Steambox, would you buy one? HL8 Confirmed.

[synaesthesia]

Will you selling your ps4 to get one, @X-13?

[X-13]

Will you selling your ps4 to get one, @X-13?

 

If it was releasing soon I would probably do it...

 

But they still haven't given any sort of indication of a price. For all we know it's > £1000.

[Arthur]

But they still haven't given any sort of indication of a price. For all we know it's > £1000.

There will be Steam Machines to suit almost every budget.

 

There will be a number of different Steam Machine boxes on sale in 2014, and Valve expects them to arrive mid-year. Some of those boxes will be far smaller and / or cheaper than Valve's own prototype unit. "You can get far smaller, and that's what many OEMs are doing… I think it's safe to say less than a quarter of the size," the team told me.

 

Of course, when they get to that size, they won't be using full-size graphics cards any more. Intel's integrated graphics are a possibility there: "We're super interested in Iris Pro." When I ask whether Intel or AMD might make special chips to bring down the price of truly powerful integrated graphics, the room goes quiet for a moment. "We don’t have an answer that we can give you before January," the team answers. (Source)

 

This prototype, were it for sale, would cost about as much as a high-end gaming PC, Coomer says. “The video card in there is hundreds of dollars. But in 2014, there’s going to be a whole array of prices,” he says. “Most people don’t want a box that matches this description.” (Source)

 

Valve says that more information on their Steam Machine launch plans will be announced at CES 2014 in January, including which third party companies will be making the hardware boxes and their configurations, that will vary between a low end product designed mostly for streaming content from a PC to a TV to a high end hardware box. (Source)

 

Some will even have Intel integrated graphics. An Intel NUC with a Core i7-4750HQ and Iris Pro 5200 graphics wouldn't be too bad. It would be able to play all of the indie games on Steam.

 

http://i.imgur.com/lBhPQLY.png

[X-13]

There will be Steam Machines to suit almost every budget.

 

This pleases me greatly... I have AC4 on preorder and I'm starting to doubt I can even run it.

[tmcd35]

If it was releasing soon I would probably do it...

 

But they still haven't given any sort of indication of a price. For all we know it's > £1000.

 

Didn't they release a range of spec's and guide prices at the biginning of last month? I seem to have got a entry level figure of $675 in my post on the previous page from somewhere?

[Arthur]

The first British Steam Machine: the Piixl Jetpack.

 

http://snag.gy/KnwO3.jpg

 

http://snag.gy/i4R9y.jpg

 

http://snag.gy/qVzc4.jpg

[tmcd35]

The first British Steam Machine: the Piixl Jetpack.

 

Whatever it was they where smoking the day they thought a 1U server was a good form factor for a games console - I'd like to try some.

[LosOjos]

Whatever it was they where smoking the day they thought a 1U server was a good form factor for a games console - I'd like to try some.

 

I can kind of see the appeal of having it VESA mountable, but I don't know about anyone else but my TV kicks out some serious heat, I would not want a high power PC strapped to it adding to that!

 

Also seems to me that it's either mount it on your TV or don't buy it, it's not fitting in any standard TV cabinet

[synaesthesia]

Well that is it's exact selling point - it is for mounting behind a TV and nothing else. Not a bad idea but as you say, most TV's chuck out a fair bit of heat! Personally I think anyone is better off with a low power machine streaming from your proper gaming PC anyway.

[X-13]

From what I can see of it, it IS a wall mount [in addition to being a computer]... Which would explain the size.

 

Also, good job with launching a product when your site is still under construction... Should have called it the Piixl "Quick lets cash in on the hype!"

[Arthur]

SteamOS Available to Download on 13 December « OMG! Ubuntu

 

The Linux-based gaming platform SteamOS will be available to download on 13 December.

 

The announcement comes as Valve ready their Steam Machine and Steam Controller prototypes for shipping on the same day. Though only 300 people will be getting the prototype devices, Valve will be offering its Linux-based OS to everyone when the devices ship on Friday.

 

If you joined the pool of potential hardware testers, you’ll be notified at around 2:00pm Pacific Time in the US if you’re receiving one. For the rest of us, Valve are planning on announcing more about what to expect of the Linux-toting hardware at January’s CES.

 

Valve are recommending that the SteamOS download available later this week only be used by the "intrepid Linux hacker" – that means all of you! – and recommend everyone else wait until later in 2014 to give it a go once the rough edges are sanded down a bit.

 

http://snag.gy/bYN0b.jpg

Edited December 12, 2013 by Arthur

[synaesthesia]

Ooooh, I can feel some testing coming on!

[Rawns]

Ooooh, I can feel some testing coming on!

 

Ditto!

 

VirtualBox on standby!

[tmcd35]

Ditto!

 

VirtualBox on standby!

 

Really, really silly question (which I'm not sure actually matters too much given the current state of Linux Steam games) but...

 

Is VirtualBox's OpenGL 3D support going to up to the job? Surely this should be dual-booted on a rig with a reasonable GPU/CPU/RAM combination rather than run in a VM?

[Rawns]

Really, really silly question (which I'm not sure actually matters too much given the current state of Linux Steam games) but...

 

Is VirtualBox's OpenGL 3D support going to up to the job? Surely this should be dual-booted on a rig with a reasonable GPU/CPU/RAM combination rather than run in a VM?

 

In it's current shape, I'll be loading it into VirtualBox to play around with the actual O/S, rather than download and play games on it.

[LosOjos]

Really, really silly question (which I'm not sure actually matters too much given the current state of Linux Steam games) but...

 

Is VirtualBox's OpenGL 3D support going to up to the job? Surely this should be dual-booted on a rig with a reasonable GPU/CPU/RAM combination rather than run in a VM?

 

Personally, I'm just interested to see how the OS works, won't be doing any serious gaming on it for the time being, virtual machine will do for that

[Arthur]

Here's the SteamOS (beta) download link.

 

Build your own Steam Machine

 

SteamOS Hardware Requirements

Processor: Intel or AMD 64-bit capable processor

Memory: 4GB or more RAM

Hard Drive: 500GB or larger disk

Video Card: NVIDIA graphics card (AMD and Intel graphics support coming soon!)

Additional: UEFI boot support

USB port for installation

 

What is SteamOS?

SteamOS is a fork (derivative) of Debian GNU/Linux. The first version (SteamOS 1.0) is called 'alchemist' and it is based on the Debian 'wheezy' (stable 7.1) distribution.

 

The major changes made in SteamOS are:

• Backported eglibc 2.17 from Debian testing
  
• Added various third-party drivers and updated graphics stack (Intel and AMD graphics support still being worked on)
  
• Updated kernel tracking the 3.10 longterm branch (currently 3.10.11)
  
• Custom graphics compositor designed to provide a seamless transition between Steam, its games and the SteamOS system overlay
  
• Configured to auto-update from the Valve SteamOS repositories
  

 

Custom Debian Installer (1.0 GB)

http://repo.steampowered.com/download/SteamOSInstaller.zip

SHA-1: 5d7fc1b28d64cce67df8f859b57a362db52c91c6

 

System Restore Image (2.4 GB)

http://repo.steampowered.com/download/SYSRESTORE.zip

SHA-1: e2ac7bc1882dba4d5f6a0a1c03123e45ff6e599e

 

http://i.imgur.com/BE7gBtj.png

 

The link below contains instructions on how to get the SteamOS installer working on non-UEFI PCs and Virtualbox.

 

http://w3.reddit.com/r/SteamOS/comments/1su4t1/uefi_requirement_with_steamos/

Edited December 14, 2013 by Arthur

[Arthur]

Install SteamOS on VirtualBox

 

^ Not sure it's worth it TBH.

[Arthur]

[Arthur]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jXCbdn00pKY

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khC927-1fRY

[synaesthesia]

Frankly I'm likely to wait a little longer. The big selling point of SteamBox/OS to me is streaming, i.e. using a non-powerful machine to stream from my main system. As it stands, there's no benefit with SteamOS in it's current state to using a gaming PC with Windows and steam in big picture mode.

[CyberNerd]

As it stands, there's no benefit with SteamOS in it's current state to using a gaming PC with Windows and steam in big picture mode.

 

I recall that valve did some research a year or so back and concluded they could get their games running faster on Ubuntu/opengl than on windows. That was presumably done without all of the gaming centered kernel tweaks that they've done for steamos.

[Arthur]

I recall that Valve did some research a year or so back and concluded they could get their games running faster on Ubuntu/OpenGL than on Windows.

The difference between the two OSs in Left 4 Dead 2 wasn't that great however (315 fps vs 303.4 fps). Windows gamers aren't going to worry about 11.6 fps when the game is running at over 300 fps.

 

After this work, Left 4 Dead 2 is running at 315 FPS on Linux. That the Linux version runs faster than the Windows version (270.6) seems a little counter-intuitive, given the greater amount of time we have spent on the Windows version. However, it does speak to the underlying efficiency of the kernel and OpenGL. Interestingly, in the process of working with hardware vendors we also sped up the OpenGL implementation on Windows. Left 4 Dead 2 is now running at 303.4 FPS with that configuration. (Source)

[CyberNerd]

I'd expect steamos to be faster than stock Ubuntu especially on dedicated hardware because they are free to include specific patches to make things run better.

[synaesthesia]

That's entirely moot - I know that as well as a linux gamer. I mean for day to day use, that's where a steambox's use lies for me; streaming games from a powerful box.