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Steam Machine

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Machine

#541

Post by PeaceTed »

Aurornis wrote: post #112
JBiserkov wrote: post #53

A bit of topic, but I was wondering how much bigger is the steam machine compared to the mac mini m4, since that's what I have and is my frame of reference. Obviously comparing apples to oranges and only talking about physical volume, not features, compatibility, price, personal preferences, etc. Mac Mini m4: 127 x 127 x 50 mm = 0.8 L Steam Machine: 156 x 162 x 152 = 3.8 L That's 4.76 times more volume.

The Steam device has a 110W GPU and 30W CPU. The M4 Mac Mini's peak power consumption is less than half of that. Even with the Apple Silicon efficiency, it can't keep up with high power GPUs in graphical loads like gaming. Mac Mini will throttle itself after sustained full load, especially with the GPU engaged. A Mac Mini will start throttling well before the end of a 30 minute online gaming match. A larger volume fo…

In that sense the Mini M4 is targeted more at Desktop than gaming. Can do short bursts when needed but cannot run the marathon in terms of graphics. Nothing wrong with this, it is just a trade off.

Re: Steam Machine

#542

Post by ThatPlayer »

dangoodmanUT wrote: post #359

Sorry… expandable via microsd? They’re terribly slow and unreliable, just cattle-chute us to using ssds over usb like consoles

It's just Linux, so you should be able to use a USB drive fine. I believe the idea is to use the same microSD card as a Steam Deck and Steam Frame (which also has microSD). Easily move games between systems.

Re: Steam Machine

#543

Post by Jnr »

sodality2 wrote: post #83
aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a issue of critical mass. With the continued growth of steamos, steamdeck, and linux as a game platform, eventually it will pull over support.

I have to wonder if it's possible to ever even guarantee something that can't be trivially bypassed on Linux - Windows, sure, it's possible with DMA, but it's damn hard. On Linux you could just compile a spoofed kernel or a DKMS module or something.

It doesn't have to be bypassed. Those same anti-cheats used by many unsupported titles are enabled for some games and work fine on Linux. So you just have to give the developers some incentive to enable it for their titles. It is a choice made by game developers. Currently they don't see a market on Linux/Steam OS but if Steam Machines become popular, potentially they would be missing a market and decide to join in.

Re: Steam Machine

#545

Post by SparkBomb »

mort96 wrote: post #421
koakuma-chan wrote: post #361

It looks pretty bad on the photos.

I thought it looked pretty attractive? Small, understated, something that would fit in pretty much anywhere without clashing. It doesn't have anything resembling a "gaming" aesthetic, which is a huge plus in my book.

I have a Steam Link and the Original Steam controller. The manufacturing while perfectly functional isn't that high quality.

This looks similar. Kinda like a mid-ranged PC case quality.

Re: Steam Machine

#546

Post by pegasus89 »

foxandmouse wrote: post #423
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #367

> Install your own apps, or even another operating system. Who are we to tell you how to use your computer? From your mouth to Tim Cook's ear, friend.

That said, when are we going to get a public release for SteamOS? …There’s a joke somewhere about them reaching SteamOS 3

The installer is here: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/65B4-2AA3-5F37-42...

The sources of the packages are here: https://steamdeck-packages.steamos.cloud/archlinux-mirror/so...

And for the record most packages come directly from Arch Linux, unmodified.

Re: Steam Machine

#547

Post by bigyabai »

danudey wrote: post #511
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #367

> Install your own apps, or even another operating system. Who are we to tell you how to use your computer? From your mouth to Tim Cook's ear, friend.

Yeah, imagine if you could install a different operating system on your Mac! What a world that would be! Worth noting that this is a dig against the other consoles which do not allow this, not Apple who (in part) does.

Apple can revoke it at any time. If a future update disabled or changed iBoot, there is no guarantee Linux would ever run again (unlike UEFI Macs).

Valve is not like Apple, they treat UEFI as a default.

Re: Steam Machine

#548

Post by miffy900 »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #367

> Install your own apps, or even another operating system. Who are we to tell you how to use your computer? From your mouth to Tim Cook's ear, friend.

They can afford to make a big song and dance about this because chances are they are not selling the hardware at a loss and they have the regular steam store to offset the short term costs. If they were selling the hardware at a loss, I think their marketing trying to sell this device would be very different.

Re: Steam Machine

#549

Post by Jnr »

kyoji wrote: post #128
redfloatplane wrote: post #51

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…

It's worse than that, BF6's anticheat is kernel level and requires the Windows-only version secure boot to be enabled, at least on my motherboard. There is no way I'm going to faff about with my BIOS when rebooting just to play this game.

I don't know how EFI boot works but I am running a gaming PC in dual boot and I have both Microsoft and my own personal secure boot keys loaded (for linux and grub)

I boot my own signed bootloader (grub) from which I can also boot Windows. Windows shows it is in secure boot mode and it works fine with BF6 for me.

But I have a feeling this allows users to run some bootkit/rootkit and bypass any of those kernel level anti-cheats. Maybe I'm wrong and EFI handover to Windows clears all the memory, but I somehow doubt it.

Re: Steam Machine

#550

Post by Jnr »

butlike wrote: post #313
redfloatplane wrote: post #51

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.

It is running Valve's immutable fork of Archlinux, you can find their source package mirror online.
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