The SMACH Z gaming handheld has switched to AMD Ryzen & Vega, pre-orders start soon

"SMACH OS Linux"
That ought to be interesting to see...

I wish them luck, but I think the SMACH Z is going to be dead on arrival. The price is just WAY too high for a handheld.

I wish them luck, but I think the SMACH Z is going to be dead on arrival. The price is just WAY too high for a handheld.

Yeah, I don't get it, either.
At that price, why not buy a DS and quite some games that were actually made to be played on a tiny screen?

If I watched the video I'd probably know how it's pronounced, but I'm a reader more than a watcher, and from a reader's perspective, the name hits my ear like a dead flounder: cold and flat.

How is that pronounced? Is it "Smach" like "smock?" or is it pronounced "Smach" like "match," only with an "S" in front? or is it pronounced like "smack?" My wife point out that it could also be pronounced "Smash," so there's that, too.


That's a lot of uncertainty out of the gate, certainly more than I'm willing to pony up $700 to $900 for.

If I watched the video I'd probably know how it's pronounced

No...no, you still wouldn't. :D

I wish them luck, but I think the SMACH Z is going to be dead on arrival. The price is just WAY too high for a handheld.

Yeah, I don't get it, either.
At that price, why not buy a DS and quite some games that were actually made to be played on a tiny screen?

At that price you could buy 2 Nintendo Switches and still have $100 left over.

I guess the argument for the SMACH Z is that you have access to all your Steam games on the go without having to pay for them again. That's definitely a plus, but the price of the unit itself is so prohibitive that I don't think it matters.

Stupidly expensive

Smach Z is a scam. A number of videos on youtube showing the shady things they have done.

I wish them luck, but I think the SMACH Z is going to be dead on arrival. The price is just WAY too high for a handheld.

The price is the same as the GPD-WIN2. Lower even if you order now from indiegogo. The SoC specs are way above the GPD-WIN2.
The difference is that the GPD-WIN2 is an openpandora on steroids: keyboard, x-box type game controller.
The SMACH-Z only has the steam controller like controllers. If they really work like steam controllers, it is well worth the difference.
The intel SoC in the GPD-WIN has very bad (intel) support for linux. The GPD-WIN2 seems to be more pc-like and less embedded, so I have higher hopes for that. It's easier to run linux on an ARM than on a GPD-WIN :-).
I assume (without fact checking) that the AMD support is better for linux.

I don't understand, the pre order is 300€. It's the same price as the nintendo switch, but you can play witcher 3 or GTA V (if you use the windows version). If you don't use the windows version I don't see why would you buy a nintendo switch (the os is also a spyware).
In the case of linux, well it's a small gaming pc for 300€.

I guess the pro version will handle those game a bit better, but not by a big margin.

Are the pre order prices really that different from the final prices?

looks like its a scam...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d00I_3THLBQ

[quote=Ardje]

The intel SoC in the GPD-WIN has very bad (intel) support for linux. The GPD-WIN2 seems to be more pc-like and less embedded, so I have higher hopes for that. It's easier to run linux on an ARM than on a GPD-WIN :-).
I assume (without fact checking) that the AMD support is better for linux.

if you run on arm you lose all your steam games, what is the point?
there arent many games for linux arm, the only ones i know are html5 games or android games.

plus, make a good controller is expensive.
valve spent a lot of money on steam controller, MS blowed up 100 milions on xbox elite controller (well , to be fair it costs 150 dollars)
i dont think an kickstarter company can do it

No pre-orders, but I'd be interested in buying one when it will come out.

How is that pronounced? Is it "Smach" like "smock?" or is it pronounced "Smach" like "match," only with an "S" in front? or is it pronounced like "smack?" My wife point out that it could also be pronounced "Smash," so there's that, too.

It's "steam machine" reduced, so, probably, "smash".

I wish them luck, but I think the SMACH Z is going to be dead on arrival. The price is just WAY too high for a handheld.

Why should the form factor make it cheap? For Ryzen + Vega it's expected to be expensive.

I wish them luck, but I think the SMACH Z is going to be dead on arrival. The price is just WAY too high for a handheld.

The price is the same as the GPD-WIN2. Lower even if you order now from indiegogo. The SoC specs are way above the GPD-WIN2.
The difference is that the GPD-WIN2 is an openpandora on steroids: keyboard, x-box type game controller.
The SMACH-Z only has the steam controller like controllers. If they really work like steam controllers, it is well worth the difference.
The intel SoC in the GPD-WIN has very bad (intel) support for linux. The GPD-WIN2 seems to be more pc-like and less embedded, so I have higher hopes for that. It's easier to run linux on an ARM than on a GPD-WIN :-).
I assume (without fact checking) that the AMD support is better for linux.

While I also think the price of both is way too high (but we seem to be in a general high price phase for GPU and DDR4 RAM...), what you are saying about the GPD-Win(2) is non-sense. Intel has excellent Linux support (especially compared to anything ARM) and the GPD-Win runs Linux fine (I have one). In fact with Vulkan support emulators run better on Linux than with Win10 with it.

Regarding the SMACHZ... other than the price it seems like a nice machine. And with the display port out (and a nice docking station?) it would be probably be powerful enough to act as a living room media-center and stationary steam machine also. However the form-factor really isn't all that convenient for on the go... reminds me of the Lynx which was also not really portable (shoooort battery life back then ;) ).


Last edited by Julius on 5 March 2018 at 2:14 pm UTC

[quote=elmapul]

The intel SoC in the GPD-WIN has very bad (intel) support for linux. The GPD-WIN2 seems to be more pc-like and less embedded, so I have higher hopes for that. It's easier to run linux on an ARM than on a GPD-WIN :-).
I assume (without fact checking) that the AMD support is better for linux.

if you run on arm you lose all your steam games, what is the point?

The point is, is that it is a hell of a lot of work to get the GPD-WIN to work (despite Hans de Goede putting an enormous amount of work in it), let alone play games.
The specific intel SoC was not intended to run Linux and therefore all support and work arounds for it is rather new. It really is not a generic PC.
But that intel SoC is at least much more of a PC than their CE5315 and equivalents... Try to compile a kernel for that.
Anyway: as I said: it's easier to run linux on ARM than it is to run it on that specific intel SoC with full usable hardware support. And for the thing I was trying to do (run Mixxx), it probably is what I will do, as an ARM can still outperform that SoC.
The WIN2 however seems to be more PC like, and hence probably has less things to work around.
Anyway: iff my odroid had opengl support (and not gles only), it might have been faster than the WIN using qemu or eltechs exagear.

[quote=Ardje]

The intel SoC in the GPD-WIN has very bad (intel) support for linux. The GPD-WIN2 seems to be more pc-like and less embedded, so I have higher hopes for that. It's easier to run linux on an ARM than on a GPD-WIN :-).
I assume (without fact checking) that the AMD support is better for linux.

if you run on arm you lose all your steam games, what is the point?

The point is, is that it is a hell of a lot of work to get the GPD-WIN to work (despite Hans de Goede putting an enormous amount of work in it), let alone play games.
The specific intel SoC was not intended to run Linux and therefore all support and work arounds for it is rather new. It really is not a generic PC.
But that intel SoC is at least much more of a PC than their CE5315 and equivalents... Try to compile a kernel for that.
Anyway: as I said: it's easier to run linux on ARM than it is to run it on that specific intel SoC with full usable hardware support. And for the thing I was trying to do (run Mixxx), it probably is what I will do, as an ARM can still outperform that SoC.
The WIN2 however seems to be more PC like, and hence probably has less things to work around.
Anyway: iff my odroid had opengl support (and not gles only), it might have been faster than the WIN using qemu or eltechs exagear.

While it is a bit of work to get Linux to run on the GPD-Win... at least it is possible, which can't be said for the majority of ARM SoCs. What are you comparing it too? A RasberyPI? Because almost anything other than that is definitly harder to get running with Linux than a GPD-Win.
Edit: The reason the Odroid is easier is because the supplier makes custom-disk images with Ubuntu for it (with old custom kernels)... but based on my experience with the Odroid-X2 they quite quickly reach end-of-life and then you are more or less on your own... while the GPD-Win (by now) has pretty much main-stream kernel support.


Last edited by Julius on 5 March 2018 at 2:18 pm UTC

I will wait to see how the whole thing develops but I'm very interested in the project.

Yeah, I don't get it, either.
At that price, why not buy a DS and quite some games that were actually made to be played on a tiny screen?

Yeah, I was gonna say you could get a 3DS and a Switch!