I turned this Beelink SEi 12 mini PC into a Steam Machine. And it worked.
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
- I've got something fun to show you today! This is the Beelink SEi 12 mini PC. Beelink sent this to me to review and it's a little beast of a machine. And when I say little, I mean it. I've got several mini PCs around the house and this is by far the smallest. At like, 80% the size of the smallest competitor, it's perfect for a variety of use cases.
It's got a 10 Core Intel Core i7-126550H Processor, 32 GB of RAM, a 500GB SSD, Wifi 6, and a gigabit NIC. I installed ChimeraOS on this bad boy and it works pretty well... but it's not without its quirks.
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-- Chapters --
00:00 - I've got something fun to show you...
00:33 - Specifications
01:08 - Form Factor & IO
02:22 - Installing ChimeraOS
03:16 - Quirk #1: WiFi
04:00 - Quirk #2: HDR
04:09 - Quirk #3: Variable Refresh Rate introduces lag
04:28 - Quirk #4: Sleep and resume issues
04:45 - Quirk #5: No audio without using desktop settings
05:59 - Performance
06:19 - Linux Bonus: Steam Deck SD Card!
06:33 - Emulation on the SEi12
#beelink #intel #chimeraos #steammachine - Hry
Affiliate links:
❯ Beelink SEi 12: amzn.to/3vVN473
❯ Gulikit KK3 Max controller amzn.to/493jB9g
❯ Gulikit Bluetooth Controller Adapter: amzn.to/48YFd6T
❯ Steam Deck accessories: amzn.to/3qLrxbh
❯ SanDisk 1 TB card: amzn.to/3z8mMfH
❯ Steam Deck Dock: amzn.to/3PDjgkt
❯ Our Production Equipment: amzn.to/3RdeHOL
❯ Merchandise: gardinerbryant.com
I wonder how those Librem linux phones going, why no new videos on them?
Man the Beelink SER5 probably would've been a better choice purely because it's literally this exact mini PC but with a Ryzen 5 5560u chip in it.
Like maybe the AMD chip would've worked better for SteamOS but at the same time I don't really know that much
That's some nice Aquatic Ambience in the background :)
Donkey Kong Country - Aquatic Ambience
I just ordered a Minisforum EM780 after seeing some good reviews of it, it's even smaller than the SEi 12 and I'm looking forward to trying ChimeraOS on it
still using my old steamlink thing that i got for like $5 when steam stopped making them to just remote from my desktop. thing is a beast lol
That Ape Escape bgm brings back fond memories. I have a Trigkey mini pc with a 5800H so I might give Chimera a try. I've been using BigLinux on my main pc for over a year now and I love it. I've wanted to try Chimera for a while as I recently bought a steamdeck oled so it will be interesting to see what a similar os is like on a desktop pc. Great video as usual!
Nice background Music, it gives me chills, very very nostalgic... Also, great video!
I would recognize Donkey Kong Country 2 music anywhere. The Beelink GTR7 looks good to me for like a HTPC that would double as an encoding machine, but that's a bit of coin for that.
i just bought my mom an N100 intel mini pc. perfect for her. i was trying to get the 5600u one but honestly it was another 120$ and at best she plays facebook games. so shes good
Have you tried Bazzite, particularly the GNOME edition? I run it on my steam deck and it's a really cool well-polished immutable experience for gaming.
I don't plan to get this mini PC, but I do plan to get a Erying M-ITX Motherboard with a I5-12500H for a project PC (it has the same Xe iGPU). They have a 12650H model too, but they want $100 more so I'll stick to this one. I have not hardly seen any video of someone actually using the Xe GPU on any SteamOS variant so I'm glad to see it.
I've seen a video of someone that used intel graphics for everything including Gamescope while the game itself ran on a Nvidia thru ChimeraOS with a "DRI_PRIME=1 %command%" in the launch options (his laptop with a Vulkan compatible Intel iGPU & RTX 2070M) so I plan to replicate that with this motherboard and my RTX 4060. If it dose not work out I can just turn it into a retro gaming SteamOS rig for my indie/classic PC titles (and emulators).
BTW I can not post a link to the video I saw (YT keeps auto deleting due to link) so I'm say the title of the video is "Use iGPU for Gamescope and Nvidia for the games on ChimeraOS".
so cool!
I love mine. It works perfectly with my GeForce Now subscription. I'm done trying to keep up. This is my happy medium.
I have a similar BeLink SER 6 Pro with the Ryzen 7735 and it plays every game I throw at it. I run Linux (Ubuntu or Manjaro usually) on my laptops, but I chose a hacked, shrunk down Windows 11 OS on the miniPC. I considered setting up a SteamOS-like Linux but the hacked Windows installer provided a decent UI and total game compatibility.
If anyone is looking to do this I recommend going with the Beelink SER series rather than the SEi series because ChimeraOS (or Bazzite) are more compatible and have more performance on AMD Ryzen processors due to shared architecture with the Steam Deck
I tried Chimera on a few nucs several months ago and always had a bug where I'd have to log in to Steam again after a reboot. Was setting up as a Steam Link from my deck, but that bug made it unusable.
Might try again
If I didn't have a steam deck and a modern PC I would def consider getting something like this. Unfortunately for me it falls under the "unnecessary purchases" category. It's still cool though!
Has anyone found Intel v AMD working better on ChimeraOS one way or the other in terms of drivers and quirkiness?
If you're trying out Steam gaming on different devices, any chance of a video comparing the new competing gaming distros? On top of Chimera OS, I know there's Manjaro Gaming Edition, and something new just came out too.
Kudos on playing Vectorman.
Out of the box the Nobara Steam Deck edition is as easy as it gets
@@Kashim_oDoes that only work on the Steam Deck, or does it work with general hardware?
@@johnknight9150 works with general hardware
What heyywhat o my PC is not a machine..... Oke that donkey Kong background music is awsome
I don't know how it would work on such low power machine like that, but with steam you can enable background processing of shaders in the downloads tab of your settings and that might help I have It enabled on my significantly more powerful desktop and I don't really notice the background processing, but for lower power machines it might be a bit much
Nice mustache Bro. 👏🗿
I'm curious how a Ryzen mini PC would compare against it.
ChimeraOS does state on the download page that Nvidia and Intel GPUs are not supported, so any graphical issues are likely more due tothe lack of AMD GPU onboard.
Bazzite OS is better I found compared to Chinera OS.
I'd love to throw the official SteamOS on my Beelink SER6 Pro.
What i'd love is for Steam to also add things like streaming webapps to the steam store.
While i can get linux and windows to do what i want, i think Apple TV and Nvidia Shield are leaving much to be desired to the average person.
While i may be happy using the few working streaming apps, and web apps for ones that dont work properly with linux, my mom wouldnt be able to navigate the OS to get these services working.
I had hoped Plex would allow for an aggregate launcher for linux/windows that would be easy enough for most people to use, but these efforts seems to have stalled.
Who knows, maybe we'll get a switch 2 and Shield TV Pro 2025 before Valve integrates something like this, but while thats fine with most people, i feel like it will quench the desire to develop an aggregate launcher for SteamOS or Linux.
Honestly while I love the idea of projects like this, I've come to believe that these mini PCs just can't deliver the kind of performance you'd need for even pixely indie games. In my experience they're hardly powerful enough to run office applications and they run hot as hell. The only use case I can see for them are headless servers you want to be completely invisible behind a wardrobe or something.
I did order a $350 Beelink off Amazon 2 years ago, it was on the way back within hours. Not only was the WiFi spotty as hell but the integrated GPU it had was so weak that regular GUI animations in Linux Mint were choppy. So if you want one regardless, spend the 30 bucks on a better WiFi card and antenna.
But my recommendation for a smaller, non-handheld device for actual gaming is to spend the extra money to build an mITX computer with a dedicated GPU, or at least an AMD 3D one. It's not quite as small, but you can find cases that're the size of half a shoe box.
If the mITX solution is too expensive just get a Raspberry Pi 5, it emulates up to some Gamecube titles no problem, or buy a used Nintendo Wii for 30 bucks and softmod it.
Maybe I missed it but not sure why you didn't just go with an AMD mini with ChimeraOS
Because they sent me this one. Lol
Great video, but there's too many quirks and glaring issues for someone to not just save up for a steam deck :p
Come on Bro. I like your content but please don't exaggerate its size, It is exactly the same as other beelink ser series. Nice Video though. Thanks for promoting Chimera OS they're doing a lot of work and developing on top of Steam client and adding more hardware support.
I don't se this pc as a good fit for making a steam machine for your tv. Maybe if you only play old games, but if you would like to play something like doom etarnal you get at mini pc with the Ryzen 7480hs or similar to have a chance at playing games in a reasonable framerate.
I wish valve would release steam box, 4k/60fps capable, zen 3 or higher, 8c/16t, 16 GB ddr4, and with 16 GB RDNA3+ w/256bit memory width, 2,5 eithernet. 4 to 6 USB ports and Running steam os. So can use all my ATS devices.
With ms prob ending win10 support soon. I hate Win10 will not touch win 11 with 20ft pole. The launch with steam box or steam consoles would help push steam os as standard OS for pc desktop. These tiny mini PCs are ok, but they all gpu performance issue Cus they using system DDR5 memory.
@@monki_sudo
Hi, I already have gaming pc I’ll Built, (2700x/16GB/gtx 1080ti,) but if Valve put out there own steam box, it will help push steam os out to desktop and other devices.
Intel base mini PCs are good for GPU transcoding of video content and not for gaming. You should of gotten an AMD one with RDNA 3 if you wanted to game.
i7-126550H ? Intel confuses me enough with their naming. You're not helping. Thanks for the video.
Needs more banana for scale
6:41 so basically like steam deck
You are a Linux guy and you don't know that you could have a SteamBox with ChimeraOS?
Should I share with you the AMD secret?
😅😅
Don't se this pc as a good fit to play games on your tv. Maybe if u ONLY play older games. But if u would like to play doom etarnal etc you should get a pc with something like the Ryzen 7400
$512 bucks though!
Sounds like there are too many issues with this way of doing things.