yup i liked the one that used the framework motherboards not because it was framework but because the shape of those boards remains somewhat consistant from generation to generation and you can purchase the motherboards standalone so upgrades would be relativley simple but nucs would also work as apart from skullcanyons they remain somewhat the same size
@@cncdan If only you released this project back in 2016-2019. It just makes it a "fun project" when looking at GPD Win-2, and basically too overpriced when we see the release of the Valve SteamDeck, and now a pipe-dream next to the impressive ASUS ROG ALLY Pro.
Glad you found me! But I was in the handheld space well before the steamdeck was a thing! Here's a video of my first windows handheld from back in 2020: ua-cam.com/video/NMrAuhduhks/v-deo.html I was building handhelds before this too but this was the first one I did a video of!
I don't think your playlist is in episode order, but I'm loving the series so far, seems like a fun system to develop for - all the modern conveniences of developing for Windows, but old enough that optimization still matters. And being able to assume touch and controller support means a lot as well. And, of course, anything that runs on this will run great on the Steam Deck, too. Thanks for the videos!
Dam good stuff mate! Im stupid busy these days but I have a 10th gen nuc I found and fixed so I'd be happy to help with the build any way i can in my spare time.
If there's enough interest I may roll out an early version of the models so that people can do test prints and see how they like it. Just need to find some spare time to knock over the last of the design work first!
I recon this has far larger implications. Opensource hardware development with specific devices on demand is a great idea and if combined open-source Linux the Economics of PC devices may change. Dictated, controlled by passioned communities instead of corporations.
I love this project! I personally wouldn't need that much power and I want to try to make one with a celeron mini pc and see if it can be smaller with better battery life.
If you're referring to the little mini pc sticks, you absolutely can. They use considerably less power (around 5w from memory) so you'd probably only need a quarter of the battery capacity that I've got here. They do barely run windows though so you'll be pretty limited in what you can run. The last PC based one I built was an atom z8350 and I was able to run some PC games up until about the mid 2000's.
LOVE this project, the idea of taking almost any NUC and turning it into a handheld is a fantastic idea. Current windows needs a 1360 x 768 resolution minimum to function well. It keeps from having to drag windows up because the bottom is cut off. A 3S battery configuration is good enough to run most of these hardware setups, GPD, One, and others use a 3S config, but they do use a lower power chips. Just some of my cents and thoughts, and good luck on your work!
Yeah, finding a higher resolution screen is something I want to do in the future. For gaming however I feel that 1024x600 is adequate and I'm planning to run a non-windows UI as much as possible once everything is set up. As for the battery, if I used 3s I'd need to use a boost converter to keep the voltage above the minimum threshold for the NUC so 4s just simplifies things for this project. Anyway, thanks for watching, hopefully I'll have some progress to share again soon!
No, it's not something I've investigated thoroughly yet. I know there's no options in the bios for tdp adjustments but I can definitely give your software a go
Looks like TDP control works perfectly, thanks! Is there any way to map out controller inputs for navigating the menu? Would be handy to be able to configue inputs for non-standard controllers. I'm going to set up a way to launch the control panel interface from my controller so being able to interact with the menu without having to switch across to mouse mode would be awesome!
I'm not, and I don't know of anyone else considering it. I'm working on a new and improved version now which should be a little bit easier to turn into a kit. No promises, but I wouldn't mind being able to sell a couple once that design is complete!
Impressive! - and it looks really good and comfortable to hold. I'd be interested in using it for emulation of old 8/16 bit games - preferably on Linux. Games that rely heavily on a good D-pad. So how's to D-pad? Clicky? Mushy? Inbetween? Do you have a link for where to get it?
The plan is for this to be an open sourced project that anyone can build, but I'm a fair way off finished at the moment. The dpad is going to be a very similar design to what I used on my previous project, it involves low pressure tactile switches and a rubber membrane over the top of them to give a nice soft click. I find it works very well on my previous design so I've decided to stick with the existing design with only minor changes cosmetically and to make them easier to manufacture. I'll make sure I show some details of the design in the next video!
That sounds awesome. I'd love to know about D-pad design in general. PSVita is my favorite and I think Sony might have done something like what you describe. Please consider testing for latency. I run the Retro Joysticks youtube channel. I guess I should include D-pads :)
I wonder if using a laptop with a gtx1070 mobile and a mobile i7 from 2017 as the internals for one of these would be possible to make a truly powerful handhand console with a massive amount of compatibility since it's using nvidia drivers and is built from the ground up to work as a native windows machine. Not that the NUC isn't a native windows machine lol, but the addition of a dedicated gpu to one of these rather than it being an APU would be something to see.
Its definitely something you could do, but it would end up being a much larger device as you need far more battery capacity to support a mobile gpu. I am planning to build a GPU dock eventually so you get much higher performance when docked and still a reasonably portable device to take on the go.
for the record that activation overlay on the bottom actually takes up a good amount of gpu to render it on top of things. Linus tech tips showed proof of this.
In this video it was just a 4s battery connected through a watt metre to measure power draw and estimate runtime. Check out the latest video where I fit the actual battery for more information: ua-cam.com/video/nFNw7_WkteA/v-deo.html
Since this comment is on the first video, I'll assume you are talking about the NUC since the controller PCB's weren't built yet in this video. The main PC you can see here is an Intel NUC. I didn't design it myself, its an off the shelf mini pc that I've just taken out of its box.
We have to somehow get Linus Tech Tips to pick up on this. I can see this being a project he'd happily look into help funding, or at the very least support!
and Lenovo legion go or asus Rog Ally it's a Ryzen Z1. On November 2023 The first Ryzen Z1 Mini PC has been benchmarked, reaches 40W. Ever wondered how the Ryzen Z1 APU that's found in the Asus ROG Ally Z1 and Lenovo Legion Go would fare in a mini PC? You don't have to wonder much longer, because as we speak mini PCs with that exact APU are already being tested. UA-camr ETA PRIME has been testing with exclusive access to a prototype unit of the Phoenix Edge Z1.
Could this open source hardware development and specific device on demand project be also supported via indiegogo as well? I mean a lot of budget handheld gaming pcs seem to have started sort of this way.
I've considered options like this with the last few projects, but with only one person working on it who also has a full time job and young kids, I didn't want to commit myself to having to produce X number of units as my spare time is pretty limited. IMO There's enough commercial units out there already to keep anyone that wants to just buy one happy, I'd rather contribute something that people with all sizes of budgets can enjoy!
I don't think I can share pictures here but it's pretty much exactly the size of the steam deck purely by coincidence. Whilst designing I just laid all the components out in the smallest package I could manage and that's about the size it ended up!
I had a quick google and it does look like a NUC form factor from the pictures but I can't say for sure. Maybe contact the manufacturer and ask for overall dimensions of the mainboard to know if it's the same or wider than a NUC. If it's wider, you'll have to stretch the housing out width-wise in order to fit it because there is pretty much no spare room inside.
@@cncdan I did a scale measurement of the ser5 mobo, it shows 99mmx111mm, I think a nuc is around 100mm*100mm, the ser5 might be a good option due to price/performance, I tried to link the image but youtube removes it, I'll tinker with the print file diamentions.
@@yobb89 depending on how much stuff is mounted towards the outside of the PCB, you may just get away with that. You'd have to sit the rear of the two batteries off to the side a little compared to the bottom ones but you might just get it
Great Job man but your NucDeck can in no way compete against a Steam Deck performance and battery wise. Intel Chips is way too low end to get play any recent games, plus price. 400 bucks is a tough one to beat. But you’re really are a mad lad! Mad props to you, the result is astonishing nevertheless. Especially later videos. Making the buttons was so epic!!
Thanks! Yeah I realise it's a tough sell compared to the steamdeck. Honestly if the Steam deck was available officially in Australia on launch day I probably wouldn't have even bothered starting this project. When I first started planning this the only handheld windows devices around were a couple of the earlier GPD handhelds so there wasn't much to compete with. Obviously there's a huge number of devices out there now to choose from. I did design it so the computer section is sort of "modular" so I'm aiming to be able to drop a much newer PC in once the project is complete!
Small tip: If you have an RTX graphics card, you might wanna try out the eye-focus utility of NVIDIA Broadcast when you are reading your scripts. That might reduce the feeling that you are just reading a script and make the video feel more natural (no guarantee though - just an idea)
Yep, I believe there are some NUC form factor pc's around that use AMD so that's definitely an option. Even the newer Intel cpu's would be a better option, I just can't justify dropping that sort of money on one yet but the whole idea of this project is to be able to easily give it an upgrade in the future anyway, so it will be a good test!
Thanks! I've been down that road before in the past and it just wasn't worth the time and stress. I figured if I open source it and make some videos about it, I can eventually grow my UA-cam channel and get paid by ad revenue etc! That way the community gets something cool for free and I'm getting something out of all the work I've put in!
I highly suggest trying to run Linux on it if possible, as the overhead for it is substantially lower than that of Windows, so it will run cooler, have better battery life, better performance, and just generally be better. It is often less stable compared to Windows, but in a device where battery life and heat are a concern, it might be worth the trouble.
I did give holoiso a go but I couldn't get it running on this old Intel hardware. I'm happy with Windows for now but I might try Linux again in the future. In my past experience on other machines, it's usually worse for power consumption and heat but it will be interesting to see.
@@cncdan I just know that my idle CPU utilization dropped by, like, 6%. Given that I'm using a hyperthreaded 20-core processor, that is an insane amount of idle processor usage.
@robertcoffey3263 yeah that is impressive! It probably depends on the device in question and how mature the Linux drivers are for it. I tried it on my previous windows handheld with an atom z8350 and got about 1/4th the battery life it got in Windows. I suspect the drivers didn't know how to clock down the CPU at idle.
@@cncdan This is true. I was using a fork of Redhat on an Intel Workstation board with a Xeon processor, so it stands to reason that the driver stack for those parts is very mature. I suspect that modern processors will be more generally compatible with Linux compared to Intel Atom. Atom processors were neat and shockingly low power consumption, but they were the forgotten middle child of the processor world and everyone forgot to include their drivers and optimizations into their OSes.
@robertcoffey3263 yeah I suspect you're right. Once I have this project finished I should have some spare time to take a proper look at my software options!
Haha that would be cool. Too bad they are huge though! Some of the NUC models have thunderbolt though so you could build one with a GPU in a dock for "TV Mode"
@@fliegendermongo sure does! It's not something I've ever tried before but I'm definitely planning on giving it a go once I have a functional unit. Might be a good excuse to upgrade the GPU in my wife's computer so I've got a spare 1660 super 😉
The NUC I'm using is the only one I can guarantee that fits right now, although any should with a bit of work on the back and top covers. Mine is a Nuc7i5. There's a link to the screen and all the other bits you'll need on the GitHub project page
You will be able to run pretty much any generation of NUC in this device. I haven't done any VR before but I imagine you'd really need something with a pretty good GPU to get a high enough FPS to make it useable. So really any handheld gaming PC isn't going to be the best choice currently!
@cncdan but I've seen people use the rog ally, and someone tried it out and it worked, even the onexplayer mini ran half life alyx, though im not sure what the frame rate was but the fact that it was completely playable is pretty amazing.
This project is designed to use any 4x4 form factor mini PC (with minor adjustments to the back cover depending on the model). The Intel NUCs are a good candidate as there is a large range of them available and the used ones are relatively cheap. Obviously as they are an Intel product none of them have an AMD APU in them but there are other companies making very similar sized AMD systems so it's definitely possible.
I will probably set it up to dual boot windows/linux eventually. Windows was perfectly adequate to test battery run times and get a rough idea of the games it could handle though and it was pre-installed when I got it so it'll do for now!
Absolutely could do that. Basically anything that's in the "NUC" form factor should be able to fit. I'm just using an older Intel based one for now as I couldn't justify spending so much money on a brand new one to get the project started
Yeah it would be. I picked the NUC because it's a standardised form factor meaning there should be plenty of upgrade options once I have the project done. All of those mini PC's I looked at had little to no documentation and definitely no 3D models available so I would've had to purchase one before I could even start the project
Haven't tried switch emulation on it. It may be able to do it, but it's not going to be able to do a better job than a switch so I figured there's not much point!
That's a good question. I have no experience with star citizen but from my quick Google searches, if the minimum system specs are to be believed I think it may be able to run it. Maybe not brilliantly but I think it would probably be playable!
If you're talking about the footage in this video? I can only assume you meant tomb raider? You're right, it doesn't look the smoothest here but I didn't have a frame rate counter running at the time so I can only judge by feel and to me, the gameplay felt fine. The NUC I used in this project was a bit underpowered which is why I switched over to a newer Ryzen 7 based mini pc for my next project!
Because the OS really has nothing to do with the project. All the hardware and software I'm designing is completely independant of which OS you choose to run. I did give HoloISO a go as I was keen to avoid some of the windows garbage when it comes to setting up games, but unfortunately the driver support just isn't there for this older NUC. Plus most of the games I'm interested in running are windows based anyway so not having to go through a compatibility layer is at least a small benefit. If you just wanted it to be a console emulation machine there's plenty of Linux versions that would work perfectly on it!
Finally.. youtube recommended something good. ❤
Amen brother!
Yes bro ❤
Love the idea of an open source portable console with easy to source parts
YEAH JUST LIKE THE STEAMDECK BUT YEAH THIS GUYS COOL
I actually think this is what valve wanted! This is great!
yup i liked the one that used the framework motherboards not because it was framework but because the shape of those boards remains somewhat consistant from generation to generation and you can purchase the motherboards standalone so upgrades would be relativley simple
but nucs would also work as apart from skullcanyons they remain somewhat the same size
This man is literally doing Gods work. He deserves 100,000 views, and 10x that in subscribers. Open source handhelds are the way to go
Dont use the name of the Lord in vain, you dont know what you talking about
we will watch your career with great interest.
This is absolutely fantastic and you did a great job making this video and explanation of your process/outcomes. Keep it up!
Thanks! Will do!
@@cncdan If only you released this project back in 2016-2019.
It just makes it a "fun project" when looking at GPD Win-2, and basically too overpriced when we see the release of the Valve SteamDeck, and now a pipe-dream next to the impressive ASUS ROG ALLY Pro.
@@ekinteko Fun project suits me just fine!
I like how DIY handelds are popping up after the steamdeck. Bringing modders and enthusiasts into the handheld space is so much fun!
Glad you found me! But I was in the handheld space well before the steamdeck was a thing! Here's a video of my first windows handheld from back in 2020: ua-cam.com/video/NMrAuhduhks/v-deo.html I was building handhelds before this too but this was the first one I did a video of!
@@cncdan awesome!
Yeah I found you video linked from one that repurposed those framework laptops into handheld
Yeah that video has been getting some serious views, if I can pick up some views from it that's great haha
Mad respect on the diy can do attitude!!!
Every single prototype you showed had some serious polish. Im floored
Dan you're simply superb
Quality delivery and product mate, It was only 2 months ago I remember you talking about this and you have already finished the prototype!
Insane !
Looks great! Love to see these sorts of projects pop up
Man! Google News letter popped up an article about this and your channel! I'm a DIY guy myself! I watch videos like yours and try to give it a shot.
Oh really? Got a link? I wondered why the views went up a bit last night. Glad you're here!
Excellent work Dan.... Looking forward to watching the whole series.
Wow, what a neat project. Super curious to see how this progresses. Keep up the good work! 👍
This is super cool! Great work on this, I’ll be following this one excitedly!
That's super cool! I love the idea of being able to upgrade a handheld as technology progresses instead of replacing it! Great work!
I would definitely like to see more.
Hardworker plus talent at same time... Love you bro... You are very smart
Good luck!
This is awesome
I love this! Keep up the good work!
Cheers, will do!
This is really cool stuff, I wanted to do this but kinda gave up. All the best!
UA-cam threw you into my recommendations, im glad it did! Youve got my support, likes and subscribed! Goodluck
Outstanding work 👍
Cheers!
looks great, subscribed
I don't think your playlist is in episode order, but I'm loving the series so far, seems like a fun system to develop for - all the modern conveniences of developing for Windows, but old enough that optimization still matters. And being able to assume touch and controller support means a lot as well. And, of course, anything that runs on this will run great on the Steam Deck, too. Thanks for the videos!
Thanks! I was unaware of the playlist issue but I've just fixed it now, thanks for pointing it out!
No problem!@@cncdan
Nice!!!
Great work. Looks great 👍
Thanks!
Love the great work!
Thanks!
Awesome! Hope this goes great!
fire
So cool man 😎 I will be watching all your videos now 😅
Thankyou! Hopefully you found the later videos in the series, they definitely got a bit better than this first one!
wow an open source handheld, never thought about open source for hardware.
Yep, hardware can be open source too!
Nuc if you Buc!!! i would buy this Nuc!
Thank you tomshardware, now I found an amazing channel
And thankyou, for watching!
Cool project, hoping it goes well!
Thanks!
This is awesome!
Que gran video, muchas gracias por tus conocimientos, es un excelente video el que subiste, mucho exitos para todos tus proyectos
OKestGamer sent me. super excited to see where this can go
I guarantee your channel is gonna explode from this video
Hope so! If you can, please share the video with anyone you think will be interested to help grow my channel! Thanks! 😁
Yo this is sick
🎉🎉🎉
Dam good stuff mate! Im stupid busy these days but I have a 10th gen nuc I found and fixed so I'd be happy to help with the build any way i can in my spare time.
If there's enough interest I may roll out an early version of the models so that people can do test prints and see how they like it. Just need to find some spare time to knock over the last of the design work first!
@@cncdan legend man I'll keep an eye out.
You are a freakin legend
Seems like a neat idea! Can't wait to see where this goes!
Me too! Hopefully have some more progress updates in the next week or two so stay tuned!
Looking forward to this one mate😮
Me too!
I am looking forward to progress on this build. I have a NUC coming in as well, which I'm using for a spare parts handheld build.
Well I'm gonna try and keep the updates rolling in on this one so stay tuned!
I recon this has far larger implications.
Opensource hardware development with specific devices on demand is a great idea and if combined open-source Linux
the Economics of PC devices may change. Dictated, controlled by passioned communities instead of corporations.
I love this project! I personally wouldn't need that much power and I want to try to make one with a celeron mini pc and see if it can be smaller with better battery life.
If you're referring to the little mini pc sticks, you absolutely can. They use considerably less power (around 5w from memory) so you'd probably only need a quarter of the battery capacity that I've got here. They do barely run windows though so you'll be pretty limited in what you can run. The last PC based one I built was an atom z8350 and I was able to run some PC games up until about the mid 2000's.
LOVE this project, the idea of taking almost any NUC and turning it into a handheld is a fantastic idea.
Current windows needs a 1360 x 768 resolution minimum to function well. It keeps from having to drag windows up because the bottom is cut off.
A 3S battery configuration is good enough to run most of these hardware setups, GPD, One, and others use a 3S config, but they do use a lower power chips.
Just some of my cents and thoughts, and good luck on your work!
Yeah, finding a higher resolution screen is something I want to do in the future. For gaming however I feel that 1024x600 is adequate and I'm planning to run a non-windows UI as much as possible once everything is set up. As for the battery, if I used 3s I'd need to use a boost converter to keep the voltage above the minimum threshold for the NUC so 4s just simplifies things for this project. Anyway, thanks for watching, hopefully I'll have some progress to share again soon!
nice
awesome project! hey do you have TDP control working on this? i think my handheld control panel will work on this older Intel board
No, it's not something I've investigated thoroughly yet. I know there's no options in the bios for tdp adjustments but I can definitely give your software a go
@@cncdan yeah let me know how it goes. In the settings I think you will need MMIO or MMIO+MSR mode for intel tdp changing for it to work
No worries, I'll take a look at it and let you know!
Looks like TDP control works perfectly, thanks! Is there any way to map out controller inputs for navigating the menu? Would be handy to be able to configue inputs for non-standard controllers. I'm going to set up a way to launch the control panel interface from my controller so being able to interact with the menu without having to switch across to mouse mode would be awesome!
Great project!
Thank you!
❤🎉
Mate, love the project, just wondering if you plan/or know of anyone that is selling as a kit? (minus the nuc)
I'm not, and I don't know of anyone else considering it. I'm working on a new and improved version now which should be a little bit easier to turn into a kit. No promises, but I wouldn't mind being able to sell a couple once that design is complete!
@@cncdan thanks mate I will be tuned into that progress. I also haven’t seen a stylus handheld either, for notes
This is amazing
Impressive! - and it looks really good and comfortable to hold.
I'd be interested in using it for emulation of old 8/16 bit games - preferably on Linux. Games that rely heavily on a good D-pad.
So how's to D-pad? Clicky? Mushy? Inbetween? Do you have a link for where to get it?
The plan is for this to be an open sourced project that anyone can build, but I'm a fair way off finished at the moment. The dpad is going to be a very similar design to what I used on my previous project, it involves low pressure tactile switches and a rubber membrane over the top of them to give a nice soft click. I find it works very well on my previous design so I've decided to stick with the existing design with only minor changes cosmetically and to make them easier to manufacture. I'll make sure I show some details of the design in the next video!
That sounds awesome. I'd love to know about D-pad design in general. PSVita is my favorite and I think Sony might have done something like what you describe.
Please consider testing for latency.
I run the Retro Joysticks youtube channel. I guess I should include D-pads :)
I'll have to get my vita out and see how the feel of it compares for you!
Appreciate it :)
When will it be for sale
I wonder if using a laptop with a gtx1070 mobile and a mobile i7 from 2017 as the internals for one of these would be possible to make a truly powerful handhand console with a massive amount of compatibility since it's using nvidia drivers and is built from the ground up to work as a native windows machine. Not that the NUC isn't a native windows machine lol, but the addition of a dedicated gpu to one of these rather than it being an APU would be something to see.
Its definitely something you could do, but it would end up being a much larger device as you need far more battery capacity to support a mobile gpu. I am planning to build a GPU dock eventually so you get much higher performance when docked and still a reasonably portable device to take on the go.
I'm sitting about 5 feet away from a literal pile of EoS'd NUCs I could pick up for almost nothing and drooling at the idea of making a few of these.
Excellent! Sounds like I need to get my act into gear on getting the next stage of the project underway!
for the record that activation overlay on the bottom actually takes up a good amount of gpu to render it on top of things. Linus tech tips showed proof of this.
Can you kindly go in detail with the battery and how u have soldered it?
In this video it was just a 4s battery connected through a watt metre to measure power draw and estimate runtime. Check out the latest video where I fit the actual battery for more information: ua-cam.com/video/nFNw7_WkteA/v-deo.html
I bet minisforum or beelink would be willing to send you a newer ryzen nuc!
One can only dream!
@CNCDan I’ve seen them send out units to pretty small(10k or less) channels, you never know!
@@Vegatablez Well I'll keep working on the videos and hopefully my channel will grow enough that they'll notice me!
Awesome, i just want to know about the motherboard. did you design your self or use any dev boards ?
Since this comment is on the first video, I'll assume you are talking about the NUC since the controller PCB's weren't built yet in this video. The main PC you can see here is an Intel NUC. I didn't design it myself, its an off the shelf mini pc that I've just taken out of its box.
We have to somehow get Linus Tech Tips to pick up on this. I can see this being a project he'd happily look into help funding, or at the very least support!
I think I'd probably need 100x as many subs and views before they took any notice of me!
3:10 RGB will improve FPS 😏
RGB improves EVERYTHING!
Anybody know where I can find a 5-7 inch display that’s 120-160hz refresh rate?
About the screen, do you will use a 7" or a 9" ? LENOVO LEGION GO is on a 9" 16/10 not a 16/9 Full HD 1920x1200 vs 1920x1084
and Lenovo legion go or asus Rog Ally it's a Ryzen Z1. On November 2023 The first Ryzen Z1 Mini PC has been benchmarked, reaches 40W. Ever wondered how the Ryzen Z1 APU that's found in the Asus ROG Ally Z1 and Lenovo Legion Go would fare in a mini PC? You don't have to wonder much longer, because as we speak mini PCs with that exact APU are already being tested. UA-camr ETA PRIME has been testing with exclusive access to a prototype unit of the Phoenix Edge Z1.
I used a 7" display on this one. I'm working on a new version now with an AMD based mini PC and a 16:10, 8" 1280x800 display.
Could this open source hardware development and specific device on demand project be also supported via indiegogo as well?
I mean a lot of budget handheld gaming pcs seem to have started sort of this way.
I've considered options like this with the last few projects, but with only one person working on it who also has a full time job and young kids, I didn't want to commit myself to having to produce X number of units as my spare time is pretty limited. IMO There's enough commercial units out there already to keep anyone that wants to just buy one happy, I'd rather contribute something that people with all sizes of budgets can enjoy!
Gonna need a banana to scale-how wide is this?
Comparing to the 10" steam deck
I don't think I can share pictures here but it's pretty much exactly the size of the steam deck purely by coincidence. Whilst designing I just laid all the components out in the smallest package I could manage and that's about the size it ended up!
how about Chromebox? like i7 8550u available for around $80 US
my mate and i are thinking about making this with a beelink ser5 with amd 5500u ,the mobo is the same height as the intel nuc but a little wider
I had a quick google and it does look like a NUC form factor from the pictures but I can't say for sure. Maybe contact the manufacturer and ask for overall dimensions of the mainboard to know if it's the same or wider than a NUC. If it's wider, you'll have to stretch the housing out width-wise in order to fit it because there is pretty much no spare room inside.
@@cncdan I did a scale measurement of the ser5 mobo, it shows 99mmx111mm, I think a nuc is around 100mm*100mm, the ser5 might be a good option due to price/performance, I tried to link the image but youtube removes it, I'll tinker with the print file diamentions.
@@yobb89 depending on how much stuff is mounted towards the outside of the PCB, you may just get away with that. You'd have to sit the rear of the two batteries off to the side a little compared to the bottom ones but you might just get it
Great Job man but your NucDeck can in no way compete against a Steam Deck performance and battery wise. Intel Chips is way too low end to get play any recent games, plus price. 400 bucks is a tough one to beat. But you’re really are a mad lad! Mad props to you, the result is astonishing nevertheless. Especially later videos. Making the buttons was so epic!!
Thanks! Yeah I realise it's a tough sell compared to the steamdeck. Honestly if the Steam deck was available officially in Australia on launch day I probably wouldn't have even bothered starting this project. When I first started planning this the only handheld windows devices around were a couple of the earlier GPD handhelds so there wasn't much to compete with. Obviously there's a huge number of devices out there now to choose from. I did design it so the computer section is sort of "modular" so I'm aiming to be able to drop a much newer PC in once the project is complete!
Small tip: If you have an RTX graphics card, you might wanna try out the eye-focus utility of NVIDIA Broadcast when you are reading your scripts.
That might reduce the feeling that you are just reading a script and make the video feel more natural (no guarantee though - just an idea)
Yeah I got this sorted in later videos. I did try eye contact but it looked pretty unnatural. I ended up buying a teleprompter.
Can't you use AMD APUs they are efficient and have marginally better graphics?
Yep, I believe there are some NUC form factor pc's around that use AMD so that's definitely an option. Even the newer Intel cpu's would be a better option, I just can't justify dropping that sort of money on one yet but the whole idea of this project is to be able to easily give it an upgrade in the future anyway, so it will be a good test!
Dude just make your own brand, ur too good to not be paid🎉
Thanks! I've been down that road before in the past and it just wasn't worth the time and stress. I figured if I open source it and make some videos about it, I can eventually grow my UA-cam channel and get paid by ad revenue etc! That way the community gets something cool for free and I'm getting something out of all the work I've put in!
I highly suggest trying to run Linux on it if possible, as the overhead for it is substantially lower than that of Windows, so it will run cooler, have better battery life, better performance, and just generally be better. It is often less stable compared to Windows, but in a device where battery life and heat are a concern, it might be worth the trouble.
I did give holoiso a go but I couldn't get it running on this old Intel hardware. I'm happy with Windows for now but I might try Linux again in the future. In my past experience on other machines, it's usually worse for power consumption and heat but it will be interesting to see.
@@cncdan I just know that my idle CPU utilization dropped by, like, 6%. Given that I'm using a hyperthreaded 20-core processor, that is an insane amount of idle processor usage.
@robertcoffey3263 yeah that is impressive! It probably depends on the device in question and how mature the Linux drivers are for it. I tried it on my previous windows handheld with an atom z8350 and got about 1/4th the battery life it got in Windows. I suspect the drivers didn't know how to clock down the CPU at idle.
@@cncdan This is true. I was using a fork of Redhat on an Intel Workstation board with a Xeon processor, so it stands to reason that the driver stack for those parts is very mature. I suspect that modern processors will be more generally compatible with Linux compared to Intel Atom. Atom processors were neat and shockingly low power consumption, but they were the forgotten middle child of the processor world and everyone forgot to include their drivers and optimizations into their OSes.
@robertcoffey3263 yeah I suspect you're right. Once I have this project finished I should have some spare time to take a proper look at my software options!
When NUC Extreme compatible version? 😛
Haha that would be cool. Too bad they are huge though! Some of the NUC models have thunderbolt though so you could build one with a GPU in a dock for "TV Mode"
@@cncdan Doesnt your nuc already have thunderbolt3? I would check that and maybe you could make a 3d printed Dock for egpus. 😊
@@fliegendermongo sure does! It's not something I've ever tried before but I'm definitely planning on giving it a go once I have a functional unit. Might be a good excuse to upgrade the GPU in my wife's computer so I've got a spare 1660 super 😉
Which nuc is the best that's fits now? And screen?
The NUC I'm using is the only one I can guarantee that fits right now, although any should with a bit of work on the back and top covers. Mine is a Nuc7i5. There's a link to the screen and all the other bits you'll need on the GitHub project page
OK Colour me curious. Have a sub ;)
Hi. I'd like to know the model of your cnc please?
It's my own design. I'll probably do a video on it at some stage in the future!
Can you make it powerful enough to run VR games? Say half life alyx? Or something newer?
You will be able to run pretty much any generation of NUC in this device. I haven't done any VR before but I imagine you'd really need something with a pretty good GPU to get a high enough FPS to make it useable. So really any handheld gaming PC isn't going to be the best choice currently!
@cncdan but I've seen people use the rog ally, and someone tried it out and it worked, even the onexplayer mini ran half life alyx, though im not sure what the frame rate was but the fact that it was completely playable is pretty amazing.
Is there any Vega 12 and quad core cpu models
This project is designed to use any 4x4 form factor mini PC (with minor adjustments to the back cover depending on the model). The Intel NUCs are a good candidate as there is a large range of them available and the used ones are relatively cheap. Obviously as they are an Intel product none of them have an AMD APU in them but there are other companies making very similar sized AMD systems so it's definitely possible.
Cool project love the idea didnt like the windows but seriously good job
I will probably set it up to dual boot windows/linux eventually. Windows was perfectly adequate to test battery run times and get a rough idea of the games it could handle though and it was pre-installed when I got it so it'll do for now!
@@cncdan of course make sense keep up the good work
why not an amd embedded soc ?
Absolutely could do that. Basically anything that's in the "NUC" form factor should be able to fit. I'm just using an older Intel based one for now as I couldn't justify spending so much money on a brand new one to get the project started
The xulu xr1 mini pc would work great in this
Yeah it would be. I picked the NUC because it's a standardised form factor meaning there should be plenty of upgrade options once I have the project done. All of those mini PC's I looked at had little to no documentation and definitely no 3D models available so I would've had to purchase one before I could even start the project
@@cncdan yeah i get that
what about emulation of switch games through emulator like yuzu ? There is also N100 or better AMD ryzen 7 5800H cpu TRIGKEY
Haven't tried switch emulation on it. It may be able to do it, but it's not going to be able to do a better job than a switch so I figured there's not much point!
What’s the gpu and vram on this
It's just the NUCs built in IGPU, so it's an Intel iris plus 640.
How would this manage Star Citizen?
That's a good question. I have no experience with star citizen but from my quick Google searches, if the minimum system specs are to be believed I think it may be able to run it. Maybe not brilliantly but I think it would probably be playable!
Rad
why do some of the games look like they run at 30fps?
If you're talking about the footage in this video? I can only assume you meant tomb raider? You're right, it doesn't look the smoothest here but I didn't have a frame rate counter running at the time so I can only judge by feel and to me, the gameplay felt fine. The NUC I used in this project was a bit underpowered which is why I switched over to a newer Ryzen 7 based mini pc for my next project!
based on the bored size you could prob use a ryzen apu nice
Yep, the aim is anything that's a NUC form factor should be able to be fitted with little modification required.
I like how u think 🤔
Can it play wii u or ps5 games
Wii U would be close. As far as I'm aware there is no ps5 emulator yet and even if there was, this PC wouldn't be up to running it.
NucDeck? So like... the Neck?
What des IT cost
good design, but I can't understand why use a closed source OS with such a competent and shiny open source design
Because the OS really has nothing to do with the project. All the hardware and software I'm designing is completely independant of which OS you choose to run. I did give HoloISO a go as I was keen to avoid some of the windows garbage when it comes to setting up games, but unfortunately the driver support just isn't there for this older NUC. Plus most of the games I'm interested in running are windows based anyway so not having to go through a compatibility layer is at least a small benefit. If you just wanted it to be a console emulation machine there's plenty of Linux versions that would work perfectly on it!
Put an MXM card gtx1080 into it😉
And watch the battery go flat in 10 minutes as the plastic housing melts around it 🤣 Would be cool though!
Please make a tutorial
👍