7 ms·
My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable
- rolph 4mo ago50ft fibre optic HDMI cable, for those of you throwing an exception based on time domain reflection, and line level settling periods.
- cfiggers 4mo agoRight, yes, of course... the, um... domain reflections and... line settling levels. It's like you read my mind, thanks for addressing those.
- weltensturm 4mo agoI have a 20m fibre optic cable, these things are great. Thinner than a standard cable. They are unidirectional, but mine has a dedicated copper line for CEC. 4k 120hz is no problem. I also have a Pulse Eight CEC adapter in the chain, but I had to swap its included HDMI cable for full bandwidth. Since I've switched to Linux I haven't had a chance to set up the software side for CEC though, does anyone happen to have recommendations?
- chhs 4mo agoI bought the same adapter and use it with Bazzite, which has a `toggle-cec-sleep` you can run that just set it up. Now when I press a button on my keyboard, the PC starts up and the TV turns on. It's magical. https://docs.bazzite.gg/Installing_and_Managing_Software/Bazzite_Portal/ https://docs.bazzite.gg/Installing_and_Managing_Software/Baz...
- willis936 4mo agoIn case you hadn't seen the signal path's teardown of an optical HDMI cable, here it is. These really are marvelous devices for the cost. https://youtu.be/O9QPecpLcnA https://youtu.be/O9QPecpLcnA
- c-hendricks 4mo agoValve's CEC stuff for the Steam Box is open source: https://github.com/OpenGamingCollective/linux-cec https://github.com/OpenGamingCollective/linux-cec Someone on HN posted a more official link recently but I can't find it right now.
- Tajnymag 4mo agoWhat I've heard, for some reason, you can get CEC and working when you use a displayport -> hdmi adapter with the right chipset inside. So theoretically, get the right adapter, plug it on the side of the computer and you might actually get CEC signal decoded as a new kernel device.
- scotchmi_st 4mo agoOne of the better tech investments I’ve made is in a 20 metre Thunderbolt cable from Corning. It’s surprisingly useful- if you have a monitor that takes TB input then your computer can be stored in a small closet next to your router/switch, where you can’t hear it. Alternatively if you just need a quick 10Gb Ethernet link between two computers with USB4 or TB3/4 that it would be complicated to have next to each other, you can use it for that as well. I really hope Corning eventually make a TB5 cable.
- picofarad 4mo agoYou didnt need the corning one, though, that's an electrically isolated cable, maybe thunderbolt can't go far unless it is media translated to optical, but I am unsure.
- hmry 4mo ago10+ gigabit serial connections (Thunderbolt, USB 3.2/4 DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.1, etc) are limited to 1 or 2 meters on passive copper cables. You need optical for anything longer (or a hot, power-hungry transceiver, like for 10GBaseT ethernet)
- StilesCrisis 4mo agoInteresting idea! I'm currently using Parsec to connect to a computer in a closet (due to noise/heat). It's low latency, sure, but a direct Thunderbolt connection would be lower!
- the_gipsy 4mo ago"50ft" are 15 meters.
- NooneAtAll3 4mo ago"HDMI" is proprietary worse DP
- torginus 4mo agoYet HDMI is more widespread and both cables and equipment tends to be cheaper, which is surprising considering a USB-C to HDMI dongle needs actual hardware, while its basically just passthrough for an USB-C to DP. It's also quite nice that HDMI keeps basically all the logic and signaling the same as VGA (blank periods, EDID etc.), so actually making use of the signal is much easier.
- theandrewbailey 4mo ago> It's also quite nice that HDMI keeps basically all the logic and signaling the same as DVI FTFY. VGA uses analog signals, HDMI uses only digital signals.
- swiftcoder 4mo agotelevisions with displayport connectors are sadly still not all that common
- jorvi 4mo agoDisplayPort still doesn't have anything as good as CEC. DDC/CI exists and bizarrely enough has existed for much longer than CEC (since the DVI port era), but DisplayPort Alliance has never bothered to standardize it and iterate on it. For example, some monitors crash if you read any value from the monitor, so you can only blindly send brightness or volume levels. Some internally use 255 instead of 100. Some have crappy flash and you will wear it out by sending values constantly. Etc, etc.
- mDyJzDPmBdG 4mo agoSpeaking of Steam and controllers - is anyone else annoyed by piss poor compatibility of PC games with Steam onscreen keyboard. I can count on one hand games with seamless integration, where it popups after moving to input field. The manual Steam/XBox + "X" shortcut always shows the keyboard, but games like to ignore submitted value. My favorite example is Dark Souls character creation screen, it is the only place in the entire game you can and need to enter text, and it is faster to walk the 50ft and back, than to get it working.
- chocochunks 4mo agoThat hasn't been my experience on SteamOS and Bazzite. Generally the keyboard pops and you can enter text, occasionally you do need to do it manually but even then text still works. On my GPD Win Mini I actually have the opposite problem. It brings up the on screen keyboard when I want to use the built in one.
- keyringlight 4mo agoIsn't that a consequence of it being a fairly open platform and no certification gatekeeper before a developer can release/update their game? The platform isn't specifically steam or where mouse/keyboard is unavailable or inconvenient, it's generally what they think most of their target market will be using which is likely a generic windows desktop. I don't think developers or valve themselves would want to set up certification and enforcement to say "you must have X in your game otherwise you can't release on steam", especially for the wide range of categories of criteria you could possibly think of, and someone out there will want a way to do text input on their steering wheel for a driving simulator. PC gaming casts such a wide net it's likely an impossible task.
- staticman2 4mo agoI plug a wireless keyboard into my client device for these situations though it does add clutter to the room.
- dolmen 4mo agoEA still hasn't made its EA account malware SteamDeck compatible. I have to spend 30 minutes every few months to enter again my EA account credentials (nowadays I use a dock and a hardware keyboard).
- saltmate 4mo agoDoes anyone have a proper (and not overly expensive) solution for also moving input devices somewhere else? My main device is not in the same room as my TV.
- nullify88 4mo agoI think the options are dependent on your setup. For example if you have a smart TV running Android, you could run https://www.virtualhere.com/usb_client_software https://www.virtualhere.com/usb_client_software on it to connect a dongle or controller attached to the TV through to your main device. I do this with my Nvidia Shield and Xbox One Controller.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- dspillett 4mo agoDepends on what you mean by “proper” and the exact layout you are trying to work around. I can state from experience that drilling a hole through a wall, installing brush plates on both sides to make it look neater, and passing display and input cables through, works pretty well and costs very little. I was using wireless input devices, but still had input cables through the wall with the other end of the wireless link plugged into them, as the range limits of the devices' radios was problematical otherwise. If you sometimes need to use the machine in its own location as well, then you need a screen there with the pair set to mirror the same output and a local set of input devices, sharing/switching audio output might be a touch more faffy. Less practical if the device and screen are not near enough to the joining wall, or are in rooms that don't share a wall, of course.
- Fnoord 4mo agoWith usbip you can run a USB device remotely as if it is local. You could use this to, for example, access a printer remotely (Wireguard would also allow you this). I went for fiber in my home, through the walls mostly. Also still some legacy twisted pair (esp. PoE).
- mr3mpty 4mo ago
- mentos 4mo agoNow just make the cable a few miles long and call it Nvidia GeForce NOW?
- calgoo 4mo agoA few miles? My closes server is in Paris, and im in Barcelona. I get a minimum of 30 to 40 ms of lag, fine for slow games, but if you are playing something multiplayer and there is another 40 -> 100 ms lag on the server connection things quickly go downhill.
- dude250711 4mo agoYep, there are better ways of (mis-)spending a $1.5K. Maybe it's possible to order an aesthetically-looking cube sculpture even. Or make one with Legos.
- jauntywundrkind 4mo agoI did a USB extension and fiber optic DisplayPort to game on my old rooftop deck. It was very nice. The first cable I bought was 150ft! Too long! Really hard to coil. I've been on sunshine/moonlight mostly these days (updating to Apollo/artemis is in progress), but I do sometimes wire my desktop to my patio with this cable & wireless input devices these days. That spot is pretty sun exposed so it needs a real sweet spot, where-as the streaming just works anywhere & is easy, but sometimes it's nice enjoying the flawless low latency.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4mo agoYou cannot play two different games at the same time with your 50ft hdmi cable. Can't people see any usecase for the steam machine? I understand, you are not in the market for it. I am, I have a good usecase which possibly will make the cost drop below a ps5 over the years (if you include games cost)
- weird-eye-issue 4mo agoHave you looked at what sort of FPS it gets on the games you want to play? Overall it's performance is... Quite poor even on the lowest settings for lots of games
- onfromsofa 4mo agoIf the benchmark has the words "RT" on it, like a lot did, you can safely throw them in the trash. That's people benchmarking the device in the same spirit as people who thought the Steam Deck and the Switch 1 could do 4K. Worthless.
- weird-eye-issue 4mo agoOkay but we aren't talking about a handheld device here. You should not need to literally put it on handheld graphics settings to get decent performance. Also this thing is literally designed for running on TVs and everybody uses their TV at 4K resolution...
- joe_mamba 4mo ago>If the benchmark has the words "RT" on it, like a lot did, you can safely throw them in the trash More like you can throw the console in the trash if you can't run current day games on it well, when those games mandate RT. A lot of AAA games have started mandating RT since 2025, like Doom the dark ages for example, and the number of games doing that will only increase moving forward as devs just take the easy way with Unreal Engine, instead of optimizing for performance with baked in lighting like it's 1999. So the already mediocre performance of the console will only get worse and worse over the years in the upcoming games. I like Valve, but there's no need to larp for Valve and run defense for them when they make mistakes, like with the steam box.
- tskulbru 4mo agoIve been using Moonlight on my Apple TV, with a 8bitdo controller connected to the Apple TV. My gaming computer is running bazzite and runs Sunshine as streaming server and it handles basically any game. I did use Steam Remote Control earlier but i found it quite unstable and slow compared to Sunshine which basically just works out of the box. Ive beaten Silk song and Elden ring on the setup. Its just wired 1gb networking. In the future i might upgrade to faster networking to get down the latency but its not really needed as long as i dont stream in 4k (my computer doesnt really do 4k that well anyway). The computer(s) have nvidia and amd gpus, both work just as fine.
- dmpanch 4mo agoI use similar setup (CachyOS, Apple TV, Moonlight/Sunshine), but I play on a projector instead of a TV, which results in slightly higher latency. With that in mind, I connect gamepad via Bluetooth to my PC rather than to the Apple TV to minimize input latency; all single-player games are fully playable without any noticeable lag.
- christkv 4mo agoI'm doing the same and it works great. The apple tv is an amazing little box for all of these things.
- willis936 4mo agoI have a very similar setup. On Ubuntu (wayland only) I had to build sunshine for support. There is also always the bootstrapping issue for logging in when locked. Yes, I can physically log in, but I'd like something a little easier. Remote desktop is actually quite a bit of a headache and locked down in annoying ways by gnome.
- jon-wood 4mo agoI have some terrible NixOS hacks on my desktop machine which bridges Home Assistant via MQTT to some configuration around which video and audio outputs should be used, and whether my login manager should automatically log in as my user account running Steam Big Picture or wait for auth before starting Niri. Its certainly not anywhere near as smooth as having a Steam Machine under the TV, and I don't love that I have to run a machine that makes the room several degrees warmer while running, but it does have the advantage of being free apart from the time spent making it work.
- weird-eye-issue 4mo agoMine is moving my Razer laptop from my office to next to my TV and picking up my controller which is slightly annoying but at least I can play games at a good FPS which the Steam Machine cannot do
- bbrks 4mo agoIf you already have Ethernet at both ends I cannot recommend enough game streaming. With the right setup it is almost identical to having my computer plugged in physically, and I am very sensitive to input latency. I can get 4K HDR 120Hz running over gigabit Ethernet without visually sacrificing too much on bitrate, but you can squeeze more bitrate at lower fps or 1440p (obviously) if that is your preference. You can also tune these settings per-game with the setup I have which is quite useful. Hardware wise, I'm using a Steam Deck as the streaming client in a docked setup (ala Nintendo Switch). It seems to handle everything I can throw at it, and it has the bonus of being able to run simpler games without streaming anything. I have a third-party (UGREEN) dock providing power, USB and gigabit Ethernet, display (though unfortunately no HDMI-CEC to turn the TV on automatically (I worked around this using a janky automation script)). The official dock has HDMI-CEC but costs ~2x as much with less IO. I'll deal with my jank script. For software, I'm running MoonDeck for game streaming via Sunshine on my gaming PC. The Steam Remote Play streaming is good, but not quite _as_ good, sadly.
- yellow_lead 4mo agoDo you find Sunshine to be better than Steam's streaming?
- cisophrene 4mo agoI find the Sunshine clients to be much better. You can set them up with much more granularity than Steam client, which can help a lot depending on the type of game you want to play. You also have a variety of clients not just Moonlight, for ex, on iPad I can recommend VoidLink which is really well made and handle touch events beautifully, turning the iPad into an actual MS Surface with multi-touch support when streaming Windows. I actually have an interesting setup to play Civ 4 with the family (best civ game, change my mind): the games are running on virtual machines on a headless servers and we play on iPads using the native touch controls. It's really nice user experience and I was surprised it worked so well on such an old game.
- noxvilleza 4mo agoWith Sunshine (I looked at it ages ago but totally forgot about it), do you have to be logged in order to accept clients? With Steam remote play streaming it won't let me stream unless I'm logged in - which is a problem given that I leave my PC (Windows 10). in my bedroom and I don't want to leave it unlocked.
- weezing 4mo agoI wish my OG physical Steam Link supported 4k. It was the best thing ever for the price.
- sintax 4mo agoUsed to use moonlight/sunshine to stream to my steamdeck hooked to my TV, but switched over to just using a long HDMI cable and a wireless controller. Have everything hooked up with Home Assistant, so when I start the PC in a specific automation, it will automatically switch output to the TV and start steam in big picture (steamdeck) mode. Works fairly well. Using a normal distro (Fedora), so no dual boot shenanigans. If something goes wrong, either get out of the couch (duh!) or remote with moonlight :-)
- littlecranky67 4mo agoI have a setup where I use a HDMI-over-Ethernet extender [0] to play games in my living room from my homeoffice desk setup in the bedroom. Funnily, the computer and TV are just 1m apart, but separated by a wall and I didn't want to drill (it is a rental). Luckily it is new construction, and all rooms have CAT7 ethernet outlets (most rooms even have two). I use a female-to-female ethernet coupling in central fusebox to bridge those cables together (they need to be directly connected, switching is not possible). So the signal travels around 30-40m over ethernet even though the devices are literally back-to-back against a wall. HDMI-to-Ethernet extender cost around 50€, but is limited to 1080p@30, 720p@60 or 1080p@60 in "low quality mode" (macOS lingo) - which is enough for me. Low quality mode is still good enough for games. As you just read, my computer is a Macbook Pro so it is not AAA games anyway. I think there are now extenders that can do 1080p@60 on regular HDMI quality. [0]: https://www.amazon.de/OREI-Anschl%C3%BCsse-Splitter-Extender-HDMI-Verl%C3%A4ngerung/dp/B01GYH8DOM https://www.amazon.de/OREI-Anschl%C3%BCsse-Splitter-Extender...
- gadelat 4mo agoThese setups suck for following reasons: 1. Can't wake up your PC with controller. Workarounds with custom scripts and WoL are ridiculous. They also don't solve having to log in afterwards and starting a game. 2. Because of missing HDMI-CEC, you have to switch to PC output manually on TV 3. Same issue in opposite side. PC stupidly uses TV output even if TV is off. If you want to use the PC without TV, you gotta disable TV output. What's that, you can't see display menu so you can do this? Yeah because that menu showed up on your TV that is off, since it's set as primary display, which is needed for games to launch on that screen. For first issue, you gotta walk to your PC to turn it on, login and launch game. For 2) and 3), it's easiest to plug in cable in TV when you need to and plug it out when you are done. I don't know why there isn't a consumer product yet solving this without hassle.
- c-hendricks 4mo agoYou're not wrong but those aren't insurmountable. Of course the Steam Box is a better experience, but I built a remote starter for my PC and a dumb little Go program to switch the displays and disable some devices. End result is I tap maybe two shortcuts on my phone and the computer is on and switched to the TV.
- gadelat 4mo agoDo you have a script which bypasses login screen and switches input on TV too? I don't think so. Anyways my problem is that it takes a programmer to solve this even partially.
- c-hendricks 4mo agoNah it's still a dance to get the TV input switched that's a good point.
- intrikate 4mo agoAutologin is trivial to set up on most operating systems. There are solutions for using CEC to control your television as well. I'm not a programmer, but I was able to set this up with minimal issue. If you don't want to have to solve these problems, that's fine, but please don't parade around as if these are insurmountable, unsolvable problems.
- MrBuddyCasino 4mo agoI just use Steam Streaming. If that doesn't work because they fucked it up again, Parsec. MBP as a terminal, smol ITX T1 running Windows as host.
- imightbebatman 4mo ago[dead]
- androiddrew 4mo agoAn old steam link still works for me
- throwatdem12311 4mo agoMy gaming PC motherboard recently sh*t the bed. It was over 10 years old and I’ve beaten that thing up quite a bit. It’s Zen 1, so new MOBO basically means like 70% new PC. Before the price was announced I figured I’d look into a Steam Machine because I also want a well-supported Linux box for coding. I already have a PS5 Pro - which turned out to actually be a decent investment because the price has been increased multiple times since I bought it. When I saw the price of the Steam Machine I just *sigh*’d. Reviews are saying the Steam Machine barely stacks up against a base PS5. Excuse me, WHAT!? Was considering just getting a MacBook Neo to tide me over until I can build a proper PC and they just jacked up the prices. I’ll probably still end up getting one but I just gotta wait a bit longer. I’m currently surviving on a 2012 iMac my mother in law asked me to get the files off of for her and she gave me the computer itself. Installed Ubuntu on it and it’s…fine…but it doesn’t even have an SSD so it can be rough at times. It’s ridiculous. I’m a software engineer, and I can’t even afford mid-level technology anymore (not American so I don’t have the ridiculous salary like some). Thankfully my M1 Max Mac Studio from a few years ago is still going strong and my employer pays for that anyway. It’s also for work only. Though I suspect not gonna happy when either 1) I need an upgrade for local LLM developement for the AI projects coming down the pipe or 2) he sees the API bill because he can’t be arsed to make an upfront investment. Something has to give.
- mrguyorama 4mo ago>the Steam Machine barely stacks up against a base PS5 People keep saying this as if the PS5 competes with a gaming PC. It doesn't. Please tell me when you can run Firefox on your PS5 (specifically Firefox, for good ad blocking. Or Brave if you want, it's just a PC). Please tell me when you can run a minecraft server on a PS5. Please tell me when you can run Factorio on a PS5. For your actual problem though, look at refurbished business laptops. AMD really boosted what $500 gets you there.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- pitaj 4mo agoMotherboards are actually stupid cheap right now, especially secondhand. I'd look into that some more.
- JeanMertz 4mo agoI have my LLM/gaming PC tucked in a rack in my basement: - 100ft DisplayPort + USB cables going to my home office's monitor - 100ft HDMI cable going to the TV on the wall in my home office - 30ft HDMI + USB cables going to my receiver in the upstairs gaming/tv room Works great. I can control/game from any of the three screens, and I also have Moonlight to sometimes control the PC remotely either in the house (bedroom) or externally via Tailscale. I have an old Steam Link lying around, but I never have a use for it anymore, so while I can understand that there is an audience for Steam Machine, if you are capable, and have a dedicated gaming machine, a couple of long active/fiber HDMI+USB cables is all you really need.
- nicman23 4mo agohello mr tech tips
- nicman23 4mo agosunshine + moonlight + wakeonlan is quite good if you actually set up the black magic that is wol
- abbefaria27 4mo agoI don’t understand why the Steam Machine is getting so much hate. The form factor is amazing and a huge part of the value proposition. It’s slightly bigger than a box of Kleenex and you can put it next to the TV, on your desk, etc. I’m tempted to get one just to free up the floor space used by my ATX case. The graphics capability seems good enough, most people can live without 4k gaming.
- ozten 4mo ago+1 And we don't know yet, but I am hoping for reliability. My gaming PC is a nightmare. Sometimes it works great. Other times, I have to sacrifice a goat to get the thing to work.
- tomwojcik 4mo agoToday I had to disable dual band WiFi on my windows gaming machine because PoE2 has this bug when a group of mobs surround you, network latency suddenly spikes, but only if the network card works on dual band... Sigh. I assume many issues like that will still exist on Steam Machine, as it's kind of unrelated to what's running the buggy software.
- Borealid 4mo agoThat issue cannot be a bug in the game, because the operating system should not allow a game to (by any means) produce that type of behaviour. So it's a bug in your OS, potentially the network card driver. There are fewer of those on Linux but they still exist.
- jrm4 4mo agoGiven my experience with Steam Deck, I strongly doubt this? My guess is that the extra $200 (over a custom built pc) will precisely be "everything mostly just working."
- drudolph914 4mo agoI don't think the majority of ppl are giving it hate tbh - I think it's just a HN thing. everyone I know that is into gaming is excited about it. I would chalk it up to consumer misunderstanding around the pricing, but I actually think most consumers that are interested in buying a steam HW product are fully in the know why there's a chip shortage. I am in the group that is waiting for the price to drop, but I am excited to get mine!
- slipperybeluga 4mo ago[dead]
- taffydavid 4mo agoIs PC gaming on your TV the real selling point of the steam machine?
- whywhywhywhy 4mo agoNot at all, it’s pc gaming without managing a pc
- mrandish 4mo agoI use Sunshine streaming from my home office gaming PC (4070Ti Super) via 1Gbps Ethernet to a "Google Chromecast with Google TV" streaming dongle running the Moonlight client in our dedicated home theater room. The streaming dongle is powered via a USB-C hub that has an Ethernet port and the HDMI output is plugged into a Denon AVR as an input source. The AVR outputs to a ceiling mounted laser projector with 150" screen. We run games at 4K HDR10 / 60 fps with no latency I can detect. The key is avoiding wifi and testing actual point to point throughput (I run a local instance of OpenSpeedTest). The streaming stick gets around 320 Mbps which is more than fast enough (it's capped by the Android TV CPU and poorly optimized driver stack).
- secabeen 4mo agoI jailbroke my TV to put the sunshine client directly on it, and it works great.
- huflungdung 4mo ago[dead]
- Lermatroid 4mo agoWhat projector are you using if you don’t mind me asking? Been in the market for one.
- mrandish 4mo agoSony VPL-XW6100. Extraordinary image when calibrated, especially if you have full light control.
- sedatk 4mo agoHow did he get 50ft controller range though? EDIT: To quote GamerNexus, “ Using the Puck outside, we were able to get around 146 feet (44.5m) away with direct line-of-sight before it completely dropped out. In a house, you’d lose connection much sooner due to walls and obstacles. Still, it’s an impressive range.”
- Computer0 4mo ago>I doubted long HDMI cables would work well, so I never bought one. Turns out we've had active fiber optics cables for a good while now! Yeah I wouldn't recommend, if you have to though I have had better experience with DP. Also, you need the ones with the repeaters.
- variety8675 4mo agoOptical cables have gotten very good and cheap recently. I was able to move my desktop into another room and run outputs / usbs to both my office and tv for under $100.
- zackify 4mo agoI have moonlight and sunshine and also drilled through the other side of the house with a long fiber optic HDMI cable. Best of everything lol Also a Bluetooth dongle in my attic about 40ft USB cable. Works great for home assistant too and Bluetooth devices like plant sensors outside the house over ble Bonus points if you do tailscale and jetkvm or wake on LAN and can moonlight from anywhere.
- mistyvales 4mo agoI used a Raspberry Pi 4 as a Steam Link for many years. It was only 1080p60 and had a touch of input delay, but it wasn't terrible. It actually got better with bug fixes over the years.
- jrm4 4mo agoAny reason for stopping? I have a physical steam link and a Raspberry Pi 4, and house rearranging is making me look into all of this.
- mistyvales 4mo agoI moved into a smaller place and didn't really need a remote play option anymore. That's basically the only reason.
- fwipsy 4mo agoI wonder how many people buy a "living room PC" just because they don't know about these fiber optic cables?
- theodric 4mo agoI tried this years ago when I got my first 4k TV. The cable was not even 50', more like 15', and the picture would green out and artifact horribly at the worst times. The solution eventually ended up being Moonlight running on an Nvidia Shield TV Pro, and the gaming PC shoved somewhere else where I didn't have to listen to the fans.
- _345 4mo agoI did the same thing but it's 25 feet hahaha, love to see this
- zaptheimpaler 4mo agoYes lol same! I was using Sunshine/Moonlight before, it does work great but then I got a 4K 120Hz HDR TV that only has 100Mbps ethernet, a weak video decoder that can't really handle AV1 at decent FPS, weak network stack that can only hit like 80Mbps, and a "Game Mode" that only triggers with external cables.. unfortunate. I also looked into Steam Decks and other docks but none of them actually support the full bandwidth either network or video that it would take to get those specs either. Even with a direct ethernet connection between the TV and PC and lower quality, it still has a noticeable input lag. So I ended up getting an long HDMI 2.1 fibre optic cable and a long USB-extender for the controller dongle.. works great. It just sidesteps a whoole lot of annoying problems and limitations all over the stack.
- smetannik 4mo ago> Unfortunately, HDMI 2.1 does not work with AMD graphics on Linux due to shenanigans from the HDMI Forum. IIRC, recently, AMD got permission to implement HDMI 2.1 in their foss driver, so soon this shouldn't be an issue.
- BrokenCogs 4mo agoWhy not just dual boot into windows for your gaming needs? It works out of the box more than Linux (if you ignore all the ads, windows updates, and so on). Alternatively stream over local wired connection using apollo
- qmr 4mo agoBecause fuck Microsoft. Using it even just for games is giving them a signal they're doing something right.
- jrm4 4mo agoDoes it really, though? I haven't used Windows as a daily driver in forever, but I'd have trouble believing that my Linux Mint desktop isn't less hassle than Windows (e.g. the ads, windows updates etc you mention)
- BrokenCogs 4mo agoYes it really does. I use both Linux and Windows daily and for most office and gaming tasks windows is much much easier to setup and get going in. I say this as a technical/person/engineer and not just an average user.
- waschl 4mo ago[dead]
- andai 4mo ago> The Steam Machine costs about as much as a comparable self-built PC. That's amazing, is VALVE selling these at a loss?
- gh02t 4mo agoLinus Tech Tips did a video a few days ago where they built a DIY Steam box for the same price. What they came up with was a decent improvement on the GPU but not a massive upgrade. Kinda suggests Valve isn't necessarily selling them at a loss but the margins are probably near zero.
- vips7L 4mo agoWasn’t it also like 4x the size?
- gh02t 4mo agoIt was still small enough to be relevant but yes. The level of integration Valve can do with the steam box probably actually lowers the total cost for them a bit versus just comparing against individual component cost, so it buys them a bit of margin but probably not a ton in today's market. It was also missing the ability to wake from the controller, I wonder if we will see that become a feature on other gaming Linux distros? I'm not super clear on why that isn't already possible.
- vips7L 4mo agoIdk man. The thing they built looked gigantic and wouldn’t fit in a tv console at all.
- hnarn 4mo ago> It turns out that a _very_ long HDMI cable, a Steam Controller 2 and Bazzite on a second drive was all I needed to get a comfortable couch gaming experience. Yes, it does turn out that if you already _have_ a capable gaming PC, you can use that instead of buying a Steam Machine. Who would have thunk it. It feels like people don’t understand what the value prop of the Steam Machine is, maybe because they’re mixing it up with existing functionality and previous hardware attempts for ”streaming” games. That’s obviously not what this hardware is about.
- tempoponet 4mo agoIn Bazzite I've had innumerable issues with waking from sleep and display driver crashes, which means a 50 ft walk to press the reset button. If you're cool with that, this appliance isn't for you.