8 ms·

Steam Machines – Prototype Details

50 points by mrt0mat0 13y ago

StavrosK 13y ago
I don't even know why I'm interested in this: I have neither the time nor the desire for games any more. The only game I play is DOTA2, and I want to quit it.
- officemonkey 13y ago
  I've played DOTA2 twice, and I have absolutely no idea of what's going on or how to play. What's the big deal anyway?
  - winslow 13y ago
    The learning curve is very steep. I'm still learning how to play it after 1+ years with it. For me, the big deal is that it is a new genre (for me) and I also love that it forces teamwork and strategy with players that play a 'support' role which their sole goal is to help a 'carry' win his lane. Check out highlights of Dendi from Navi in Dota 2 International 2013. It's basically a game of chess.
    - StavrosK 13y ago
      It's not really a game of chess, it's more like a game of basketball. There's not very much calm, focused thought, but there is skill and strategy.
  - kyleashipley 13y ago
    I agree with winslow that the main initial attraction is the novelty of the genre. I got into League of Legends a few years ago before DOTA2 was announced, and I find that it's a bit more beginner-friendly and balanced than DOTA. (DOTA fan counter-point: League of Legends is overly simplistic and pay-to-play.) Coincidentally, the League of Legends world championship final is occurring tonight. Anything you learn about the genre or strategy will apply somewhat to any game in the MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) genre, so check it out if you're interested in learning more. Riot Games has hired an entire team of casters and analysts, and I find the commentary to be mostly insightful and enjoyable compared to American sportscasters. To bring this on-topic: I wonder whether Valve will allow non-Steam games to run on SteamOS. League of Legends is directly competitive with Valve's own DOTA2, but Valve has historically allowed you to use Steam purely as a launcher. My biggest fear is that this is yet another walled garden, just one that has embraced its digital nature sooner and better.
    - StavrosK 13y ago
      As long as it runs on Linux, it will probably run on SteamOS. The question is "would valve block LoL from Steam", and I can't see them doing that just because they have a competing game in that genre.
      - officemonkey 13y ago
        Steam lets me add non-Steam games to their launcher right now on Windows. Imagine the ribbing they would get from the hypocrisy of making a walled garden on Linux. The bigger limiting factor would be "games that run on Linux." Does League of Legends play on Linux?
        StavrosK 13y ago
        Well, that's just a launcher thing. Given that the OS will be open, I am pretty sure you'll be able to install it. The question is, will it be available on Steam the platform? I can't see why Valve would block it.
corresation 13y ago
Those specs are very high-end (cue someone dismissing that compared to their triple-SLI, etc) and it is hard to imagine that is at all commercially credible: that would be a $1200+ machine. The GTX780 alone is $700, the Titan $1200. Add that the notion of a living room media/gaming box using up to 450w seems oddly backwards. After all of the talk about leveraging the AMD successes with the game consoles -- and about smoothing ports -- surprised to see nvidia only.
- Aldo_MX 13y ago
  This is not necessarily bad, most hardcore PC gamers already have a setup similar to this one. At this point if I have to be skeptical about something is about how well the hardware will work with the OS considering the reputation nvidia has with Linux...
  - corresation 13y ago
    Hardcore gamers are far too small of a market, however. I really had hope that Valve would do some serious system integration that would you get you much more for less (effectively what the shortly to be released consoles do. PC wise they are a fantastic amount of power), but instead it's just apparently the same PC market, with the only novelty being the shape of the box.
    - xymostech 13y ago
      Isn't the point of Valve's console that they want to get SteamOS out to people to test, not because they actually want to sell it to people? It looks to me like they're shipping with a variety of system configurations (one of them even has an i3 in it, certainly not a hardcore processor) and they're seeing how each of them holds up. They're going to leave it to other companies to actually make some real consoles (they might release their own too, but they're not the only ones who can), and one of those companies certainly could perform the system integration that you'd like to lower the cost. The point of SteamOS is that it's open, and anyone can make them (and people other than Valve can sell them). If they become insanely popular, I'm sure that someone will jump on integration to sell a cheaper console.
johnbellone 13y ago
I'm actually more interested in the enclosure and its exciting to see that Valve is providing the CAD so that we can effectively fabricate our own. It'd be awesome if they just sold the enclosures and let us put our own hardware in. Nevertheless this is fucking brilliant.
mrt0mat0 13y ago
Goes to show you how the OS is 40% of the cost of a computer. take that away and you can get great hardware for the same price.
- corresation 13y ago
  Where are you getting that from? There is nothing at all about price, and we all know that the OEM cost of Windows is ~$50. Valve is going with Linux because it decouples them from being vulnerable to fits of Microsoft, not because that $50 whole system price somehow makes a $1200 nvidia Titan less expensive.
  - BlackDeath3 13y ago
    $1200 Titan?
mladenkovacevic 13y ago
I am curious about the enclosure they've built to minimize heat and noise coming from the GPU and the 450W PSU. A couple of years ago I built a small AMD Llano based computer using a small enclosure sold by Mini-Box and an 80W fanless Pico Power Supply also sold on the site. Case - http://www.mini-box.com/M350-universal-mini-itx-enclosure http://www.mini-box.com/M350-universal-mini-itx-enclosure PSU - http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-80 http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-80 It is much quieter than an Xbox 360, but also can't play any XBox level games on it (I use it as an HTPC). I'd be curious to see what I can do today with the same amount of power using Haswell, some 28nm GPU and SteamOS.
- mmagin 13y ago
  Hopefully it's a big advance over most of what's out there. Thermal design on the PC-assembled-from-standard-parts seems to often leave a lot to be desired. Folks like Dell or HP do a little better in their 'workstation' lines, but aside from that, desktop PC thermal design tends to be ignorant of the assembled system as a whole. On top of it, nobody seems to understand that these things should have removable and washable dust filters. It's unrealistic to expect the average user to keep it in a low-dust environment and it's even more unrealistic to expect them to open it up and clean the dust out.
  - asdfs 13y ago
    I would truly love to see a new form factor appear that's designed for large heatsinks that vent directly to the outside. It's always seemed terribly odd to me that GPUs often consume more power than CPUs, yet have tiny heatsinks and loud blower fans.
breckinloggins 13y ago
I can't wait to hear more about how they'll lessen the "fragmentation" confusion with different Steam Machines. Perhaps they'll do a tier system like "Steam Machine Bronze / Silver / Gold / Platinum" and then games can be rated "Gold+" or something. Or maybe they'll have a minimum spec that gets bumped every 2 years, so a game can say "runs on all Steam Machines (2014+)". But it's clear there's going to have to be some way of "tranching" the different hardware levels, because nothing will kill this idea faster than a general public who's heard that you can never be quite sure if a game you buy will run on your particular Steam Machine. But then I realize something: where do people get Steam games from? The Steam store online! I'm pretty sure they'll build in the equivalent of the windows performance score that can be sent to Steam's servers, and they'll simply be able to show you the games that will run best on your machine and hide games that simply won't run at all. Thoughts? I think that, as with the controller, this is a really important aspect of getting this whole big idea to work.
- Brakenshire 13y ago
  > Perhaps they'll do a tier system like "Steam Machine Bronze / Silver / Gold / Platinum" It would have to be some sort of rolling release I think, because this year's gold hardware will be next year's silver or bronze. > I'm pretty sure they'll build in the equivalent of the windows performance score that can be sent to Steam's servers, and they'll simply be able to show you the games that will run best on your machine and hide games that simply won't run at all. You'd need to know before you buy the hardware, though.
- recuter 13y ago
  Umm, how is me not even being able to see Half-Life 3 when I visit the Steam store on my Steambox supposed to make me feel better when friends with more powerful PC's and newer Steamboxen can enjoy it just fine? No. And none of this tier stuff either. The point of the Steamboxen is to kill the windows dependency of games, probably why they are future proofing them so much. They'll last 3-5 years in their present iteration and at that point it will be moot.
  - breckinloggins 13y ago
devx 13y ago
I initially thought it would be better to go with Nvidia to provide some kind of "competitive advantage" over the AMD-based consoles, but that's going to be hard to do when PC's tend to be unsubsidized, and when the same level of hardware is actually weaker because of the DirectX/OpenGL overlays. Then, after I saw AMD announcing the Mantle API, I realized, it would be a perfect match for the Steam Machines, to get some of that console-level performance for more or less the same price. John Carmack agrees that Valve+Mantle would be a deadly combination: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-mantle-api-xbox-one-playstation-4-john-carmack,24434.html http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-mantle-api-xbox-one-pla... Mantle is the future of gaming machines. It will not create lock-in, because both Nvidia and Intel will scramble to create something similar, or even compatible with AMD's API (which will be open soon), and what this will lead to eventually is a reset of standardized overlays for GPU hardware, that will support AMD, Nvidia, Intel, and probably even ARM GPU's, but with much lower overhead than DirectX and OpenGL. http://www.anandtech.com/show/7371/understanding-amds-mantle-a-lowlevel-graphics-api-for-gcn http://www.anandtech.com/show/7371/understanding-amds-mantle... http://semiaccurate.com/2013/09/30/amds-mantle-biggest-change-gaming-decade/ http://semiaccurate.com/2013/09/30/amds-mantle-biggest-chang...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Namrog84 13y ago
Link doesn't appear to be pointed at anything relevant? Was it taken down? Link or mirror please? Thanks!

50 points by mrt0mat0 13y ago

I don't even know why I'm interested in this: I have neither the time nor the desire for games any more. The only game I play is DOTA2, and I want to quit it.

officemonkey 13y ago
I've played DOTA2 twice, and I have absolutely no idea of what's going on or how to play. What's the big deal anyway?
- winslow 13y ago
  The learning curve is very steep. I'm still learning how to play it after 1+ years with it. For me, the big deal is that it is a new genre (for me) and I also love that it forces teamwork and strategy with players that play a 'support' role which their sole goal is to help a 'carry' win his lane. Check out highlights of Dendi from Navi in Dota 2 International 2013. It's basically a game of chess.
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    It's not really a game of chess, it's more like a game of basketball. There's not very much calm, focused thought, but there is skill and strategy.
- kyleashipley 13y ago
  I agree with winslow that the main initial attraction is the novelty of the genre. I got into League of Legends a few years ago before DOTA2 was announced, and I find that it's a bit more beginner-friendly and balanced than DOTA. (DOTA fan counter-point: League of Legends is overly simplistic and pay-to-play.) Coincidentally, the League of Legends world championship final is occurring tonight. Anything you learn about the genre or strategy will apply somewhat to any game in the MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) genre, so check it out if you're interested in learning more. Riot Games has hired an entire team of casters and analysts, and I find the commentary to be mostly insightful and enjoyable compared to American sportscasters. To bring this on-topic: I wonder whether Valve will allow non-Steam games to run on SteamOS. League of Legends is directly competitive with Valve's own DOTA2, but Valve has historically allowed you to use Steam purely as a launcher. My biggest fear is that this is yet another walled garden, just one that has embraced its digital nature sooner and better.
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    As long as it runs on Linux, it will probably run on SteamOS. The question is "would valve block LoL from Steam", and I can't see them doing that just because they have a competing game in that genre.
    - officemonkey 13y ago
      Steam lets me add non-Steam games to their launcher right now on Windows. Imagine the ribbing they would get from the hypocrisy of making a walled garden on Linux. The bigger limiting factor would be "games that run on Linux." Does League of Legends play on Linux?
      - StavrosK 13y ago
        Well, that's just a launcher thing. Given that the OS will be open, I am pretty sure you'll be able to install it. The question is, will it be available on Steam the platform? I can't see why Valve would block it.

corresation 13y ago

Those specs are very high-end (cue someone dismissing that compared to their triple-SLI, etc) and it is hard to imagine that is at all commercially credible: that would be a $1200+ machine. The GTX780 alone is $700, the Titan $1200. Add that the notion of a living room media/gaming box using up to 450w seems oddly backwards. After all of the talk about leveraging the AMD successes with the game consoles -- and about smoothing ports -- surprised to see nvidia only.

Aldo_MX 13y ago
This is not necessarily bad, most hardcore PC gamers already have a setup similar to this one. At this point if I have to be skeptical about something is about how well the hardware will work with the OS considering the reputation nvidia has with Linux...
- corresation 13y ago
  Hardcore gamers are far too small of a market, however. I really had hope that Valve would do some serious system integration that would you get you much more for less (effectively what the shortly to be released consoles do. PC wise they are a fantastic amount of power), but instead it's just apparently the same PC market, with the only novelty being the shape of the box.
  - xymostech 13y ago
    Isn't the point of Valve's console that they want to get SteamOS out to people to test, not because they actually want to sell it to people? It looks to me like they're shipping with a variety of system configurations (one of them even has an i3 in it, certainly not a hardcore processor) and they're seeing how each of them holds up. They're going to leave it to other companies to actually make some real consoles (they might release their own too, but they're not the only ones who can), and one of those companies certainly could perform the system integration that you'd like to lower the cost. The point of SteamOS is that it's open, and anyone can make them (and people other than Valve can sell them). If they become insanely popular, I'm sure that someone will jump on integration to sell a cheaper console.

johnbellone 13y ago

I'm actually more interested in the enclosure and its exciting to see that Valve is providing the CAD so that we can effectively fabricate our own. It'd be awesome if they just sold the enclosures and let us put our own hardware in. Nevertheless this is fucking brilliant.

mrt0mat0 13y ago

Goes to show you how the OS is 40% of the cost of a computer. take that away and you can get great hardware for the same price.

corresation 13y ago
Where are you getting that from? There is nothing at all about price, and we all know that the OEM cost of Windows is ~$50. Valve is going with Linux because it decouples them from being vulnerable to fits of Microsoft, not because that $50 whole system price somehow makes a $1200 nvidia Titan less expensive.
- BlackDeath3 13y ago
  $1200 Titan?

mladenkovacevic 13y ago

I am curious about the enclosure they've built to minimize heat and noise coming from the GPU and the 450W PSU. A couple of years ago I built a small AMD Llano based computer using a small enclosure sold by Mini-Box and an 80W fanless Pico Power Supply also sold on the site. Case - http://www.mini-box.com/M350-universal-mini-itx-enclosure http://www.mini-box.com/M350-universal-mini-itx-enclosure PSU - http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-80 http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-80 It is much quieter than an Xbox 360, but also can't play any XBox level games on it (I use it as an HTPC). I'd be curious to see what I can do today with the same amount of power using Haswell, some 28nm GPU and SteamOS.

mmagin 13y ago
Hopefully it's a big advance over most of what's out there. Thermal design on the PC-assembled-from-standard-parts seems to often leave a lot to be desired. Folks like Dell or HP do a little better in their 'workstation' lines, but aside from that, desktop PC thermal design tends to be ignorant of the assembled system as a whole. On top of it, nobody seems to understand that these things should have removable and washable dust filters. It's unrealistic to expect the average user to keep it in a low-dust environment and it's even more unrealistic to expect them to open it up and clean the dust out.
- asdfs 13y ago
  I would truly love to see a new form factor appear that's designed for large heatsinks that vent directly to the outside. It's always seemed terribly odd to me that GPUs often consume more power than CPUs, yet have tiny heatsinks and loud blower fans.

breckinloggins 13y ago

I can't wait to hear more about how they'll lessen the "fragmentation" confusion with different Steam Machines. Perhaps they'll do a tier system like "Steam Machine Bronze / Silver / Gold / Platinum" and then games can be rated "Gold+" or something. Or maybe they'll have a minimum spec that gets bumped every 2 years, so a game can say "runs on all Steam Machines (2014+)". But it's clear there's going to have to be some way of "tranching" the different hardware levels, because nothing will kill this idea faster than a general public who's heard that you can never be quite sure if a game you buy will run on your particular Steam Machine. But then I realize something: where do people get Steam games from? The Steam store online! I'm pretty sure they'll build in the equivalent of the windows performance score that can be sent to Steam's servers, and they'll simply be able to show you the games that will run best on your machine and hide games that simply won't run at all. Thoughts? I think that, as with the controller, this is a really important aspect of getting this whole big idea to work.

Brakenshire 13y ago
> Perhaps they'll do a tier system like "Steam Machine Bronze / Silver / Gold / Platinum" It would have to be some sort of rolling release I think, because this year's gold hardware will be next year's silver or bronze. > I'm pretty sure they'll build in the equivalent of the windows performance score that can be sent to Steam's servers, and they'll simply be able to show you the games that will run best on your machine and hide games that simply won't run at all. You'd need to know before you buy the hardware, though.
recuter 13y ago
Umm, how is me not even being able to see Half-Life 3 when I visit the Steam store on my Steambox supposed to make me feel better when friends with more powerful PC's and newer Steamboxen can enjoy it just fine? No. And none of this tier stuff either. The point of the Steamboxen is to kill the windows dependency of games, probably why they are future proofing them so much. They'll last 3-5 years in their present iteration and at that point it will be moot.
- breckinloggins 13y ago

devx 13y ago

I initially thought it would be better to go with Nvidia to provide some kind of "competitive advantage" over the AMD-based consoles, but that's going to be hard to do when PC's tend to be unsubsidized, and when the same level of hardware is actually weaker because of the DirectX/OpenGL overlays. Then, after I saw AMD announcing the Mantle API, I realized, it would be a perfect match for the Steam Machines, to get some of that console-level performance for more or less the same price. John Carmack agrees that Valve+Mantle would be a deadly combination: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-mantle-api-xbox-one-playstation-4-john-carmack,24434.html http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-mantle-api-xbox-one-pla... Mantle is the future of gaming machines. It will not create lock-in, because both Nvidia and Intel will scramble to create something similar, or even compatible with AMD's API (which will be open soon), and what this will lead to eventually is a reset of standardized overlays for GPU hardware, that will support AMD, Nvidia, Intel, and probably even ARM GPU's, but with much lower overhead than DirectX and OpenGL. http://www.anandtech.com/show/7371/understanding-amds-mantle-a-lowlevel-graphics-api-for-gcn http://www.anandtech.com/show/7371/understanding-amds-mantle... http://semiaccurate.com/2013/09/30/amds-mantle-biggest-change-gaming-decade/ http://semiaccurate.com/2013/09/30/amds-mantle-biggest-chang...

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Namrog84 13y ago

Link doesn't appear to be pointed at anything relevant? Was it taken down? Link or mirror please? Thanks!