The Steam Machines

SeymourGore said:
Not much point to a dedicated Steam OS machine if there's no compelling software being made for it. Not even exclusive titles, but new titles that will release alongside the other consoles/Windows PC versions and not months after when they're finally ported to Linux/Steam OS.

I think if Valve can even get one big name publisher (Bethesda, Activision, etc) to support their platform with new releases, the others will follow suit once the sales are proven to be solid.
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The OS has only been out for barely over a month now and Steam machines arent planned to release until the later part of 2014. Why are you expecting so much so soon??
 
Domini said:
The OS has only been out for barely over a month now and Steam machines arent planned to release until the later part of 2014. Why are you expecting so much so soon??
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I don't think I'm expecting too much here, SteamOS was originally announced in September and at the time it was said there were 'major game developers' on board. I'm not asking to see working games, just to see a list of names for these major game developers.

I thought CES was going to be the show to reveal both their software and hardware partners, but maybe I am being too pushy. Perhaps Valve will be doing a full reveal come E3 time, when media will be really focused on video games and not electronics.

Although revealing your hardware partners Steam Machines alongside a list of names of software developers that will be supporting these machines would go a long way in hyping the whole initiative.

And I just noticed this tidbit from yesterday: New prototype of the Steam Controller was revealed. Well, moreso just a mockup, but they're ditching the touchscreens and are instead implementing more console-style physical buttons (d-pay, Xbox arrangement) alongside the trackpads. Smart move on Valve's party and it's nice to see they're taking feedback so seriously.

http://kotaku.com/steam-controller-trades-its-touchscreen-for-functional-1502197079
 
Focker said:
Do you really need a Titan for 1080P gaming on a television? Eff no
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I MOSTLY agree. A titan (or any other high end card) would be nice to have, but it's certainly not something you need for a good experience IMO... even for "demanding" titles

While you might not be able to max a game out with obscene amounts of AA and other eye candy, IMHO, that kind of crap is sort of pointless if you're using a TV anyway (unless you're sitting just a few feet from it). Since you're sitting further back, you generally can't see all the extra detail anyway on a 1080p screen... I can't at least.

Hell... on-board GPU's are getting to the point that you could easily get away with running just that and likely have a decent experience, as long as you're not expecting to run the latest and greatest completely maxed out.

My little Ultrabook with an i5 and HD4000 gets more gaming use than my i7 7990 rig these days. It plays almost every single indie game in my steam catalog (which is quite large at this point), completely maxed out, at 60FPS @ 1080p (SMB, Fez, Starbound, Don't starve, PZ, etc)
After seeing the new Kaveri chips, I'm looking to build an extremely small form factor box for the living to use as a SteamBox. I was originally intending on using a dedicated GPU (and still might eventually), but I honestly think it might be overkill for the types of games I'll be using it for... and if I do want to play something more demanding... there is always in home streaming :)
 
Someone had an interesting prediction

Steambox will be released, new Half Life game and engine will be released in tandem. Same thing they did when they released Steam. I'd be willing to put money on this happening!
 
SeymourGore said:
I don't think I'm expecting too much here, SteamOS was originally announced in September and at the time it was said there were 'major game developers' on board. I'm not asking to see working games, just to see a list of names for these major game developers.

I thought CES was going to be the show to reveal both their software and hardware partners, but maybe I am being too pushy. Perhaps Valve will be doing a full reveal come E3 time, when media will be really focused on video games and not electronics.
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From what I was reading yesterday it seems like there were a lot of developers at the Steam Dev Days day 1 conference and they seemed to be really, really excited. Valve was smart to devise a separate conference for developers only to come in and share whatever they want off-the-record. Of course, giving everyone in attendance a free Steam Machine and controller was wise too. ;)
 
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huxley said:
Someone had an interesting prediction

Steambox will be released, new Half Life game and engine will be released in tandem. Same thing they did when they released Steam. I'd be willing to put money on this happening!
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Apparently Source 2 was talked about a lot at the conference.

The presentations will be made public "in a few weeks" after certain announcements are made first.
 
SeymourGore said:
And I just noticed this tidbit from yesterday: New prototype of the Steam Controller was revealed. Well, moreso just a mockup, but they're ditching the touchscreens and are instead implementing more console-style physical buttons (d-pay, Xbox arrangement) alongside the trackpads. Smart move on Valve's party and it's nice to see they're taking feedback so seriously.

http://kotaku.com/steam-controller-trades-its-touchscreen-for-functional-1502197079
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Ugh i hope it doesnt turn into that, its fugly and really doesnt make sense
 
dr.stevil said:
My little Ultrabook with an i5 and HD4000 gets more gaming use than my i7 7990 rig these days. It plays almost every single indie game in my steam catalog (which is quite large at this point), completely maxed out, at 60FPS @ 1080p (SMB, Fez, Starbound, Don't starve, PZ, etc)
After seeing the new Kaveri chips, I'm looking to build an extremely small form factor box for the living to use as a SteamBox. I was originally intending on using a dedicated GPU (and still might eventually), but I honestly think it might be overkill for the types of games I'll be using it for... and if I do want to play something more demanding... there is always in home streaming :)
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I bought one of these - http://www.hd-plex.com/hdplex-h1.s-fanless-computer-case.html - and a mini-ITX FM2+ motherboard. The A8-7600 with its configurable TDP (65W or 45W) should prove to be a fairly capable little chip. The idea of a tiny, 0dB computer with only a controller hooked up to it is very elegant to me and suits my needs perfectly. I only play indie games, emulators and DOTA 2 anyway.

It's unfortunate that AMD drivers for Linux are so poor at the moment, but I have faith the SteamOS movement will force AMD to better them.
 
thanks for the heads up on that case. Looks pretty nice for something like this.

I may look into one myself
 
Not a huge fan of that button placement either, it's a bit too 'busy' and the buttons seem like they'd be too close together. I'm looking through the controller prototype images and I'm really liking some of the designs that incorporate a trackball.

I wonder, since Steam OS is linux based (and afaik) quite 'open', is there anything really stopping gamers from creating plugins for their preferred controllers (be it DS4, Xbox One controller) and then releasing the plugin to the public? That'd be a pretty sweet feature, and would really open up control options.
 
The touchpads use haptic feedback to imitate trackball feel, so you get trackball-like feel that's a bit more adaptable than a physical ball would be.
 
I just noticed the new button placement is very similar to that old controller patent from a year or two (or three) ago. I think it'd be really terrific if Valve goes back to this approach and allow modular changes to their controller. That would really open up the control options available, and would make customizing the controller possible.

Imagine being able to pop out the trackpad module and installing a 3rd party Sega Saturn-esque D-Pad module simply by popping the new module in there.

http://kotaku.com/5890372/is-this-valves-control-pad-design/

I'm thinking there was probably some sort of hurdle that made this approach unrealistic for Valve to implement, but hopefully it's something that can be done in the future.
 
octoberasian said:
Why building your own Steam Machine will be the best route:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/01/21/a...-not-be-upgradable-new-model-every-12-months/
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Wasn't expecting that, thought there would at least be some upgrade paths. What surprises me is that the machine will be configurable with different specs, and if that's the case, why wouldn't they allow some user upgrades?

One thing that I noticed from the original interview was that Alienware recognizes the lack of upgrade options and the guy went on to recommend a X51 in that case. Hopefully that means they'll be releasing a Steam OS-based X51 (with a cheaper price).
 
SeymourGore said:
Wasn't expecting that, thought there would at least be some upgrade paths. What surprises me is that the machine will be configurable with different specs, and if that's the case, why wouldn't they allow some user upgrades?

One thing that I noticed from the original interview was that Alienware recognizes the lack of upgrade options and the guy went on to recommend a X51 in that case. Hopefully that means they'll be releasing a Steam OS-based X51 (with a cheaper price).
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I'd be very surprised if it can't be upgraded on some level. If not, then they're clearly not using off the shelf parts (or they're using laptop/ultrabook type hardware). It seems to me that it would drive the price up though.

Either way... Alienware sucks. There will be better solutions available from other vendors if you don't wish to build your own. Sadly, I do like Alienwares case the best from what I've seen though.
 
huxley said:
Someone had an interesting prediction

Steambox will be released, new Half Life game and engine will be released in tandem. Same thing they did when they released Steam. I'd be willing to put money on this happening!
Click to expand...

that and VR so they can capitalize on the 3d name, Half-Life 3D, Portal 3D, L4D3D
 
So I started tearing apart an old HP Slimline last night to take measurements for my SteamBox build. I still need to order new hardware, but for shits and giggles decided to run through a SteamOS install on it anyway. (for those that don't know, Valve just added BIOS support via a forked community version)

It was up and running without any real issues, although I wish I would of read the documentation. I couldn't get steam to launch (which I later found out, via a VMware install, that you need to manually download via the terminal upon OS installation).

Anyway... it's pretty slick so far. I don't dare try to play games on it with an Intel GMA GPU though.
 
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