Linux-Friendly Mini PC Fast Enough For Steam Games

crookedvulture writes "Barebones mini PCs have been around for a while, and the latest one from Zotac is pretty unique. For $270, the Zbox ID42 offers a Sandy Bridge CPU, a discrete GeForce graphics processor, and all the integrated I/O and networking you'd expect from a modern PC. You have to add your own memory, hard drive, and operating system, but the latter shouldn't cost you a dime. The Zbox works well with not only Windows, but also Linux. Ubuntu even recognizes the included remote, which can be used to wake up the system, control XBMC, and navigate Steam's Big Picture interface. Team Fortress 2 for Linux is actually playable, albeit at a relatively low resolution and detail level. The hardware seems better suited to casual games. Zotac also makes a Plus version of the Zbox that comes bundled with RAM and a hard drive, but it costs an extra $130, and you can get much better components if you add them yourself. The user-friendly chassis makes filling out the system a trivial undertaking."

Comments

Slashvertisment 101

[viperidaenz]

Mention Linux and its bound to make it to the front page.

Re:Slashvertisment 101

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh... Yeah. I can't imagine why they'd have even thought this was newsworthy. The Zbox is a really low-spec machine that shouldn't be able to handle anything but the casual and mid-end indie lineup that's forming right now in Valve's catalog for Linux.

Nothing to see here

[Master Moose]

In other news, 50cc Motor Scooters are able to travel on they same roads as other vehicles. They may not go as fast as other behicles but can still get you fron point a to point b

'Fast enough for steam games'

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, sort of.

"Team Fortress 2 for Linux is actually playable, albeit at a relatively low resolution and detail level. The hardware seems better suited to casual games"

For myself and all the Steam users that I know personally, this wouldn't actually be fast enough for any of the games they play.

Re:'Fast enough for steam games'

[Rockoon]

For myself and all the Steam users that I know personally, this wouldn't actually be fast enough for any of the games they play.

Indeed. The TF2 rendering engine is from 2004. Some will say that its received updates since then, but that just makes it a DX8-level (fixed function pipeline) engine with some sugar coating.

If TF2 is running poorly on this hardware, then its bad gaming hardware. If you want to build a cheap gaming box using integrated graphics then an AMD A-series processor in the ~$100 range, with an FM2 motherboard in the ~$60 range is probably the best choice.