Onboard video on most computer is usually very slow to use, so using onboard video to play games is not a good option in most cases. But, if you’re at work, school, friends house, or your computer is very old, and doesn’t have a dedicated video card which is either a PCI-Express, or AGP video card. Onboard video is mostly found on most laptops, and budget desktop computers.
However, it is possible to play some computer games at low to medium settings with Intel onboard video card like this guy who uploaded his video of him playing a racing game with Intel Onboard video. The quality of the video is similar or slightly better then the Playstation 2 or Nintendo Wii’s video quality in my opinion.
Intel is one of the most common onboard video brands. Some of these tips I mention can be used for S3/VIA, Nvidia, and ATI onboard video card adapter except for the intel exclusive tips like video ram for DVMT tip, and the Intel OpenGL 3D tip, but the steps for adjusting your OpenGL, and video ram settings are probably very similar for S3, Nvidia, and ATI onboard graphics.
Some tips like using GameBooster, TuneUp Utilities, updating Windows software and AVG 2012 Internet Security can help your computer performance even if you have a dedicated video card, and powerful computer.
You also notice increase performance when playing back videos, opening programs, and using Windows after changing a few settings.
You can enter the BIOS/CMOS which is the computer setup program which is for setting up your computer’s onboard video card, drives, and other parts inside your computer. You use your arrow keys and enter keys to make changes to your settings.
You can usually enter the BIOS by clicking a Function key like F10, or other keys on your F Keys on your keyboard. After your computer turns on, there would be a screen which tells you what key to press during startup to enter your setup program for your BIOS.
Most computers made by Dell, HP, Acer, etc  probably already set the onboard video to the maximum or the best memort memory setting for improve performance, so you can skip this step if you are already using the maximum amount of Memory/RAM which your onboard video supports.
Explore your BIOS and look for onboard video memory, and set the memory size to the highest number, or max DVMT (Dynamic Video Memory Technology), and Exit and Save your settings in your control panel. Now your computer will use more memory for video processing. If you do not have a lot of Memory on your computer, or you notice your computer is slower after making the change, go back into your BIOS, and reverse your changes, or use a setting which uses less computer RAM. You can also install more RAM, or hire a computer technician to help you install more RAM. I notice after setting my video memory to “Max DVMT” my performance when playing back games, video, and flash games was better then before when I set it to 128MB instead of 256MB. With newer computers with a lot of memory you can set your computer to use around 1.5GB of your RAM out of your 4GB-8GB of RAM.
Many computer games let you change the screen resolution, and quality setting of your game in the settings of the game which can also increase your games overall speed when set to the lowest or medium settings instead of high. You can also set the color depth of the game to 16bit instead of 32bit. These settings will make your computer games look not as nice, but your game will run smoothly instead of running very slow, or not playable.
You can also run Windows Update to see if Windows or any of your hard ware companies which made the parts for the computer released any patches and hardware updates for your parts and software which can also improve the performance and stability of Windows and games. You can also download the latest intel video adapter drivers from Intel’s website at http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect/?iid=subhdr+dnlds_detect (use Internet Explorer since the website needs to use an ActiveX to scan your computer of new updates)
Sometimes, Game companies release patches for the games you are playing. You can download the patches by going to the game manufactures website, or automatically if the game supports automatic updates from within the game. These patches.
IoBit GameBooster 3 is also a pretty good program for disabling un-needed programs and services to make your games have more free RAM for running games as fast as possible. It can also tells you when you need to update your drivers, and you can use it to defrag your games’ files for faster computer.
Closing programs in your Windows’ system tray, task bar, and desktop will also speed up your computers performance.
If you want to make your computer optimized, and virus free. you can buy  TuneUp System Utilities 2012 and AVG 2012 Internet Security for under 50 dollars which will keep Windows well optimize to run faster by disabling un-needed programs, and services, optimizing your Windows animation and themes for performance, removing junk files from your computer hard drive, and tweaking your Windows settings for Maximum speed. AVG 2012 Internet Security will protect your Windows computer from harmful virus and spyware programs without slowing down your computer because AVG is designed to run fast on most computers made in the last few years.
You can usually also adjust the Intel Video driver settings in a icon on the System tray for the Intel Driver, or you can go to your control panel, and look for the Intel Video Driver program, or search for Intel. When you found the driver setting, you can change the 3D settings for OpenGL.
The Default values are good enough for most games and applications, and should not be changed unless you feel a need to make changes to see if making changes will increase your performance.
Learn more about the different settings for Intel Onboard video 3D settings at http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/cs-030506.htm
Most Games for Windows are made with Directx’s Direct3D, and don’t use OpenGL, so changing these settings won’t help you out on Direct3D games. Although, Quake, Doom, MineCraft, Second Life, Unreal Tournament, Half-Life, and many other games use OpenGL.
I find the new integrated CPU GPUs or on-MB GPU’s pretty good . They have to be to run windows 7. I find the majority of PC games with some tweeking of the settings will run just fine …
I agree Integrated onboard video cards made for Windows 7 are usually pretty good, and by lowering the quality settings, and screen resolutions, many PC games could run at playable framerates, and quality.