SteamOS

[Pako]

I would have to agree with you Luminis. I am more of a textile feel kind of guy myself. It does look interesting and would have to have it in my hands to really get a chance to embrace it as I might find it quite enjoyable. One thing I really like is the Open architecture of it allowing the modding community full access to it. 👍

 

[Joey D]

One thing I really like is the Open architecture of it allowing the modding community full access to it. 👍

It's only a matter of time before we get hats for controllers.

 

[sesselpupser]

This is all quite exciting. What if we end up with an actually viable alternative to Windows for our gaming machines? What if EA, Ubisoft and other big publishers actually get on board with it? Even if this doesn't happen, Microsoft might be pushed to be more gamer-friendly. I wish I could see where we'll be in 2015 or 2016 or so.

 

[NLxAROSA]

Looks like Valve is going full Intel/nVidia for their SteamMachine. Wondering what price they're aiming for.

 

[Grayfox]

Looks like Valve is going full Intel/nVidia for their SteamMachine. Wondering what price they're aiming for.

That will make the AMD fanboys mad.

 

[NLxAROSA]

Can't blame Valve, Intel and nVidia have superior Linux driver support.

 

[Grayfox]

One of the AMD fanboys

Was screaming about how intel use a TIM between the die and the heatspreader to kill the CPU.

 

[Sprite]

Looks like Valve is going full Intel/nVidia for their SteamMachine. Wondering what price they're aiming for.

I've heard that someone priced a Steam Machine and it came in around 1000 I can't remember if it was £ or $ though. I'll try and find the article.

When I was at uni doing game design I ran Win2000 stripped to the bare bones to get as much from my rig when rendering out of 3DS max and Maya. It was basic but was swift for its time, cost me £1200.

I've always hated the stuff MS shove into thier OS. Apple do it too but what they do seems to make life that bit better rather than big the system down for no other gain apart from looks. I don't think MS have really added anything worth while to windows since NT/2000 apart from the skin.

Hopefully once I have my gaming PC I won't need to use it for anything else but games, that should keep the software running on it to a bare minimum. I'm even considering no AV etc. If Steam OS delivers on its promise to be the open source go to / must have for gaming then I'll be there from day 1, if it is just a server for streaming games to another (under TV) PC then I can't see me using it.

 

[Grayfox]

nLite, vLite and 7Lite.

Best programs ever

 

[Luminis]

Heh. Yeah, Windows does seem to get more and more bloated, so I'm using a custom version of Windows 7. My room mate offered it to me, so I'm running that with the key that came with my computer. Might be why I'm quite happy with it; it seems more stable, more lightweight and all around faster and less annoying than the regular version of Win7.

 

[sesselpupser]

I wonder if Valve will do anything to make their Machines cheaper than the sum of their parts. They must know that to compete for living room space they need to match or even undercut the price of the PS4 and Xbox One, but of course their top-spec machine doesn't have to be the one to do it. In any case, I wonder if Intel and/or Nvidia will give them a bulk discount, or if they'll subsidise the cost of the machines via Steam, just as Microsoft and Sony do with their consoles.

It would be interesting if we started seeing proper gaming performance pre-built PCs (with sub-types optimised for different requirements such as size, power efficiency or noise, too) in compact cases for less than self-builds with the same parts.

Then again this could all be pointless and fail, leaving Valve bankrupt, Steam shuts down so we lose all of our games. Hmm!

 

[Grayfox]

Besides with the Xbox one or PS4 the hardware is locked for life.

With the SteamOS box, you can upgrade it for life.

 

[kikie]

Valve has announced the Steam Controller. Haptic feedback, so may not suffer from the same drawbacks as regular touch interfaces. Would love to see it in action!

Looks like Valve is going full Intel/nVidia for their SteamMachine. Wondering what price they're aiming for.

A SteamOS on a SteamPC with Steam gaming hardware -controller and maybe a future steering wheel- ?

Sounds very interesting. Maybe I should start gaming again?

I'm still hoping for Portal 3.

 

[NLxAROSA]

And here's a demonstration video of the Steam Controller:

 

[Luminis]

The swiping motions seem better suited for fast turns and FPS games in general than normal analogue sticks are, but otherwise, it doesn't seem vers revolutionary...

 

[sesselpupser]

The swiping motions seem better suited for fast turns and FPS games in general than normal analogue sticks are, but otherwise, it doesn't seem vers revolutionary...

Well it opens up the possibility of playing many more genres on a TV, Papers Please and other point and click games for example. I'm getting one of these controllers for that reason. Games like Arkham City and Sleeping Dogs, as well as racing games, are possibly still better on sticks though.

 

[NLxAROSA]

Interesting interview with DICE. Nice to see that AAA-devs start to take Linux/SteamOS seriously, hope it leads to something concrete.

 

[NLxAROSA]

First tests with the prototypes have taken place. To me, this is starting to look more and more interesting. 👍

 

[Coxis]

So this whole streaming thing is gradually getting more of my attention. Has anyone here actually done it? I'm not really clear on the details. As far as I know, you can only stream from a Windows PC to a Mac or SteamOS [Linux] machine for now.

Would love to test windows to windows streaming, but it's not available yet.

 

[sesselpupser]

So this whole streaming thing is gradually getting more of my attention. Has anyone here actually done it? I'm not really clear on the details. As far as I know, you can only stream from a Windows PC to a Mac or SteamOS [Linux] machine for now.

Would love to test windows to windows streaming, but it's not available yet.

I use it all the time to stream from my PC to my laptop, it's awesome, it has that Apple 'it just works' feeling to it... Most of the time. Maybe it's because I'm still enrolled in the Steam client beta, but every now and then my laptop and PC will see each other, but I won't be able to access my library unless I use Splashtop to just open Steam's settings on my PC, then it wakes up and connects. It's very, very impressive stuff, though.

 

[Coxis]

I use it all the time to stream from my PC to my laptop, it's awesome, it has that Apple 'it just works' feeling to it... Most of the time. Maybe it's because I'm still enrolled in the Steam client beta, but every now and then my laptop and PC will see each other, but I won't be able to access my library unless I use Splashtop to just open Steam's settings on my PC, then it wakes up and connects. It's very, very impressive stuff, though.

Really? wow!

What kind of home network do you have? Wired, wireless, gigabit, ethernet, w-n, w-g?

I don't suppose you've streamed to SteamOS? My only concern right now is the lack of drivers for gaming gear in Linux, like macros on my G15 or Razer mice.

 

[sesselpupser]

Really? wow!

What kind of home network do you have? Wired, wireless, gigabit, ethernet, w-n, w-g?

I don't suppose you've streamed to SteamOS? My only concern right now is the lack of drivers for gaming gear in Linux, like macros on my G15 or Razer mice.

I've got my PC connected to my router with TP-Link PA-211 200mbps powerline ethernet adaptors, and my laptop is a late 2013 MacBook Air with 802.11ac but the router is 802.11n. It's fine as long as no one starts downloading anything or watching Netflix, at which point it starts being erratic, mostly fine but with the occasional latency spike. When I'm home alone, though, it absolutely flies.

I haven't tried SteamOS, no, I'm waiting for it to mature enough so that an idiot could install it, I heard they were planning on a proper public release (I know it's already public) at some point this summer.

 

[Coxis]

So no hardware to actually achieve the theoretical maximum speeds from your router (powerline adaptors on one end, wireless on the other) and still good performance? Most interesting. Imagine a properly wired house with Cat-6 cabling and gigabit router.

What about discrete surround sound, though? Does that work on your Mac (can they even do that)? Sorry I've never owned one. I imagine streaming the game video and controls is one thing, but discrete sound for 6-8 channels, that must be taxing. I have a nice home theater setup in the living room and can play games with full surround sound through my laptop's HDMI port, but I keep the lighter games on my laptop and the more serious ones on my rig. It would be awesome to play some of those games and make full use of my HT.

Hopefully Windows-Windows streaming isn't a long ways off.

Hmm... damn it. I shouldn't have asked this question, now I want to grab one of my spare 2.5" drives and install SteamOS tonight just for kicks.

 

[sesselpupser]

So no hardware to actually achieve the theoretical maximum speeds from your router (powerline adaptors on one end, wireless on the other) and still good performance? Most interesting. Imagine a properly wired house with Cat-6 cabling and gigabit router.

Exactly! During the beta, when it used to show a load of debug stats (I have no idea if I can get those stats to show again now), it estimated the actual bitrate of the connection to be around 85Mbps. I wish my house was smaller so I could feasibly wire my PC to the router, that would be incredible. I don't think I mentioned that I'm quite sure I'm streaming at 1080p 60fps, by the way. I'd have to figure out how I can check that to be sure, it's definitely 1080p though. Oh and because my laptop is 1440x900, games actually get some 'free' anti-aliasing from the downsampling required to fit the image on the screen. I think, anyway. Naturally that goes away if I plug my laptop into a TV, but still.

What about discrete surround sound, though? Does that work on your Mac (can they even do that)? Sorry I've never owned one.

Oh, I have no idea. I game with headphones on when at my PC anyway so it's all stereo for me. It doesn't do optical out through the headphones port (my brother's MacBook Pro does, though) and as for the Mini DisplayPort to HDMI cable I use to plug it into the TV, I'd be surprised. But then even if it did do >2 channels, I only have one TV with a 5.1 speaker setup in my house and my PC is wired directly to it, so I'd never stream to it anyway.

 

[Coxis]

So I downloaded it and installed it last night. I did some preliminary tests and it's pretty decent. I tried playing Dead Island, Skyrim and watching some AC replays, gameplay is mostly very smooth and completely playable, but the fact that it's being streamed is noticeable. Not in a bad way, you can play just fine, but you just can tell that the game's being streamed by watching the video since it's not 100% seamless. No input lag though.

Is this your experience too, neema?

As far as the OS goes, I'm impressed. I've dealt with Linux before and getting stuff to work was always a mess. Trying to find drivers for your sound card, wireless card, et. al. was a pain. To my amazement, everything works immediately after installation. Everything, even bluetooth! You also have access to the Linux desktop (via activating the option) and everything that entails. You could even run your own game servers from there if you wanted. Pretty neat.

 

[sesselpupser]

Is this your experience too, neema?

Yeah, pretty much. The stream occasionally goes a bit blocky, there are hiccups here and there and some games work better than others - Try Arma 3 for instance, but I wonder if that's a CPU bottleneck - and there is still enough latency for it to feel ever-so-slightly off (and for certain types of games to be unplayable, like nearly any racing game), but with certain games it works perfectly so I use it probably more often than I sit in front of my PC these days.