In Win Chopin cheap portable theater gamey box

[LazyGamer]

A 'Steam link' app will probably be less of a miserable failure than their dedicated hardware was. Picked one up when they were giving them away for $5 + shipping, used it... once. It's just too slow, even on a local wired connection.

 

[Dogsofjune]

Cute case. I wondered how well Pop / Ubuntu handles games... are there even AMD drivers for it? 150w PSU really limits you to APUs. Well, that and you would have to find a LP GPU and those are like white rhinos when it's not GPU-ageddon days. 1050ti or maybe 1650ti LP if you could even find one. 1080p med settings at best. Scratch that, looking at that little Chopin case I don't see how you could even get a LP card in there unless you removed the PSU.

I have a love/hate relationship with tiny little HTPC systems. I have gone through so many...

I supposed if you can put Chrome on it you could run Stadia too. But to be fair, if that and media playback was only goal you could just get Chromecast ultra and Stadia controller for like $50.

I wonder if there is a steam link equivalent for Pop/Ubuntu?

edit - google says YES to linux steam link app https://9to5linux.com/steam-link-is-now-available-on-linux-to-stream-your-steam-games-on-any-device

It is a Corsair Bulldog. Back when Steam OS and Steam boxes were trying to kick into the gaming populous, Corsair came out with these. This particular case I inherited from a family member. I don't think Microcenter ever carried it, but Newegg did I believe.

It was a bare bones deal I guess and they never did find a decent cpu and ram for it, so I swapped them out for some junk I had for the case. It came with a itx mobo and 600w Corsair power supply to. I sold the mobo. It was too much to find a CPU for the Z270 board. Especially when at the time I was looking 9000 series Intels were the rage with the next generation on the horizon. $300+ for a 7700K? No.

The case has been sitting in storage mostly, and I too don't really care for the glossy front, but, for an out of town traveling game box, it suits.

You are right about the Chopin case not accepting a video card. I have seen a few solutions for stuffing a narrow gpu in there, but that's more trouble than I want to do. Really, I liked the size of the Chopin and would have preferred it for traveling, but, It struggled with some of the games I liked to play.

Pop OS, Ubuntu, Manjaro work very well with Steam. I have about 476 titles in my Steam account. 2/3's of that work in Linux. In fact, I'm thinking about Cyberpunk 2077 if I can round up a better gpu than the RX 480 and swap out the 2400G for either a 3700x or 5600X.


Yes AMD has drivers should they be needed, but open source drivers are already installed by default. They are integrated in Mesa and the newer Linux Kernels.


What I have bandied around lately, unless someone was serious about acquiring the Chopin case, was to go with an Intel setup this time and find a Mitx board with thunderbolt 4..... Try a little egpu action. I think I know where to score a bare Egpu case for cheap.
When all the miners die horrible excruciating deaths and of syphilis, this route may be considered a bit more.

That's tinkerer's dreams tho.

 

[Dogsofjune]

So an update to this. I have returned the Gigabyte B450 and 2400G to the Chopin case. Difference this time is Windows 10 is on it now.
It's funny, but the reason for putting it in the Bulldog case was to use a dedicated GPU for light gaming.
Mostly Path of Exile. It struggled no matter what settings I used with the iGPU. It was mostly playable, but if there was to much going on, it stuttered. An incursion turned the screen into a blur. This was under Pop OS.

Now it's back to no dedicated GPU and Win 10. It plays POE at 1080 with default settings and maintains an avg mid 50's fps. Occasionally dips with lots of activity, low 40's on occasion. But not the stutter show it was sometimes under Pop OS. Doesn't seem like the iGPU experience was favorable with the hardware I used. The RX 480 did fine mixed with this CPU under Pop OS though. Usually my gaming experience under Pop is pretty decent, till I used an integrated video setup.

I still want a 4650g, 4750G, 5600G, or 5700G instead of the 2400G. As most things currently, what I want the most is tough to find at non rapey costs.

 

[LazyGamer]

Usually my gaming experience under Pop is pretty decent, till I used an integrated video setup.

I've yet to have a good experience with Pop OS. I've never dedicated a system to it either, so the problem is almost entirely me, but when it comes to Linux I try to stick close to mainstream.

For example, the SUSE derivative I installed on my XPS 15 (one of like five distros at the moment), just decided that it can't turn on WIFI. Windows? Not a problem. Mint and the latest Ubuntu? Not a problem. Parrot? Works like a charm. A Fedora Cinnamon install that was upgraded from 33 to 34? Like a dream.

Pop OS usually just self-destructs in my experience, same with Arch derivatives (especially Manjaro). It's one thing for the base OS to work well when left alone, and it's entirely another thing to have a system set up for real end-user, consumer workloads and stay stable after updates.

 

[Dogsofjune]

That has not been my experience with Pop or Manjaro fortunately. Doesn't mean I don't see some quirks every once in a while.

Flavors of distro's is subjective to the user. In my case I have always had dedicated machines that I don't screw around with so I have that tool when I need it. The last several years I decided that I'd set up a box for experimenting. I used to do Ubuntu, but I didn't care for that unity crap. Been a day or two since I last did Mint. I liked it when I installed it.
Manjaro I liked, but seem to have settled on Pop. It's just another variation of Ubuntu to me. Whether that is a correct assessment, it's just how it comes across to me.

So far it has served me for an "entertainment" box. Some games, movies, music, internet browser. If it breaks, meh. Either I learn how to correct it, or reinstall. Nothing lost but a bit of time.

I have tinkered with the thought of swapping out Gnome for Cinnamon on the Pop box. Maybe after a drink or two, we will see.

 

[LazyGamer]

I have tinkered with the thought of swapping out Gnome for Cinnamon on the Pop box. Maybe after a drink or two, we will see.

I don't hate Gnome, but as I use Windows for most of my computer work Cinnamon more or less stands in as being functional and out of the way. I tried it first on Mint and liked it, and as we use RHEL at work, it was definitely nice to see Cinnamon on Fedora.