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Looking for Mini-PC for retro gaming

The Lurker

The Lurker

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Jul 1, 2001
Messages
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My kids are saying they are interested in playing some of the games I used to play. So I showed them Fallout 3, Departed, Prince of Persia, Chronicles of Riddick, Half Life and Portal. Both said they want to play but knowing the two of them I dont want to splurge on a high end gaming PC only to have it sit and collect dust, not to mention be grossly over powered for these. These old games have to be old enough that a mini pc could run this without even breaking a sweat. I intend to connect it to a 2560x1440 monitor but they dont have to play it at that resolution. I bet even 1080p would be perfectly OK. Problem is, there are so many of these damn mini PC's I am getting lost in the specs. Can you guys recommend at least the GPU or CPU/GPU combo I should be looking for?

If they actually stick to the games I'll go build them a proper machine, but right now, it would be silly too especially when I see how much they play on the Switch.
 
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Oh and Valve is building SteamOS around the newest generation of AMD APUs, although it has decent legacy support. SteamOS is great and Valve just put out some trademarks for what people are assuming are controllers and other peripherals. Definitely go AMD APU no matter what.
 
pendragon1 said:
probably wouldnt even matter for what you describe wanting it for but fair enough. anything like that spec-wise is going to do it just fine, there are vids of it playing gtav decently...
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For real, I played hl2 on my Celeron Chromebook running Linux... We've been in diminishing returns for graphics the last 15 years
 
The Lurker said:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0F2DTJTZM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=APW2J6FUZ67GA&th=1

Spent almost too much time digging through the options but I think this might be the one.
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man i hate how the urls auto translate, this is what i get...
1758219155157.png


manually going to that product, yup that will do fine, its just a bit newer/faster than the one i posted. itll do up to 2015ish games decently and will make an awesome retro emu box.....
 
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pendragon1 said:
man i hate how the urls auto translate, this is what i get...
View attachment 754944

manually going to that product, yup that will do fine, its just a bit newer/fater than the one i posted. itll do up to 2015ish games decently and will make an awesome retro emu box.....
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If it can play the games i mentioned it’ll be great. That 780m though. Is that the same 780m that was shoved into laptops back in 2011 or is that something new?
 
You can find these older HP Elitedesk Mini's for cheap, less than $100 usually.
A member here regularly posts mini pc's like this for sale, dbwillis
This one has a Ryzen 5 Pro in it.
IMG_6761.JPG
 
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Zepher said:
You can find these older HP Elitedesk Mini's for cheap, less than $100 usually.
A member here regularly posts mini pc's like this for sale, dbwillis
This one has a Ryzen 5 Pro in it.
View attachment 754959
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I think some of those pro skus are rebranded ryzen 3s, or from an older gen (3xxx vs 4xxx, for example). Not sure how much difference it makes for emulation, though.
 
The Lurker said:
Alright, pulled the trigger. Glad its under 500. Really didnt want to go more than that.
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Normally I'd say the AI APUs would be a better choice, but since that has Occulink you can slap on a 9060 or even 9050 and get years of retro gaming out of it.

If you don't want to go SteamOS I've had a lot of good experiences with CachyOS and Nobarra. I did not like Bazzite long-term.
 
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Axman said:
Normally I'd say the AI APUs would be a better choice, but since that has Occulink you can slap on a 9060 or even 9050 and get years of retro gaming out of it.

If you don't want to go SteamOS I've had a lot of good experiences with CachyOS and Nobarra. I did not like Bazzite long-term.
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The Lurker said:
If they actually stick to the games I'll go build them a proper machine
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no need ^^
 
Axman said:
Normally I'd say the AI APUs would be a better choice, but since that has Occulink you can slap on a 9060 or even 9050 and get years of retro gaming out of it.

If you don't want to go SteamOS I've had a lot of good experiences with CachyOS and Nobarra. I did not like Bazzite long-term.
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Yep. Thats exactly what i was thinking. Strangely the strix models dont have an occulink port and are $200 more. But honestly. If they stick with it i wont mind building them something with a real video card attached.

Ive actually never eveb heard of steamos or the other ones you mentioned. Ive been out of the loop a long time.
 
The Lurker said:
Ive actually never eveb heard of steamos or the other ones you mentioned. Ive been out of the loop a long time.
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It's what the Steam Deck runs. It's highly optimized for newer AMD systems, but it's based on Arch, so it has pretty broad hardware support. CachyOS is Arch-based, too, but set up so you can install a bunch of gaming software really easily. Nobara is a Fedora-based distro by Glorious Eggroll, and it's mostly a one-man project for developing Proton, which is what the Steam Deck uses to run Windows games.

I expect SteamOS to pull ahead as a general operating system, since Valve is backing it, but it makes sense to try CachyOS as much as it does Nobara for now, since Cachy is Arch-based and Nobara has Proton at its core. Both have tons of support for running legacy games. Nobara is easier to get into, but like I said, Arch is likely to eclipse it long-term.

Of course, you could always run Windows, but these Linux distros are kind of kicking Microsoft's butt right now, and since it's not a primary PC, why not give them a spin?

Since you're out of the loop, there's a program called Heroic that lets you install and run non-Steam games, like GOG and Epic.
 
Axman said:
o, but set up so you can install a bunch of gaming software really easily. Nobara is a Fedora-based distro by Glorious Eggr
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Wheres the software coming from? Windows cd images or some other steam-like distribution app?
 
Axman said:
there's a program called Heroic that lets you install and run non-Steam games, like GOG and Epic.
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Does a pretty good job, too. Games I had to fiddle with all kinds of settings to get working, just work for the most part. Of course, there are some oddballs that would mostly work, but needed more love in heroic. Always an exception.
 
The Lurker said:
Wheres the software coming from? Windows cd images or some other steam-like distribution app?
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Gog, epic game store, steam are the big ones. How you get them is up to you, but steam's launcher works fine for their games, and heroic is pretty good for the others. Gog has some linux native games which don't need a launcher, and some dosbox games which could be run without a launcher as well.
 
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FWIW, I've built 2 machines with Ryzen 5 5600G's in them. On die graphics means no video card needed. They run surprisingly well....should play those games with ease. Very happy with them, FWIW....
 
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The Lurker said:
Wheres the software coming from? Windows cd images or some other steam-like distribution app?
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Whatever game services you use. You just log in, click install, then play. Most of it is just like using Windows; some of it's different and might take you a search or two to figure out, while some of it is actually way simpler.

Playing factory games is pretty much straight-forward. Emulation is a lot easier. The only thing that I've found that's harder to do is mods.
 
Nobu said:
Gog, epic game store, steam are the big ones. How you get them is up to you, but steam's launcher works fine for their games, and heroic is pretty good for the others. Gog has some linux native games which don't need a launcher, and some dosbox games which could be run without a launcher as well.
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so the advantage is that its built for a controller interface.
 
The Lurker said:
So what is the advantage of those linux oses?
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The advantage of any OS is it does what you want to do, in a way that you like. Go look at what they do and how they do it and see if that is an advantage to you. We can't tell you if it is, and if you can't do that much you probably won't enjoy using any Linux OS.
 
Nobu said:
The advantage of any OS is it does what you want to do, in a way that you like. Go look at what they do and how they do it and see if that is an advantage to you. We can't tell you if it is, and if you can't do that much you probably won't enjoy using any Linux OS.
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I understand all of that, i just thought those flavors of linux offered something specific to being used for mini PC gaming.


travm said:
Security, anonymity, freedom, and customizability.
Downsides are, learning curve slopes like a rocket launch, and updates aren't widely tested and often break things.
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You don’t have to convince me of any of that. I run ubuntu on a raspberrypi as a tail scale tail net and adguard DNS resolver. I also used other flavors for desktops to give old hardware a second life.
 
The Lurker said:
You don’t have to convince me of any of that. I run ubuntu on a raspberrypi as a tail scale tail net and adguard DNS resolver. I also used other flavors for desktops to give old hardware a second life.
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You asked.
So I assume you understand how distros work... SteamOS has extra attention paid to gaming requirements. For those of us who can't be bothered manually installing and updating every thing that isn't kept fully up to date by the volunteers
 
Nobara is meant to be an easy to use Fedora spin, where they try to keep the user away from cli as much as possible (paraphrasing): https://nobaraproject.org/
https://wiki.nobaraproject.org/#modifications

CachyOS "is designed to deliver lightning-fast speeds and stability, ensuring a smooth and enjoyable computing experience every time you use it. Whether you're a seasoned Linux user or just starting out, CachyOS is the ideal choice for those looking for a powerful, customizable and blazingly fast operating system"

Enhance Your Performance with Optimized Packages​

CachyOS does compile packages with the x86-64-v3, x86-64-v4 and Zen4 instruction set and LTO to provide a higher performance. Core packages also get PGO or BOLT optimization.

Select Your Preferred Edition​

CachyOS offers a variety of popular Desktop Environments, Wayland Compositors and X11 Window Managers including KDE Plasma, GNOME, XFCE, i3, Wayfire, LXQt, Openbox, Cinnamon, COSMIC, UKUI, LXDE, Mate, Budgie, Qtile, Hyprland and Sway. Select your preferred environment during the online installation process.

Customizable Installation Process​

CachyOS offers a choice of two installers to fit your needs: a user-friendly GUI version based on Calamares, and a CLI-based option for those who prefer a streamlined, non-graphical installation experience.

Power Up Your Computing with Robust Kernel Support​

CachyOS utilizes the BORE Scheduler for better interactivity, and offers a variety of scheduler options including EEVDF, sched-ext, ECHO, and RT. All kernels are compiled with optimized x86-64-v3, x86-64-v4, Zen4 instructions and LTO to be optimized for your CPU.
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https://cachyos.org/#features

Neither would be particularly better for mini-pc's in particular. But for the reasons above, some might like them.
 
The Lurker said:
So what is the advantage of those linux oses?
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They're fun, intuitive, capable, fast, simple operating systems. They have an "it just works" feel to them that even Windows doesn't have any more.

And I really want to stress the fun part. When was the last time you just had fun playing with an OS?
 
Got Bioshock infinite installed and…. My god its as glorious as i remember and it runs so good. I dont think i remember being able to play it without any lag. I definitely forgot how much blood it had though.
 
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Something to note is if you ever want to hook up to old CRT TVs. The best but is getting an old radeon card like an HD 6450 which you can run alongside even an Nvidia GPU just for the VGA output using crtemudriver for the windows side or some custom mode lines on linux. The remasters are sometimes pretty good on an old set too. There are also hdmi to vga adapters that will work with a high enough bandwidth going through them so super resolutions are a thing that will work. Side scrolling games etc. are lots of fun on a tube so maybe keep that in mind if you’re building something specific for it. :)
 
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