Steam Machine Teardown • Hacker News Board

Re: Steam Machine Teardown

#121

Post by pmjordan » Fri, Dec 20, 2013, 7:03 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #101

pmjordan wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the years, I've tried a few times to design a gaming capable PC that would easily fit in a suitcase and not make as much noise as a 747. I never found cases with a form factor like that with internal power supplies, and which will fit, power and cool a mid-to-high range (~€180) graphics card. The other components are easy of course. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, because I'm definitely in the market for someth…

You could try building a custom PC into a hard-shell travel case. I believe there are also ITX or micro ATX cases that can accommodate a 400+ watt PSU for powering a GPU in that range.

You could try building a custom PC into a hard-shell travel case.

I tried that, many years ago. I'll be the first to admit I'm not especially good at working metal, so it was somewhat crude. Keeping everything safely in place inside, and ensuring sufficient thermal flow ended up too much of a challenge for me. The thing only ran stably when I left it open, and eventually a heatsink came loose during travel. Might be easier with today's more efficient/better designed components, and with a bit of hindsight. Still, very much a major project.

I believe there are also ITX or micro ATX cases that can accommodate a 400+ watt PSU for powering a GPU in that range.

Every 6-12 months I review the market on these. You can indeed get ITX cases which will take a graphics card. Generally, the form factor is the "cube" kind (well, square-ish front face), around 20x22x35cm. (~15 litres) I find this much harder to transport safely (e.g. by packing clothes around it in a suitcase) than the flat, "VCR-shaped" arrangement, with the graphics card on a 90° riser. The ones on the market also tend to waste space on optical drives, multiple hard drive bays, etc. and often have external PSUs (not necessarily a bad thing, but often they don't make the case any smaller).

The Steam Machine prototypes are apparently only around 7.5x31x31cm. That's less than 8 litres, including the PSU.

Last time I looked into this was in Spring, so maybe things have improved since then. Specific suggestions welcome.

Re: Steam Machine Teardown

#122

Post by bri3d » Fri, Dec 20, 2013, 9:04 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #35

revelation wrote: post #24

What the hell is a 32 bit processor doing on a simple button/light daughterboard?

They're dirt fucking cheap, is why. Last I looked, $0.80 a piece. Why screw around with an 8-bit AVR when it's more expensive and you're plugged into the wall and don't care about power? (Oh, and I'll add a tradeoff: the chips are cheap, but they are not as easy to get up and running as an AVR. Programmers and a bunch of Windows software seems to be required; I've given up every time I've tried to use one :)

I'm a bit late here but just as a heads up ARM have an officially developed Cortex-M* GCC target which hosts just fine on Linux: https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded

With OpenOCD and STLink the STM32 family of Cortex processors are easy to use with Linux (arguably easier than in Windows, actually, because the toolchain isn't as shitty).

I do agree that using them from Windows in the often-documented "beginner's path" way really sucks.

Re: Steam Machine Teardown

#123

Post by nitrogen » Fri, Dec 20, 2013, 9:25 PM UTC

pmjordan wrote: post #121

nitrogen wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could try building a custom PC into a hard-shell travel case. I believe there are also ITX or micro ATX cases that can accommodate a 400+ watt PSU for powering a GPU in that range.

You could try building a custom PC into a hard-shell travel case. I tried that, many years ago. I'll be the first to admit I'm not especially good at working metal, so it was somewhat crude. Keeping everything safely in place inside, and ensuring sufficient thermal flow ended up too much of a challenge for me. The thing only ran stably when I left it open, and eventually a heatsink came loose during travel. Might be…

It sounds like you're far ahead of me on research into and attempted implementations of small form factor PCs. My limited experience came from tangential, coincidental exposure while researching ARM-based single-board computers.

Re: Steam Machine Teardown

#124

Post by freehunter » Fri, Dec 20, 2013, 11:36 PM UTC

yuhong wrote: post #107

freehunter wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PC is a holdover from the popular IBM Personal Computer running Microsoft's PC DOS (later MS-DOS). IBM made PC a brand name in direct competition with Apple. When other companies started copying IBM, they made IBM PC Compatible devices and peripherals, generally with an x86 processor. By the 90's, "IBM PC Compatible" meant "an x86 processor running Windows", still in direct competition with Apple. So even though Appl…

Well, even Apple computers are IBM PC compatible nowadays, and today outside of a few exceptions it is difficult to make x86 computers that are not IBM PC compatible at the hardware level.

As mentioned in my closing statement.

Re: Steam Machine Teardown

#125

Post by lambda » Sat, Dec 21, 2013, 3:35 PM UTC

chroem wrote: post #43

lambda wrote: post #21

This is the first console I've ever been interested in actually buying. I've always refused to buy devices that don't allow you to write and install your own software (I don't count hacks on them, so this is the first console that's actually open enough to meet my criteria. The nice thing is that this makes a pretty good off the shelf home theater PC even if I never actually use it for gaming.

I'm curious, what phone do you use?

A Nexus 4. As I said, my criteria are that I can run my own software on it without having to go through some intermediary, and I am able to replace the operating system if I would like.

I would prefer a fully free software stack, but I realize that that's not always possible, so I like to support the next best thing. Traditional consoles have always been so hacking unfriendly that I have refused to buy them.

Just so you know, a Nexus One was the first cell phone I ever bought; it was the first that I considered free enough (and capable enough; the Dream/G1 was just a little too clunky for me to consider it particularly useful).

Re: Steam Machine Teardown

#126

Post by lambda » Sat, Dec 21, 2013, 3:53 PM UTC

Narishma wrote: post #45

lambda wrote: post #21

This is the first console I've ever been interested in actually buying. I've always refused to buy devices that don't allow you to write and install your own software (I don't count hacks on them, so this is the first console that's actually open enough to meet my criteria. The nice thing is that this makes a pretty good off the shelf home theater PC even if I never actually use it for gaming.

These are living-room PCs, not consoles.

I'm not sure what the distinction is. A Playstation 4 has AMD integrated CPU/GPUs, and runs BSD. An Xbox One also uses AMD CPU/GPUs, and runs a Hyper-V hypervisor which runs both the Xbox OS and Windows.

Those sound an awful lot like PCs to me. Sure, they have a bit of custom hardware design, but for the most part are basically just PCs; except that they're locked down and you can't write your own software for them without going through an intermediary (and if you try to, you may get sued or arrested for hacking).

Re: Steam Machine Teardown

#127

Post by namlem » Sun, Dec 22, 2013, 9:49 PM UTC

yaeger wrote: post #109

jagermo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or a cheaper one and upgrade from time to time.

and "from time to time" does not mean every other year in case somebody still thinks that. Nowadays you can go a very long time with even just a medium spec'd gpu and still compare favorably to consoles. But unlike consoles you have the option to upgrade it if you want to.

Unless you want to play in 4k

Re: Steam Machine Teardown

#128

Post by namlem » Sun, Dec 22, 2013, 9:49 PM UTC

yaeger wrote: post #109

jagermo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or a cheaper one and upgrade from time to time.

and "from time to time" does not mean every other year in case somebody still thinks that. Nowadays you can go a very long time with even just a medium spec'd gpu and still compare favorably to consoles. But unlike consoles you have the option to upgrade it if you want to.

Unless you want to play in 4k.