Tag: PC Gaming

Kamrui Ryzen Mini PC Review

As the computer component market is becoming less and less constrained we’re starting to see A LOT of cheap but nicely performing Mini PCs flood the market. We looked at a couple of “Ace Magician PCs” over the last couple of weeks and my latest review is of another sub-brand of theirs called Kamrui. This particular model is geared for gaming.

The Kamrui Mini PC is priced around $500, which can vary based on promotions, coupon deals, etc. For this price, it’s impressively equipped with a Ryzen 7735HS processor, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and 512GB of NVMe storage. The device is user-friendly when it comes to upgrades. You can easily swap out the NVMe or upgrade the RAM to 64GB. Additionally, there’s a SATA storage area for adding a 2.5-inch notebook hard drive.

In terms of ports, it offers a good variety, including USB-C, USB 3, HDMI outputs, and more. However, the USB-C port isn’t full-speed USB 4, and while it supports video output, it doesn’t support an external GPU. The device also features 2.5 gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth.

Upon booting, I was pleased to find a clean, licensed copy of Windows 11 Pro. The Mini PC has RGB lighting on top, which currently can’t be turned off, but software adjustments are expected soon. There’s a performance rocker switch on the device, allowing users to adjust between performance, auto, and silent modes. This switch slightly adjusts fan noise and performance. While the fan isn’t overly loud, it does run almost constantly.

In terms of performance, web browsing is swift and responsive. However, I did notice minor frame drops when running 4K 60fps videos on YouTube. Video editing on DaVinci Resolve with a 4K 60 video project showed some stuttering, especially with cross dissolves. For live streaming, I tested vmix, which worked decently for 1080p projects but struggled with 4K.

Gaming is where this device truly shines. Games like Red Dead Redemption 2, No Man’s Sky, Doom Eternal, and Ace Combat 7 performed well at 1080p with low settings. Emulation, such as the PS2 game Outrun 2006, also ran smoothly. It performed well in my benchmarks but the 3DMark Stress Test indicated potential performance reduction during extended gaming sessions.

I also tested Linux on the device, using the latest version of Ubuntu. Everything, from audio to video, was recognized and performed well.

In conclusion, the Kamrui Ryzen 7735HS Mini Gaming PC offers good value for its price point, especially considering its RAM and processing power. However, potential buyers should be aware of its limitations, especially during extended gaming sessions. While the quality level I’ve seen from this company so far is good, long-term support for such no-name brand PCs can be a concern. Still, for those seeking a well-performing secondary or primary PC at a low price, this is a solid choice.

Disclosure: Kamrui provided the PC to the channel free of charge for this review.

Downloading Shareware Games in the Early 90’s

I stumbled across a game I used to play in 1992 as a teenager called “Night Raid” the other day. You can find it on the Internet Archive and play it right in your browser!

Night Raid was a take on an old Apple II game called “Sabotage.” The premise of both games is that you’re a lone anti-aircraft gunner fighting off wave up after wave of paratroopers trying to take you out. You earn points with each aircraft and paratrooper hit and lose a point every time the gun is fired.

I hadn’t given the game much thought over the years (I even forgot its name) but the other day something about it popped in my head that sent me down a Google rabbit hole. A few minutes of searching brought me to the Internet Archive and I immediately was back in the 90’s playing a cool shareware game in my browser! I’ve since added it to the DosBox-X instance I run on my Macbook Air.

One of the fun parts about Night Raid was the heavy promotion of the Software Creations Bulletin Board System (BBS) that hosted its download files. During the Intermission scenes a little airplane flies overhead with the phone number for the BBS and the end screen of the game also encourages people to dial in and experience the board’s 50 lines and 6 gigabytes of storage space!

Software Creations was located in Massachusetts and was one of the larger BBS systems at the time. When a hot new shareware game came out you’d hear about it on FidoNet message boards on your local BBS but you’d have to dial out long distance to pick up the files at Software Creations. This was also where I picked up Doom in 1993 right when it was released to the public.

As you can imagine I racked up some major phone bills dialing into that BBS. Night Raid’s zip file came in at around half a megabyte which took roughly 33 minutes to download on the 2400 baud modem I used at the time.

When Doom came out the following year it was a whopping 2 megabytes and took over two hours to download. Unfortunately for me there wasn’t an active shareware gaming user base in my local calling area beyond my buddies and me so long distance was the only way to get at the latest goods.

When I finally had the cash to buy a 14,400 baud modem that same Doom download could be done in 20 minutes. With long distance rates running about 10-15 cents per minute that faster modem offered a huge return on investment!

BBS systems are still out there but are mostly available on the Internet these days via telnet. I did a video on the topic a few years ago if you’d like to get a feel for what it was like on one of those systems.

The whole scene died out pretty quickly once dialup Internet service became available in the mid 90’s. But it’s great to see so many people working to keep not only BBS’ing alive but also some of the networks that connected them together like FidoNet.

The Software Creations BBS was acquired by the “Total Entertainment Network” in 1995 right as BBS’ing gave way to web surfing. Apparently TEN cut their losses as the BBS’ing collapsed and shut the system down only a year or so after the acquisition according to Apogee Software’s Joe Siegler in a 2002 message board post:

It was even more of a surprise to us – as we had our files there. They essentially closed down overnight – we had no warning that it was going to happen.

It would be super cool if one of the Sysops (short for System Operator) had a backup of the BBS somewhere. How awesome would it be to have a time capsule like this accessible via Telnet to experience what the PC gaming scene was like back then.