Steam Machines – Prototype Details | Hacker News Reader

Steam Machines – Prototype Details

steamcommunity.com

50 pointsmrt0mat047 comments

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.

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.

> 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?

OK, you don't have to hide it, but there still needs to be some kind of guide about how games will play on your Steam Machine.

This is not a big deal right now, but what about in, say, 6 years? You have an original Steam Machine and a new game JUST came out. It doesn't run on your Steam Machine because yours doesn't have a Whatsit Quantum Coprocessor. Shouldn't the Steam UI, you know, let you know that before you go about buying and downloading that 30GB game??

And I don't want tiers, either, but Valve did say they'd have something to say about this; I'm simply speculating about what it could be.

"..Shouldn't the Steam UI, you know, let you know that before you go about buying and downloading that 30GB game??.." Yeah, wouldn't that be the point? It seams like Steam wants to be a platform, and the point of the steambox would be to own your living room (as well as your computer room).

I would think that the Steam environment will do a lot of your thinking for you. It'll check your hardware, suggest upgrades (since the boxes will evidently be upgradable), etc...

Don't worry, nobody's going to get to enjoy Half-Life 3.

> 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.

Valve have specs - and perhaps performance - data for their PC users already: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey.

They can do just the same for the Steambox and use it to display the performance for games on similar systems - if they want to.

What fragmentation problem? PC games have graphics that scale. Problem solved.

I'm not talking about right now, I'm talking about what happens several years from now when suddenly there are games that are all but unplayable (or completely unplayable) on first generation Steam Machines.

There has to be a plan for that.

I'm sure the plan for that is the exact same as the plan for the current situation. Steam machines have specs, the steam client can read those specs and tell you if a game is playable or not. It's not as though gaming on PCs is a new concept.

Why wouldn't the plan be "buy a new one" like it is with consoles, pc's, and every other electric device when they either break or the newer models are that much better?

I think the best thing they could possibly do is provide a wide swath of benchmarks for each machine sold. The user can quickly see if the machine will provide performance that they deem acceptable. Require it to be displayed in a standard format.

The trouble is in getting unbiased results. I doubt Valve would want to test each model themselves.

They could produce an 'experience index' style number like windows does. It's the only effective way I can think of to distil an entire PC's performance into a single value.

edit: or maybe a triplet, CPU index, GPU index, Storage index.

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-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...

http://semiaccurate.com/2013/09/30/amds-mantle-biggest-chang...

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.

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

PSU - 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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

So? The Nintendo 64 was based on the hardware of a $10,000 Silicon Graphics workstation.

Prototype hardware always costs a gzillion dollars.

This isn't prototype hardware, but rather is standard PC hardware. At best it is a prototype form factor?

Another post mentions this as a way of getting SteamOS out there, but really -- as this is just standard PC hardware -- there are already hundreds of millions of candidate devices.

The only real way I can see SteamOS having a chance is if it offers a console-like value proposition (because the next generation of very powerful consoles are just coming out, and even "hard core" gamers are looking at them longingly), which valve needed to make happen through tight integration, optimization, and mass production. Another go at HTPCs == almost certain commercial failure.

From what I've seen, the "hard core" crowd isn't that impressed by the next gen console specs. They already have hardware that can run games at resolutions better than 1080p comfortably at 60fps. We're now seeing stories about launch games not running at 1080p, something which many people expected to be standard for next-gen console games.

But, back to Steam Machines. I don't think it would be a good idea for Valve to try to get Steam Machines down to console like costs. They're not in a position to sell hardware at a loss like console manufacturers have traditionally done in the beginning of a cycle. The Steam Machines should offer quality.

Valve are definitely in a position to sell machines at a loss and make it up on content and new customers ala Amazon and Kindle. I would expect if they were to subsidize the price it would be far below console levels to pursue the billion or whatever casual gamers that don't use Steam, not merely to try and carve out a piece of Microsoft and Sony's pie.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2012/03/07/valve-gabe...

Console manufacturers have been able to sell hardware at a loss knowing that any game running on the machine is going to come through them. The Steam Machines, on the other hand, are just PC's and it doesn't sound like they'll be locked down to only allow SteamOS and its games to run on it.

Look at the specs we're discussing. Even the low-end version is decidedly non-casual.

I think most of the content is going to go through Steam - alternatives (especially anything the manufacturers will shit out) aren't going to measure up where it matters with content. This would be similar to Android where the biggest store, Play, has more than an order of magnitude more of everything than the second biggest, Amazon.

Those specs are high end but that also means the device will be compatible with games for the rest of the decade.

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...

The proprietary nvidia drivers are actually the best drivers on linux, far better than what AMD has currently. More stable, and better gaming performance. The problem is that they are proprietary, and this causes tension in the Linux community. So, there is also open source nvidia drivers (nouveau), but they don't work very well for 3D applications in my experience. Nvidia has recently made some overtures towards the linux dev community, saying they will provide more information to the open source driver team, but time will tell. To sum up, from my experience gaming on various Linux video drivers so far:

nvidia (closed source) > AMD > nvidia (open source)

actually, despite its reputation as a bad opensource citizen, NVIDIA proprietary drives are the best for linux gaming. Their performance are on par with windows.

At that price point though it's difficult to see the advantage compared to just buying a Windows PC of equivalent spec which will run more games out of the gate.

Because it's a Windows PC and it's not in my living room.

Maybe (probably) I'm just biased, but I spent a few years trying to get MythTV, Satellite PCs, Silverstone chassis, Mediacenter, XBMC on a modded 1st gen XBox, etc etc working smoothly.

It was a nightmare. I don't ever ever never want to have to think about overscan again as long as I live.

For me to be interested it needs to be flawlessly plug & play.

This was a few years before HDMI output was available on videocards, so maybe that has already solved the problem.

But as a ~8 year Mac user who converted from Windows XP for Ruby I will never, ever buy another Windows PC. Ever. Never. I mean, my wife still has to occasionally open network settings to get her work laptop onto the network. And because it's an Airport Extreme, that never has to be rebooted (unlike the dozen other WAPs I had previously), it's never the network. Just her laptop. That's crazy. No way I'm letting that into my living room.

Pitch me a box and out of the box experience that is guaranteed to work as long as I keep it vanilla (which is all I want) and is otherwise a PS4 I have the ability to upgrade piecemeal... Yeah. I'm totally on board with that.

And if the price of entry is pushing $600+, I'm probably OK with that too. That's what I paid for an 80GB PS3 on release day after all. I don't think I could make the mental leap past $999 though. ;-)

Price isn't my primary concern. Plug & Play access to a top-notch gaming environment is.

Honestly the PS4 may be a better fit, but the ability to swap out circuit boards on a SteamMachine is appealing. And the game library. If I could play DOOM and System Shock on my TV without spending as much time getting it working as playing I'd be pretty stoked.

Plug and play TV integration on Windows 8 is extremely seamless. I would be surprised if a Valve OS based on Linux with it's patchy nvidia drivers would be any easier.

but the ability to swap out circuit boards on a SteamMachine is appealing

The plug-and-play thing has never really worked. However not having to wait the normal generational time between consoles would be an advantage -- it was always baffling that each iteration of the 360 and PS3 (there were many of each) couldn't improve it in some way beyond making it smaller or lower power. GTA IV on the 360 had draw distance issues and would stutter mid-town -- it would have been nice if some GPU improvements in the 2nd and then 3rd edition eliminated that, etc, but the nature of that platform makes it so they can't.

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.

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.

The Titan card seems requires 600W PSU: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-tit.... Don't know how it works with 450W PSU.

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.

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.

$1200 Titan?

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