"At par with PS5.." comparing hardware specs with a console loved by millions and into year 6 of it's lifecycle. I'd rather play my PS5 titles on a PS5 or a portal than on the steam machine. Steam deck is dated, went with the portal and love it.
Valve is about to win the console generation
101–110 of 556 posts
Re: Valve is about to win the console generation
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weird statement, because I can search for PS5 pro & see $750 price points, and entry level computers have been far far cheaper. Cheaper than Xbox series X at $650. Getting pretty solid laptops for a bit under $500 has been possible for many years now. But "entry level computer" has a very broad interpretation available. Could be higher for sure.
I assumed they meant an entry level gaming computer, not something with potato-grade integrated graphics, but I agree it's vague.
You can build an entry level gaming computer for under $400 easily. Here [1] is one example (parts list/link in the description).
Re: Valve is about to win the console generation
#103I hardly understand the headline. Steam machine is just a computer, and since it can be used for other stuff than playing games, then it can't have the cheap pricing of a console. Most consoles are sold at a loss, and the benefits are made when selling console-exclusive games. If you sell something at a loss, but users aren't forced to buy your games, then you're not gonna make any money. Hence, the Steam Machine (AK…
Laptops have lots of components that the Steam Machine doesn't have. The screen, keyboard, touchpad, cameras, microphones, speakers, battery, et cetera are all fairly small costs, but they add up. Plus using a Linux-based OS instead of Windows automatically knocks around $50 off the price because the price doesn't include the cost of an OEM Windows license. I don't think the Steam Machine will be priced lower than a…
The 'AMD RDNA3 28CUs' is likely to be the 7600M, as all the major specs are the same (power draw and clocks is lower, but given that the Steam Machine is not a laptop, it probably will have more headroom for that).
Re: Valve is about to win the console generation
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assumed they meant an entry level gaming computer, not something with potato-grade integrated graphics, but I agree it's vague.
You can build an entry level gaming computer for under $400 easily. Here [1] is one example (parts list/link in the description). [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vecR26Nz_YA
That build uses a 13 year old CPU from AliExpress, there's no accounting for taste but I think most entry level builds are aiming a little higher than that. Some newer games won't even try to run on a CPU of that vintage since it doesn't have AVX2 support.
Re: Valve is about to win the console generation
#105Valve certainly won't win it, but they're bringing the heat where it wasn't before. SteamOS is the important part here - if it is proven to be a good console experience (which the deck has basically proven already) then licensing of the OS to other manufacturers will put a lot of pressure on integrated h/w s/w manufacturers. Unlike the handheld format, the tvbox console is fairly easy to manufacture and is tolerant o…
My main game console right now is one of those little gaming boxes you can buy on Amazon for about $400, where I have installed NixOS + Jovian to get the "SteamOS" interface.
I really like it. It really does feel like a "game console"; usually when I've made my own console using Linux, it always feels kind of janky. For example, RetroPie on the Raspberry Pi is pretty cool, but it doesn't feel like a proper commercial product, it feels like a developer made a GUI to launch games.
I have like 750 games on Steam that I have hoarded over the years, in addition to the Epic Games Store and GOG, which can be installed with Heroic, and the fact that I can play them on a "console" instead of a computer makes it much easier to play in my living room or bedroom. It even works fine with the Xbox One controllers; I use the official Microsoft USB dongle to minimize latency, it works great.
I think there actually is a chance that Valve could really be a real competitor, if not a winner.
Re: Valve is about to win the console generation
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah I mean... can I play Fortnite, BF6 or the upcoming GTA on steamOS?
If any game has DRM or anti-cheat technology which BF6 does and even most AAA games, then it cannot play it at all without it. That is going to be a no go for any SteamOS device when an highly anticipated game gets released on day 1.
I think that the idea is that if you get enough users on Linux, it seems foolish from the game studio's perspective not to add Linux support to their anticheat.
Re: Valve is about to win the console generation
#107I hardly understand the headline. Steam machine is just a computer, and since it can be used for other stuff than playing games, then it can't have the cheap pricing of a console. Most consoles are sold at a loss, and the benefits are made when selling console-exclusive games. If you sell something at a loss, but users aren't forced to buy your games, then you're not gonna make any money. Hence, the Steam Machine (AK…
> I hardly understand the headline. Steam machine is just a computer, and since it can be used for other stuff than playing games, then it can't have the cheap pricing of a console. I don't understand this train of thought. It absolutely can have the cheap pricing of a console, as long as Steam is the default store, and the majority of users will use the console as-is and buy games on Steam. Let me give a quick analo…
The main problem I see is that if this is any cheaper than it's hardware, people will buy 100s of them and stack them in server racks for CI runners or whatever. Generating only losses for Valve and making the hardware unavailable to gamers.
It needs to either be at market rate or locked down to only be useful for gaming.
Re: Valve is about to win the console generation
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nintendo is in its own category in which the other competitor is also Valve. For now Nintendo is winning there.
They have enough first party games which only release on their hardware that people are willing to buy a Switch for nintendo games, and another gaming device for everything else.
Or the many people like myself who are willing to buy a Switch for Nintendo games and that's their only console.
Re: Valve is about to win the console generation
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can build an entry level gaming computer for under $400 easily. Here [1] is one example (parts list/link in the description). [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vecR26Nz_YA
That build uses a 13 year old CPU from AliExpress, there's no accounting for taste but I think most entry level builds are aiming a little higher than that. Some newer games won't even try to run on a CPU of that vintage since it doesn't have AVX2 support.
It was released in 2016 and does support AVX2. In general what matters when building a decent rig is aiming to balance performance to optimize against bottle necks. He demonstrated the system in various modern games, for instance running Delta Force at 4k/120FPS. And the CPU was scarcely getting touched - running at around 20%.
You can spend a ton of money on a bleeding edge CPU and see 0 performance gain in almost all cases, because basically no modern games are CPU limited, or even remotely close to it, so you're sitting there with your overpriced CPU basically idling.
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I think many people are out of the loop on PC costs and performance. The days where you needed some $1000+ bleeding edge rig to even begin to play the latest stuff are long gone. Since this thread is on consoles - an approximate PS5 equivalent video card is the RX 6700 XT which is like $200-$300, and that is, by far, the biggest expense.
Re: Valve is about to win the console generation
#110Whats the media experience like on SteamOS these days? Does it have built in support for media playback? I used to have Kodi running on PhantomOS but it was janky.