HP EliteDesk 800 G2 Mini Desktop PC – Games – Week 6

This is a weekly blog looking at the HP EliteDesk 800 G2 Mini Desktop PC running Linux.

We’ve previously examined the onboard graphics capabilities of the HP EliteDesk 800 G2. This ultra small PC uses the Intel HD Graphics 530 (GT2), a mobile integrated graphics processor launched in 2015 for the Skylake-based processors. The GPU integrates 24 execution units clocked at up to 1150 MHz (depending on the CPU model). Due to its lack of dedicated graphics memory or eDRAM cache, the HD 530 has to access the main system memory.

We acknowledge that integrated graphics struggle with demanding games. But there are tons of free games available for Linux which aren’t that graphically intensive. How do they fare?

To test the extent of gaming on the EliteDesk, we’ve revisited many of the games that we covered in our corresponding Lenovo M93 article. Most of the games are available to download on Steam for free. And a few are even released under an open source license. Here’s our findings.

Let’s kick off with a venerable classic game that’s still under active development. It’s called SuperTuxKart. This game is special in part because it’s maddeningly addictive.

SuperTuxKart

SuperTuxKart is a free and open source cross-platform kart racing game offering a variety characters, tracks, and modes to play. It’s a fairly simple implementation but still retains its cuteness of old.

The developers of the game recommend using a dedicated graphics card such as the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950. But it’s impossible to fit a dedicated graphics card in the HP EliteDesk. The minimum graphics for this game is an Intel HD Graphics 4000. The HP EliteDesk exceeds that minimum by a considerable margin.

How does the HP EliteDesk perform? Performance is dependent on the graphics effects level and the resolution. At the highest graphics level the game isn’t very playable with 1920×1080 resolution. But we don’t need to reduce the graphics level very far before we get over 30+ FPS.

Here’s a chart showing how the HP EliteDesk compares to two other mini PCs: the Lenovo M93 and the AWOW AK41. The HP beats both the Lenovo and AWOW by a significant margin. The latter has a much more recent integrated processor graphics unit, yet it lags behind.

The game isn’t enjoyable if the frames per second (fps) drops below 30. As you can see, only the HP machine manages over 30 fps at graphics effects level 5. That’s a sufficient fps for fairly fluid action although it’s still on the low side. The Lenovo requires lowering the graphics level to 4 to achieve anything remotely bearing fluid gameplay, and the AWOW cannot manage even that.

By lowering the resolution to 1280×720, we see almost 40fps on the HP EliteDesk at the highest graphics effects level.

The HP is the clear winner out of the 3 machines.

Next page: Page 2 – AwesomeNauts & Retrocycles

Pages in this article:
Page 1 – SuperTuxKart
Page 2 – AwesomeNauts & Retrocycles
Page 3 – Team Fortress 2 & DOTA 2

Complete list of articles in this series:

This blog is written on the HP EliteDesk 800 G2 Mini Desktop PC.

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