the gma4500 is an old on-board GPU that some old laptops use. this list is an effort to provide info on expected performance and various performance tweaks that work well on this gpu

all information is released into the public domain

the test machine is a thinkpad x200:

fullscreen resolution is 1280x800
cpu: Intel Core 2 P8600 2.4GHz
librebooted
no overclocking
4 GB ram
os: linux (parabola with a deblobbed, fsync-enabled kernel)

for wine games:

wine versions are tkg-patched unless specified
ESYNC/FSYNC are enabled unless specified
limits.conf already set up for esync (google how to do it)

some tips that apply to all games:

run with vblank_mode=0 game to make sure there's no fps cap other than the ingame settings
kill your compositor (I have picom, so I just killall picom)
set up zram to almost double your ram capacity for a small cpu overhead hit

monitoring tools

glxosd

I made a patched version to fix compilation errors and remove dependency on the proprietary nvidia lib. install glxosd-fix-git from aur

works better than mangohud on this old gpu

mangohud (tool to show fps and stats)

I made a patched mangohud that works on this gpu, it's in arch aur, mangohud-opengl2

many games are buggy with it though, for example xonotic blackscreens and 0ad crashes

Terraria 1.4.1.1 (GOG version)

Kernel 5.8.13-gnu-1
Mesa 20.2.2-2

stable 60fps at 800x600

set lighting to "trippy" for a massive fps boost
quality: low, background: off, heat distortion: disabled, storm effects: disabled, waves quality: off

0ad a23.1

Kernel 5.8.13-gnu-1
Mesa 20.2.2-2

~30 fps at lowest settings fullscreen

disable glsl in graphic options for a major fps boost
ideally play with all graphics settings at lowest

put the following in ~/.config/0ad/config/local.cfg

novbo=true

xonotic 0.8.2

Kernel 5.8.13-gnu-1
Mesa 20.2.2-2

80-150fps at 640x480, 50-80fps at full resolution

use the xonotic-sdl executable, it performs slightly better for some reason
on video disable vbo's and "use glsl to handle color control" but leave OpenGL 2.0 shaders enabled
on effects set everything to low
open the console with the tilde/backtick key (left of 1) and type
```
  r_showsurfaces 3
  r_sky 0
  showfps 1
  saveconfig
```

Pocket Mirror 1.3 (wine)

Kernel 5.8.13-gnu-1
Mesa 20.2.2-2
wine-5.21.r9.g0192a7b3 (Staging)

60fps, resolution is fixed at 640x480

openarena 0.8.8

Kernel 5.8.13-gnu-1
Mesa 20.2.2-2

stable 125fps locked at 640x480

press the tilde/backtick key to open the console and type

  r_vertexLight 1
  cg_simpleItems 1
  r_drawFPS 1
  com_maxfps 125
  writeconfig autoexec.cfg

minetest 5.3.0

30-50 fps in fullscreen, 60fps if you resize the window to roughly 800x600, but the game has no way to fullscreen it scaled at low res so you're stuck playing in a small window

disable everything in graphical options, set leaves to opaque

Francesco149 / gma4500-gaming