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Steam Machine

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Machine

#991

Post by pjmlp »

wiseowise wrote: post #938
ThrowawayB7 wrote: post #883

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " All of this insulates them from having to worry about the long-term sustainability of making money from game sales on Windows... " The weak link in your theory is that Microsoft is in control of the future of the DirectX API, not Valve, and it is Microsoft who is working with nVidia and AMD and game studios to evolve DirectX to take advantage of the latest GPU features. SteamOS can at best follow closely behind b…

Vulkan?

Hardly has any major adoption by game studios outside Android.

Re: Steam Machine

#992

Post by okayjustonemore »

bartvk wrote: post #953
okayjustonemore wrote: post #893

This seems to have been targeted especially at someone like me: I don’t like to play on PC, have no interest in building a gaming PC and I only reluctantly buy consoles because of their (kind of) plug-n-play experience. If this thing can get me a console-like experience and allow me to play my extensive library of games (most of them classic/vintage games you can’t get on modern consoles) hassle-free, then I’m (proba…

I have a Steam Deck and it’s definitely more janky than for example an Xbox. It’s not bad! But do not expect the same level of polish. Small example, there’s often a need to dial back the graphics quality. Or the text is too small. Or the screen recording is a hassle.

I’d be hard pressed to call the Xbox UX “polished” in any way, but I do get what you mean. Though as long as it allows me to play my games with as much ease as the games themselves will allow, then I’m good—I just do not want to be bothered with the “PC” part of this equation.

Re: Steam Machine

#993

Post by GaryBluto »

naikrovek wrote: post #980
GaryBluto wrote: post #658

There goes the XBOX. Microsoft have been letting their consumer products rot for a while now and they're finally going to start feeling the consequences.

Well, hopefully, future XBoxes are fixed-spec PCs which run Steam AND some xbox frontend, and can switch between them as the user wishes. There's no reason anymore for the xbox to be a different platform or hardware than PCs. An Xbox that is just a PC with fixed specs (or varying specs with some way to measure what spec you're compliant with) and which can use the Xbox store is probably all that people really want an…

It's a shame really. I miss the era of original XBOX homebrew. It felt fun making it do things it wasn't supposed to.

Re: Steam Machine

#994

Post by p_l »

dezgeg wrote: post #289
12_throw_away wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my dream world, hardware enthusiasts would be constantly creating absolutely crazy game controllers with bizarre combinations of inputs that look nothing like an xbox 360 controller. There'd be a universal input protocol that would allow for self-describing gamepads with arbitrary numbers of digital buttons, analog sticks and triggers, touchpads, mouse inputs, haptics, gyro sensors, levers, sliders, wheels, etc. e…

USB HID actually works pretty much how you describe, for instance a Physical Descriptor can contain metadata about which body part a button/control is supposed to be used with. It's extremely complicated however (like many things USB), which is probably why everything just emulates an XBox 360 controller like you said.

It's related to XInput making that easier option on Windows, from my understanding.

Especially if you supported both XBox and Windows.

So the only complex HID game controllers are for very much enthusiast setups, which are rare enough to trip things like absurd assumptions in HID drivers in some systems (the joystick+throttle I have used to break linux HID driver because someone decided to statically allocate possible amounts of joystick buttons per device...)

Re: Steam Machine

#995

Post by p_l »

LelouBil wrote: post #52
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'm just hoping it has a standalone "pretend it is an xbox/generic controller" mode that doesn't rely on steam, so I can bring it to friends easily.

All you need is good HID driver in OS... unless the application hardcodes expectations about XBox controller

Re: Steam Machine

#996

Post by m463 »

saghm wrote: post #823

My theory for a bit now has been that Valve is playing the long game in trying to make SteamOS a mainstay gaming platform as an alternative to Windows, and that the hardware products are essentially a way of breaking into that market. Even a few years ago, the idea of a custom Linux distro based on Arch Linux with both a built-in full desktop mode and a lower-powered gaming mode that you could switch between on a han…

When his business depends on Microsoft, which has shown untrustworthy behavior time and again, this is a great hedge.

Re: Steam Machine

#997

Post by faidit »

3acctforcom wrote: post #848
lazyfanatic42 wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve respects its customers. It is so insane that this isn't a norm; what a world we would be in if all companies did so.

Gabe is literally practising Noblesse Oblige, which is really funny but really shows that our billionare society is really just a reduction to old aristocracy. He's just the good Duke, whereas most Dukes are horrible, horrible people.

>He's just the good Duke

The Gaben house is building a secret army, using a technique unknown to us; a technique involving steam.

Re: Steam Machine

#999

Post by Doxin »

keyringlight wrote: post #42
Ekaros wrote: 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.

One of the things I've noted for a while is that PC gaming as a platform seems to be polarizing between high and low spec, especially if you look outside of North America/Western Europe to places like South America or SE Asia. The steam deck and now this seem to be a reference/target platform for the low spec group. It might not be able to play the prestigious high spec titles well if at all, but so long as "your mil…

Honestly I'm hoping the steam machine is gonna put some pressure on game devs to knock it off with the absurdly high spec requirements. There's plenty of modern titles that require a top of the line card that don't look any better than 10yr old games.

Re: Steam Machine

#1000

Post by LelouBil »

p_l wrote: post #995
LelouBil wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just hoping it has a standalone "pretend it is an xbox/generic controller" mode that doesn't rely on steam, so I can bring it to friends easily.

All you need is good HID driver in OS... unless the application hardcodes expectations about XBox controller

Yeah I said xbox beacause whatever, but I'm just worried that Valve, while they are usually consumer-friendly never added a standalone gamepad mode to the controller directly and it is always reliant on Steam (and so you need to do tricks like using GlosSI[0] to use it outside).

And at the same time, if you just plug in your controller while holding the right trigger, it acts as a usb drive where you can just replace (and grab it's original) firmware, so there have been some efforts.

I at least want that from the new one, at the very least.

[0] https://github.com/Alia5/GlosSI

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