PC portable!

frostedfires

frostedfires

Member
Hey everyone,

I used to be a forum member on the Bacman site before it went down for good. I will be starting a new project soon in which I don't have a name for yet. However it will be a portable gaming device that runs Windows 10. I wish to be able to play N64 games, PSX, Possibly Gamecube (Dolphin),

I want to use a 5in 480p screen with HDMI input and touch screen capabilities. For that I will be buying one of these:

https://www.adafruit.com/products/2260

For the PC I will be buying an ECS Core once it is available this month. The specs are:

Platform Intel® Broadwell Core M-5Y10C SOC
Memory DDR3L 4GB
Storage 1 x 80G/120G M.2 SSD
Audio 1 x Combo Jack
2 x D-MIC (internal)
LAN 1 x Gigabit LAN
USB 4 x USB3.0 Ports
Video Output 2 x HDMI Ports
Wireless WiFi 802.11ac & Bluetooth 4.0
Dimension 136 x 84 x 38 mm
Card Reader Yes,Micro SD
Adapter Input: AC 100-240V,Output: DC 19V / 3.43A
OS Support Windows 7 / 8.1 / 10

+ it runs HD Graphics 5300 GPU

Here is a link to the mini PC:

http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Produc ... 25&LanID=0

With these specs I believe it will run most emulators super smooth with the posibility of Gamecube support.

However, Emulators are not all that PC's can do, I will do tests to see if it can run bigger games such as Skyrim on low resolution, etc. Will have to do tests once it's released though.

The size of the chip inside is similar to that of a Raspberry Pi. So, I will be placing it in a Wii U Controller possibly.... Or maybe a Clam shell design.

Well this project will take time to make so more updates in the future. Feel free to ask questions.
 
Due to the power hungry nature of computers, what can we expect with battery life? Or is it going to be a Ben Heck style laptop?
 
The_Next_Guy said:
Due to the power hungry nature of computers, what can we expect with battery life? Or is it going to be a Ben Heck style laptop?
Click to expand...
That chip uses under 10w, which I believe is less than a GC.

Have you looked into how Win10 likes 800x480? I tried Win8 on a 1024x600 screen and the Metro apps wouldn't work with the low resolution. Not sure if its changed and I'm sure there's a way around it, just something to be mindful of.

Skyrim should run fine on low settings. My Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet barely runs the likes of Skyrim and Borderlands, but that system looks like it has a decent bit more power.
 
I will have to take a look at the montherboard first to see if it can recieve a lower voltage than 19v....

Right now I have four 3.7v batteries from battery space rated 5000mah that can be wired up to 14.8v, if it can run off that then I'm guessing in the ballpark of 2 hours not plugged in.

But I will have to test things first.

As for running Win 10 on the lower resolution, I will do tests on the screen using my laptop to see if it can run at that scale correctly.
 
Isn't running 600 vertical pixels into a 480 vertical display going to cause some issues? I sincerely doubt you can force the native resolution of the screen with intel's flaxty graphics options. So won't everything be squashed vertically?
 
It looks alright. Control board is pretty small, which is good because some are pretty big and have way more input options than you need. Not sure if it would fit in the Wii U tablet, its a 6.2". You could cut the hole bigger but you have to consider the controls.
 
Just bought one of these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/121611336867?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

Seems way better than one of those wii u clear cases since it comes with all the buttons and its OEM so the holes are cut right.

For the screen I was curious if there were any 6.2in screens with a high enough resolution. Unfortunately it doesn't go that high.

I really want a touch screen so I can open programs without the need of a mouse.... I can make the joystick a mouse but I would prefer touch screen....

Because of this I decided to look into other options. I found a 5.6 1280X800 res screen with touchscreen but its a whooping $160! A little too much imo.

I'm going to do more screen searches and post if I buy one. If anyone has a link to a good screen let me know.

Thanks!
 
I did more searching around and realised this:

At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in China, the company confirmed that Windows 10 desktop PCs will only need a minimum resolution of 800 x 600 pixels in order to run the new OS, according to PC World.
Click to expand...

Source

So would a smaller resolution screen work then? Will some games not work because the resolution of 800 x 600 is too small?
 
It might be worth it to wait until you have the computer and can try games at different resolutions to see how they run. Don't want a low res screen when the computer has the power to push more pixels and don't want too high res to where you have to run lower than native.
 
I'm running windows 10 on my netbook which is 1024x600 and some games go off the screen unless you autohide the task bar

*Edited to fix Spelling*
 
If I was going to be building a handheld PC, I'd be looking closely at the NUC 5i5RYK and the NUC 5i7RYK. Those two have the Iris 6000 and 6100 respectively. Much higher price and slightly higher TDP, of course, but the performance is in an entirely different, higher tier, compared to the Core U/HD 5500 in the one you linked.

Further, if performance was primary, the Gigabyte BXi7 4770R is two or three times faster still, in roughly the same volume, and is actually quite cheap.


Personally I'd lean towards the 5i7RYK - seems like the best balance of performance and power use. With that said, at this point I'd be really tempted to wait and see what the Skylake NUCs bring to the table. Still, the Iris 6100 in that should run modern games at medium settings at 720p (50fps in Tomb Raider 2013, medium-low settings at 1280x1024), and it has a PCIE M.2 slot, so that'd keep storage compact and fast compared to a 2.5" drive. Overall it'd wind up fitting nicely with a screen like this one, which is without doubt what I would use.


Edit: Forgot to mention that AMD is actually not a *horrible* choice in this endeavor either, oddly enough. The Gigabyte Brix GB-BXA8-5557 should have reasonable enough performance, and it's only $130 or so. The HD 8550G is probably good for 30-50fps at low settings 720p in most general modern games, and should be plenty for emulation up to 5th gen.
 
Wow you are SUPER helpful! I believe I will buy the AMD one that you linked because of money issues. With a mSATA SSD I can probably make the case smaller than it is currently. Wow that sale that it has right now seems super good! I will probably add 8gb of 1600 Ram and 120gb of SSD mSATA Memory.
 
Bought this:

1 x GIGABYTE GB-BXA8-5557 (rev. 1.0) AMD Bolton M3 Mini / Booksize Barebone System
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3L 1600 (PC3L 12800) Laptop Memory Model F3-1600C11S-4GRSL
2 x G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3L 1600 (PC3L 12800) Laptop Memory Model F3-1600C11S-4GRSL
$184.96 Total

1 x MyDigitalSSD 128GB (120GB) 50mm Bullet Proof 4 BP4 50mm mSATA Solid State Drive SSD SATA III 6G (120GB)(128GB)
Form Factor: 50MM / Capacity: 120GB
$55.00

Total cost was almost $240.... What a great deal! And with a low power draw it should run fine at 14.8v 5000mah batteries. Recommended voltage is 19v but I bet it will run with less... We will see I guess.
 
I almost feel bad pointing out that you could have bought a used Lite On 256gb Msata drive for around $10 more, or a 256gb Samsung one for $30 more. But you can. Ebay.


That said, sounds like what you've got should work out pretty well.
 
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