Mini PC Configuration for Gaming

[@KomradeMikhail]

My Subscriptions feed is entirely chock full of sponsored mini-PC reviews from all the tech channels lately...

[@avidwriter2882]

Take most of those with a grain of salt. Do your homework, and check out them for yourself. Sadly many of those videos are shills. Robtech is good.

[@GiJoe94]

Tbh I'm done with giant heavy PCs. I'm all for smaller form factors. I will let the hype pass and see what's viable

[@Sykxezn]

​@@GiJoe94so long as you don't do heavy editing, 3d modeling or big title gaming, a mini PC will be great, just be sure it's upgradable in some way, especially storage and ram

[@fcaniete]

Great video, I love that little machines,. no budget for that here in Argentina :(

[@LautaroQ2812]

Well, the price itself it's alongside other things like laptops. The problem is probably don't have any availability/service for these things.

[@greggmacdonald9644]

I look forward to your "Strix Point" version of this later this year perhaps, you'll be able to get consistent 1080p then, I bet.. and ofc Zen 5 cores will be nice too! :)

[@daniellbrinneman]

Chris, could you do a Linux series on software available for running a small business, please?

[@peterge98]

Where is the Linux video?

[@peterjansen4826]

Chris to his kids: "in this house we don't game with a console, we can do better than that! Here, a PC in the livingroom which starts up in big picture mode, we only need a controller!" What about games on all those other launchers? Chris: "no worries, we can list those in Steam." Apparently Chris boots in Windows (AMD Adrenalin), I wish that Adrenalin would be available on Linux. There are 2 or 3 nice features which we miss.

[@Cha0sNicr0]

One thing that bugs me about HTPCs is the disconnect between Displayport and HDMI. TVs usually support HDMI-CEC to sync device controls. HDMI-outs on PCs never have that (except for special hardware SBCs). Instead they use DPMS to control monitors over displayport, but you won't find a TV supporting that. I'm currently working to adapt the two protocols to translate in my own setup, but it feels like such a fabricated issue on the manufacturing side.

[@Simulati0n]

Another option if performance isn't up to par is to use Sunshine app and stream from your high-end PC close to native with no lag or snag Minisforum UM780 and buy an egpu setup which will run under $800 total.

[@peterjansen4826]

FSR can get rid of jagged lines, yes. For that it is great. The downside, you see artifacts when there is movement. I think that they can get rid of the jagged lines by just using smarter AA-solutions. I love the Tomb Raider games but Rise of the Tomb Raider is a prime example of bad AA, so bad that the developer recommends to turn it off.

[@AshLordCurry]

The bigger the inital resolution, the better it would look. I used to mod RDR2 so it runs at 0.9 initial resolution with the latest DLSS version. Looked so much better

[@T1544767]

2:15 Oh, you pronounce it N-V-M-E. I've always pronounced it "envy me"

[@calholli]

Also, I'm still rocking an Acer 7551 from 2009. lol.. (has NObara on it now, upgraded to SSD and 16gb Ram). and a budget gaming rig I built in 2014.. that I later added a gtx1060. Everything is overclocked and it's still chugging along well enough to play fortnite and COD and pubg, and whatever else.. The board couldn't boot with an NVME/pci-E adapter, so I have to boot it through clover. I tried DUET w/Refind.. but it wasn't reliable and wouldn't work half the time.. Not sure why: but clover is doing well.

[@ActionManXVI]

perfect suggestion on my feed, i was just thinking of getting a mini pc for the same purpose!

[@charleyweinhardt]

🙌👋🖐🙏🙏🙏🙏 Chris really hoping you can help me, running a legion go, windows 11 hand held, thing is great, think you'd dig it! BUT I ran your windows eleven script and now the mic button won't bring up the mic on the on screen keyboard, the mic on works fine in browser and other places...?

[@peterjansen4826]

Chris, you silly boy with your Everquest. 😄

[@jon880215]

I just made a HTPC build with an RTX 3050 6gb just to get RTX video super resolution and RTX HDR. Damn you Nvidia, you got me.

[@FBInvestigation-2024]

Everyone! Make this man up, The best yt channel for Windows 10 fr. Thnx you was a part of my windows installation and a part of helping my dead pc to be alive again for my uses. Full love for me

[@pristine3700]

Would love to see a part 2 with same setup and just trying to see how media consumption could work with the controller and big picture. Web browsing? KZbin? Twitch? Movies etc

[@ChrisTitusTech]

The main issue with controller usage in these apps is signin and steam browsers is not great. It's doable but feels bad. If that was my primary purpose I'd rather have a dedicated gaming PC and then something like a nvidia shield for game casting that has those apps natively.

[@peterjansen4826]

@@ChrisTitusTech Often that is even poorly designed for keyboard only, which I can't comprehend. I have to log in on a website on which I have to click with the mouse-button to fill in the credentials so I am forced ot use the mouse for that. I feel like a caveman at such a moment, the dwm-chad who is forced to use a device which shouldn't be used at all outside 3D-graphics applications.

[@flyinhawaiian9174]

Link to previous video?

[@relayer6797]

Hey Chris. Please make a video about the Bubblejail sandboxing utility for linux.

[@SIGNABLE7]

For essential tweaks is there way to specifically run the commands for each remotely instead of using the whole GUI, I tried look through all the source code and I can't seem to use the config file in a way to directly do it. I want the powershell commands for the essential and advanced tweaks only because I consider everything else in the tool to be bloatware and just wanna make my own stripped thing.

[@Kekeripo]

Could i request a specific device for a good windows install and configuration? The Asus ROG Ally (X) is pretty cool and i've done some homework on what to do for the best experience, but it would be nice to have a trusted guide show me the way on how to remove all the MS junk, keep the necessery asus software and get and overall perfect setup.

[@chad-c9y]

so i felt like supporting with brave browser and it seems to want to jump the ethernett connection and its worried about credit card numbers after instaling it on a unlicense os

[@boombox8675]

have you tried intel presentmon for perf monitoring?

[@xnonsuchx]

“30°C ambient temperature”??? Do you not have A/C in your home, have it crammed into a tight spot w/ no airflow or love it that hot (or play it outside in the middle of the day in summer)?

[@ussul6524]

Chris, I love this video, but I kept clicking on blue shield with ! in it (bottom right) thinking it is mine. . I would buy this only for Destiny 2 bc of their stubbornness.

[@1400Lines]

damn that mini pc is more powerful than my main gaming pc 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@goddamnmacgyver]

Chris do you have a solution for games that Load and start in the background on windows when launching from steam Big Picture? When i launch Fallout 4 from steam big picture, the launcher goes to the foreground and you can xbox button and RB on the xbox controller click through to start the game....but then it just runs in the background behind a steam loading screen. I need to grab a keyboard and alt+tab to get to the game. It really kills the controller only vibe im shooting for.

[@lukaLondaridze]

What's a good and silent AMD mini pc for pure browsing? No gaming at all. Thanks in advance.

[@Raylightsen]

Chris, what if i want to use my laptop insatead of buying a mini pc, do you have a recommendation?, of better yet, create a tutorial about it with something similar or better.

[@edfl497]

you could still use bazite or just steams big picture mode or whatever there calling it now

[@diuran1919]

Can we change a fan speed on bazzite AMD graphics card ?

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Yes, you want LACT program to do this.

[@diuran1919]

@@ChrisTitusTech Thank you.

[@vladislavkaras491]

Thanks for the info!

[@johneagle9925]

Buy "Steam Deck LCD/OLED".

[@LautaroQ2812]

I thought FSR would downscale your resolution and then rescale it, but the render is at lower resolution. Meaning FSR at 1080p even on "quality" setting will always look less sharp than native 1080p, but perform a bit better. You kept saying you would use FSR with 720p to upscale it to 1080p. I'm either confused because it's early or that is a small mistake. As far as I knew, VSR (virtual super resolution) was the one that was supposed to upscale the image to a larger than native resolution and then scale it back down to fit the monitor. But FSR does the opposite from what I know. Renders in lower and upscales again to show it. (Counterparts are DLSS and XeSS).

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Correct I misspoke

[@vladgonzalez3325]

I have one of those mini PCs for experiments on Linux distros. But the fan won't shut up.

[@ericbaker8807]

I use an Nvidia Shield with Steam Link running to stream from my main PC upstairs with a much more powerful 7800XT and 5800X. They're both connected over ethernet. With a hardwired connection, I see basically no loss in quality. It works great if you already have a gaming PC! I did purchase one of these little cheaper Beelinks with an intel N100 to setup as my new home assistant server and possibly a small Jellyfin machine.

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Great solution as well

[@charliesretrocomputing]

There's so many things you can do with mini PCs. I haven't ever used one but there are a TON of projects they'd be useful for - basically just a more powerful Raspberry Pi that can run Windows and doesn't have GPIO pins, HATs, and all of those other Pi features.

[@The_DreadStorm]

What I'd like to do is find a tool that will help me create a special Win10 installation. Really special. I mean absolutely debloated. No apps, no programs, no utilities, no accessories, nothing. Just stripped bare. An actual Operating System" only. No bullshit. Once installed, I'll put in what I want, add drivers for what I use, and go from there. Decent hardware and network support, sure. But no programs. No apps. No unnecessary tasks running in the background. No "built-in features." No unneeded Services. I mean NOTHING. No store, no browsers, no games. Hey, I can wish, can't I?

[@dedogospod]

chris titus windows utility tool can help you with that

[@dedogospod]

Hope this can help you understand sections if you need it offlineServicing: This section contains settings for offline servicing, such as the product key and the option to bypass certain checks. windowsPE: This section contains settings for the Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment) phase of the installation process. generalize: This section contains settings for generalizing the installation, such as setting the language and keyboard layout. specialize: This section contains settings for customizing the installation, such as configuring the registry and running PowerShell scripts. auditSystem and auditUser: These sections contain settings for auditing the system and user accounts. oobeSystem: This section contains settings for the out-of-box experience (OOBE) phase of the installation process.

[@bountoj]

I see someone has been on the eq2 origin server? ; P

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Oh yeah! Been having a blast.

[@calholli]

You're way better off finding used machines.. I got a 2022, win11, MSI crosshair 17, rtx3060, i7 11th gen, 1TB nvme, 32gb ram.. and a fancy gaming mouse too.. For four hundred, met in person. A fantastic rig that still looks brandNew and there's no way I could ever get anything near this good by getting n3w stuff.

[@tohur]

I am building a distro based on bazzite.. stripping alot of the bloat out because bazzite has alot of crap installed by default that ya aint gona use.. so I stripped it out, swapping alot of things to using flatpak. have GTK themes working out the box with flatpak and sane default permissions out the box

[@YannMetalhead]

Good video.

[@Finite-Tuning]

I've been looking at these for a while now for as a power hog space heater daily use desktop replacement. But they just don't have any GPU power. I wish somebody would just take a high spec laptop internals and fold that into an 8x8" cube with some real and actual full sized desktop air cooling. I hate all the noise these little baby fans make working so hard to do so little actual cooling. Make a bigger box, give me some real compute power with some real and real quiet cooling, and I'll be sold! All I want is a high spec laptop with desktop cooling minus the screen/mouse/keyboard. Cheers 🍻

[@ensom]

the ser8 is the first small form factor minipc i've seen that uses a 105mm cpu cooling fan, it has exceptional thermals and runs quietly from all the reviews i've seen. which is why it would be my top choice atm. ideally i would like to see these mini PC's accept common case fan dimension fans for easy replacement. i think laptop form factor heat sinks are adequate for these cpus, so i don't think we need to go to full sized desktop heat sinks personally. the ser8 is a pretty good happy medium imho, it has a good sized heat sink / vapor chamber that is more than adequate.

[@Finite-Tuning]

@@ensom: It's mainly these "gaming" laptops I'm referring to. That's what you have to buy in order to get any real GPU power. And none of them run cool or quiet, especially the one that I own. But it is the compute power I want with the screen/mouse/keyboard that I don't. If somebody could fit the main board from my "gaming" laptop in a box like I described with real full sized desktop cooling, well that is exactly what I want. I haven't seen it made yet by anyone. So I'm real tempted to buy another "gaming" laptop and just mod it myself. I cringe at the thought of voiding a warranty like that, but it's probably the only way to get what I really want.

[@AveTasker-pv3nz]

Chris get X elite laptop

[@binalhumaidi]

How to kick

[@michaelsims7728]

most of the mini PC I seen are just as much as a normal one.. The only thing I see as a plus is just the size of the PC it self.

[@joeybeta]

At the end of the day, you're still paying for the specs, regardless of form factor/size. This is a very modern spec mini pc, so expect modern spec pricing.

[@mzhomie8880]

A Mac Mini has much more power, doesn't it?

[@nittani.]

Can we play d2 togetheri wanna 1v1

[@cgrant1202]

Destiny 2 fan

[@AlgyTRG]

why am I gonna spend 600usd on that mini pc to run games far worse than a cheaper ps5 or xbox series x? doesn't make any sense. and if u want a real home theather pc, for movie/shows, u can spend much cheaper for a system with those capabilities.

[@williamherrick497]

MTC (my two cents) KZbin Subscriptions do NOT prioritize your content in my feed. This change to their algorithm seems to have appeared im May 2024

[@EasyGameEh]

paying 650 bucks for 780m gaming with hugely overpowered 8c cpu and pointless 32gig of memory makes no sense. for this money you can build a mini-itx system with entry level cpu and a proper discreet gpu which will be in a 1080-1440p@60 territory easly. and you can cheap out even more going full blown m-atx formfactor. yeah, it won't be that slick, but wth. who cares about 20-30l case if you get 3x performance?

[@garthdev]

For gaming and just about everything else there there is only one..Please don't use Fedora it's PANTS just use BTW 🙂

[@chad-c9y]

no your stuff stealing

[@ElitistReviews]

720p? 1080p? lowest games settings? why would anyone spend $700 to have the worst PC gaming experience? Why did you put Home Theater in the title? when you absolutely don't show or don't know about home theater? I think you should just stick to Linux

[@2Kaleb]

Username checks out

[@ElitistReviews]

@@2Kaleb you got me 😅

[@chad-c9y]

your stuff stealing

[@chad-c9y]

i unistalled brave browser im updated after pluging the eathernet in for the first time ever. it updated my non licensed pooptop and now worried about credit card numbers after uninstalling

[@34kazk]

hey can you help us with enabling secure boot on that pc for valorant, it seems like i’m not the only one with that problem🙏🙏🫀