- cross-posted to:
- linux_gaming@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- linux_gaming@lemmy.ml
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I’d like the Steam Machine to come back with the addition of being an HTPC. Why? Because Valve is big enough to arm wrestle streaming services into releasing an official app.
I basically want a user customizable, privacy respecting Xbox.
Htpc?
Home theater PC
Home Theater PC.
Way back when netflix was new, windows had a Home Theatre edition of windows.
Beautiful 10ft UI, worked with tuners, could record from them, had no issues dealing with auto-ripped DVDs and had a native netflix integration.
Then netflix pulled out, but windows HTPC was still pretty decent.
Nowadays, it’s basically “you have to pay for everything” with a smart TV or a set top android box, maybe lucky enough to have a tuner in it.
Or it’s high seas.
I don’t think there is really a middle ground.XBMC became Kodi, you can still get that 10ft UI and it integrates with local media files like ripped DVDs and Blu-ray, or it’ll interop with any streaming service, or it’ll interop with high seas URLs.
That gave way to Plex, which is a webapp to host your local media, which has grown very large and is out of favor. Jellyfin and others have taken up the mantel.
In-between the two are the *arr suites of software which automate file sharing.
It’s a rabbit hole if you’re interested. Feel free to google any of these names and you’ll find a glut of how to articles online.
Yeh, I’ve looked at a bunch over the years. None have that DVR ability that windows Media Center Edition had.
I feel like I should build up an arr stack, go down that rabbit hole, spend my streaming subscription money on a VPN and a private tracker (or whatever is required).
I just haven’t yet.
I run the Plex DVR with my HD Homerun OTA tuners. It works pretty well. Certainly much better than MythTV DVR did
HTPC wasn’t a Windows thing though Microsoft did have Windows Media Center, which was a pretty slick interface for HTPCs
I used to use XBMC, which is now Kodi, for an interface. Before that I just used a PC running Mandrake Linux with a wireless mouse and keyboard. Haha.
Had a TV tuner, acted as a DVR, and also could play my library of SNES and NES games through it.
Windows MCE, that was it! Not HTPC.
I knew a guy that built a career using xbmc in a professional environment, scripted out the wazoo to make it not look like xbmc.
I think I even tried running it on an actual Xbox, and being impressed with it. But MCE on a spare laptop was better. I eventually built an HTPC to run MCE.
Had to look it up. They mean Home Theater PC.
Home theatre PC
They are like 1-2 little steps away from a very good HTPC Steam Deck.
Like if they could just take a little time to make Firefox work 100% in game mode (right now it’s not quite there, like you can’t go full screen with videos) and make controllers just a little more comfortable for browsing and it’d already be there for me.
Why would Valve spend time and money doing Mozilla’s job for them?
Same reason they spend time and money making games work on Linux.
They don’t spend their own time. They pay CodeWeavers to do that work.
Point still stands.
That would be cool.
If they added Coreboot support, I would buy it just because of that. (Not 100% FOSS, but it’s still nice to have more control over your hardware)
Or better yet, Libreboot.
Edit: why is this controversial?
Yes! I already have a full gaming desktop attached to my main 4k HDR OLED tv for watching streaming services that don’t have apps on the actual TV (and adblocking). If I could replace that with an HTPC that has gaming capability that’d be great!
I’m not sure what else they would need to do. You can just install Plex or Jellyfin on your Steamdeck right now, and you’ve got yourself an HTPC. It works great!
What are the missing pieces you’re still looking for?
Probably dolby vision support
Or, you know, just connect the Steam Deck to the television…
I’ve tried this, and I think it’s worth providing a more powerful console if playing on the tv is your primary use case.
It works fine but it doesn’t really hold up to the 4k 60fps HDR experience that most people are getting used to from the main console makers.
4k 60fps HDR experience that most people are getting used to from the main console makers
What games are you playing on console where you are actually getting 4k native resolution at 60fps?
Racing and Sports games for sure.
What game on what console?
Forza Motorsport will do 4k60 on Series X for example. Most Racing and Sports games will do 4k60 on modern consoles since they’re easy to render.
Why are they so easy to render compared to other genres? What makes realism so easy to render like it’s a newer generation than the console it’s on? Like Forza Motorsport 2 on Xbox 360 looks far more detailed than the average Xbox 360 game. What gives?
No, Forza Motorsport uses dynamic resolution upscaled to 4k in Performance mode, and in Quality mode it also uses dynamic resolution but targets 30fps.
On the ps5: FF14, borderlands 3, Monster Hunter: World, Destiny 2, Metro Exodus, Far Cry 6, Resident Evil: Village, etc…
Most of them run dynamic 4k so there is periodic upscaling which is seamless in my experience.
I was asking specifically about native 4K games, not dynamic resolution upscaled to 4k.
Well… you were responding to a post by me… which had no mention of “native” anything.
Rocket league on ps5 is 4k120 or 4k60 with HDR
A PS4 game? Nice.
It’s been rereleased and enhanced for modern consoles, if you wanted an answer why are you arguing? Lmfao.
I dont even have a 4k TV.
The community appreciates your input to the discussion.
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A steam machine with a Radeon 7600 class GPU sold for under $500 would be a surefire hit and it would blow the deck out of the water in terms of performance.
I think the biggest thing would be getting a PC with decent specs for $500. Why would anybody buy a Dell desktop or the like ever again? Like even if you don’t game and need to do office work it’d probably be the best option.
You can almost build something like that for this price. Or you can do it if you buy some second hand stuff. But for an OEM building a few million units it would definitely be doable.
Yeah, but I was thinking more parents buying a console for their kids. Like oh little Jimmy can do his homework on this thing too, great I didn’t have to buy him another computer. Or imagine if Microsoft put windows on Xboxes, every office building would be full of them lol.
Especially if they’re going to make their profit in increased game sales.
MiniPCs are surprisingly good at this price point; good enough that I would say for most people’s average use case they would be satisfied.
I’d like to see them get more popular.
They already exist. They’re called mini PCs or NUCs. Just buy one of those and you’re already there. Literally. This whole article and thread is garbage. They already exist. They just aren’t branded Steam.
Yeah duh. A real gaming PC you’d want to hook up to your 4k TV would need to have a GPU, not just an APU. Also, having to install everything yourself kind of defeats the purpose. Do you think the Steam Deck would have been successful if it had shipped with Windows?
A lot ship with Linux. And having a full PC you can use is a downside? So you’d rather have a limited box? That’s not even valves philosophy, so I don’t know where you’re getting that BS from.
What you, @crawancon@lemm.ee and @mipadaitu@lemmy.world are missing is a TV isn’t necessarily a single user item.
Deck hooked to the TV to play a game? Great…now what happens when you leave and someone else wants to play?
The problem gets even more obvious if you use the Deck as an HTPC to stream content. How does anyone watch a show once the deck has gone walkabout?
The inverse is also true though, someone else is watching, I dunno, “The Crown”, pick up the Steam Deck and walk away. ;)
I still have a Steam Link, does that count? Lol
Me too. And a Steam Deck. But I’d still buy one in a heartbeat.
I love the idea of a Steam Deck or the other portable pcs like it, but man I think it would just sit lol. The techie in me just wants it to have. Same with a VR headset. I’d play beatsaber for a bit and it would be dusty.
I don’t use my Deck much outside my home, and I do tend to just sit on the couch most of the time.
I find I’m way more inclined to pick it up and start gaming that way and I end up using it more than my PC.
It’s called a Mini PC or a NUC. They already exist. Go buy one and slap Steam on it. Done.
The people who actually want this have already done it.
Yah. Makes more sense for Valve to spend their time improving Proton or working on their reference handheld device. A reference desktop device is a solution looking for a problem.
Valve’s big advantage here is the same as it was with the steam deck: they can sell at a loss and make it back on software sales.
A lot of the appeal of consoles is a polished experience and that they’re generally less expensive up front compared to a comparable power gaming PC. Many consoles are sold at a loss to hit that price point. Valve could actually make cheap gaming PCs that can compete in price and offer a smooth user experience.
Install steam. Run in big picture mode. Done. That’s a steam machine. I don’t get what you think a dedicated machine is going to do any differently. There is a reason Steam abandoned the idea themselves.
What value do they have? They were just custom prebuilt PCs running a special version of Linux that weren’t that much cheaper than a non-Steam Machine PC. Nothing is stopping you from building a PC and installing the same OS running on the Deck (or the old SteamOS) and then calling it a Steam Machine.
The value isn’t for existing PC gamers. It would be for people who are not tech literate, do not know how to build a PC, install an OS, or even tell if a given computer is powerful enough to run a particular game.
I think that’s the real strength (and more importantly, intent) of the Steam deck: to get people who aren’t PC gamers to become PC gamers by making it as simple as a traditional console. Steam machines could provide a similar thing if there were a Steam Machine 1 Verified flag next to games.
I think where valve went wrong was not requiring specific minimum specs. It led to a very inconsistent and hard to support platform.
Steam deck leading to a standard “steam device” hardware platform with consistent OS and hardware is my dream, but I know their goal thus far has been to refine steamos and release it for OEMs to use on their devices.
Except knowledge.
It’s foolish of you to assume that most people want to build a computer.
And before people respond with ‘its just Legos’
There is so much more to it for someone with little to no knowledge.
Bios and firmware updates that require certain CPUs coupled with certain motherboards.
CPU sockets and inter compatibility.
The different specs of any given component and the value they provide to someone looking for specific workflows
Sizing of components and cases
Knowing where to find parts and what prices are acceptable.
Etc, etc ,etc.
Pick something that you know nothing about, let’s say cars just as an example.
Now imagine, let’s, say want to buy a car but it doesn’t come with wheels, you don’t get a list of 4 wheels to choose from, You get, lug patterns, sizing, and type, offset, wheel diameter, wheel width, bead lockers or no bead lockers, 1 piece, 2 piece or 3 piece, etc.
Now you have to spend all this time researching just about wheels, and then how they fit with the car you chose specifically earlier in the process, it would be frustrating and incredibly difficult for people who just want a car.
Go on any thread or forum and ask ‘what GPU should I get’ which is already making assumptions about someones understanding and knowledge (that they even know what a GPU is), and you will get 20 conflicting answers and need to write a paragraph in responses to narrow it down enough.
Present someone with no knowledge this: ‘DDR3-2666 CL9’ vs ‘DDR3-2000 CL7’. How do you really expect someone who just wants to play a video game to just implicitly know what those numbers mean, how they relate to each other etc.
Building a computer is an immensely difficult task for someone who doesn’t know much or anything about it, and believe it or not, the reality is not everyone wants to learn, places like lemmy and other tech focused echo chambers seem to forget that.
Or indeed just buying a gaming PC already running Windows that runs 100% of Steam games with no effort at all.
What’s holding them back and killing the idea of a Steam Machine PC, is that GPUs are ludicrously expensive.
Shoehorn Steam into an Xbox Series S/X… Well that might work, but it needs MS to eat some humble pie.
What ever happened to SteamOS? I want to be rid of Microsoft now more than ever.
It became what it is currently the Steam Deck OS or at least the lessons learned were applied to create it. That being said you have distros like Bazzite and Pop OS focused on gaming, you could try those.
I recently deleted my Windows partition and went full Linux for my personal devices. I use Windows for work and it reminds me that I made the right decision.
I use Arch btw
Now that TunnelVision has been disclosed to the general public, I’m just trying to finish up my modded games, then I’m going to switch over to Linux and run Windows in a VM as needed.
Even with my pro license, I’m still at the whims of capitalist decision-making; tired of not really being in control of my own computer.
Now that TunnelVision has been disclosed to the general public
That vulnerability affected every OS except Android.
Yes, but you can relegate your network interface to a namespace in Linux, which is a remedy the researchers recommend. You have to use your internet-facing programs in a VM in Windows to achieve the same effect, and that’s a lot of overhead just to protect yourself.
Edit: typo
You have to use your internet-facing programs in a VM in Windows to achieve the same effect
Eh, there’s 20 different ways to detect DHCP Option 121 fuckery and once you know it’s happening its fairly trivial to stop. Any VPN client worth its salt will be updated in 60 days or less to fix this and existing VPN clients can be hardened against TunnelVision with some fairly simple scripting.
It’s a serious vulnerability but it’s hardly the unfixable world ender that the media has made it out to be.
Good to know. Got any specific sources for the scripting, or should I just search for something like “option 121 mitigation?”
Interesting, thanks.
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What ever happened to SteamOS?
It’s still going strong! https://store.steampowered.com/steamos
Personally, I just like to install Debian or Ubuntu as the OS, and then install the Steam launcher:
https://www.linuxcapable.com/how-to-install-steam-on-debian-linux/
I think the outcomes are pretty similar, for an average user. But I find it a bit easier to search for help about other things I want to do with Debian/Ubuntu.
I say Debian/Ubuntu a bunch of times here because, while I like Debian a bit better, there’s tons of help articles out there for Ubuntu, and 99% of them work perfectly on Debian.
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You can set up the boot directly into Big Picture, there are a couple of ways depending on your needs/expectations.
Gamescope did not work for me, I have been gaming exclusively in Linux since proton was published but any time I try to get gamescope working it behaves strangely. I blame my Nvidia card but it’s hard to say.
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Good points!
I use my current one as a PC as much as for gaming.
I’ll keep that in mind when I build my next dedicated game rig, though!
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@helenslunch @MajorHavoc whats gamescope and how does big picture help on a desktop, at least if i have more than one screen and wanna do desktop stuff on the ones that dont have the game on them?
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@helenslunch didnt they work on a desktop version for steam os? Wouldnt it help with getting people to switch from windows to linux?
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I’m not sure about GameScope,I didn’t even realize I was missing out on it.
Big picture is the full screen controller friendly interface, in case you don’t want to connect a mouse and keyboard.
I don’t think it’s still going strong. SteamOS 2.0, the Debian based one that was on the old steam machines has been discontinued and is no longer supported. SteamOS 3.0, on the deck, is Arch based and is not yet officially supported on anything other than a Steam Deck.
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It went to the Deck. I did read an article from someone who forked SteamOS and customized it for their own hardware, but it isn’t a simple process.
Bazzite is probably the closest you can get to a Deck-like experience (and it’s supposed to work for HTPCs), but there’s several other distros that are gaming focused as well, such as Nobara, Garuda, and Chimera.
or just make the steam deck your primary hardware platform and ensure it can connect to everything and use all peripherals. refine it. make it unbeatable.
i think going in on more hardware is not wise.
I could see the new Steam Machine essentially just being a Steam Deck in a box. That’d allow it to have beefier hardware but it could use the same software and interface. Add a new tab for HTPC services and a quicker way to get to desktop mode and you’re done. It would be another hardware platform but there’d be a lot less design if they were similar in architecture.
No I want a steam deck and a dock that lets me also slot in a discrete gpu
The future of pc gaming should be tri upgrade platform
Regular consumer should really only have to worry about upgrading their deck, their connector dock, and their gpu
Hobbyists who like to max out may get into the deck and upgrade that should they wish
I just want to play games on my deck on the go, get home and slot it in so it outputs thru my gpu at 4k60, and literally pick up where I left off when on deck
A triple upgrade platform will allow more consumers to incrementally increase performance without overloading them with info ala pc building
So a kid could start out with the deck, and get a dock, then later get the gpu
During generation upgrades people can decide if they want to get one of the three options for upgrades in the new gen
There are some modders experimenting with eGPUs on the Deck, but it’s really impractical. The Deck USB-C connector isn’t powerful enough to handle an external GPU and the OS doesn’t support it.
Valve would need to release new hardware for it to be feasible.
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@helenslunch @vmaziman so “active cooling backplate for steam deck” it is then :D
I’ve been a long time eGPU user so that was probably the biggest thing I wanted from my steamdeck. But years on I’m not really sure how much I would use it. I use my CPU heavy laptop and eGPU when I want to game big. I’m not going to replace my laptop with my steamdeck. If I want more power than what my steamdeck has, but play on it, I just stream from my laptop + eGPU.
They basically already have one. The steam deck with the dock (though you have to provide your own controller.)
They’d certainly gain some performance improvements by building a dedicated steam machine, but it would also split the market for the steam deck, which the article already talked about as being a negative of the first iteration.
Dunno, I probably wouldn’t get a stationary steam machine over a mobile steam deck. Though being able to use Thunderbolt 4 for an eGPU on a steam deck would be a welcome enhancement, but that’s a whole different discussion.
I like the deck and am thinking about the dock for it, but the controller thing is something I’m wondering about. Any idea if it can handle 3-4 of them wirelessly? I mainly want to put it on the tv for local co op or party games, but I usually use ps4 controllers and have found their bluetooth is awful on PC.
It somewhat depends on the game, and the order that you pair things in.
I’ve run my steam deck, docked on the TV, with 2 Nintendo Pro controllers, 1 XBox controller, 1 Stadia controller, all running over bluetooth, and a fifth PS3 controller plugged in via USB. From what I understand the limit is 8 controllers, but I think the built in controller counts as one.
You can go into the settings and tell it which controller is which, but in the end, the game can override things and make it not work as expected. The only way to really know is to check on a game-by-game basis.
I regularly use 4 wireless Xbox controllers for this exact purpose, and it works great. There’s always the occasional Bluetooth quirks, but overall it’s seamless
I’ve managed to do 6 player Ps2 emulation on it just fine.
3-4 controllers would be ez.
I can confirm two in use simultaneously and a total of three connected (2 xbone, 1 PS5) but we were playing a two player only game. I would assume that if the game supports it, the deck would too.
… But that’s an assumption :)
EDIT: to clarify - the wireless connectivity support is from the deck, not the dock.
I would love to have a Steam Machine. I love my Steam Deck. However… the nature of Steam games, so far, even on the Deck, is that you need to bop “ok” every once in a while, or even enter a username or something for some unwashed-ass game, and that’s a lot harder on a form factor that doesn’t have a touchscreen…
The steam controller is amazing for that.
I really want an updated steam controller with the same haptic touchpad tech present on the deck. The original controller, while comfortable, just doesn’t compare to the improvements present on the Deck 😭
No it’s not
They have. It’s called the Steam Deck.
Hell yeah brother. Started playing Hades 2 on my custom chimeraOS PC yesterday in the living room. I absolutely love the experience. I’ve been considering getting that Hx100 PC from minisforum and running bazzite on there to replace my custom PC for a smaller console like footprint. The time is nigh!
Steam deck without the screen. And with a controller.
They must be waiting for the Steam Deck 2 so it’ll at least be 1080p natively.
yes, absolutely, as long as we don’t become ignorant to the huge ethical issues with steam like their decade of running an underage gambling surrogate. sorry, i just take issue with the article pointing out flaws of xbox and playstation without counter-balancing those criticisms with something about valve. valve is certainly better than both sony and microsoft in every regard, but they are not innocent at all
