If you are looking for a hardcore gaming rig, the TouchSmart might not be the best choice. In order to acheive the small form factor, the TouchSmart uses a laptop video card. It will work fine, but you won't be able to set the graphics to the higher settings.

If you need to save space and/or want the cool touch features, this oughtta serve your need. It also would be great for a LAN party machine. If you're looking for a dedicated gaming PC, however, you might want to check out the higher performance stuff HP offers. The VooDoo stuff is great if you have the cash.

--Andrew

GTA4 runs great at medium graphics settings. Left4Dead is pretty sweet looking at high graphics but lags when all the zombies attack, it runs best at medium graphics as well. Haven't tried Starcraft or Crysis yet but WoW runs great. If Vista didn't use up all of my RAM I'm sure GTA4 would run great at the highest settings. I'm praying Win7 isn't a memory hog. Games like Sims 2 , Madden or The Movies run incredibly fast on the TS. But no, it's not a hardcore gaming machine if that's your question.

Oh, I have a 507 btw. Not sure if the 800 series has more video power or RAM?

I have the IQ826. WoW runs fantastic at the highest resolution. I havent played any of the other games you mentioned but I can attest that WoW runs great. I have the 512mb graphic card btw.

"Can the HP Touch make Gamers Happy?"

My answer is probably.

Oh happy day when I realized my 512MB GeForce 9600m HD GS was basically an underclocked GT model! ((Insert dramatic pause/gasp here))

Heres what I did with my own IQ826t (see specs below), briefly explained:

This can possibly VOID YOUR WARRANTY...

Using the latest nVidia drivers, 195.62 desktop drivers, which I had to edit the .INF file to make it compatible with my card.

Here are the lines you need to add to the .INF:

 %NVIDIA_DEV.0648.01% = Section004, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0648

NVIDIA_DEV.0648.01 = "Keith's GeForce 9600m GS @ GT Speed"

Ok, I hope you change Keith to your name, or any name you want between the ""

If you need help finding which .INF or which section within the .INF feel free to contact me.

I installed nVidia system tools version 6.02 (6.05 did not want to hold my custom settings, and I did'nt have the patience to figure out why at that moment) 

Changed the clock speeds from: GPU 430, RAM 800, Shader 1075

to: GPU 500, RAM 1000, Shader to 1500

Average FPS increase of 8.5, bringing most games into playable framerates. Not a single crash, even with the ambient temperature at 78F and the card temp at 95-96C <--- Should stay here when stressed due to nVidias' thermal protection features.

NOTE: Do not expect to get this level of Mhz increase on a different model video card. This clock readjustment is only possible due to the fact this model video card was factory defined to a lower clock speed than it can normally operate properly at. These settings are only a recommendation and have only been tested for stability on my personal machine.

My systems base configuration:

25.5" Touchscreen, 1920*1200p @59/60Hz 4/5ms (This screen should outlive the HDD, and it did, had to replace the HDD once already)

Intel Core2Duo t8400 @ 2.26 Ghz (HP informs me this is the max for this MB)

Nvidia GeForce 9600m 512MB HD GS (Now running at GT speed ) 

4 Gigs RAM @ 800 Mhz <--- bottleneck (Looking into replacing with 1066Mhz, latest call to HP says I can replace with 1066 ...Update HP says although I can replace with 1066Mhz, there are no options in the Bios to set the timings, therefore it would be a waste, they say... I will test it myself and keep you updated)

1 Terabyte 7200rpm Maxtor 32MB Cache SATA2 3Gb / sec (looking into SSD)

Blu-Ray player with DVD/CD burner with Lightscribe

 Etc. Etc... Oh, and ofcourse 2 year Accidental Damage Protection, along with the HP 400VA UPS, which includes its own specific warranty coverage for connected devices.

Remember that changing those settings can be risky, and possibly expensive.Please be careful, not recommended for newbies

At this point in time I am playing old and new (Nov 2009) games all on ultra high to high settings, at full frame rate (30+) @ full 1920*1200 resolution 32bit color, 4x antialias, 16x ansiotropic filtering, vertical sync set to Force On, triple buffering on, prerendering 8 frames on the multithreaded CPUs, trilinear optimization on, texture filtering set to high quality, negative LOD bias set to Clamp, ansiotropic sample optimization on, force mipmaps off, antialiasing transparency off (I let the game/app control this itself) oh, and comformant texture clamp set to Use Hardware (Some games prefer their own control over all these settings, though generally performance difference is negligible from what I have observed)

My favorite 'old' game is Bethesda Softworks Oblivion. I have a large number of graphic intensive mods running, including qarl's texture pack 3, better cities, high resolution character textures, natural environments, etc. with the settings I have listed above, I am playing at 30+fps most of the time (it is Not uncommon to see framerates of 59/60). If you'd like a copy of my 'uber tweaked' oblivion config file for the touchsmart iq800 series, just let me know. Also tested recently at full playability, Halflife 2 - Steam edition,  Rise of the Argonauts, WoW, Runes of Magic, Witcher Enhanced, LOTR online - mines of moria, fallout 3, Risen, Fable TLC, Mage Knight Apocalypse, x-blades, Drakensang, etc. You may even be surprised at what you can actually do with this vid card, well, with the entire system at that.

Goodluck from California,

KeithK

Experience level: Retired PC Repair Technician

my question is simple, and yet i can't seem to find an answer.....

how is the _touchscreen_ for RTS/TBS games like Company of Heroes, Civilization, Anno 1701, Rome: Total War, Homeworld, etc., etc.

I don't own one, but I would buy one just to be able to select and direct my troops with my fingers, if it works well.

Please help!

great answer! thank you!