How to up my game (literally)

[7celo]

Hi. I have an iMac and I've been downloading some games to help me through this quarantine, most of them via Steam.
But half of them run so slow that it's unplayable!
Games like League of Legends, The Witcher(1), The Sims 4, run perfectly.
But other games, even those that the Steam app says are compatible with my system, lag, or run very VERY slowly.

Does anyone know what I can do to improve this? I've read about expanding my RAM, or try using an eGPU
My iMac is Early 2008, running on El Capitan 10.11.6 (But I see that there's a way to upgrade it to High Sierra, which I might)

 

[tyc0746]

Without knowing the exact spec of your machine (early 2008 covers a variety of machines, from a 2.4ghz dual-core Intel Core Duo with a 128mb Radeon HD 2400 XT GPU...up to a 3.06ghz dual-core Intel Core Duo with a 512mb GeForce 8800 GS GPU) - so the comments below are a bit generic.

It's a 12 year old machine, so I'm not surprised some run poorly - it may simply be down to the machine age/specs/gpu, or specific optimisations in the games.

For example, The SIMS 4 is from 2010, so probably works well as it's a similar vintage to to your iMac. The minimum requirements for that are only just below your machine's specs...and minimum performance is almost next to useless. The recommended reqs are an i5 chip. The Steam requirements for the original Witcher are even higher, so you've done well to get that running smoothly.

Games from before 2012 will probably be okay, and even some lower resource-intensive ones from later - but as you've found, it will be trial & error. At least you can get a refund if you quickly decide it's too slow.

I don't think an eGPU will even work on your machine, as they tend to be connected by Thunderbolt (TB3 usually) and that's a relatively modern addition. You could spend on more RAM or an SSD to load the games faster, but there's not much you can do about upgrading the GPU without taking the machine apart - if you can find a GPU that is compatible & faster of course.

Ultimately, it may be simpler/cheaper to buy a slightly newer model.