Mini PCs with a n100 or used office PCs are probably not that much more expensive and a much better alternative, if your goal is to run windows on them and you don't already have the Raspberry Pi lying around.
this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2025
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Seems like a pointless exercise.
If anything, it would be more interesting to run a full x86 emulator to install Windows 98 / Windows XP to run older games. There are games that work better on native Windows 98 than via compatibility mode on W10.
I just saw a short of someone running an instance of XP on an esp32 chip. Dunno how well it actually worked cause it was just thirty seconds of an error message repeating. But I would love to play some old games with <1 watt of power.
ESP32 seems a bit too weak for both full x86 emulation and running Windows XP. From memory, XP didn't run well on anything less than 500 MHz (quick web search suggests official minimum CPU requirements on release was 233 MHz). I can't imagine Windows XP on a 233 MHz P2 was a good experience.
Lost me at “run windows 11”
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
Fuck no
Windows 11 deserves to die in a dumpster fire.
Win 11 is going to eat up so, so many resources on a low-power device like a Pi.
The pi 5 is a lot more powerful than you’d expect. At least when cooled properly.
I wouldn’t expect a great experience, but as the article says: Older games (like 10-15 years ago) and web games should work ok.
This is definitely more of a because you can, than a primary computing experience.
If they're gonna play 10-15yr old games, why not use a better Windows?
Because windows 10 for arm sucked big balls, and anything else before it was even worse.