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I have a dream of building an UMPC (Ultra-Mobile PC) capable of playing full, high-end PC games, at decent, if not high quality settings. Emphasis on the word "dream", because even if it was possible, I can't pull money out of my arse.

To further fuel my interest in such an item, I began researching small form-factor hardware. I came across the Nvidia ION platform. It's a Pico-ITX form-factor motherboard with built-in Nvidia graphics, sporting an Intel Atom Dual-Core 330 CPU. For those of you who don't know what the hell any of that means, it's a fully functioning computer, slightly larger than a playing card. Just pop on a hard drive, and you have a computer. It's got all kinds of goodies on both the Nvidia and Intel ends of the spectrum. The Nvidia GPU supports 1080p HD video, DirectX 10, PhysX (among other things), and the Intel Atom 330 is a Hyperthreaded Dual-Core processor. Considering the size of the platform, that's fucking incredible.

Perfect for a high-powered UMPC.

Just slap on a Toshiba 250GB 1.8" hard drive, add any ol' UMPC-sized battery capable of supporting the fairly low power consumption of the system, and the only thing you're missing are the peripherals. Keyboard, monitor, etc. Since the idea really is to have high-end gaming in your pocket, I'm thinking slightly-larger-than-PSP sized stuff.

Another thing I looked into was OnLive. OnLive is, in very simple terms, a gaming service that allows you to play high-end PC games at high-quality settings without demanding much from your system. It does this by bouncing information between you and their servers, so that your computer is only rendering a real time, compressed video. You're essentially playing a video. There's other advantages to this, such as not really having to download or install anything other than the software for OnLive itself. Now, there's already video proof of the ION platform playing COD4 on a fairly large monitor, in full screen, and that means at a fairly large resolution. With this, one can assume that it would be all too easy for the ION platform to run high-end games with high quality settings turned on, through OnLive, on a UMPC-sized monitor.

With the research I have done, I feel that I can safely say... "Yes, a pocket-sized UMPC capable of playing high-end PC games is possible."

And now, I leave you with some MSPaint concept diagram goodness.


EDIT: Updated diagram.

Wow, I'd buy one.

I looked up the ION, and it seems to be running at 1.6GHz, dual core, which I'm not sure would run some of the newer games on high. It would probably run them on medium.

Still, for $189 it's a good deal. Especially for the size.

I'd recommend you stay away from OnLive. If you're making an UMPC, needing to be connected to the internet is obviously a horrible drawback. It basically defeats the purpose. Also, the resolution for OnLive is standard resolution, which is about 720×576, but that probably won't matter on a small screen.

I haven't done too much research on the ION, but try to get USB slots in the UMPC. Would be good to have for a mouse or CD-Drive.

ive looked into the micro ITX boards but not so much into the pico ITX ...

I was thinking about designing a in-dash computer about 4 years ago capable of accessing local wifi for communication with my home's network ... but never got around to it due to money and the technical difficulties of finding a cheap, small, and vibration resistant HD ...

However, i have no idea what capability these boards would have for high end gaming ... but my guess would be "not good"

I reccomend buying a slightly better processor if there is one available that is the right size.

Might I suggest, as I have many times before, newegg.com

EDIT: also, the hard drive has to be solid state, spinning ones would be too easily broken with the use you are planning, but the solid state ones can be pricy, techreport.com lists deals as it sees them multiple times a day on most computer innards, check the "storage" section up at the top of the page.

@Big Cheese:
The ION reference design that Nvidia exclusively released, if I remember correctly, has at least one USB port. I also saw a video of a live demonstration at some kind of conference in which it was running CoD4 very well. Ar a fairly large resolution, at that.

As for OnLive, it would still be very useful for when you are able to connect. It's still a fully functional computer, so it depends on whatever you decide to do. You could have Steam on there as well.

@Assaultman:
The in-dash Wifi idea sounds neat. I'm not really expecting my idea to go anywhere other than the pile of other ideas I have...
As for the performance of this particular board, again, there's a video of the ION reference platform running CoD4 well, at a moderately high resolution.

@Dudeman:
I'm not sure how much the ION system can handle as far as processors go, but it has to be an Atom. I'm not entirely sure, but I think the Dual-Core 330 is the best Atom processor out right now. I'll have to look into it.

I looked into 1.8" SSDs, looks like they are/will be available with up to 512GB of storage.
~~~

I also forgot to mention there would be right and left triggers, mapped to left and right mouse click by default. I should probably put that on the diagram. o_o

I think that your biggest issue that you will encounter is trying to find the money to fund this project of yours ...

That was definitely mine anyways ...

Yep.

Assaultman67 wrote:I think that your biggest issue that you will encounter is trying to find the money to fund this project of yours

And there lies the problem to every good idea.

Reminds me of this. http://openpandora.org/

That's actually pretty neat. Perhaps I can take some examples from them. I'd like to know how they got the project off the ground.