Intel NUC 13 Pro Mini PC Running Linux: Gaming

Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer first-person shooter game developed and published by Valve. The game received acclaim for its art direction, gameplay, humor, and use of character in a multiplayer-only game.

For many Mini PCs with integrated graphics, Team Fortress 2 can be taxing. For example, with the onboard graphics of the i5-10400, we saw the machine produce a credible frames per second but things like particle effects and such like do drop the frame rate.

However, on the NUC, the game was beautifully fluid even in the most chaotic scenes.

DOTA 2

DOTA 2 is a popular free game available for Linux. This action/strategy game is touted as the most-played game on Steam. This game is extremely graphical intensive and really needs a dedicated graphics card. Many machines with onboard graphics struggle with this game.

Yet, courtesy of the NUC’s Iris Xe graphics, the NUC handles DOTA 2 with aplomb. We see over 100 FPS even in hectic gameplay with the fastest settings. With the best looking setting, we’re still getting over 55 FPS at 1920×1080.

Contrast that with the onboard graphics of the i5-10400, we see 70-80 FPS on the most taxing scenes with the fastest settings. That’s pretty good. However, ramp up to the best looking settings, and FPS drop to an unplayable 19 FPS. Again this is at 1920×1080.

I cannot test Awesomenauts as its servers went offline in September following the bankruptcy of Ronimo Games, the game’s developer.

Summary

The NUC offers beautifully fluid gameplay for all the games included here, some of which are challenging for machines with older integrated graphics. I’ll test more demanding games in a later article.

Pages in this article:
Page 1 – SuperTuxKart
Page 2 – Retrocycles
Page 3 – Team Fortress 2 / DOTA 2 / Summary

Complete list of articles in this series: