Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

blog.matthewbrunelle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 220 posts

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#91

Post by picofarad »

scotchmi_st wrote: post #5

One of the better tech investments I’ve made is in a 20 metre Thunderbolt cable from Corning. It’s surprisingly useful- if you have a monitor that takes TB input then your computer can be stored in a small closet next to your router/switch, where you can’t hear it. Alternatively if you just need a quick 10Gb Ethernet link between two computers with USB4 or TB3/4 that it would be complicated to have next to each other…

You didnt need the corning one, though, that's an electrically isolated cable, maybe thunderbolt can't go far unless it is media translated to optical, but I am unsure.

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#92

Post by picofarad »

Leonard_of_Q wrote: post #33
fragmede wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ADHD and cutscenes means a laptop game and a console game so you're never ever waiting. Must be nice to have a brain that doesn't need that.

Train your brain to not "need" it. Brains are malleable whether someone diagnosed and labeled them or not. Concentrate on something else during those cut scenes, read a book, study the clock or thermometer or cat or leaves on the trees. Imagine a scenario where the power fails and you can't play games. Anything which doesn't enslave you to technology.

"Just think your way out of ADD" is a take, for sure.

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#93

Post by awakeasleep »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #83
bbrks wrote: post #39

If you already have Ethernet at both ends I cannot recommend enough game streaming. With the right setup it is almost identical to having my computer plugged in physically, and I am very sensitive to input latency. I can get 4K HDR 120Hz running over gigabit Ethernet without visually sacrificing too much on bitrate, but you can squeeze more bitrate at lower fps or 1440p (obviously) if that is your preference. You can…

I have a gaming PC and a steam deck. My goal was to use my steam deck as a steam link (their old streaming hardware) w/ a Xbox controller Both are connected via Ethernet and actually the video quality was very very good, and input lag was completely fine. Unfortunately there were so many issues. I want a console like experience where I can just decide that i want to pick up a controller and play. With this setup I ha…

Along with the complexity you mention, a real dealbreaker for me is controller support for couch co-op/multiplayer.

It's the biggest difference and flaw between steam devices and traditional consoles. Even hugely popular multiplayer titles like Overcooked either don't work, or require hours of research and configuration.

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#94

Post by Tajnymag »

weltensturm wrote: post #3

I have a 20m fibre optic cable, these things are great. Thinner than a standard cable. They are unidirectional, but mine has a dedicated copper line for CEC. 4k 120hz is no problem. I also have a Pulse Eight CEC adapter in the chain, but I had to swap its included HDMI cable for full bandwidth. Since I've switched to Linux I haven't had a chance to set up the software side for CEC though, does anyone happen to have r…

What I've heard, for some reason, you can get CEC and working when you use a displayport -> hdmi adapter with the right chipset inside. So theoretically, get the right adapter, plug it on the side of the computer and you might actually get CEC signal decoded as a new kernel device.

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#95

Post by intrikate »

gadelat wrote: post #74
c-hendricks wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong but those aren't insurmountable. Of course the Steam Box is a better experience, but I built a remote starter for my PC and a dumb little Go program to switch the displays and disable some devices. End result is I tap maybe two shortcuts on my phone and the computer is on and switched to the TV.

Do you have a script which bypasses login screen and switches input on TV too? I don't think so. Anyways my problem is that it takes a programmer to solve this even partially.

Autologin is trivial to set up on most operating systems. There are solutions for using CEC to control your television as well. I'm not a programmer, but I was able to set this up with minimal issue.

If you don't want to have to solve these problems, that's fine, but please don't parade around as if these are insurmountable, unsolvable problems.

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#96

Post by bbrks »

staticman2 wrote: post #79
bbrks wrote: post #39

If you already have Ethernet at both ends I cannot recommend enough game streaming. With the right setup it is almost identical to having my computer plugged in physically, and I am very sensitive to input latency. I can get 4K HDR 120Hz running over gigabit Ethernet without visually sacrificing too much on bitrate, but you can squeeze more bitrate at lower fps or 1440p (obviously) if that is your preference. You can…

> can get 4K HDR 120Hz running over gigabit Ethernet without visually sacrificing too much on bitrate, While I agree game streaming can work well, in practice on a modern game the frame rate will vary if you try to get 4k hdr 120k and I don't believe a game stream can use variable refresh rate. In practice what do you do if playing a modern AAA game? Do you set the frame rate to a locked 60? I used to do game streami…

Yeah, in practice for a demanding game (RDR2 is a good example for me) I do lock at 60.

There are many many types of games (platformers) that can achieve and are preferable to play locked at 120 though.

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#97

Post by dmonitor »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #66
weird-eye-issue wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked at what sort of FPS it gets on the games you want to play? Overall it's performance is... Quite poor even on the lowest settings for lots of games

The world is full of beautiful indie games, I barely play AAA games. But even then, I wouldn't consider it as a PRIMARY pc if you have budget for something more. It's a great secondary pc. That's what I mean by "market", I don't think they are targeting the global segment

Yeah, 60fps in Slay the Spire 2 and Risk of Rain is very feasible with just about anything.

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#98

Post by joe_mamba »

ThatPlayer wrote: post #82
joe_mamba wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If the benchmark has the words "RT" on it, like a lot did, you can safely throw them in the trash More like you can throw the console in the trash if you can't run current day games on it well, when those games mandate RT. A lot of AAA games have started mandating RT since 2025, like Doom the dark ages for example, and the number of games doing that will only increase moving forward as devs just take the easy way wi…

Not disagreeing with you about lighting, but there is a differnce in older games that make RT optional. They use RT as a "ultra high quality" shadows/reflection graphical option. So there's no point of having a high performant, low quality RT option. This isn't the case with games that require RT. Doom Dark Ages can even run the RT entirely in software, implemented in AMD's Linux drivers: https://youtu.be/R5G2bYiA1hk…

>Doom Dark Ages can even run the RT entirely in software, implemented in AMD's Linux drivers:

Running RT in Software doesn't mean it's free, it just draws the performance penalty from the rest of the system.

And the demo in the youtube link you shared shows this. Like sure, it's playable, but it looks like game from 2009. It looks fine for playing on a small handheld device like the steam deck, but not on a 27"-60" monitor/TV.

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#99

Post by tskulbru »

willis936 wrote: post #46
tskulbru wrote: post #19

Ive been using Moonlight on my Apple TV, with a 8bitdo controller connected to the Apple TV. My gaming computer is running bazzite and runs Sunshine as streaming server and it handles basically any game. I did use Steam Remote Control earlier but i found it quite unstable and slow compared to Sunshine which basically just works out of the box. Ive beaten Silk song and Elden ring on the setup. Its just wired 1gb netwo…

I have a very similar setup. On Ubuntu (wayland only) I had to build sunshine for support. There is also always the bootstrapping issue for logging in when locked. Yes, I can physically log in, but I'd like something a little easier. Remote desktop is actually quite a bit of a headache and locked down in annoying ways by gnome.

yea, i wanted as little friction sa possible. I landed on Bazzite so that i didnt need to spend any time tinkering, and the little tinkering i needed to was easy to do with claudes help. Ive used to just use the same a my daily driver (i use arch btw), but i wanted something that "just worked". Really impressed with bazzite for the gaming streaming setup, kudos to that team and their great work.

Oh and i use a virtual display, which was easy to do in wayland.

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#100

Post by pipes »

bbrks wrote: post #39

If you already have Ethernet at both ends I cannot recommend enough game streaming. With the right setup it is almost identical to having my computer plugged in physically, and I am very sensitive to input latency. I can get 4K HDR 120Hz running over gigabit Ethernet without visually sacrificing too much on bitrate, but you can squeeze more bitrate at lower fps or 1440p (obviously) if that is your preference. You can…

I'm missing something here, are you streaming from your pc on to your deck? But then why would you need a dock?
Post reply on HN