Help Affordable Gaming Laptops

[Guinea]

Heyo, I was curious on what some of the best affordable gaming laptops exist. Not looking to spend a thousand bucks, maybe three or four hundred dollars.

 

[MajesticSiN]

Depending on what level of gaming you're looking for I would recommend you look for a used one. Not sure if you will find one at that price range though.

 

[Guinea]

Depending on what level of gaming you're looking for I would recommend you look for a used one. Not sure if you will find one at that price range though.

Basically, I just want one that can emulate Wii, Wii U, and PS3 with no hassle, maybe even PS4. Oh, and a light-up keyboard.

 

[Smiley Cat]

Not looking to spend a thousand bucks, maybe three or four hundred dollars.

Basically, I just want one that can emulate Wii, Wii U, and PS3 with no hassle, maybe even PS4.

A laptop that can emulate PS4 for three of four hundred bucks?

I'd like one of those too!

 

[vulonkaaz]

AliExpress seem to have insane price to performance ratio (at least where I live) never bought a laptop there so I can't say about the build quality

I'd probably look for something with a recent Ryzen chip, on aliexpress, craigslist ebay wherever you can find tech that ain't overpriced

to find out if a machine is powerful of not write the name of the CPU/GPU on youtube and you'll find tons of people showing the framerate they got on different games, with laptops I guess cooling can be an issue so watch how the chips perform at low power

maybe a Steam Deck would be a good value ? I never had one in my hands but have heard they're really cheap for the kind of power they have

PS4

ps4 emulation is out already ? man i still remember the time when xbox 360 emulation was inconceivable

 

[MajesticSiN]

Basically, I just want one that can emulate Wii, Wii U, and PS3 with no hassle, maybe even PS4. Oh, and a light-up keyboard.

not possible at all in that price range

 

[moonbits]

Heyo, I was curious on what some of the best affordable gaming laptops exist. Not looking to spend a thousand bucks, maybe three or four hundred dollars.

A used Steam Deck could do most of that.

 

[It's Thinking 2]

Heyo, I was curious on what some of the best affordable gaming laptops exist. Not looking to spend a thousand bucks, maybe three or four hundred dollars.

Any cheap laptop can pretty much run retro game emulation. I played up to the 16 and 32 bit era on a Windows XP laptop that i got free with a dial up service in the early 2000s. But yeah do what moonbits said and get a Steam Deck. They can emulate just about anything.

 

[MajesticSiN]

Any cheap laptop can pretty much run retro game emulation. I played up to the 16 and 32 bit era on a Windows XP laptop that i got free with a dial up service in the early 2000s. But yeah do what moonbits said and get a Steam Deck. They can emulate just about anything.

They won't be able to emulate ps3 with no hassle on one of those though. that still requires more power.
While I don't have a steam deck to test i'm not sure it can do that yet, unless it can then i take it back.

 

[moonbits]

They won't be able to emulate ps3 with no hassle on one of those though. that still requires more power.
While I don't have a steam deck to test i'm not sure it can do that yet, unless it can then i take it back.

not PS3 or PS4 but it does Wii/Wii U as far as I know.
I think it can run Demon Souls lol

 

[tselinoyarsk]

not PS3 or PS4 but it does Wii/Wii U as far as I know.

I've seen the steam deck run nintendo switch emulators as well. No way will it run rpcs3, unless the game itself isn't very taxing on the steam deck's APU. PSP ports on PS3 such as peace walker might run well.

Basically, I just want one that can emulate Wii, Wii U, and PS3 with no hassle, maybe even PS4. Oh, and a light-up keyboard.

If want to emulate ps3 specifically then you're looking at getting a desktop/laptop with a very good processor, which would cost you a thousand or (most likely) more for the whole computer. As for PS4 emulation, it has barely even got off the ground yet.

 

[andy3030]

I've seen the steam deck run nintendo switch emulators as well. No way will it run rpcs3, unless the game itself isn't very taxing on the steam deck's APU. PSP ports on PS3 such as peace walker might run well.



If want to emulate ps3 specifically then you're looking at getting a desktop/laptop with a very good processor, which would cost you a thousand or (most likely) more for the whole computer. As for PS4 emulation, it has barely even got off the ground yet.

it can run a few ps3 games i played ratchet and clank games on the steam deck but the emulator needs alot of work for it to run well , same with switch some games are good some run like death

 

[solidbatman]

If you are willing to spend closer to $6-800 and have something that will last for quite a long time, the Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3 series is solid. For a bit more, the Lenovo Legion series is really good too. My work laptop is a Ideapad Gaming 3 and home use laptop is an older Legion 5. Both of which can handle up to ps3 games thanks to their solid CPUs and dedicated GPUs.

 

[Spike]

Only in the used market like eBay or similar you will find a modern CPU (intel 11-12gen) and a dedicated graphics (at the very least a RTX 3050) that could go for around $400~.

If you are talking brand NEW then, you'll have to massively lower your expectations. Forget about PS3/PS4 and you can find quite a lot of machines that can emulate Switch, PS2, Wii U, etc.

I would personally go for a second hand machine cos they ere cheap and have better specs than what you will get buying brand new.

 

[GVSE]

Heyo, I was curious on what some of the best affordable gaming laptops exist. Not looking to spend a thousand bucks, maybe three or four hundred dollars.

Another option is to buy some of these PC Handhelds like Anbernic's Win600, Steamdeck or AYN Loki. They can also be used as a computer, since they can run windows and you can attach keyboards and mouses at them. Everything will work fine and a lot of youtubers who covers these retro handhelds use them as their work station to edit their videos on Adobe's Premiere, for example.

 

[Seinekar]

What about a Steam Deck?

Running Emudeck is quite easy and comfy, it allows to install a lot of emulators from a lot of machines, and its quite easy to use, comes with a nice frontend (Emulation Station Desktop Edition, i think is named) and works perfectly fine.

You can get the cheapest Deck and it can fit lots of roms already. And also you can also just put a SD card on it, good SD cards have very high read speed so its no problem. On the plus side you also get to play Pc games, sure.

So far, and having tested myself, it emulates fine from PS3/Wii U and backwards. Still some games, as Demon Souls on PS3 or Xenoblade Chronicles X on Wii U may recquire some tweaking on the emulator options to be displayed correctly (you can google how to tweak the emulator for any certain game, usually just checking or unchecking a certain emulator option or selecting a certain opotimization option on a tab)

 

[ArtoriasCD]

I've seen the steam deck run nintendo switch emulators as well. No way will it run rpcs3, unless the game itself isn't very taxing on the steam deck's APU. PSP ports on PS3 such as peace walker might run well.



If want to emulate ps3 specifically then you're looking at getting a desktop/laptop with a very good processor, which would cost you a thousand or (most likely) more for the whole computer. As for PS4 emulation, it has barely even got off the ground yet.

You'd be surprised what it can run tbh, I beat resistance 1 recently using the deck

 

[tselinoyarsk]

You'd be surprised what it can run tbh, I beat resistance 1 recently using the deck

It's impressive to see an early ps3 title running like this on the steam deck. With the 60 FPS patch, the lowest the fps drops to is about 20fps on the steam deck, which is probably comparable to how bad it could get on original hardware, while also producing higher fps thanks to the patch.

I'll admit I am a little surprised.

It can even run mgs4, though not that great.

 

[Don Patch]

In that price range, you're probably gonna be happiest with a Steam Deck like peeps are saying.
Valve actually makes pretty solid hardware. Plus you can grab a dock for it if you wanted to use it on a screen or monitor.

 

[xbppf]

If you are willing to spend closer to $6-800 and have something that will last for quite a long time, the Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3 series is solid. For a bit more, the Lenovo Legion series is really good too. My work laptop is a Ideapad Gaming 3 and home use laptop is an older Legion 5. Both of which can handle up to ps3 games thanks to their solid CPUs and dedicated GPUs.

thank you so much for this, those are the best laptops to price ratio I've ever seen

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

I'd been getting refurbished Chromebooks and flashing them to put a different OS on them; They usually cost $50. Typically they are 1.5Ghz dual core with 2-4Gb Ram, sufficient for most mundane tasks and 8/16bit gaming. They are powerful enough to play PS1 games and even plays Minecraft decently (leaning towards minimum settings).

They might even manage some 32bit console systems.

Alas they won't come anywhere close enough to do PS3/PS4, Wii/WiiU or anything in that range.