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Steam Machine

store.steampowered.com

331–340 of 1001 posts

Re: Steam Machine

#331
post #55

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?

RDNA 3 is going to hold this machine back. DLSS is far and away better, but Nvidia's apathy towards Linux has made playing on something like Bazzite a worse experience. Nvidia has little reason to keep investing in Windows gaming drivers given the AI race, so seeing DLSS 4 or something on Linux is a pipe dream. I think this machine will be decent for most people, but it's no-one with a 3080 is going to be looking at…

I thought DLSS4 did work on Linux, and a quick glance at r/linux_gaming seems to say the same.

I agree about RDNA3 holding it back; given its specs I’m hoping its significantly cheaper than $750.

Re: Steam Machine

#332
post #182

A bit too sparse on details. - No price - No indication for whether the CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD are upgradable or all soldered together on the board. - "4K gaming at 60 FPS with FSR" but doesn't mention what kind of games it can run at that quality. - No performance benchmarks, or mention of what the equivalent retail CPU/GPU to their custom one is. At face value this seems like a $500-600 PC, and that's also the price it wo…

> No indication for whether the CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD are upgradable or all soldered together on the board. Almost certainly. This is the direction the industry is heading, and the perverse unavailability of high-end discrete graphics cards is the nail in the coffin. See also the Framework PC.

[deleted]

Re: Steam Machine

#333
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my friends have moved on to PC, and I don't really want to build a $1000 minimum computer with crazy LEDs that takes up a ton of space with a monitor at this point in my life. And SteamDeck doesn't support KB+M well. I have no qualms about couch gaming with a KB+M if I can do it with my friends and my already extensive Steam library. Unless they completely drop the ball on this, I'm in.

> and I don't really want to build a $1000 minimum computer with crazy LEDs that takes up a ton of space with a monitor at this point in my life. The beauty of a PC is you can build whatever you want. It doesn't need to be large, and doesn't need to have LEDs. There are plenty of small form factor cases on the market with the same footprint as this one.

The Steam Machine is smaller than any case that would be considered mainstream in the small form factor community, at least to my knowledge. The FormD T1 is around 10L for example, and would look almost comically large compared to the Steam Machine.

And enthusiast cases like this are often quite expensive and not easy to get. Then you need to think about thermals, and find hardware that actually fits.

You can approach it form another angle and treat it more like a NUC and get a SoC but then you're probably not going to get close in terms of gaming performance.

So long story short: I disagree that it would be straight forward to build something like this on your own, at the same price point.

Re: Steam Machine

#334

Very interesting! The one killer issue that jumps to mind is anti-cheat. I switched away from gaming on Linux via Proton to gaming on Windows because Battlefield 6's anti-cheat won't work under Proton. Many games are like this, particularly some of the most popular (Rainbow 6 Siege for instance). And BF6 made this decision only recently despite the growing number of Steam Deck players (and other players on linux - in…

Do we know what kernel SteamOS uses? Is it built on linux, or could it be some sort of kiosk'd mode Windows where this will be a non-issue? One could hope but I truly don't know.

SteamOS on the Deck is just a standard (tuned) Linux distribution under the hood. It would be very surprising to me if Valve shifted to an entirely different OS for the Cube.

Re: Steam Machine

#338
post #6

>RAM 16GB DDR5 + 8GB GDDR6 VRAM Hmm. Not that it is big deal, but I would be somewhat worried about true longevity with the VRAM. Not sure if SteamOS helps there, but on PC some new titles are going over the 8GB VRAM.

You always have the option of streaming a game, though.

8 GB is good enough for most everything, and can you stream on an exception basis, if something truly demanding catches your eye.

Re: Steam Machine

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wondering, what games are you playing that dont run on Linux yet? I can't think of games I'd play much with family that dont work well

Battlefield 6, GTA V online, Escape From Tarkov, likely GTA VI Imagine not supporting the latest releases that all your friends are playing.

Depends on your friend group; statistically speaking they're more like to play ARC raiders than EFT which does run on Linux

Re: Steam Machine

#340

I'm surprised they went for ARM in the desktop, but for x86 on the handheld. Does this mean the handheld will move to ARM aswell?

>Semi-custom AMD Zen 4 6C / 12T

the desktop is also x86, the VR headset (Frame) is ARM

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