Steam Machines, Almost One Year Later


still no cheap ARM streaming only steammachine...
As far as I know the streaming part is still a closed source x86 blob. Maybe once the Pyra is released someone (maybe ED, as the boss, although perhaps someone else with enough clout, I dunno) can approach them and ask about it.
 
I find the initial statement a little bold ("...have both") and what the narrator says about text input seems a little exaggerated, but it looks like someone tried a little bit more then just switching the standard set of sticks/buttons around

https://www.youtube.com/embed/8fs2Yh1PFwM?feature=oembed

color me interested

edit: too bad, had hoped for Bluethooth as weapon of choice for wireless connectivity > its USB wireless
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Aye, there's a chance that "USB wireless pairing dongle" means bluetooth dongle, but I doubt it. An unfortunate drawback to what seems an otherwise interesting controller.

edit: actually no, I take that back. Wireless USB really is the right way to go, you can just plug it in and take advantage of the already existing USB standard, with Bluetooth it would need a driver and that enters into a world of "won't work on system X". A USB standard for wireless means it's plug and play in just about everything that can accept USB mouse/keyboard/joystick.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
edit: actually no, I take that back. Wireless USB really is the right way to go, you can just plug it in and take advantage of the already existing USB standard, with Bluetooth it would need a driver and that enters into a world of "won't work on system X". A USB standard for wireless means it's plug and play in just about everything that can accept USB mouse/keyboard/joystick.
True, but is that really much different from Bluetooth ? Getting game controllers to work is just about having a proper hid support, isn't it ?And with bluetooth I am not bound to devices that sport a USB port as almost any electronic device that outsmarts a calculator has built in Bluetooth support these days.

I think it uses alkaline batteries as well?
jupp
 
still no cheap ARM streaming only steammachine...
As far as I know the streaming part is still a closed source x86 blob. Maybe once the Pyra is released someone (maybe ED, as the boss, although perhaps someone else with enough clout, I dunno) can approach them and ask about it.
The Nvidia Shield TV (code name X1) does all this and runs on an Nvidia Tegra K1 ARM SoC.

It's by far the most attractive SoC out their, with the 256 Core Maxwell GPU and a Octacore Cortex CPU (4x A57, 4x A53).

PLUS, it's only 199$ W/ the controller, the cheapest price point for an SoC of that magnitude.

http://shield.nvidia.com/android-tv
 
still no cheap ARM streaming only steammachine...
As far as I know the streaming part is still a closed source x86 blob. Maybe once the Pyra is released someone (maybe ED, as the boss, although perhaps someone else with enough clout, I dunno) can approach them and ask about it.
The Nvidia Shield TV (code name X1) does all this and runs on an Nvidia Tegra K1 ARM SoC.

It's by far the most attractive SoC out their, with the 256 Core Maxwell GPU and a Octacore Cortex CPU (4x A57, 4x A53).

PLUS, it's only 199$ W/ the controller, the cheapest price point for an SoC of that magnitude.

http://shield.nvidia.com/android-tv
Sorry, but that's exactly what I'm not interested in... a costly, too powerfull ARM console that won't be compatible with a vast majority of steam game but will support a crapload of uninteresting android games... what I'm interested in is something like steam link which does only the streaming I want and for only 50$ (or 100$ with the controller)
 
Exactly so. Get the streaming working on something Raspberry Pi price point and you've got a winner. It doesn't need to be too powerful in its own right, justpowerful enough to decode the video stream in real time. The Pi2 can probably do that already, just need to know how.
 
You can stream steam games to the Shield Portable and the Shield Android TV from your PC, but you need a compatible card though. Maybe someday NVidia will allow other cards to stream games to these devices then all will be good for them.
 
still no cheap ARM streaming only steammachine...
As far as I know the streaming part is still a closed source x86 blob. Maybe once the Pyra is released someone (maybe ED, as the boss, although perhaps someone else with enough clout, I dunno) can approach them and ask about it.
The Nvidia Shield TV (code name X1) does all this and runs on an Nvidia Tegra K1 ARM SoC.

It's by far the most attractive SoC out their, with the 256 Core Maxwell GPU and a Octacore Cortex CPU (4x A57, 4x A53).

PLUS, it's only 199$ W/ the controller, the cheapest price point for an SoC of that magnitude.

http://shield.nvidia.com/android-tv
Sorry, but that's exactly what I'm not interested in... a costly, too powerfull ARM console that won't be compatible with a vast majority of steam game but will support a crapload of uninteresting android games... what I'm interested in is something like steam link which does only the streaming I want and for only 50$ (or 100$ with the controller)
Check with their GRID program, you get to stream all of their games for free with purchase.

Steam machines are nice, but for the pricepoint you'd almost be better off looking into a Gaming laptop. 

The problem with steam machines, is their just on the razers edge between Small form factor, and performance. 

If you could find a HTPC case with support for ITX motherboards and a full length PCI-Express slot, you could basically build a i3-4xxx with any GPU you want.

I ran a G3258 Pentium @ 5.2Ghz (Liquid cooled) along with a R9 290X and a 512GB SSD. If I removed the liquid cooler and opted for a PCI-Express Ribbon cable I could easily fir it in one of those HTPC cases. Deffinatly would not look pretty on the inside, but would be functional. 

If streaming is of any interest to you, Just get something like a used GTX 660 or 760 off ebay for cheap (Talking like sub 100$) and just stream it to something like the shield I mentioned above, you could have the whole shabang for under 300$.

Only other real Steam machine option is the Alienware Alpha, which is actually at 500$ a pretty fair price point if you don't want to build your own. But again, at 500$ I could probably build something in the 2x-3x+ range of performance.
 
I agree, steam machines are bad, but I'm talking about "steam link" which will allow us to play all our bigscreen steam game perfectly for the half of the nvidia shield TV...
 
Only other real Steam machine option is the Alienware Alpha, which is actually at 500$ a pretty fair price point if you don't want to build your own. But again, at 500$ I could probably build something in the 2x-3x+ range of performance.
Let's be serious a second. You can build something faster, but not 2 to 3 times faster than the Alienware Alpha.  Or if you keep saying that, show me the specs at 500 dollars and no more. 
 
Last edited by a moderator:
yes, for something 2x-3x faster you'll use huge graphic cards in SLI... something that won't fit in 500$...
 
something that won't fit in 500$...
Actually for 500$ the Alienware Alpha is a decent proposition. Even with what it has inside, you can't make something equivalent that is massively cheaper. Believe me, I checked.

This being said, I would rather build something on my own that's 700 USD and way more powerful.  
 
860m in the alienware alpha is not a very good gpu, if you were building yourself and spent 2/3's of your budget ($200-300) and get like a gtx 770 or something you'd see like a 2-3x performance in areas that matter like GPU memory bandwidth and floating point processing.

$500 is a tight budget, but I think you could get a barebones for $200-300 and keep it really close to the $500 package.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'd accept $600, $500 was a stretch, at least for a barebones that wasn't just absolute garbage.

The point remains though that the difference between the $500 alienware and the $600 on the custom built is way more than $100 worth of performance. You would be getting 2-3x the performance there I feel.

Then when you look at their other price points for their i5's and i7's running the exact same GPU is putting money into the wrong parts for a gaming computer (except the boost to 8GB over 4GB).
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I do agree that steam machines are bad gaming PC, so is that 500$ gaming PC, my budget is over 1000$ when building a real gaming PC... I find that their "500$" gaming PC lacks in almost everything beside the obvious CPU, motherboard, ram, SSD, and GPU... I always spend more on the PSU alone than what they spend on the case + PSU... and stock heatsink? that promise low dissipation, high temp and noise... no optical drive? guess it's not mandatory anymore but I find it still hard to live without. no big HDD beside the tiny SSD?

well, you get the idea... be it a 500$ steam machine or a 500$ custom built PC I'm not interested, they'll both be bad. If they proposed PC with so low spec it's just because they are fully aware selling "gaming console" for more than 500$ would be hard. another point is that fitting an actual gaming PC in a so tiny case would be really challenging thermalwise.
 
getting 2-3x the performance there I feel.
To be honest even if you get a GTX960 vs the 860M from the alienware alpha, it's still not 2 to 3 times the performance, actually more like slighly less than 2. http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-960-vs-GeForce-GTX-860M

You don't get super high performance for cheap.  

but I find it still hard to live without.
Steam is an online distribution system so it's very natural not to have a disc drive attached to the system. 

another point is that fitting an actual gaming PC in a so tiny case would be really challenging thermalwise.
Which is why the Valve Steam Machine prototype was interesting. They had interesting solutions on how to make this possible. But they chickened out and dropped the idea :(  
 
Back
Top