Reuse your old Low Specced PC/broken Laptop for gaming

 

Overview:

• Most people that use computers either for gaming or for browsing, have an old computer or laptop they do not use any more, laying around.
• While older components might not be ideal for modern gaming, they make for excellent emulation machines and the performance might surprise you
• With the right tools and operating system you can transform virtually useless hardware to something you will enjoy using 
• This is not a guide. This is just an idea.

How it happened for me:

My father, being a cook, broke his laptop screen in the kitchen, so i got him a new one (since the old was pretty beat up). The laptop worked fine, though with an external monitor connected, and since it was not needed I figured I would experiment on it.

The laptop's specs were: 

AMD 2500u

8gb RAM

120gb SSD

The first thing I did was to make it more appealing. Of course, this is something that was not needed, but i did it anyway. I removed all the components from the laptop, the broken screen, the shell and everything else I wasn't gonna use. I have a cheap 3d pen, so I made a very funny looking shell for the motherboard, but I still liked it!

Software:

There are many options as to what operating system to use, but as I wanted a console like experience I had two available options, which both can be used exclusively with only a controller once they are setup.

Batocera:

This is an emulation only approach. Batocera is made to run on low powered systems, even if you have 2 or 4 GB of ram. The whole operating system feels lightning fast, even on this hardware. I tested emulation up to PS2, since PS3 or above emulation needs more cores to run smoothly. Except from a few exceptions, I was able to run games on a multiplier. PSX on x5 resolution for 1080p output, and PS2 x4. You have to note, though, that this approach is not easy for a first timer, as finding the bios for the systems and choosing which core to use can be a pain.

 

Bazzite:

This one is in my opinion for just a tad better systems. It is a SteamOS clone, which means it can play full PC games through steam, but also give you the option to emulated games through EmuDeck or other programs. I ended up sticking with this one since I have a big steam library. This CPU/GPU being integrated doesn't have the power to run TripleA games, of course, but for games I like playing on my couch like: Celeste / Hades / 20 minuted till Dawn / Vampire Survivors / Halls of Torment this feels like the perfect setup. I didn't notice any slowdowns during my testing.

 

Extras:

I also tested Batocera with a prebuilt PC equipped with i5 3570 and 4gb of ram. It run great, but, since the integrated graphics on this CPU is under-powered, I was able to run PS2 game on x2 resolution, which was pretty great actually!

Verdict:

Don't let old hardware become e-waste!