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.
> 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.
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:
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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...
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.
[+] [-] breckinloggins|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] recuter|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Brakenshire|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] kmfrk|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] devx|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asdfs|12 years ago|reply
The trouble is in getting unbiased results. I doubt Valve would want to test each model themselves.
[+] [-] randomdestructn|12 years ago|reply
edit: or maybe a triplet, CPU index, GPU index, Storage index.
[+] [-] devx|12 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] johnbellone|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mladenkovacevic|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] mmagin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] StavrosK|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] officemonkey|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Namrog84|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corresation|12 years ago|reply
After all of the talk about leveraging the AMD successes with the game consoles -- and about smoothing ports -- surprised to see nvidia only.
[+] [-] drcode|12 years ago|reply
Prototype hardware always costs a gzillion dollars.
[+] [-] Aldo_MX|12 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] liuliu|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrt0mat0|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corresation|12 years ago|reply