Gabe Newell - PC/Linux gaming and Steambox

nesf

Goodshape wrote: »

Already have a rocking PC and just want to stream it downstairs? No problem, get a cheap streaming dongle and away you go. Doubt you'd pay more than the cost of a controller.

It sounds even simpler than that to me. Maybe just a box running SteamOS hooked up to the TV and streamed over your LAN. Personally it's not appealing at all to me, but if the SteamOS box is just decoding a stream and displaying it on screen and sending input back through the network, then (pipe dream) maybe you could even run SteamOS off of a Raspberry Pi or similar if you wanted it solely for streaming? Because that would be very inexpensive. Of course if any rendering is going on on the SteamOS box then this would never work for modern non-indie games.

Genghiz Cohen

nesf wrote: »

It sounds even simpler than that to me. Maybe just a box running SteamOS hooked up to the TV and streamed over your LAN. Personally it's not appealing at all to me, but if the SteamOS box is just decoding a stream and displaying it on screen and sending input back through the network, then (pipe dream) maybe you could even run SteamOS off of a Raspberry Pi or similar if you wanted it solely for streaming? Because that would be very inexpensive. Of course if any rendering is going on on the SteamOS box then this would never work for modern non-indie games.

the previous rumours put the cheapest Steam Machine spec at about $100. If that's any help.

Robert ninja

nesf wrote: »

maybe you could even run SteamOS off of a Raspberry Pi or similar if you wanted it solely for streaming? Because that would be very inexpensive.

This is the possibility that I'm most excited about. You could turn any device that has a screen, USB or LAN capability and make it a gaming platform. If you're anything like me, there's old tablets, unopened and unused monitors stored everywhere (I recently just starting dual screening to free up space that one was taking up in storage). If these all have the possibility of playing games with only a little work from me to set up some controllers or keyboards & mice (which I also have plenty of) then I could have screens mounted and lying everywhere ready for high-end gaming. It would be quite amazing imo. I could let my sis enjoy all the power of my PC in her own room without me needing to set a time away from the PC so she can be scared to death by Amnesia :P. I overdid the RAM on my PC so actually seeing it have a use would be cool.

stevenmu

nesf wrote: »

For techies this kind of certification process is a waste of money, we can figure out what hardware configuration will work well. For regular consumers or people coming from console land where hardware configuration is something you never have to worry about, it makes a whole lot of sense.

Possibly. It is certainly useful to have a level of guaranteed compatibility between components, but I would have thought most people who are reluctant to build a PC are more worried about actually assembling the components and installing an OS.

But then I love researching components to decide what to build, so I'm probably out of touch with your average non-techie.

I suppose it will help a lot with prebuilt systems, I presume there'll be levels of some sort, so someone can buy a 'Steam Machine Gold' and know it will run everything well at 1080p, or a cheaper 'Steam Machine Silver' that will run things at 720p etc, without having to understand the components.

jumbobreakfast

If the $100 rumour is true, then surely an Arm SoC would be the only possibility? They havent said that SteamOS would be x86 exclusive or have they? If Arm is supported then an Ouya would be ideal

Dyr

jumbobreakfast wrote: »

If the $100 rumour is true, then surely an Arm SoC would be the only possibility? They havent said that SteamOS would be x86 exclusive or have they? If Arm is supported then an Ouya would be ideal

100 bills is meant to get you the streams-from-your-gaming-PC-to-the-telly option. You aren't going to get a device that does any heavy lifting on its own for a 100 bills I'd say

If the $100 rumour is true, then surely an Arm SoC would be the only possibility? They havent said that SteamOS would be x86 exclusive or have they? If Arm is supported then an Ouya would be ideal

Yes, its going to be hard to make $99 with an x86 box. Even the cheapest Nettops tend to be more like $150 and that's usually barebones.

Maybe it will be ARM, it will be interesting to see. I would not be surprised to see a Nvidia collaboration, like a Shield type thing but in a box formfactor (ie without the screen and controller).

Tar.Aldarion

I wouldn't be surprised with nvidia, especially with their announcement the other day saying sorry about linux, and they'll do better at supporting it and so on.

ShadowHearth

So I guess we all sow this already?

Nvidia Working With Valve, Linux Community For SteamOS


http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/09/26/nvidia-working-with-valve-linux-community-for-steamos/

Like I said, Steam OS and streaming is only an option. Eventually SteamOS will be blown out fully working OS for PC games.

Overheal

yuck.

I don't want Nvidia working on anything.

They still belong in that pit I left them in when they shagged their reputation to try and dodge a recall.

I wouldn't still be this bitter about it, but they didn't make many apologies, and held themselves absolutely no accountability. Just moved along like business as usual. Screw off a couple of our customers, screw off some some of our largest OEM partnerships. no big deal.

ShadowHearth

Overheal wrote: »

yuck.

I don't want Nvidia working on anything.

They still belong in that pit I left them in when they shagged their reputation to try and dodge a recall.

Its not about Nvidia working with valve, but about "ball being rolled" thing. do you think AMD will sit outside and wount do support for linux too? They will now too.

Dcully

Overheal wrote: »

yuck.

I don't want Nvidia working on anything.

They still belong in that pit I left them in when they shagged their reputation to try and dodge a recall.

So you wouldnt buy a product from them if for argument sake it was the best back per buck out there?
Me i dont go in for this nvidia V ati malarky, i buy the best bang per buck regardless of who makes it.
If either or both develop for valve it doesnt matter a tad to me

If you don't have a (good enough) PC, it's a sliding scale from a cheap stand alone Steam Machine that handles the classics and the low-fi stuff, all the way up to a PS4 / XBone competing dedicated gaming power house.

@ Goodshape , good post above but all the way to PS4/XBone power house?
Jaysus i hope they offer something better than formats nobody really knows if will be up to the task 1080 gaming @ 60fps,something PC gamers are doing for years.

Looking forward to see what elolves here with valve.

Overheal

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Its not about Nvidia working with valve, but about "ball being rolled" thing. do you think AMD will sit outside and wount do support for linux too? They will now too.

AMD is baked into all the major gaming hardware now.

Apple is exclusively AMD (with Intel CPUs). Even its Mac Pros are Firepro systems.

AMD will surely develop into the Linux market now, yes.

So you wouldnt buy a product from them if for argument sake it was the best back per buck out there?
Me i dont go in for this nvidia V ati malarky, i buy the best bang per buck regardless of who makes it.
If either or both develop for valve it doesnt matter a tad to me

Thats the other thing though: they typically aren't. Not enough to justify forgiveness. Comparable performance from AMD has always come at a nicer price point when I've shopped. You do typically wait a bit longer for the best drivers, but idc.

For instance, I've forgiven HP. They tried to deny my claim a few times over the course of a week in the very breaking days of the episode. It wasn't exactly common knowledge but the list of affected models had been generated. The CSRs were trained to abide by that, it took some fanangling to remind them I had custom ordered a unit with the same base components and should be entitled to the same scope of work. They relented. The laptop still functions too, it turned 7 this year and spends its retirement years running NES and SNES and occassional PSX games on a 42". They were trying to make good to most affected customers in a really muddy situation.

More importantly though HP as a company responded, like Apple and Dell, and switch OEM providers for GPUs. They use far more AMD than Nvidia now, aside from the really high end laptops where, to be fair, nvidia spends more money making Mobile chipsets, but AMD dominates the middle and lower hardware market with fusion APUs and iGPUs. In the US, at least.

In contrast over at Nvidia nobody said sorry, and no heads rolled. They needed to. And as I said before, I really hate the entire "Way its meant to be played" gimmickery, and tbf I could say the same of radeon. Gaming choices shouldn't be about which chipper threw more money at a developer to optimize their engine for particular hardware.

I'm not completely abject to nvidia but I won't go out of my way to buy them. I've had a Tegra 2 powered android tablet in the past, and have the Surface RT which is Tegra 3 juiced. I have the same methodology when it comes to Intel (surface Pro and Yoga 13, and an Envy Spectre 14 which I own as well), all of which run i5's, in spite of the fact that I think Intel has done some questionable deals in the past. To their credit, the product itself is fantastic, I just don't know why they are so insecure about it that they had to use anti-competitive practices on top of that to keep AMD in a corner.

Jaysus i hope they offer something better than formats nobody really knows if will be up to the task 1080 gaming @ 60fps,something PC gamers are doing for years.

Looking forward to see what elolves here with valve.

Ditto! 4K Resolution has emerged. And while its really infantile and ludicrously expensive, I hope gaming will be there inside 5 years. Most upper and top tier PC gaming rigs will already be able to hack that. I'd at least like no game to run lower than 50 fps, and theres a lot to be sad for V-sync and just keeping a steady framerate over a jumpy one. Bouncing wildly between 120 and 80 frames is a lot more distracting than throttling the whole title down to 60

Oh, and FXAA Or really any Anti Aliasing. Consoles still havent shaken their pixelly roots

AMD announced Mantle the other day, a low level API, which is potentially a game changer. And it's cross platform with Linux support (maybe not initially).

There's a lot of moves being made at the moment and some of the comments from major industry figures over the last year or two are starting to make sense....Gabe bashing Windows, Carmack talking about PC draw call performance etc.. I think we're on the brink of a major change in PC gaming.

Overheal

I like PC Gamer's translation for AMD's plans:

‘Operation: Make All The Graphics’

CastorTroy

I'll admit I'm not the most tech savvy person when it comes to computer innards and linux, so a lot of these announcements are confusing me a bit.

My PC is decent enough, I know that. So I won't be getting a new one too soon. I have it hooked up to my tv in my living room.

So was just wondering how can this benefit me? I'm not saying I demand for it to benefit me, but I'm just wondering if it's something I'd be able to use. All I've read so far seems to concentrate on the streaming aspect, which I wouldn't use.

Goodshape

Dcully wrote: »

@ Goodshape , good post above but all the way to PS4/XBone power house?
Jaysus i hope they offer something better than formats nobody really knows if will be up to the task 1080 gaming @ 60fps,something PC gamers are doing for years.

Absolutely. Plenty of potential to be much better than a PS4/XBox. I was thinking more of consumer price points though. The 'Steam Machines' you'd see on the shelf... maybe a $100 model (really I can see it going down to $50, but someone mentioned $100 above), something around $250, then $400 or $500 – with specs to rival, potentially beat, the current crop of consoles you can get at those prices.

But for the real hardcore, you'd have the same freedom that you get with PC's today. Want to spend $2k on a console (basically: a gaming-dedicated and optimised living room PC)? You can go ahead and do that. I'm sure AlienWare and the likes wouldn't mind getting in on that.

Goodshape

CastorTroy wrote: »

So was just wondering how can this benefit me? I'm not saying I demand for it to benefit me, but I'm just wondering if it's something I'd be able to use. All I've read so far seems to concentrate on the streaming aspect, which I wouldn't use.

If you want a games console for your living room, there'll be various Steam Machines to choose from at different prices. You'll be able to download and run games on them, no need to include your PC at all.

As a 'bonus', the games you buy on your Steam Machine will also be available on your PC, and visa-versa. Depending on the spec requirements.

Another bonus, if you ever decide to upgrade your Steam Machine, or your PC, your old games come with you – no questions asked.

CastorTroy

Goodshape wrote: »

If you want a games console for your living room, there'll be various Steam Machines to choose from at different prices. You'll be able to download and run games on them, no need to include your PC at all.

As a 'bonus', the games you buy on your Steam Machine will also be available on your PC, and visa-versa. Depending on the spec requirements.

Another bonus, if you ever decide to upgrade your Steam Machine, or your PC, your old games come with you – no questions asked.

Hmm, so nothing of interest then, since have Steam on the PC and plenty of consoles.
I thought the Steam OS would free up some of the resources used by Windows and allowing games to take advantage of the freed up resources.

NTMK

CastorTroy wrote: »

Hmm, so nothing of interest then, since have Steam on the PC and plenty of consoles.
I thought the Steam OS would free up some of the resources used by Windows and allowing games to take advantage of the freed up resources.

we have no idea yet tbh

AlmightyCushion

CastorTroy wrote: »

Hmm, so nothing of interest then, since have Steam on the PC and plenty of consoles.
I thought the Steam OS would free up some of the resources used by Windows and allowing games to take advantage of the freed up resources.

If you replaced Windows with Steam OS (or dual booted) then you may notice that games will perform better on Steam OS providing of course Valve can make better use of the system's resources. Apart from that the possibility of getting a cheap box/stick for streaming games from your Windows PC to your TV.

Goodshape

CastorTroy wrote: »

Hmm, so nothing of interest then, since have Steam on the PC and plenty of consoles.
I thought the Steam OS would free up some of the resources used by Windows and allowing games to take advantage of the freed up resources.

SteamOS probably world free up resources compared to running Windows.

And for your next console, maybe you can save a few hundred euro and get a Steam Machine built just for streaming. Let your PC handle the grunt work.

Later you can upgrade your Steam Machine or your PC and lose nothing.

cherryghost

And no paying for a Windows licence either

nesf

cherryghost wrote: »

And no paying for a Windows licence either

You'd still probably need one for a dedicated machine since at first anyway not all games would be ported over and no one will likely port over most of the older stuff and I imagine trying to emulating DX9 on SteamOS would attract some attention. :P

cherryghost

nesf wrote: »

You'd still probably need one for a dedicated machine since at first anyway not all games would be ported over and no one will likely port over most of the older stuff and I imagine trying to emulating DX9 on SteamOS would attract some attention. :P

I've managed to play Windows games through Wine and PlayOnLinux with relative ease. Games didn't take that much of a performance hit.

Just sayin' :P

nesf

cherryghost wrote: »

I've managed to play Windows games through Wine and PlayOnLinux with relative ease. Games didn't take that much of a performance hit.

Just sayin' :P

Most games, yeah. All games? No. Which was kinda my point.

Skerries

I'll just leave this here

Thecageyone

Much as I enjoy the odd game on PC ... I think PC only players don't get console gaming. It's not about the graphics. It's about not having to worry about games not installing properly, or crashing, or BSOD because you experienced a hardware issue you have to trawl through 100 menus to get at! It's about relaxing, slamming down on the sofa with a wireless controller and just having fun playing.

There's too much on the side with PC gaming, not to mention the expense. And then all the upgrading.


The current consoles areabout 8 years old now. Yet still run the latest games without ANY issues. What's not to like about that? So what if the graphics aren't quite as sharp. You don't have to tweak anything to get it right, and everyone is on e a level.

PC gaming can be so obnoxiously elite. I'd heard of people just give up gaming because of bullying on the likes of Battlefield or COD online. How sad is that in general? I know that's a whole nother debate there, but I was only reading somewhere about that yesterday.

This steam thing .. .not sure on it. I'm doubting they'll offer any stand alone for cheap that would rival current high spec PCs

Sarky

Thecageyone wrote: »

Much as I enjoy the odd game on PC ... I think PC only players don't get console gaming. It's not about the graphics. It's about not having to worry about games not installing properly, or crashing, or BSOD because you experienced a hardware issue you have to trawl through 100 menus to get at! It's about relaxing, slamming down on the sofa with a wireless controller and just having fun playing.

None of this has been an issue in PC gaming for years. I've seen orders of magnitude more XBoxes with red rings than I've had problems getting a game to run on Steam.

Thecageyone

Yes it has. Just look up Metro last light BSOD ... it happened to me only yesterday, and when I searched it, I found loads of posts on various forums across the net on the issue.

I've had 2 360's. The first, premium, I had for about 4 years. never one issue. The current Slim I have about 3 years, again, never any issue. Never saw one red light. And anyone I know with a 360 over the years is the same.

Again, I play both ... I do not, and will never get, why there's this constant competing from players of one side or the other.

End of day, we're all just gamers.