Return of the Steam Box!

[JonCole]

If Valve says some of the design purpose of the touch pads mirror that of the potential touch screen, I think they can't be wrong to do so considering they are literally designing the controller.

 

Considering so few people have actually used the touchscreen version of the Steam Controller, I think it's practically impossible to ascertain how much was actually lost in removing it from the design. It's great to have faith that it would have been awesome, but the overhead for creating a profile manager to change what's on the screen per game, having devs potentially setup controller profiles manually for each game they make, and putting custom profile creation in the hands of consumers for games that don't support the touchscreen out of the box is not insignificant. It's been attempted before - Razer has their Switchblade technology that really never took off and Logitech has had LCD screens on keyboards that require a lot of tinkering except for a small subset of supported games. Sure, Valve has more leverage in this respect but I can't imagine it would have been as popular or successful as the DS (mostly considering the second screen was a major physical presence on the device so I imagine more devs were compelled to use it in more interesting ways).

 

As someone who loves technology, I'm disappointed that the Steam Controller is a less daring attempt to redefine the PC controller than originally thought. But as a gamer and someone who wants the device to actually succeed, making it something that requires less overhead, probably costs less to make, and it more immediately approachable to more casual gamers seems like a smart move and one I can't give them much grief over.

[Twig]

If Valve says some of the design purpose of the touch pads mirror that of the potential touch screen, I think they can't be wrong to do so considering they are literally designing the controller.

Just because they're the ones designing it doesn't mean they perfectly understand all the implications and relations of and between the different pieces of the controller.

And I'm willing to bet valve, of all developers, would completely agree with me here.

They don't value he touch screen as an element of the controller. Fine. But there's literally no way even they could actually believe that taking one piece and mashing bits of it on top of another piece results in the same functionality.

[Frenetic Pony]

Just because they're the ones designing it doesn't mean they perfectly understand all the implications and relations of and between the different pieces of the controller.

And I'm willing to bet valve, of all developers, would completely agree with me here.

They don't value he touch screen as an element of the controller. Fine. But there's literally no way even they could actually believe that taking one piece and mashing bits of it on top of another piece results in the same functionality.

 

Sure, but who cares about the second functionality? We've had the DS and 3DS and now the Wii U for almost a decade now, a decade! How many games have come out that make use of it, honestly? If there were great ideas for it someone would have done it, it's not like game developers are sitting there, with great ideas for two screens at once, but then not making them because they just don't feel like it; or are avoiding thinking about great ideas for two screens because they don't feel like it.

 

It's just not that useful. If it had been people would regularly have 2 monitors instead of 1. Hey two screens! If two screen had been a neat idea it would have been copied to death already. The Xbone and PS4 and etc. would all have touchscreens in the center of their controllers and the Wii-U would be king of the world rather than slowly killing Nintendo. Just think about it, the video game industry is an incredibly competitive multi billion dollar industry full of really smart people, if two screens was so great wouldn't others have noticed by now, after almost a decade since its introduction?

[Twig]

Sure, but who cares about the second functionality? 

I think it's fairly obvious that I do! You don't like it. Fine, whatever. Doesn't mean I can't. Geez.

[Bjorn]

It's just not that useful. If it had been people would regularly have 2 monitors instead of 1. Hey two screens! If two screen had been a neat idea it would have been copied to death already. The Xbone and PS4 and etc. would all have touchscreens in the center of their controllers and the Wii-U would be king of the world rather than slowly killing Nintendo. Just think about it, the video game industry is an incredibly competitive multi billion dollar industry full of really smart people, if two screens was so great wouldn't others have noticed by now, after almost a decade since its introduction?

 

Because no one in PC gaming has desired multiple screens for the last 15 years....

 

The only limiting factor was cost, most people I know seriously into PC gaming either want or have a 2+ monitor setup.  And I think we will see regular use of the XO and PS4's second screen options on tablets/phones.  A lot of gamers are already doing this without official support, by keeping a guide, map or charts from a website open on their phone/tablet while playing.  Lately I've done it for Don't Starve food values. 

 

And for PC gaming with custom controls, the LCD screen wouldn't have even been the most valuable part.  You could have set it up to operate as a map scroller, zoom tool, inventory flipper, anything that a touch swipe would have been good for.  If the goal is to make a strategy game playable with a controller, those are instant access options you need on a device. 

[SecretAsianMan]

In a way I sometimes think of the Steam overlay as a second screen because it lets me check Steam messages or quickly search for something on the web without having to alt-tab away.  I would think that stuff like the messages could work well on a touch screen.

[JonCole]

Man, I'm still generally of the opinion that Steam Machines are a good idea, but Alienware sure is challenging my opinions - 

 

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/alienware-steam-machines-are-un-upgradable-will-be-released-annually/0126990

 

"Sure a console cycle is like seven years, but just buy a new 'console' from us every twelve months!"

[Justin Leego]

Quote from the original on Trusted Reviews, then PCR, before MCV's edit:

 

“If you actually want to customise your Alienware Steam Machine, maybe change your graphics card out or put in a new CPU, you would be better off with the standard Alienware X51. This particular product is restricted in its upgrade options.”

 

Looks like they are going for a market accustomed to upgrading their phone every year (rather than upgrading their console every 7 yrs as MCV says).

 

I mean fair play to them for giving it a go, kinda surprising that Valve appears to be ok with it, but then you can't upgrade a home console part by part either... It's a PC for people who don't want the perceived hassle of upgrading.

[Dewar]

Just cause they put out a new one every year doesn't mean they expect you to buy it every year. I'm sure you could coast 3 or 4 years between, depending on how high of settings you want everything to run on.

[JonCole]

I think it's a weird middle ground, because consoles have a postscribed (I don't know if this is a word, but prescribed wasn't quite right) shelf life; when the PS4 came out, the PS3's days were numbered. Not so with PCs/Steam Machines - sure, a Steam Machine may last 3-4 years with varying success on a game-by-game basis, but there's no guarantee in place like there is with consoles that all games will work. You might get lucky and still be able to play all games out there in three or four years, or an ambitious one could come out with a crazy memory requirement that wouldn't work with your machine.

 

I guess what I'm getting at is that allowing for upgradability and even encouraging it will temper those expectations that a potential "console gamer" might develop when buying a box with a set spec.

[Bjorn]

Unless they are using all integrated components, I can't imagine how at least something like the ram couldn't be upgraded.  Unless they are just making it a pain in the ass by design. 

[Jake]

I think valve has said SteamOS plans include sorting the library by spec and component. It's more complicated than consoles but also more simple than most PC gaming, which is a black box until you do light research.

[JonCole]

Huh, cool!

 

[Bjorn]

Me too!  I originally had some plans tonight, but I think I'll stay home and geek out to see how this works, otherwise it will be probably be Sunday before I can mess around with it.

 

Hmm, 90MB update to the client once I opted in.

 

 

[Bjorn]

So I couldn't resist going ahead and trying it between my two desktops, even though I should be working.

 

First impressions: It's really neat!  I can manage the game libraries of both machines once I'm logged in on both (installing games to whichever I prefer).  My install list shows every game installed on both machines.  For games installed on both, you can play from the machine you're on, or stream.  For games not installed on both, it defaults to streaming.  There's an overlay that you can activate that shows all the geeky stats about how the stream is performing.  I tried Spelunky, Don't Starve and Bioshock Infinite. Overall latency was running around 100ms, though input latency was consistently below 5ms.  The image quality was perfect, couldn't tell that it wasn't running locally.  But, the video felt very slightly choppy to me in Spelunky and Bioshock.  It wasn't smooth like butter.  Don't Starve felt very smooth.  But I also didn't do anything to optimize, just fired it up and ran. 

 

Tonight I'll run it out to my living room and see how it performs on my aging business class laptop (no fancy graphics card, outputting 1080p video is its limit). 

[JonCole]

Very interesting, I imagine this'll work great for my HTPC. It's quite capable of playing most games, but I wouldn't want to play anything too CPU intensive as it's only running a Haswell Pentium. I'll probably try it with Metro: Last Light, which I've been wanting to play on my HTPC but not wanting to see how it'd strain the meager CPU. Also, it'll be nice to only download games once and play them in either place rather than download once per machine.

 

Edit: Were your two desktops connected wired to the network? Do you have a gigabit switch/router? If wireless, was it N or AC?

[Bjorn]

Both desktops connected to a gigabit wired network, sitting in the same room (grand total of 40-50 feet of cable between them because it runs in wall).  An early FAQ from Valve had recommended using a wired connection for now.  Bandwidth is fine over wireless, but it doesn't necessarily maintain a steady connection.  When I test on the laptop tonight, I will likely stick to wired as well, as it only has a G card in it. 

 

Wish I had a laptop with an HDMI port on it.  Not sure if I can pass anything better than basic stereo out of my laptop. 

 

Edited to add: I'm really hoping this works well.  My current setup is that my wife and I both have desktops in our home office, which we work out of.  Both machines are decent gaming rigs.  For single player and local coop games, we prefer to be in our living room though, so we actually move her machine to the living room to play in there.  It's not terrible, only takes a couple of minutes to unplug and replug everything.  But it would be so much better if I can just leave the laptop in the living room and turn it on rather than physically moving anything. 

 

Edited edit to add:  Alienware clarified the upgrading of their console Steambox.  It's possible, but the internal space and build design will make upgrades much more limited.  That makes more sense. 

[Bjorn]

Well, turns out you're not just going to be able to use any old computer you have lying around.  My IBM T61 didn't fare very well.  It's a 2Ghz Core Duo with 2GB Ram and AMD X1300 onboard video. Trying to push 60FPS 1080P video crippled it.  Got about 25FPS at best, and 15 was more normal.  Tinkering with some options resulted in a 720p image with a capped bandwidth stream, and that delivered a stable 30FPS in most games.  Unfortunately sound was still poor, it wasn't in sync, stuttered or had some static.  I also could only get stereo, not 5.1 sound.  But I'm betting that was a limitation of the laptop.  Apparently the biggest limiting factor on the client end hardware is how much bandwidth the incoming stream is using, older hardware just isn't going to be able to decode it fast enough.  The image still looked incredible at 1080p though. 

 

I'm going to borrow an HP Pavililion 15 with an AMD A6 APU in it this weekend and see how that fares.  I'm hoping the APU and sound coming out over an HDMI will result in a much better experience. 

[JonCole]

Probably something like a ZBOX equipped with the latest Kabini APU or Haswell HD 4400 would be more than sufficient for that much, and it wouldn't break the bank at $300-ish.

[Bjorn]

Huh, so apparently the Family Sharing Beta also got activated on my account.  I never got an invite, and it doesn't look like it's public yet, but I've got the option in settings and can configure it.   Just noticed it as I was quitting tonight, will have to see if it works tomorrow. 

[Bjorn]

@JonCole, have you had a chance to play around with steaming yet?  I had an hour this afternoon to mess around.  The HP laptop is performing MUCH better.  It's odd what performs well and what doesn't though.  Bioshock Infinite was fine at 720p 30FPS.  Serious Sam 3 was near flawless at 1080p 30FPS.  But Spelunky and Banner Saga both struggled to maintain framerate.  Spelunky in particular is just unplayable no matter what options I use (unplayable in the sense that even brief significant framerate hiccups can so easily get you killed in that game). 

 

All the sound problems went away with this machine, but there is no surround sound, just stereo.  Apparently, according to the Steam forums, the streaming service currently downmixes the source audio to stereo no matter what.  This would be the single biggest deal breaker for me to stream to my living room. 

 

Also tried the family sharing that is mysteriously active on my account.  It works!  Was able to boot multiple games from my wife's account.  Interestingly, it appeared to give her account its own saves for everything EXCEPT Spelunky.  Spelunky was running off my save data.  Which makes sense I suppose, it prevents people from attempting the Daily Challenge multiple times from the same copy of the game. 

 

Sidenote, I need to play Serious Sam 3 more.  I forget how awesome a shooter can be when it just says, "Hey, here's a gun.  There's a bunch of monsters to murder.  Oh, and you have a really fast melee that can rip their hearts out in a single hit.  HAVE FUN!  Cover, ummm...there's a building you can hide behind.  If you're a coward."

[Irishjohn]

I just got into the streaming beta in the last few minutes. I can't really muck around too much (I'm supposed to be working) but I decided to fire up The Witcher 2 on my Lenovo laptop (SSD, Intel HD4000) and my mind was immediately blown by how well it worked. Can't wait to much around with it later and get a clearer sense of how it performs for longer than a few minutes.

[JonCole]

I really wanted to have a chance testing this with a game I was planning on playing, but I haven't had a ton of spare time this week so I've been putting it off. I did try Spelunky, though, and I actually didn't detect any noticeable frame dropping or stuttering at all. I did, however, feel that same effect that I did when mucking around with OnLive where there was some friction from latency but I could feel myself adjust over the span of 15 minutes or so.

[darthbator]

I actually think this is most noticeable in spelunky. I've been streaming a good deal of PC games with "Steam in home streaming" lately. I actually just RMA'ed my main monitor so for the next week or so it's pretty much the only way I'll be playing. I was actually able to make it through most of the new tomb raider and through a few levels of the new DmC without feeling any really noticeable input latency. However when I switch to something like spelunky or nihdogg that input/display latency becomes totally palpable. 

 

I'm pretty sure it just has to do with the kinds of games those are (high frame rate extremely responsive 2d games). That's really the only time I could feel the streaming latency hurting the gameplay in a tangible way. 

 

I gotta admit playing Tomb Raider as rendered by my PC on my Macbook is one of the most futuristic feeling things I've done since I first put on the occulus rift!

 

I actually think the streaming works so well I have considered building a little stream machine to live by my TV. I was thinking something like this would be more then powerful enough to decode the video stream in a timely fashion!

[Irishjohn]

Yeah, I linked my laptop up to the TV and Spelunky was unplayable for me. I was worried I'd get motion sick.

 

I wonder if it's a resolution issue... my laptop has a native resolution of 1600x900 and seemed to be ok on its own. Or maybe I noticed lag more on the TV... Skyrim was playable but the slight lag was nagging me enough to just want to go back and play it on the desktop.

 

But I should muck around some more. It would be kind of cool to play XCom in bed.