Hi, I usually play games on my switch and I love horror so after finishing games like amnesia I really wanted to step it up and play outlast.
I saw it was on sale on steam but I only have a laptop which I usually use for uni work - I got it anyways and it seems to run (albeit kinda slowly) but when I play it my laptop gets super hot and smells a bit toasty. I checked the specifications and it seems I have everything except the CPU (it says 2.2GHz dual core needed and I have intel i5 1.8GHz) - if I keep trying to play it will it damage my laptop or am I ok to continue? If I put something under my laptop to allow ventilation (I have a laptop stand with gaps for ventilation) will it help?
Sorry if it’s a stupid question, I’m not used to pc gaming at all and I need this laptop for uni so I’m a bit paranoid
You’re fine.
Having lower than recommended spec will not cause damage to a computer. It just might mean that the game performance is not quite as good as you would hope.
The recommended spec from developers is not hard and fast. It’s their best guess of what will result in an acceptable level of performance so that people who purchase the game have a reasonable experience.
Back in my poor student days I used to to play the original Alien Vs Predator on a way below spec Cyrex based system and it would run at 15fps. But it was the best I had so I made do.
Laptops will often run quite hot, and so it would be a good idea to ensure you have it set up so it can get air properly (on a hard table, not on a cloth, or you lap). But modern computers have plenty of fail safes now.
If your CPU gets too hot it will just slow down until the temperature comes under control (it used to just BSOD back in the day). And at the very worst it will do an emergency shutdown long before it causes any damage and then just give you a warning when it boots back up. But it should only be doing this if there is a physical issue such as the vents all being clogged up with dust or the thermal paste having decayed.
So game happy.