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Steam Machine

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Machine

#321

Post by agentifysh »

catears wrote: post #291
thadt wrote: post #29

Pretty much the only reason I boot to Windows anymore is to play games with my kids and family. The direction of this thing is dangerously close to being all I'd care about from a desktop computer. If Valve pivoted into making a well-supported laptop with good hardware that ran Linux and played games...

Like other commenters, I also recently made the switch. Figured I would dual-boot windows but have never needed to boot it back up again. ProtonDB is a goldmine when a game doesn't work. Oh, and switching from Nvidia GPU to AMD GPU seems to have worked great to get games to "just work".

one limitation for Bazzite for instance would be some titles that require anti-cheating won't work but just like OP, only use case I have for windows is gaming and running some banking app which won't work on non-Windows device

love to see more and more users realize they can game just fine on linux

Re: Steam Machine

#322

Post by butlike »

embedding-shape wrote: post #25

The only thing I'd like to know, if the CPU/GPU will be replaceable? The specs say "Semi-custom AMD Zen 4" and "Semi-Custom AMD RDNA3", but I don't see "soldered" anywhere, so I guess maybe they'll be switchable? If not with off-the-shelves components, maybe Valve will offer their own upgrade kits in the future?

I mean, honestly, do you ask the same question about a PS5/Xbox? At a certain point, just build an upgradable PC. I'd equate this product more to a home console than a PC at this point

Re: Steam Machine

#323

Post by qwm »

hnuser123456 wrote: post #67
jasonjmcghee wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow this looks great. Foveated streaming, great resolution, wireless, 144hz, looks much more comfortable... As much as I want this, I feel like it'll end up being a really cool thing that just sits on the shelf. Edit: foveated streaming , not rendering

I recommend preparing a drink or two and loading up VRchat and joining one of the rave club groups. Check out the metaverse zuck wishes he ran.

VRChat is one of the most socially dysfunctional online platforms I've ever used

Re: Steam Machine

#324

Post by mhitza »

lordleft wrote: post #7
mojoe wrote: post #2

Steam is the only reason I have a Windows desktop, I'll probably just get one of these next time I want a hardware refresh (which admittedly will probably be many years). Interesting that it uses KDE Plasma for the desktop

I like SteamOS a great deal, though it's not my daily driver (yet). I'm curious if people will begin to use it as a daily driver and thus expect Valve to be an OS developer on top of creating software for their gaming hardware. That's a different set of expectations and I wonder how they'll navigate it.

I've used SteamOS as a daily driver for half a year. Immutable distros have limitations and my distrobox images failed to work after a SteamOS update.

If you're ok with running work stuff in a separate VM within SteamOS, that works great. Using Geekbench I saw only a 5% cpu performance penalty. Io takes a bigger hit, but that wasn't a blocker for me as I was intending to run VMs with encrypted storage anyway (which adds even more latency) but still a good experience for my work.

Re: Steam Machine

#325

Post by ThatPlayer »

mcdow wrote: post #181

Why does Steam/Valve care so much about Linux? I know as devs we all would prefer to use Linux/Unix. But developer experience isn’t a good business justification.

The business justification is called commoditizing your complement. https://gwern.net/complement is a good article about it.

Re: Steam Machine

#326

Post by robotnikman »

mcdow wrote: post #181

Why does Steam/Valve care so much about Linux? I know as devs we all would prefer to use Linux/Unix. But developer experience isn’t a good business justification.

You can basically tailor the OS specifically for the device and remove unneeded bloat. Also the threat of Microsoft and Windows as mentioned by other users. The introduction of the Microsoft Store with Windows 8 basically kicked off this whole move for Valve. While it took over a decade of work, its paying great dividends now.

Re: Steam Machine

#327

Post by bargainbin »

WXLCKNO wrote: post #110
12_throw_away wrote: post #31

In this big hardware refresh, honestly most excited about finally getting a new steam controller [1], which feels like it might finally give us a better, more extensible standard than the extremely outdated XInput protocol (which still doesn't even support motion controls) [1] https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steamcontroller

I love my OG steam controller still. I can't tell if this new one has the dual stage triggers like the og (like if there's an additional click on full trigger pull). I used that to set things like boost in rocket League and it felt super intuitive.

First thing I checked for! I feel like it's such a niche feature but also distinctive. It's actually a "necessity" for a proper Gamecube emulation experience, which has the two stage shoulder buttons.

Like you, I also used this for boost on Rocket League and it was surprisingly intuitive. You can map it to the triggers lowest threshold to emulate it but without the tactile bump to rest against it just won't work.

Re: Steam Machine

#328

Post by torginus »

bigyabai wrote: post #284
torginus wrote: post #89

Cool but I wish it had a single big APU chip like the consoles and Strix Halo - and unified memory. PCs are long overdue for adopting this change, and the only reason it makes sense to keep the separate is to make graphics cards swappable. Considering how big GPU silicon is, when you have both integrated and custom, it'd have made sense to integrate them.

> and unified memory. PCs are long overdue for adopting this change Why? Desktop PCs, especially gaming PCs, have nothing to gain and everything to lose by oversubscribing system memory with GPU workloads. The memory bus typically isn't fast enough anyways, and a modern PCIe x16 can easily handle the bandwidth of a gigantic GPU. The only advantage to unifying everything is latency, which isn't relevant at any framera…

All consoles have been using a single integrated chip since the last generation. The memory bandwidth a CPU uses is much less than GPU. Let's say a CPU does 50 GB/s peak while the GPU does 200+

Re: Steam Machine

#329

Post by amlib »

barbazoo wrote: post #185
ugurcant wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in the same shoes, then one day I decided to give a shot to Bazzite. To my surprise the installation was extremely smooth, and everything worked right away. Now I’m playing almost everything on it (Arc Raiders, EU V, HLL and Horizon FW recently). If you want to _try_ all you need is 15 minutes, some HDD space and an empty USB. You don’t have to give up Windows at all, dual booting is also pretty smooth.

Loved the concept, tried it out, didn't work, at least not for RDR2 which I was trying to play. But how would it work, there is Linux, Bazzite, then there is Steam, RDR2 needs the Rockstar launcher, it's such an intricate web of dependencies, I'm not surprised something isn't working.

When silly DRM or a game launcher is all that is keeping you from enjoying a game, that is when you get the pirated version without any of this bs and enjoy it without remorse.

Re: Steam Machine

#330

Post by mavamaarten »

erxam wrote: post #49
jasonjmcghee wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow this looks great. Foveated streaming, great resolution, wireless, 144hz, looks much more comfortable... As much as I want this, I feel like it'll end up being a really cool thing that just sits on the shelf. Edit: foveated streaming , not rendering

Maybe they've cracked the code with the dongle? Usually, you either have to invest both time and money into setting up the perfect streaming network, deal with annoying cables or resign yourself to inferior on-device game versions. The ergonomics matter more than you'd think. But if it's a very easy plug-n-play type deal to run SteamVR games (and on Linux!), that's a huge ergonomic improvement. Don't have to think to…

If it's just plug and play and works well, it'd be brilliant. I have experimented a lot with a couple or wifi dongles I had lying around and setting up a hotspot, but honestly I could never get it to work well.

Streaming VR content is just so sensitive. I have a good cabled network but even a simple switch introduced noticeable lag spikes. In the end I have a separate router that I just connect straight to my PC, and then I share my wifi connection through my PC to that network. A whole silly setup just to minimize latency and packet loss. If that could be replaced with a simple USB dongle I'd be amazed.

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