darthbator

Return of the Steam Box!

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I can see them giving away copies of Half-Life 3, or whatever killer app they choose, along with the purchase of a Steam Box.

 

Just using filters and whatnot, there are exactly 150 games on Steam that are both Linux compatible and full/partial controller supported. Among that list are some pretty solid titles like Fez, Mark of the Ninja, Amnesia: Machine for Pigs, Hotline Miami, and more. If I had to guess, I'd say there there will be two Steamboxes - one at a very low price point, specifically designed for streaming and media consumption. Another would be more or less a small-form factor computer at a console-level price point, meant for natively running Linux games.

 

The main reason I believe this is because streaming seems to be a very modest goal for Valve. I have to imagine that their long-term goal is converting Windows developers into Windows/Linux developers so they can be completely free from having their customers depend on Windows.

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I'm wondering if the SteamBox is actually not a Valve assembled PC, and is instead just the codename they had for getting pre-built PCs made with SteamOS pre-loaded onto that.

 

Jake said on Twitter that it could maybe also be a hardware rating metric, like what MS has.

 

There's a lot of pieces to this puzzle missing but I think there's at least a lot of potential. I'm not Microsoft's biggest fan regarding all the things they are doing / leveraging with the Windows 8 platform and would like for someone to step up to offer an alternative.

 

As for streaming Windows-only games, I feel like that's the "for now" solution that is being provided. Valve is at least trying to get developers to make Linux support a thing right now. I doubt we'll see 100% of the Steam catalogue converted over, but maybe at least some of it will. Another step is getting hardware manufacturers to make some proper and more timely Linux drivers. Because goddamn.

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I'm still sorta bemused.

 

I think O+O will be "game sharing".

Given the streaming feature, it will probably be a small step to include twitch streaming from Steam.

They already announced game sharing with this (and even before this)! I don't think they'll do it AGAIN as one of a series of big super announcements.

 

One is obviously Steambox, as surmised.

 

I'm mostly interested in the streaming, as I don't much have any interest in installing SteamOS on my personal computer. If I can get a cheapo box and throw it in my living room for media and game streaming, I'll be pretty pleased.

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  • A living room computer
  • One or more sequels, such as Left 4 Dead 3, Team Fortress 3, Dota 3 and/or CS: GO 2
  • Nothing related to Half-Life
  • Nothing related to Portal
  • OnLive-like game streaming from Steam to your tablet or phone?
  • Game that's not a sequel?!
    • Open world?!
  • A new Steam controller designed for Steam® and built by Mad Catz®?!
  • «Virtual reality?!»
  • Built in streaming support – watch what your friends are playing and give cool tips!
  • Take your Steam Workshop® creations even further with the new iOS app! (Other platforms TBA)

I think I've covered every possible thing they can announce.

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L4D3 is definitely a real possibility, since we already know that's in the works, along with a couple code-named projects, and Source 2.

 

Oh.

 

Actually I bet the third announcement is Source 2, along with a game running on it.

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If there will ever be a Half Life 3 Valve will make it run on all Steam supported systems. Because it's proof for other game creators that the Steam platform is a platform they should also release their games on.

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I think one of the most interesting developments is how SteamOS and Greenlight will intersect.

 

Right now if you're trying to get greenlit and you have a neato concept, you point people to your website and say "Download this executable!" If we're living in a world where some not-insignificant percentage of computer gamers are using a version of Steam that's not built to run on a Mac or PC, will options like those disappear? Is the benefit of having a flexible pc-esque living room experience the cost of the openness that's really pushed PC gaming forward with the rise of indie development? Or will this be the slow smothering of the Greenlight initiative, folding back into the curated experience?

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SteamOS sounds good! Somewhy I stupidly was not expecting this home streaming thing, but it makes perfect sense! Keep your noisy high-performance computer in an office room and just stream the games to the living room! Perfect sense! And I'm sure there are things they can improve at the Linux kernel level specifically with the living-room/gaming computer in mind, so it makes sense that it's not just a normal Linux distro (I assume it will not be).

 

I'm already thinking about what kind of computer to build for this. Any tips, Elmuerte?

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If you're planning on streaming most of your games, your computer could essentially be as barebones as possible. I feel like you should at least build a low-mid gaming PC while you're at it, because natively run games will undoubtedly run better. Pentium G3430/Athlon X4 750K + mobo + Radeon 7770 + 4 GB + 500W PSU should be pretty rock solid for native 720p/1080p medium quality gaming for the near future.

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Without having to buy an OS or a monitor, you can probably make a PC that can tackle this year's releases in 1080p for something competitive in price to the XBox One.

 

Things like if you want an SSD and how much video card you want will push it up or down in corresponding fashion.

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I'm wondering if the SteamBox is actually not a Valve assembled PC, and is instead just the codename they had for getting pre-built PCs made with SteamOS pre-loaded onto that.

They confirmed this at CES earlier this year, IIRC. Maybe it was the year before.

 

I'm *really* interested in how the server side of the streaming service handles workflow. With so many games being as CPU dependent as they are, how is this all going to play out if you were streaming multiple games at once?

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They confirmed this at CES earlier this year, IIRC. Maybe it was the year before.

I'm *really* interested in how the server side of the streaming service handles workflow. With so many games being as CPU dependent as they are, how is this all going to play out if you were streaming multiple games at once?

Huh? What does "streaming multiple games at once" have to do with the announcement? I think you're expecting more from this than what it is. The idea is that you have your steam client running on a PC in another room, and you basically take over that PC and video mirror its contents to your steambox. Like airplay mirroring on iOS. It's not streaming any game content, just transcoding rendered frames. There's presumably no "server" component other than a video transcoder.

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Excuse me, I mean server in the loosest sense of the word. As in, your main gaming machine which is doing the workload and serving video to the client.

 

From: http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/8/3852144/gabe-newell-interview-steam-box-future-of-gaming

 

The next step above that is whatever we want. One of the things that’s interesting is that the PC has always had a huge amount of scalability. It was sort of the wild dog that moved into Australia and killed all the local life because it could just adapt. There used to be these dedicated devices, like dedicated word processors. We think that right now the PC scales from laptops up to mainframe.

 

Do you envision a Steam Box connecting to other screens outside the living room?

The Steam Box will also be a server. Any PC can serve multiple monitors, so over time, the next-generation (post-Kepler) you can have one GPU that’s serving up eight simultaeneous game calls. So you could have one PC and eight televisions and eight controllers and everybody getting great performance out of it. We’re used to having one monitor, or two monitors — now we’re saying let's expand that a little bit.

 

This kind of theory seems implied with the marketing information as well.

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There's presumably no "server" component other than a video transcoder.

Input? That might be problematic, but then OnLive probably works and it's much further in the network.

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Input? That might be problematic, but then OnLive probably works and it's much further in the network.

It works fairly well with the Shield as well, even over wireless. In non twitch type games, the input lag isn't even noticeable. I know that Valve is working to build the OS around minimizing input lag as well, which is great to see.

 

In SteamOS, we have achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing, and we’re now targeting audio performance and reductions in input latency at the operating system level. Game developers are already taking advantage of these gains as they target SteamOS for their new releases.

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If you're planning on streaming most of your games, your computer could essentially be as barebones as possible. I feel like you should at least build a low-mid gaming PC while you're at it, because natively run games will undoubtedly run better. Pentium G3430/Athlon X4 750K + mobo + Radeon 7770 + 4 GB + 500W PSU should be pretty rock solid for native 720p/1080p medium quality gaming for the near future.

 

Ehhh, I'd move to at least a six core Athlon, next gen games should be heavily multithreaded (8 cores man! 7 useable by games) and the big thing is video ram, which devs are gonna eat up if it's a high end game. GTX 760 4 gig would be much better.

 

I'm personally disappointed by the announcement. I've no interest in Steam OS as my laptop (and almost undoubtedly any future laptop I get) has HDMI out already. I don't need a dedicated HTPC when I can just plug my laptop in (and when I end up getting a dedicated console at some point or another anyway) and I don't particularly want to stream games from and to since hey, input/output lag is still lag, even over a local network. Hey Valve where's a game, ANY game? You do still make games right?

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If you're only interested in streaming I'd suggest to get one of those all-in-one thingies with a proper graphics chip. So, an atom with a geforce; or a i3 (the new one, it's much closer to power usage as an atom); or that AMD APU thingy(*). For example Zotac has ok barebones (just need to add a disk, memory). The main reason to go for a standard solution is the form factor, it's simply much smaller then when building something yourself.

 

(*) Linux drivers for Radeon are still shit as far as I know. nVidia and Intel do have properly performing drivers. But for streaming I guess all you need is proper VDPAU support. (i.e. hardware decoding)

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Ehhh, I'd move to at least a six core Athlon, next gen games should be heavily multithreaded (8 cores man! 7 useable by games) and the big thing is video ram, which devs are gonna eat up if it's a high end game. GTX 760 4 gig would be much better.

 

I'm personally disappointed by the announcement. I've no interest in Steam OS as my laptop (and almost undoubtedly any future laptop I get) has HDMI out already. I don't need a dedicated HTPC when I can just plug my laptop in (and when I end up getting a dedicated console at some point or another anyway). Hey Valve where's a game, ANY game? You do still make games right?

Video RAM is, of right now, very overblown. Some comparative testing of Kepler cards between the 2GB and 4GB variants are showing no difference in performance, even when the VRAM is loaded up to the max. They've only been able to do this by cranking AA levels and/or downsampling though.

 

Low powered APU in ITX form factor being served up by a proper tower in a closet seems like the ultra-nerd way of the future.

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Ehhh, I'd move to at least a six core Athlon, next gen games should be heavily multithreaded (8 cores man! 7 useable by games) and the big thing is video ram, which devs are gonna eat up if it's a high end game. GTX 760 4 gig would be much better.

 

I'm personally disappointed by the announcement. I've no interest in Steam OS as my laptop (and almost undoubtedly any future laptop I get) has HDMI out already. I don't need a dedicated HTPC when I can just plug my laptop in (and when I end up getting a dedicated console at some point or another anyway) and I don't particularly want to stream games from and to since hey, input/output lag is still lag, even over a local network. Hey Valve where's a game, ANY game? You do still make games right?

 

You are talking about a completely different computer than I am. You recommended a GPU literally twice or thrice as expensive as the one I did.

 

Most people in the world don't care for buying an expensive gaming laptop and plugging it into their televisions. I feel like that's an obvious observation. So, while your method of PC gaming device doesn't favor a Steambox, others might. Like, anyone with a desktop gaming PC. Or, someone who doesn't want to spend $1500 on a gaming PC.

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Actually I'm not sure whether to go for streaming only or something that can play more demanding games by itself as well. If I built a real gaming PC I'd go for something high end and then I definitely wouldn't afford XBone or PS4 for a while. Anyway, haven't even gotten a TV yet.

The size of the box I probably don't care that much about, main thing is that it should be quiet.

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My two cents there: if you were already thinking of buying an Xbone or PS4, you should just go for it. They'll never be more exciting than they are at the beginning and the state of PC gaming will undoubtedly be in flux around their release. Even though they don't promise to be wildly more powerful than PCs, the moving target of how games are developed, how much video memory they'll use and whatnot will be decided in the next year or so and you'll know for sure if a $300 4GB GPU is actually a worthwhile investment or if multithreaded CPUs are going to benefit gaming meaningfully (they haven't, despite threatening to this generation).

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