Gaming on my CK10, and possibly T8 Plus...

[Gabe]

I have a i5-8279U based CK10, and just for the heck of it I decided to try it out with gaming. All of the games I have are through Steam, and they're older games, like System Shock 2 and the Half-Life and Half-Life 2 series, and surprisingly they're all running perfectly. I knew SS2 and the original Half-Life series would, as they're both from the late 90s and don't require much power at all, but the Half-Life 2 series surprised me a little.

I used to play the three mentioned games on my home built desktop with an AMD Ahtlon 64 3500+ and GeForce 6800, but I was shocked at how much better the onboard GPU in the i5-8279U is compared to the GeForce 6800. It scores a little over fifteen times better with Passmark's Performance Test.

What's even more shocking is that the graphics of the N95 CPU in my T8 Plus scores nearly ten times better than the 6800! So, my next "just for the heck of it" thing will be installing and trying those games on my T8 Plus. If they work well on it, I may just start using that instead, as it stays cooler than the CK10, as well as the AM06 Pro and AMR5 that I was playing those games on before. My S1 and AD03 have the N95 CPU as well, but they use DDR4 RAM, whereas the T8 Plus uses DDR5, and I really like how tiny the T8 Plus is. It's just neat that something that small can do what it does as well as it does.

Don't get me wrong, I have no fear of the AM06 Pro, the AMR5 or even the CK10 of getting too hot, but I just like how cool the T8 Plus stays, and cooler is better. I have some later games, such as the remastered BioShock trilogy, which I know won't run properly on the T8 Plus and probably not on the CK10, so I'll still being using the AM06 Pro for them.

[Gabe]

Well, it didn't quite work out with my T8 Plus, as there's some weird audio anomaly for which I can't find the cause. I tried both the "factory" 22H2 system and a clean install of 24H2. I tried the factory system, but before connecting to the net, and everything was fine. So I did a clean install of 24H2 and checked it before connecting to the net, and everything was fine. I then performed all of the Windows Updates, including the drivers, and updated all apps through the Microsoft Store. All was still good. Then I updated Edge to current, and the anomaly reared its ugly head. Now I can't say for sure that it's related to Edge, as it could have just been a coincidence. And it does it even when Edge isn't running.

For reference, it's hard to describe the sound, but it's sort of like a CH sound, like at the end of the word rich. It lasts about 0.1 to 0.2 seconds, and happens about every 1.5 seconds. No matter what I'm doing. Whether playing a game or watching a YouTube video or even testing the sound settings. But I have to be actively doing something that plays audio, as the sound isn't there otherwise. And it only does it via the 3.5" audio port, both with my speakers and with a headset I tried, just in case the speakers were the problem. It DOES NOT do it with my USB headset, nor Bluetooth headset. Nor my Bluetooth earbuds.

That it didn't do it until after I had updated Edge, and why it's doing it on non Edge related activities are things I've got to figure out. I think my next step will be reinstalling the "factory" system, updating it to current, but NOT updating the version (I'll keep it at 22H2). Then I'll update Edge and see if it starts. If it does, I'll know fore sure that it's something related to Edge. I'll then redo the clean install of 24H2 and Update everything, including Edge, then start a more thorough troubleshooting of the issue. I'd rather troubleshoot it on 24H2 than 22H2.

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So, I then went to the S1, as it's N95 based too, though with DDR4, and I installed Steam and the games on that. Though I've only tried System Shock 2 so far, it played great, and the sound was perfect. No anomaly.

[dragonpoo]

Sounds like you've had some good experiences testing gaming on those systems! I'm not sure what to say about the sound issues. I guess I'm glad I mostly use my systems for power uses like servers, remote systems, etc, that rely on wired network and no sound. Still, I'm glad you had success!

[Gabe]

I think I might try it on my AD03 over the weekend. If I remember correctly the AD03's m.2 slot doesn't support NVMe, but for games like this SATA should be fine.

I keep waiting for Steam to give me some kind of warning of it being installed on too many systems.

[Gabe]

GRRRR!!!!

I turned on my S1 and started the game, and the sound is there. SMH. So, something must have happened between the shutdown last night and the startup today, as in something must have finished updating, or some process started that wasn't running last night. So now two N95 based units doing the same thing.

So, it's back to the CK10, which works fine. I just wanted something that ran a bit cooler, though the CK10 is more capable.

Over the weekend I'll check the AD03 before I even install Steam. If it's not doing it before I install Steam, but is sometime afterward, then maybe it's Steam itself, though still with the commonality being the N95 based system, as it's never done it on the R5 5600U based AMR5 or AM06 Pro, nor does it on this CK10.

How disappointing.

[Gabe]

So far so good with the AD03. I hadn't had it on in 34 days, so I kept checking the audio after everything I was doing, including Windows Updates, Edge updates, Windows Store updates and the Steam installation. I also kept restarting it as well as shutting it down, then turning it back on. I didn't use it for very long after installing Steam and a game. Perhaps twenty minutes. I then shut it down and I will try it again tomorrow to see if anything has changed.

[Gabe]

It's still working on the AD03. I had been playing System Shock 2 a little, but more as just a test. Today I installed Half-Life 2, and it worked perfectly. The audio is still good. If it continues like this, I may just switch from the CK10 to the AD03, as the AD03 runs so much cooler, and it's working just as well for the games. I checked while running Half-Life 2 and the temp was in the mid 40s, whereas the CK10 gets up into the 80s and even spikes into the low 90s occasionally. The only negative with the AD03 is the audio port being on the front instead of the back, though it's not that bad of a thing.

I also have Portal and Portal 2 through Steam, though I've never really played them. I bought them because they're highly rated and they were on sale at Steam for something like $4.99 for both of them, so I couldn't pass them up.

The BioShock trilogy I have is the remastered version, so the games are likely more resource hungry than the originals, and probably not something the N95 can handle. Still, I might try downloading and running the first one, just to see if the N95 can do it.

[Gabe]

No pun intended, but I'm literally shocked that BioShock runs perfectly on the AD03. I thought for sure it would need more graphics power, but it's not lagging at all. I haven't yet tried running it on full 1920 x 1080 though. I had some problems getting it to run at first, as it was missing some dll files, but installing both the X86 and X64 versions of Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 redistributable fixed the issue.

I'll download the second and third ones over the next couple of days and give them a try. I'll be even more shocked if they run well, especially the third one, as it came out in 2013 and needed a decent video card at the time.

Update: I installed the other two games, and amazingly BioShock Infinite runs perfectly. Low settings, of course, but it runs perfectly.

I'm floored at the capability of a mini PC using a low cost, low power CPU with no discrete graphics. I still wish it could have been the T8 Plus, but I like the AD03 too. It's SATA only, but that's not a hindrance.

[dragonpoo]

Awesome work on all your testing, and I'm glad your systems are working so well! My T8 is actually running OpenSense as a firewall/router, which doesn't seem to have issues. I should probably check on it again.