used ie the speed and configuration could be mentioned and the addition of pentium and Celeron processors would be a welcome one considering the popularity of chips like the G 45 60 it won't always give you perfectly playable results either but it does give you a decent base point to work from like in Skyrim where all that needed a change was the resolution to make it playable this is something I'd also love to see done by AMD as well considering their wide range of AP use including the new Athlon and Rison releases so there we have it I hope you enjoyed this video it's been a little bit different but after hearing about this little tall on the low end gaming subreddit I just had to check it out for myself and see exactly what sort of experience we'd have if we match in sales recommended settings if you enjoyed this video be sure to leave a like on it down below leave a dislike if you didn't subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already and hopefully I'll see you all in the next onehello everyone and welcome to another video now hands up in the audience if you're still running Intel HD graphics I thought so now sometimes it can be hard to choose what settings to use when it comes to wanting to play some of your favorite games when using an integrated solution such as this the easiest thing to do is lower the resolution all the way down to say 720p as well as turn all the in-game settings to their absolute lowest now the while this is guaranteed to give you the best overall experience you may find that the game doesn't exactly look all that great and if your integrated HD solution is still performing quite well then it may be tempting to try and find a sort of middle ground that combines both performance with graphical fidelity this in itself can also prove quite challenging you might want to up the settings slightly but find that this makes your framerate drop below 30fps if only there was some sort of tool that would tell you exactly what settings you needed to use if you're running a Intel Core I series processor using onboard HD graphics well it turns out there is and it's been out for a couple of years now this is the gameplay intel.com website and here inter will tell you exactly what settings you need to be able to run your favorite games at a smooth 30 frames per second minimum simply put in your processor details all the details of the game you want to play and a few screenshots should come up detailing the settings that Intel recommend you use now this sounds like a good idea especially for those with Intel HD graphics in their system but immediately I noticed a couple of issues first of all this only supports Intel Core I serious processors so those of you with a Pentium or celeron and HD graphics can't really look at your favorite game or your processor here to determine which settings Intel think is best and second of all I know that some games can be ran on my Intel i5 6200 you CPU found in my budget Lenovo laptop here but unfortunately the website seems to tell me that settings for specific games are unavailable which is a shame that being said this tool seems like a pretty good idea for those of us who want a quick and easy way to check whether or not our games will run so today I thought I'd check it out a little bit using the aforementioned I 562 hundred you in my laptop and see what sort of performance you can expect if we go with Intel's recommended settings for some of my favorite games is the performance actually a playable one or our Intel overestimating what some of their core ICS CPUs can do well let's get into it and take a look now of course results will vary across different CPUs and setup so bear that in mind throughout furthermore nowhere does it state how much RAM Intel used in each situation and whether or not it was single or dual Channel though this probably varied from system to system my laptop for reference features 8 gigabytes of single channel ddr4 so does this tool help out well starting with Skyrim and the site seems to recommend full HD resolution which is good as well as a mix of settings after copying these to a tee and jumping into the game it seems we fell slightly short of 30 FPS averaging around the mid to low 20s throughout my half hour gameplay session a little disappointing but at all like this should always be used along with some common sense and a bump down to 900p would certainly iron out most performance hiccups the next title I tried was left 4 dead 2 in the past I found this to be quite unpredictable on certain hardware often doing either better or worse than I anticipated here Intel recommended 900p with a mix of settings and after once again making sure everything in game was set as such I jumped into a random level three different LANs in fact and combined the average from all of them averaging 43 fps our system certainly fared better here than in Skyrim and it's important to note that I did in fact see a few framedrops to around 30 FPS but not much lower so it seems this really was the perfect configuration to ensure we stayed above that threshold you may be wondering why 60 FPS isn't the target for Intel settings my explanation would be an assumption but I think it's because a lot if not most CPUs on this list along with their IGP you solutions couldn't handle 60 even if everything was turned way down in most games and I think the purpose here was to provide a sensible balance between graphics and gameplay the dirt for recommended settings weren't too far reminiscent of the very low preset and after making the changes it seemed they paid off we averaged exactly 30 FPS here a figure taken from a combined average calculated using fraps across three races in different single-player situations I have to say multi competitor events won't fare as well but you should just be able to scrape by in this title what's funny is that this performs identically nearly to GTA 5 yet somehow that is apparently unsupported by the 6200 you according to Intel maybe it's a case of not being tested with this particular chip though Intel if you are watching GTA 5 at 720p will average 29 fps finally it was the turn of csgo the results were actually taken from the Steam Workshop benchmark map which is very handy for anyone looking to test out their system and after matching the settings once again to the recommended ones the average came back at 37 fps though there were some huge frame spikes as represented here this was down to the part of the benchmark that feels the display with smoke and smoke absolutely tanks performance overall I like the Intel we're trying to help integrated GPU users by having this site readily available I also like the fact it has some decent indie titles on it too because they know you aren't going to be able to play all the triple-a releases out there that being said there is room for improvement the RAM used ie the speed and configuration could be mentioned and the addition of pentium and Celeron processors would be a welcome one considering the popularity of chips like the G 45 60 it won't always give you perfectly playable results either but it does give you a decent base point to work from like in Skyrim where all that needed a change was the resolution to make it playable this is something I'd also love to see done by AMD as well considering their wide range of AP use including the new Athlon and Rison releases so there we have it I hope you enjoyed this video it's been a little bit different but after hearing about this little tall on the low end gaming subreddit I just had to check it out for myself and see exactly what sort of experience we'd have if we match in sales recommended settings if you enjoyed this video be sure to leave a like on it down below leave a dislike if you didn't subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already and hopefully I'll see you all in the next one\n"