[00:01] hardware these days can cost an arm and a [music] leg. Here's the thing, depending on the type of gamer you are, you don't even need all that extra horsepower you are paying for. [music] Some of the biggest games of this year
[00:15] are all tiny little indie games that look like they could run >> on a potato PC. And that's exactly what we wanted to put to the test with this little guy right here. This [music] is a mini PC loaded up with Linux running
[00:31] mini PC loaded up with Linux running some of the latest and greatest smaller video games. This thing has its limits for sure, but to be honest, I was a little shocked at what [music] we were able to accomplish with it. Welcome to
[00:45] cheap week here at GameSpot everyone, a week where we are posting videos and articles talking about ways to make this very expensive hobby of ours just a very expensive hobby of ours just a little bit cheaper. And what is cheaper
[00:57] than a $150 little mini PC? This is a Intel NUC mini PC. It came out in 2019 and it was originally used for Zoom meetings in this very office before we repurposed it for video games. Now, to be clear, the point of this video is not
[01:13] be clear, the point of this video is not to sell you on this exact PC. We picked this PC because it is what we had available and that is the entire philosophy we're trying to stress with [music] this video. You see, if you're
[01:26] willing to be thrifty and hunt for a bargain, you can find PCs like this at incredibly cheap prices because corporate offices turn these things corporate offices turn these things around all the time, which means you can
[01:39] find this little guy as cheap as $150 on [music] eBay as of the time of recording this video. Heck, if you work for one of these offices, you can even reach out to your local IT person and ask if they have any, you know, spare stock floating
[01:54] around they're willing to part ways with, maybe even for free. That's >> [music] >> Shout out to the boy Eddie. He's the goat. Got a YouTube channel where he does like food reviews. Go check it out.
[02:06] So, let's start with setting this little guy up. This guy came with Windows 10 on that. We're going to be putting Linux on this thing. SteamOS is the hot thing at the moment in terms of hardware compatibility. We did try it on this PC
[02:22] [music] and it did not like it. So, instead, we are going with [music] a Linux Bazzite, which is a gaming-focused Linux distro that actually mimics a lot of SteamOS including game mode. When picking Bazzite, you can go in two
[02:37] flavors. There is desktop mode and then there is a deck-focused mode, which comes with the aforementioned game mode at launch. Go with the one based on your setup for this PC, whether it's desktop or PC. We envision this thing as a
[02:52] little mini living room PC, so we went with the deck version. Simply flash Bazzite on a USB stick, plug it into the mini PC, tap F2 to get
[03:04] to the BIOS, launch from the USB stick, and then just run and install Bazzite. should boot into the setup installation for SteamOS, and here we are. Look at it. Looks great, huh? For this
[03:18] Look at it. Looks great, huh? For this video, we tested 50 different games on this [music] mini PC. We actually have a really great article up on GameSpot about games that work great on potato PCs. We tested all those games on here.
[03:32] We also tested a bunch of additional ones as well. You're going to have to forgive me. I need to pull up the laptop for [music] this part. There's way too here. I want to break these games up into three different categories. [music]
[03:45] There's 2D games, which are games that are all just kind of like flat 2D assets, whether they're pixel-based or hand-drawn. There's 2D 3D hybrid games, games [music] that use a combination of 2D and 3D elements, and then there are
[03:59] the fully 3D games. We're going to start with 2D, where [music] this machine absolutely shines. Oh, and for our testing, uh we set this thing to 1080p [music] and are trying to target 60 FPS as much
[04:14] as possible. Don't expect this thing to go anywhere above that resolution. In fact, uh many times it had to go below [music] that resolution. I want to start off with a real showstopper, Hollow Knight Silksong, one
[04:28] >> [music] >> of last year. This mini PC right here >> [music] >> at 60 FPS, 1080p with minimal frame drops. Extremely impressive start. Games like Slay the Spire and Slay
[04:44] impressive results. If you're somebody who likes cozy farming games, well, don't worry, this thing handles Stardew Valley and [music] Fields of Mistria like an absolute champ. No problems there. Muxgenics, Into the Breach,
[04:58] Vampire Survivors, Mermaid Mask, [music] Balatro, Gallow House, A Little to the Balatro, Gallow House, A Little to the Left, FTL, Look Outside, Papers, [music] Please, Desktop Explorer, and Mina the Hollower all ran pretty great. If you
[05:14] like these kinds of games, then this machine is going to be very good to you. Well, what about something a little more powerful? Let's move over to the 2D 3D hybrid games. This is where we start to see things get a little more dicey.
[05:28] see things get a little more dicey. Hades 1 [music] ran fantastic, but Hades 2 wouldn't even launch. [music] Dave the Diver was hovering around 30 >> [music] >> Meanwhile, Cult of the Lamb was
[05:42] struggling to stay consistent at 60 frames a second. I would call it playable, but not ideal. Meanwhile, horror cult hit [music] Signalis, which is lighter on its 3D elements, ran very, very smooth. Okay, let's move on to the
[05:57] 3D games. We're going to start with this year's Zero Build, the follow-up [music] to Disco Elysium. This game ran pretty poor. We had to set the resolution quite low to get it to [music] be a solid stable 30 frames a second. It looked a
[06:13] where you can get away with a low frame rate because it's so just kind of like text voice [music] based. It's not like an action game, but it's not going to be a great experience. Another example of
[06:26] something I would call playable, but not ideal would be Big Walk. We got it to it. The frame rate wasn't completely awful, but the settings we had to get it
[06:38] to to get it to [music] run uh made that game look so ugly that I don't think it would be worth experiencing [music] the game that way. Perhaps the biggest game of the year, Necca Chameleon, sold what, like 20 million copies at this point.
[06:53] That game uh does not run like at all on this thing. We're hitting like 18 FPS on the menu screen. Despite how janky that game
[07:05] >> [music] >> probably pretty janky in its optimization, so don't expect [music] games like that to run very well on this kind of guy. Last year's breakout hit Blue Prince ran
[07:18] at a very, [music] very poor frame rate. Again, technically one of those games you can get away with if you want because it's, you know, you move at your own pace. It's not an action game, but not really an ideal [music] experience
[07:32] at all. And finally, the recently released Danganronpa Attack would crash menu. However, there were a couple wins for 3D >> Esoteric Ed, one of my favorite games of this year, it's also a Disco Elysium
[07:48] like successor. [music] That game runs at a very acceptable frame rate and resolution, which I would consider totally [music] playable. Then we have a couple smaller 3D games like Crow Country, which ran fantastic.
[08:03] Or Creature Kitchen, another small excellent little game from this year that ran a little hitchy, but I would consider very playable. So, where does this leave us with modern [music] Steam games? Well, 2D games for the most
[08:17] part all run excellent. The second you start introducing 3D into the mix, they can get a little spotty, but certain games will absolutely run no problem. It's once you start getting into those proper 3D heavy-duty experiences that
[08:31] things go a little sour. What I would say is if you're somebody who likes farming games, you like 2D pixel games, you like uh visual novels, you like kind of more low-key experiences, this machine can
[08:44] >> [music] >> anything you throw at it, which for 150 bucks is pretty [music] excellent. Of course, I wouldn't be remiss to not mention emulators. This can also become an excellent [music]
[08:57] emulation machine, up and running on Bazzite thanks to EmuDeck. >> [music] >> In our quick testing, any 2D systems, >> [music] >> fantastic with zero hitches. N64 ran
[09:12] totally solid, same with PlayStation 1. The Dreamcast actually struggled and crashed a little bit. It should be powerful enough to run that, that could potentially have been something with the emulator. To be fair, we kind of kept
[09:25] everything at stock settings and didn't do like thorough thorough testing, so some tweaking the Dreamcast [music] games. You can also go past the Dreamcast with GameCube, which runs fantastic as well as some non-heavy duty
[09:41] PSU games. Anything past that this machine's not going to really be able to Something like a PlayStation 3 emulator requires pretty demanding hardware that this thing is not [music] able to match. And there you have it the
[09:55] GameSpot potato PC. [music] To be honest, I'm a little surprised at were disappointments to be sure not being able to get Hades 2 to run at all >> [music] >> is pretty spectacular. I think as long
[10:11] as you have realistic expectations about the kinds of games you want to play at the price and hardware that you're paying for you can get [music] some really great gaming out of this thing. Thank you so much for watching if any of
[10:23] you end up making your own mini PC let us know in the comments below. I'm very you've made your own and you have recommendations for other mini PCs that you think [music] would even do better than this one at a similar price point
[10:39] than this one at a similar price point let people know in the comments.