SteamOS On A Sub-$400 Gaming System

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The gang a Legit Reviews have put together a gaming system with SteamOS that cost less than $400. Hit the link to see how they did it, what they used and why.

Earlier in the week we showed off the parts we are going to use for a dedicated gaming machine using the SteamOS. The goal of the system was to build a gaming rig that would be comparable to the cost of the current generation of console systems. Since both the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One retail for $400.00, that's what the budget for this gaming system was set at. Today we are going to take a look at the SteamOS and see what it's all about!
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Sounds like Steam Machines are all turning into the hardware version of Daikatana. :D

(Daikatana reference might be too old for some of you young grasshoppers :p)
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Sounds like Steam Machines are all turning into the hardware version of Daikatana. :D

(Daikatana reference might be too old for some of you young grasshoppers :p)
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I haven't thought about that pile of shit in literally YEARS. Thanks for waking me up on a Friday.
 
jwcalla said:
I think even Valve gave up on Steam Machines.
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No, they haven't.

Lately I haven't had much of any complaints about gaming on my Linux Mint laptop. Got very tempted to install it on my desktop PC, but I remembered that Wine sucks anus still. Been mostly playing Borderlands 2 and Legend of Zelda through Higan. Desktop PC is primarily for gaming and big applications and I wouldn't install Linux just yet for that machine. But when my USB driver corrupted I got very tempted to do so.
 
Man, I like the IDEA of a Steam OS, but I do hate Linux. I've tried it quite a few times and nver really had a good experience. It was always requiring me to dive into the command line for some reason, usually a driver, to get it completely set up.

And unless we get games developed for Linux, it's not happening. And with the prominence and power of Direct X, not to mention the lack of Linux gamers, there's not a huge reason for them to do so.
 
I was debating changing my son's PC from Mint to SteamOS and I think I might have even less than $400 into it. Please don't become vaporware right when I'm about to embrace you. :(
 
I use SteamOS on my HTPC with a 7850k APU. Runs great.
Which reminds me, I should probably plug that drive back in and update it. :)
 
I'm really impressed with this.
These guys did a good job, I hope this keeps going.
 
I must be getting cranky in my old age. Part 1 was parts and the build. Looked like some noobs put those parts together.

I always put a stock Intel heatsink on before I put the motherboard in the case, especially with no cutout behind the cpu socket. It's the only way to get a good visual of the plastic pins to make sure they are all the way in. Hearing a click isn't good enough. The black center pin may have clicked down before the two white halves got all the way through the board. Sometimes weird things happen so it's best to have a visual.

Too much clutter with wires and cables even after they say they cleaned it up. Maybe I'm just OCD, but the exhaust fan wires bugged me for one example. They should have rotated that fan so the wires would exit at the top of the fan location. That helps get the wires away from the cpu fan.

Also, back to that heatsink. Usually if you rotate those so the Intel logo is horizontal and readable it works out best. The wires can wrap around the heatsink nicely and then go to the 4 pin connector and you won't have extra slack. Or course always sort of test fit the heatsink. By test fit I mean just hover it over the socket and figure out what would work best. Don't touch the thermal compound down and mess it up. Anyway, that was poorly done on their part.
 
Anyone actually use the in-house streaming feature? That would be the main reason for me to use it at the moment.
 
Modred189 said:
Man, I like the IDEA of a Steam OS, but I do hate Linux. I've tried it quite a few times and nver really had a good experience. It was always requiring me to dive into the command line for some reason, usually a driver, to get it completely set up.

And unless we get games developed for Linux, it's not happening. And with the prominence and power of Direct X, not to mention the lack of Linux gamers, there's not a huge reason for them to do so.
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Don't want to give you crap but how long ago? Nothing stays the same forever, including the Linux experience. Although slow enough to barely notice.
 
jpm100 said:
Don't want to give you crap but how long ago? Nothing stays the same forever, including the Linux experience. Although slow enough to barely notice.
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Fair question! It's been a few years. At some point I just realized that the Windows setup was so flawless that it wasn't worth my time any more.Say, Mid Win7 lifetime, I'd say. I still have nightmares of NDISwrapper or whatever it is to try and finagle wifi drivers.
 
Krenum said:
No Quad Core? Yikes.
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I fail to understand the point of your disgust. There are a lot of game engines that work perfectly fine with dual-core CPUs, the Pentium Anniversary Edition in particular has great IPC and is regarded as a solid overclocker for budget-conscious enthusiasts, plus we're talking about Linux gaming. Further, no one was trying to imply that this setup would give you the most amazing 1080p experience ever for $400.

The fact is that you can build a serviceable Linux gaming machine for very little money (especially when you are not paying an additional $100+ for a Windows license). This is almost exactly what I built for my son's PC (I opted for the 750 Ti because I saved a few bucks getting the Pentium Anniversary Edition combo at MicroCenter) and he's been happily playing games on it for a while now. Transitioning to the SteamOS seems like the next logical step at this point.

There are many benefits of a system like this over the locked-down nature of the consoles, not the least of which is giving him experience with PC hardware and Linux in general. How else is he supposed to grow up [H] :D
 
Modred189 said:
Man, I like the IDEA of a Steam OS, but I do hate Linux. I've tried it quite a few times and nver really had a good experience. It was always requiring me to dive into the command line for some reason, usually a driver, to get it completely set up.

And unless we get games developed for Linux, it's not happening. And with the prominence and power of Direct X, not to mention the lack of Linux gamers, there's not a huge reason for them to do so.
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No issues here.....
 
Modred189 said:
Fair question! It's been a few years. At some point I just realized that the Windows setup was so flawless that it wasn't worth my time any more.Say, Mid Win7 lifetime, I'd say. I still have nightmares of NDISwrapper or whatever it is to try and finagle wifi drivers.
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You've been out of linux for a long time. I have NEVER had to use NDISWRAPPER for wifi and I've been using linux since 07.
 
MrCaffeineX said:
I fail to understand the point of your disgust. There are a lot of game engines that work perfectly fine with dual-core CPUs, the Pentium Anniversary Edition in particular has great IPC and is regarded as a solid overclocker for budget-conscious enthusiasts, plus we're talking about Linux gaming. Further, no one was trying to imply that this setup would give you the most amazing 1080p experience ever for $400.

The fact is that you can build a serviceable Linux gaming machine for very little money (especially when you are not paying an additional $100+ for a Windows license). This is almost exactly what I built for my son's PC (I opted for the 750 Ti because I saved a few bucks getting the Pentium Anniversary Edition combo at MicroCenter) and he's been happily playing games on it for a while now. Transitioning to the SteamOS seems like the next logical step at this point.

There are many benefits of a system like this over the locked-down nature of the consoles, not the least of which is giving him experience with PC hardware and Linux in general. How else is he supposed to grow up [H] :D
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There are some recent benchmarks, reviews, and comparisons that make it pretty clear that lots of games, even recently released ones, don't really perform that much better with four instead of two processor cores. Still though, there's some arguments in favor of quad core chips for future proofing and that kinda thing. I dunno if the added cost now makes the deal more appealing than a cheaper processor now and a potentially inexpensive upgrade later (not that it's easy to predict upgrade costs since there might be new motherboards and RAM or whatnot to consider). Maybe the squishy Cranium can elaborate a little about the indignation over core count?
 
As someone that runs Ubuntu on their laptop, Linux has come a long way.
WINE isn't as bad as it once was, and you can have front ends to make it run games or programs easier then it used to be.
That being said, a Linux pc is about halfway between a Windows pc and a table for me, as soon as a few more kinks get wrinkled out and I can do my video editing I'll be happy to make the switch full time, but until then, MS still has me.
 
In this thread: A bunch of people who tried Linux once about 7 years ago and talk about the problems with that install as if they were still relevant yesterday.

More than half the games in my Steam games list have Linux ports now. Probably closer to 60 or 65%.
 
techrat said:
In this thread: A bunch of people who tried Linux once about 7 years ago and talk about the problems with that install as if they were still relevant yesterday.
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I had problems installing Windows 98SE once a long time ago.
Windows sucks!

:p
 
techrat said:
In this thread: A bunch of people who tried Linux once about 7 years ago and talk about the problems with that install as if they were still relevant yesterday.

Of the 15 games listed today I see in main area of the Steam client, not one runs on Linux.
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All you are doing is reinventing the wheel and further separating the player community onto another proprietary ecosystem... WHY? What can SteamOS do that Windows can't? Whats great about Windows is that everyone already knows it, and it can do everything, so that box is not just another console, but a real computer.

So cripple my computer with a limited OS? No thanks.

If they want a full screen Steam skin on something for an easy couch interface, why don't they just make that? Call it "Steam big picture" or something, and make it so Windows will boot up straight into that interface if you want... oh wait, that already exists:

steam-big-picture.jpg
 
Modred189 said:
Man, I like the IDEA of a Steam OS, but I do hate Linux. I've tried it quite a few times and nver really had a good experience. It was always requiring me to dive into the command line for some reason, usually a driver, to get it completely set up.

And unless we get games developed for Linux, it's not happening. And with the prominence and power of Direct X, not to mention the lack of Linux gamers, there's not a huge reason for them to do so.
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Yeah... If you're intimidated by typing commands into a command-line, instead of clicking on buttons that run commands, linux probably aint right for you. Nothing wrong with that. It isn't right for major percentages of the computer-using population, no matter how much some of us Linux users like to pretend otherwise.

Valve tried to simplify the platform and create a reason for developers to be more eager to develop for linux, but the momentum has pretty much died off. We gotta applaud them for the effort though.
 
mercedes-benz said:
Valve tried to simplify the platform and create a reason for developers to be more eager to develop for linux, but the momentum has pretty much died off. We gotta applaud them for the effort though.
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I think for SteamOS and SteamOS based SteamBoxes to have had a chance there needed to be some significant and tangible gains in Linux market share, which I think a lot of people thought would happen to due to the unpopularity of Windows 8. But Valve's own survey shows Windows 8.x doing significantly better among Steam users than the general PC population and Linux going nowhere fast. With the launch of Windows 10 next year which history predicts should be much better received than Windows 8, it's hard to see how desktop Linux gaming will be on many developers radar.
 
Ducman69 said:
All you are doing is reinventing the wheel and further separating the player community onto another proprietary ecosystem... WHY? What can SteamOS do that Windows can't? Whats great about Windows is that everyone already knows it, and it can do everything, so that box is not just another console, but a real computer.
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Since when did Valve get a license from MS to sell a gaming console w/ Steam trademark that's based on Windows?

This double-standard criticism truly fascinates me. Nobody complains that the Xbox console isn't full-blown Windows, or that Sony built PS4 on top of a BSD. But if Valve makes a console using anything other than off-the-shelf Windows, it's some big federal case.
 
heatlesssun said:
I think for SteamOS and SteamOS based SteamBoxes to have had a chance there needed to be some significant and tangible gains in Linux market share, which I think a lot of people thought would happen to due to the unpopularity of Windows 8. But Valve's own survey shows Windows 8.x doing significantly better among Steam users than the general PC population and Linux going nowhere fast. With the launch of Windows 10 next year which history predicts should be much better received than Windows 8, it's hard to see how desktop Linux gaming will be on many developers radar.
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This is true. I think Valve was one of the few companies in a position to really take advantage of the open window left by Microsoft with Windows 8 (yes, there's a pun in there and yup, it's there on purpose :)). They didn't move quickly enough or really broadcast the service and Windows 10 will probably close the door again.

Though there are quite a few native Linux games in Steam now, I don't think it's gonna stay that way if there isn't a sales incentive that will pay for the added development and patching costs (even if they're not large).

Then again, gaming might be an important factor, but it's really one of the very few things that Linux isn't competitive in (that and there's no domain membership support too) so for home use, it's pretty much ready to go and is as problem free as any Windows OS now.
 
jwcalla said:
Since when did Valve get a license from MS to sell a gaming console w/ Steam trademark that's based on Windows?

This double-standard criticism truly fascinates me. Nobody complains that the Xbox console isn't full-blown Windows, or that Sony built PS4 on top of a BSD. But if Valve makes a console using anything other than off-the-shelf Windows, it's some big federal case.
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1) That the Xbox isn't running a skinned Windows is something I've complained about as idiotic
2) Since when does Valve need to get special permission to install a Windows license with Steam Big Picture preinstalled on it like every other computer manufacturer on the planet? You think HP or Acer or Asus don't load extra software onto Windows computers for which they buy deeply discounted licenses?

All this does is further segment the userbase and create additional work for developers to have to code for yet ANOTHER operating system, while heavily restricting what users are able to do with their HTPC computers.
 
Modred189 said:
Fair question! It's been a few years. At some point I just realized that the Windows setup was so flawless that it wasn't worth my time any more.Say, Mid Win7 lifetime, I'd say. I still have nightmares of NDISwrapper or whatever it is to try and finagle wifi drivers.
Click to expand...

+1

This day an age, I don't have to upgrade hardware nearly as often (thank you consoles?:rolleyes:) and Win7+ is a pretty stable and easy OS to maintain.

I guess for me there are just less and less reasons to use linux. Performance just isn't the limitation it used to be.

I do have an unraid box and a NUC running openelec, for the most part linux has been great as a firmware like OS. Though even then, I am finding windows still is just a faster platform to get things up and running. Mainly because I am more familiar with it.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Then again, gaming might be an important factor, but it's really one of the very few things that Linux isn't competitive in (that and there's no domain membership support too) so for home use, it's pretty much ready to go and is as problem free as any Windows OS now.
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The problem here is though 3rd party support and Linux coming preinstalled on devices. As much as we talk about installing OSes around here, that's far from the norm. And the other issue now would be using Linux on the really cheap devices, lot's with touch, Bluetooth, accelerometers, compasses, GPS. People who spend $100 on something like an HP Stream 7 or $180 on a Nextbook 10.1 hybrid netbook aren't going to spend hours getting those devices to work with Linux and having half the stuff not work and not having anything touch optimized.
 
heatlesssun said:
The problem here is though 3rd party support and Linux coming preinstalled on devices. As much as we talk about installing OSes around here, that's far from the norm. And the other issue now would be using Linux on the really cheap devices, lot's with touch, Bluetooth, accelerometers, compasses, GPS. People who spend $100 on something like an HP Stream 7 or $180 on a Nextbook 10.1 hybrid netbook aren't going to spend hours getting those devices to work with Linux and having half the stuff not work and not having anything touch optimized.
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All those touch-y screen tablet type devices that don't have support yet are probably the biggest reasons why I don't really wanna go buy the Stream 7. Drivers will catch up eventually and things will work great, but it won't happen right away and probably not until after current stuff for sale now is no longer available fur purchase (unless the underlying hardware components are the same from one generation to the next which means driver support will be there out of the box, but I think those parts of tablet hardware are changing too fast for OEMs to be happy with standardized stuff that sticks around for a few generations yet). Bluetooth is pretty much standardized at this point. Linux has had GPS support for like ever, but what vendor's implementation is a whole other thing-y. The other stuff? I dunno and I'm not really interested in trying.

Then there's applications too besides games, but that's even more off topic so Imma leave that alone except to say, "Yup, that's a problem too for a lot of people."
 
Ducman69 said:
1) That the Xbox isn't running a skinned Windows is something I've complained about as idiotic
2) Since when does Valve need to get special permission to install a Windows license with Steam Big Picture preinstalled on it like every other computer manufacturer on the planet? You think HP or Acer or Asus don't load extra software onto Windows computers for which they buy deeply discounted licenses?

All this does is further segment the userbase and create additional work for developers to have to code for yet ANOTHER operating system, while heavily restricting what users are able to do with their HTPC computers.
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Being a "direct" OEM requires a special contract with MS, and I am sure that MS will be setting the terms in such a way that would not be disadvantageous to them.

Alternatively, a company can purchase Windows OEM license copies at a non-discounted price. The license governing that is the System Builder License, which is kind of strict. First, the only software that can be loaded onto the system is that allowed by their "Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit", to ensure that end customers receive an authentic "Out of the Box Windows Experience". My guess is that the ADK does not have a built-in option for Steam Big Picture Mode.

The second fly in the ointment of the System Builder License is the requirement that the computer system is not marketed as anything other than a "general purpose computer", and can not be "designed, marketed, or distributed" as anything other than a "general purpose computing device". Read: Steam Machines can go pound sand.

And the whole thing overlooks the obvious question: why the hell would they even want to wade into the license mine field of distributing a console w/ what would be the operating system of a competing company in that very industry? What if the license terms change a year after their product is out the door?

Not to mention the fact that Windows is 100% closed-source which avails Valve zero opportunity to make any sorts of changes they might want to make.

Valve wants this to be a turn-key product for consumers and not have to worry about supporting Windows problems whenever MS sends out a broken patch or whatever else. And most importantly... hardly anybody wants to buy a gaming console that runs MS Windows. They just want the console. They don't care if it's Linux or Windows or FreeBSD under the hood, and they sure don't want to have to deal with all the admin crap you have to deal with on a desktop system.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
All those touch-y screen tablet type devices that don't have support yet are probably the biggest reasons why I don't really wanna go buy the Stream 7. Drivers will catch up eventually and things will work great, but it won't happen right away and probably not until after current stuff for sale now is no longer available fur purchase (unless the underlying hardware components are the same from one generation to the next which means driver support will be there out of the box, but I think those parts of tablet hardware are changing too fast for OEMs to be happy with standardized stuff that sticks around for a few generations yet). Bluetooth is pretty much standardized at this point. Linux has had GPS support for like ever, but what vendor's implementation is a whole other thing-y. The other stuff? I dunno and I'm not really interested in trying.
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Besides the Stream 7 there's a bevy of other cheap and good Windows devices $200 out this holiday season. I paid $96.51 including taxes and free shipping for the Stream 7. You many care for touch-y screen tablet type devices but at these kinds of prices plenty do and they aren't going to spend a whole lot of time installing Linux on them just to have all the basic functions break.

The winner in my book this season for cheap hardware is the Nextbook 10.1. Touch-y screen and one of the best keyboards for a netbook I've ever used and a brilliant docking solution. Plus a micro HDMI slot on the tablet section, plug it into a 1080P monitor and run MS Office, heck even Libre Office, got that installed just for kicks, Totally sucks on something that works with keyboards and mice and touch though.

CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Then there's applications too besides games, but that's even more off topic so Imma leave that alone except to say, "Yup, that's a problem too for a lot of people."
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Because Windows doesn't have the largest desktop software catalog there is, most of which aren't games?

Whatever the case is, Windows is free on all of these cheap machines. Few are going to spend time and effort on these cheap devices installing a free OS on top of another free OS with at least an order of magnitude better support and software options.
 
SteamOS is in beta, not the simplest to acquire / install and use for a reason. Right now its geared towards people who know what the hell they are doing in Linux and arent afraid of issues or using terminal.

When it is actually launched and ready for consumer use you'll never know its running on Linux just like FireOS, Android or anything else built on top of Linux for consumer use i.e Roku, many other settop boxes etc.

Just like how you never have to fuck with the frameworks behind XB1 or PS4, theyre invisible to average joe end-user. The idea behind SteamOS is to create a seamless platform for a living room console that'll have a storefront for games/apps and offer media center capabilities.

Alot of these complaints are uneducated, ignorant or from people posting where the concept of what SteamOS is going to be goes way over their heads.

Valve will release the official builds for DIY, allow their partners to sell their "machines" and ship the controller when the time is right and when this happens a lot of the naysayers will be eating their words. I for one am incredibly excited and frankly anyone who's already written it/them off is a moron.

Not to mention that just the advent of SteamOS has done incredible things for Linux already especially graphics support from AMD/Intel/nVidia. I think it's a lot of the reason why AMD took a page out of Intels book and is creating a high-performance kernel driver and completely re-engineering their driver stack for GNU/Linux.

/rant
 
TheBlueChanell said:
SteamOS is in beta, not the simplest to acquire / install and use for a reason. Right now its geared towards people who know what the hell they are doing in Linux and arent afraid of issues or using terminal.
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Have you used steamOS? It's dead simple to get and to install. The iso is here
http://repo.steampowered.com/download/
Sure you shouldn't expect it to run perfectly, but I ran the initial release on hardware that was explicitly marked as unsupported and it just dropped me back to a desktop. No command line required.
 
Ducman69 said:
All you are doing is reinventing the wheel and further separating the player community onto another proprietary ecosystem... WHY? What can SteamOS do that Windows can't? Whats great about Windows is that everyone already knows it, and it can do everything, so that box is not just another console, but a real computer.

So cripple my computer with a limited OS? No thanks.

If they want a full screen Steam skin on something for an easy couch interface, why don't they just make that? Call it "Steam big picture" or something, and make it so Windows will boot up straight into that interface if you want... oh wait, that already exists:
Click to expand...
Because Microsoft has had a huge incentive to stifle PC gaming to enhance its Console Efforts.

If Microsoft advances PC gaming they sell you a copy of Windows
If Microsoft holds back PC gaming they sell you a copy of Windows anyway and an Xbox Console.

Which Model do you think Microsoft plays to.

A non-proprietary OS frees PC games from such manipulation. For example DirectX update activity before Microsofts Console Entry was about twice a year. But after I think we had DirectX 9;0c for 5+ years. They've only done a few thing lately because efforts like Mantle and SteamOS have forced them to. Also DirectX 11.1/11.2 are Windows 8 only so you're forced to upgrade.
 
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