I was an avid single player gamer a long long time ago (15+ years) and the recent Quake II remaster sparked the nostalgia in me and now I want start playing all my favorite classic games (StarCraft, Diablo II, Quake 2 and 3, Battlefield 2, etc.) again.
The problem is I mostly have old hardware. My old HP laptop running Arch just died recently and my old MSI laptop running Mint that I use as a media player connected to my tv is too slow to run games properly.
So I was thinking of buying one of those mini PCs or compact desktops that run around $200-$250 to dual boot Windows (don’t wanna waste the free license if it comes with it) and Linux and use it as a gaming machine. I’m so behind with pc specs nowadays so I wanted to ask the community for recommendations. I’ll be playing mostly the classic games above and their remastered versions so I don’t really need a top of the line machine, just something decent that isn’t too far behind and can still run some current games if I ever find anything new interesting.
Any suggestions please? Thanks!
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64 GiB refurbished Steam Deck is 320$.
Thanks. I forgot to mention I prefer to play on a proper pc/laptop as I never really got into console gaming. But I’ll check it out!
You plug it into a dock with a good monitor, keyboard and mouse, and you have a decent desktop experience going.
In that price range the best you can get is probably something with a Ryzen 5500U. If you were to go up to ~350 then you could get a significantly faster 5800H
You’ll have to look for used stuff, because it is still better to get a proper old build with a GPU than trying to run everything on integrated
You can get a 4770K, rx 480 8gb,16GB of ddr3 RAM and a hard drive on $150
Runs most new games at low settings 1080p.
In StarCraft, I’m getting 300 FPS at 1440p in remastered, it’s just not very demanding.
The minisforum 773. About 400 dollariedoos and has decent gpu performance and very good cpu performance. Full speed pcsx2. Gas igpu The lenovo 715 gen2 has a ryzen cpu with okay integrated graphics and it’s 140 usd
Wait you can still play Battlefield 2? How??? I need to know ASAP!
I agree with those saying Steam Deck, but if you decide in a mini PC, you can easily get an AMD APU and still play AAA titles.
Mini all-in-one PC are expensive, just buy a used/refurbished regular PC. If you want, you can get them in SFF (Small Form Factor), which are still upgradable and a better option than AIOs. Here are some results on eBay for reference.
I’d recommend getting AMD because of their excellent Linux support and overall better gaming performance. Also, you don’t need a dedicated GPU for playing old games, even more so since AMD’s integrated GPU is a lot better than Intel’s, and works better on Linux too.
But it you want to play current games, you’ll need a dedicated GPU, and that $250 budget isn’t going to cut it unfortunately. However, you always have the option of buying a cheap used GPU later on, when you’ve got some cash to spare. But for now, if you focus on older games then the integrated GPU on an AMD will do fine.
Thanks for the thorough explanation! This was very helpful. I was about to ask about why AMD over intel, and this gives me confidence that I won’t run into issues with setting up linux. I don’t really have any interest right now with current games except for the remastered versions of the aforementioned classic games, and if thos will work with dedicated GPUs, I should be good.
Unless you are getting a good deal on a used model (which technically would not come with a license anyway), I strongly suggest avoiding windows at all at this price range. That is going to be a significant chunk of your 250 USD budget, even at OEM rates.
I would also be rather shocked if you could find anything with even “last gen” gaming performance at the 250 USD range without getting a really good deal on a used office computer. Which isn’t bad (if you shop local, you can get decent specs for closer to 100 USD), but will still need a GPU. Because yes, you can “game” on integrated graphics. But even for older games, I strongly discourage it. it is a MASSIVE drop in performance (AMD’s APUs are only a large drop in performance) and, especially for older games, you may run into quirks of the drivers/OS that having a bit more power would have gotten past.
So unless you really know what you are doing (and, no offense, your post doesn’t make it sound like that. And there is nothing wrong with that), I would really suggest saving up for another month or two and going more for the 400 USD range. Then just get a Steam Deck (optimally a refurb if any are in stock). Won’t have Windows without some (honestly not that bad) shenanigans and the upgrade potential is weak. But it can more than play “previous gen” games and most of the remasters are going to either be explicitly or implicitly targeting it. And if Windows is the priority, you might be able to get a GDP or Aya or ASUS equivalent on sale/used.
