This has to be temporary. Can run a Word Processr, but not a game?
It should be able to run games. It just won't run games written for Windows.
When you look at some of today’s newest games, if you want to play them at the highest resolution and with all of the graphical goodies turned on, it’s not uncommon to see hardcore gamers spending $1,000 alone on two graphics cards for the best performance (not to mention all of the other components needed for a top-end rig).
This computer will certainly plan less taxing games, but not all of today’s latest (ignorning that it’s running Ubuntu, on which most games won’t work anyway).
You can play web based games, but it doesn't have the horsepower to play graphically intense games.
You can do quite a bit with a VIA C7 at 1.5 GHz if you customize software for it but I doubt that this will get to be a large enough installed user base to justify customizing game software to it when they can develop for game consoles instead.
I believe this is referring to PC versions of popular video games such as Madden Football, Halflife, Halo etc. These games need a lot of computer horsepower and 3-D video cards to run. The same with architechural programs (CAD programs) and sophisticated 3-D graphics modeling programs. Like with the games, it takes processor power in both the machine and video card along with plenty of RAM to render the 3-D objects in these programs with the speed necessary to make them usable.
Two reasons
1) Hardware needed for gaming is far more high end than word processors
2) Not allot of great games for Linux
Games? Bah. That’s what a Playstation or a Wii is for. :-p