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Not sure about that Atom, it's ultra low powered so you'd be relying on hardware accelerated video decoding, and I have no idea if the built-in graphics chip supports it (Google says maybe?).

I think this would be a perfect use case for the AMD Athlon 200GE, a very cheap but still quite fast dual core CPU with a fairly capable graphics chip. You could build such a system for about $150, the only downside is that it would be desktop sized. Building a small system would be more expensive, about $250 with the AsRock Deskmini A300 (bought that one recently and can definitely recommend it).

Intel NUCs are also a great option for this, like this one. The CPU and graphics are like 5x slower than the 200GE, but it should work fine for your use case. This will cost about $200 so I feel like AMD is a better option.

Sure, basically Steam allows for moving the mouse back and forth between the main display and the extended desktop on one client display. All you need is a second display, either real, a dummy adapter (e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Headless-Display-Emulator-Headless-1920x1080-generation/dp/B06XT1Z9TF) or a virtual (-> spacedesk). Once Windows shows the display, you can use Steam streaming to connect to the machine and scroll over to the second display even if only one monitor is attached to the client. Or you can configure Parsec (which doesn't support seamless switching) to stream only from the second display.

If you leave it at that, you'll run into input issues rather sooner than later as it's the same user / account. A few games can be played with a controller while somebody else works on the 2nd display, but it's a rather clunky way to handle this. You mentioned wanting to use two accounts at the same time and that's a much more elegant solution -

This is possible with Aster. It lets you assign a monitor and input devices to a another user on the same machine. Once at least a display is assigned to the second workspace, you can activate the Aster driver and, after a reboot, start up the other user account from the Aster control panel. I recommend either a real monitor or spacedesk (you can use its HTML5 web app from the same PC to display and control the 2nd workspace in the browser). You can then start Steam on the second workspace and configure it to auto start. Activate Steam streaming on a client device (supports the Steam Link HW, the Android and RPi app at the moment) and the dummy adapter or spacedesk will do the job just fine from here on out.

Notes:

• If you would like to use Steam on both accounts, download Sandboxie (https://www.sandboxie.com/) and follow the tutorial over at https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=775253066 (ignore the input related sections). You can however only stream from one instance at the same time, namely the one that was started first. Also, streaming is user account bound, so you cannot switch between accounts on the fly on the same machine (it will show the connection as active, but never connect).
  
  
• Once started, Steam will be able to continue streaming from the second display / workspace even if spacedesk is disabled. However, you may get error messages when trying to start any games or 3D apps and streaming may fail with a black screen when transitioning between 3D and 2D. You can keep spacedesk running all the time by auto-refreshing the tab every X minutes or just make sure to refresh it manually before a transition.

Good tip! You're correct that you either need an active real display or some sort of virtual display for Parsec to work. If you can't leave a computer monitor turned on all the time, then you can use a headless HDMI Adapter to simulate an active screen. Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Headless-Display-Emulator-Headless-1920x1080-generation/dp/B06XT1Z9TF/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=headless+hdmi&qid=1549937600&s=gateway&sr=8-3

Parsec+Paperspace, GeForce Now, and Xbox in-home Win10 streaming. All work great on my Surface hardwired. This is the adapter I use, works great .


https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B0179UEXOW/ref=yo_ii_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I've been using a dummy adapter in a PC I have mounted in a server rack for over a year and it works great.

Here's one that does 4K and looks like the one I have been using with a 4K remote screen: https://www.amazon.com/Emulator-fit-Headless-Supports-3840x2160-60Hz-3Pack/dp/B0732S6KG4/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=HDMI+Display+emulator+4K&qid=1563158873&s=electronics&sr=1-4

Piggybacking on OP's thread, would a machine like these work?

https://www.amazon.com/Meegopad-Pre-Installed-Activated-Windows-Bluetooth/dp/B00Z8VZ6E6/ref=aag_m_pw_dp?ie=UTF8&m=ABZVBZVO3I42Y

https://www.amazon.com/MeeGoPad-Genuine-Windows10-x5-z8300-Bluetooth/dp/B013DPJ0WC/

They're x86 and run Win10. They're also ~$100, which is great.

My experience was that neither Chrome Remote Desktop nor Parsec functioned properly without a physical display connected. I ended up using this dummy adapter and everything has been great: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XT1Z9TF . I see it's out of stock now, but my impression is there are a hundred equivalent ones.

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Parsec has some very brief documentation about this: https://support.parsecgaming.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002683491-Running-Parsec-On-A-Headless-Gaming-PC-Or-A-Server

You could probably use a dummy plug to deal with this problem if your gpu has multiple outputs.

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I use this one for a headless setup. It works well.

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You'd probably need to tell parsec to use that output in particular.