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Steam Brick: No screen, no controller, just a power button and a USB port

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221–230 of 270 posts

Re: Steam Brick: No screen, no controller, just a power button and a USB port

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay this all sounds great, what specs do I need on the machine connected to the TV? Will a Raspberry Pi 3 work? Pine64? Atomic Pi? (That's x86_64, intel Celeron) Anything more than that and the value proposition goes way down. For every 50 grams lighter I am willing to lose 1fps. For every fan removed I will drop an entire resolution (4k -> 2k -> FHD...) Change "lighter" to heavier if it makes sense. My comfort and…

It doesn't take too much compute, the networking is the key. I've run Moonlight on a bunch of things from my TV, crappy old Android TV box, phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, ROG Ally; don't recall if I ever tried a Pi, but I might give it a go. My advice is, whatever you use, make sure it has wired ethernet for a consistent experience. That said, a more powerful device on the receiving end (Moonlight) with good high-sp…

Lossless scaling requires some horsepower though

Re: Steam Brick: No screen, no controller, just a power button and a USB port

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Headless X11 machines were a thing then it was all abandoned.

You can run Windows server headless too, and run individual applications over the RDP protocol, exactly like using an X server on a machine with a screen to run Xeyes on a headless machine.

Anyone have a good tutorial or reference for doing that on a modern windows system? It would be very useful alternative to VM seamless style and allow Linux X11 system as the hypervisor with windows VM.

Re: Steam Brick: No screen, no controller, just a power button and a USB port

#223
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> first gen of Steam controllers, which were created by Valve themselves The best goddamn controllers ever made, too, I still have one in a box somewhere around here and I won't use it because it's so awesome I don't want it to break. Pretty dumb eh? The two touchpads were the absolute best, I've never had control like that in an FPS and to this day I can't play any FPS with a stick because I was ruined on the Steam…

Funny how people differ in that regard. It's the absolute worst controller I've ever used (Joy-Cons are a close second). I didn't use it because I hated it so much, put it straight back in the box after a few days of trying to use it and eventually I sold it for as much as I paid, and I was glad to see the back of it. The size/shape of the controller as a whole was fantastic but I just really hated only having touchp…

You had to get used to it, it was weird but once you figured it out it was great!

Re: Steam Brick: No screen, no controller, just a power button and a USB port

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don’t expect to do much coding. Is it because of the way they render small font?

Fonts render at whatever size you tell them to. That doesn't change. I have the Viture not the Xreals, but anyways... my experience: I do find that there's significant optical aberration that makes text more blurry towards the edges. I also have astigmatism; not a deal-breaker but it means the built-in myopia adjustment only partially corrects my vision. I basically got contacts again just so I can use these a bit be…

I don't know about Viture, but the XReals come with a prescription lens attachment clip. I've got a set. It would be unusable without it, but even then the screen is only really great towards the middle of the field.

In theory the hardware has a motion tracker that lets you freeze the screen in space and pan around it by moving your head, which would be a huge win, but the current iteration needs an external dongle to do that which I don't have.

I'm going to upgrade to the next version purely because that's going to be built in (along with some other niceties).

This Steam Brick is right up my alley, although I'm wondering if you could do something just as slick with Framework guts. I haven't fired up Steam in a while.

Re: Steam Brick: No screen, no controller, just a power button and a USB port

#226
post #5

Side question: are those glasses any good? I almost got myself a pair

I watch movies on planes with them and it’s perfect for that. Coding I haven’t made work, and MarioKart is too full-on for me in them.

I've got coding to work, but you do need to change how you manage your windows. They've got the resolution but the virtual screen is too far away, so you need to magnify the text and keep what you're working on centred.

Re: Steam Brick: No screen, no controller, just a power button and a USB port

#227
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A NUC with USB-PD input could be powered from a USB-PD power bank. I’d much rather do that than purchase a NUC with a built-in battery. Keeping the two pieces separate makes them easier to repurpose later. Regardless, the market for such a device is relatively small.

Can they be? I'm not sure they make NUCs designed for mobile power draw without the battery.

I run a N97 based MiniPC off a power bank when I'm travelling, works fine along with my mobile hotspot.

Re: Steam Brick: No screen, no controller, just a power button and a USB port

#228
post #19

> TL;DR Well, the Steam Deck didn’t fit in my backpack… I'm not sure if this is meant to be taken literally, but I would have just bought a bigger backpack. In some ways, I think this makes me respect the author more.

Really should have just bought a slim case for the Steam Deck. The stock case is like twice as thick as it needs to be and does really take up a ton of space in a backpack.

The irony though is that this box + glasses + controller combo for sure takes more space than the original Steam Deck even in the oversized stock case…

Re: Steam Brick: No screen, no controller, just a power button and a USB port

#229
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the non-Brits, "sixth-form" means years 12 and 13 of school - equivalent to junior and senior years of high school in the US. The first and second yearsof sixth form are referred to as "lower sixth" and "upper sixth" respectively. It's a hold-over term from when secondary education (ages 11 and up) started in "first form" and worked up.

What do you mean "hold-over"? In NI we still say "first year" through "fifth year". Is that not done in Britain?

I'm also from NI, our school officially used year 8 to year 14, but everyone knew both ways around and just switched between them.

Edit: I should clarify I'm currently in uni so this was fairly recent.

Re: Steam Brick: No screen, no controller, just a power button and a USB port

#230

If you need to enter the BIOS: bring up the terminal, and write `systemctl reboot --firmware-setup` This reboots systemd-powered systems to the UEFI menu. May not work on other init systems, but SteamOS is based on Arch with systemd.

You can do the same on Windows with the command `shutdown /r /t 0 /fw`.
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