Recently I got my hands on a $40 PC, consisting of 8GBs of DDR3 RAM, a 120GB SSD and a 120GB HDD, with the cherry on top being an i5 2310 with its HD Graphics 2000.
First thing I did was obviously install Fedora, now I'm here to share my experiences with using such an intensive desktop environment (GNOME) on such a low end machine.
First of all, this is working way better than I expected for non-gaming tasks, Firefox, Discord, Telegram, WhatsApp, all of it run perfectly fine. So this is definitely a great computer for simple tasks, but without a graphics card, how well does it fair in gaming?
Well... Not well at all.
I decided to try out simple 2D games to see how they ran.
These are the games I've tried so far, all simple 2D games. And here's my experience with each:
Sonic Mania
Runs well... If windowed at 2x. That's a pretty small viewspace, so I usually turn the resolution down to 1360x768, that makes the game look "bigger."
It's one of my favourite games though, so it's great that it runs so well.
Vampires' Melody
Just like Katawa Shoujo on my desktop, this runs fine, it's a VN after all, if it didn't run well that's where I'd be surprised.
Trouble Witches
This game is mostly 2D with some 3D elements and has usually run pretty well on low end machines, but it runs terribly here. I don't know if it's because of Proton or the HDG 2000 simply not being able to handle it... But it's still quite sad because it's a fun SHMUP.
Cave Story
Runs perfectly fine. I could play it natively but even running it through Wine via the Heroic Games Launcher wields good enough results.
Streets of Rage 4
Unplayable at 1080p, runs fine at 720p.
This is a great game that I recommend for anyone interested in beat em ups, it's a great continuation of SEGA's Mega-Drive legacy and an absolute blast. Specially in 2 players.
It sucks that I have to run most things at 720p, but at least I have a computer.
After the entire kerfuffle that went down and lead to me losing my $1000 rig, this is the best I can do...
I'm not going to outright state that this computer is horrible and that I'm disappointed, I knew what I was getting into. But it's just a reminder of the mistakes I've made.
Sure, soon enough, by saving more and more money from the odd jobs I'm doing and from whatever HIVE pays I'll eventually be able to make this a better machine, with the first step from here being a new PSU and then a GPU such as an RX 550 or RX 560.
But knowing that I lost something truly special is what truly hurts. Knowing most of my library will be inaccessible for many more months to come is heartbreaking. But I'll recover from this, and I know that by working hard (and posting more) I'll eventually get there.
Maybe one day I'll have the computer of my dreams, even better than the one I had, but for now I'll have to stick to older titles, indie titles and to my Xbox.
Expect more retro content from me, because that's what I'll be able to do.
Thanks for reading!
