What does /g/ do for its living room game/media machines?
I've been looking at steam machines lately and their slim form factor is appealing for living room use (plus they're windows-free), but all prebuilt steam machines are pretty much ripoffs in terms of the hardware you get, so I've been looking at building a steam machine of my own.
Only problem is that slim settop/console-like boxes are a real minority in the case market. Are there are any cases that look good sitting next to a bunch of sleek home theater electronics, yet can comfortably house a decent CPU + GPU (at least GTX 970/R380)?
Furthermore, what's the viability of designing + manufacturing a slim settop-like case that's designed to house the graphics card via a right-angle riser, so the card lays flat? Would that totally fuck cooling or could it be workable?
There are literally shitloads of sff htpc cases on the market.
>>51829779
But most aren't designed to work with graphics cards that aren't weak low-profile junk, and an increasing number of made for NUC boards e.g. no discrete graphics at all
>>51829748
For my room. I literally just connect my laptop to monitor. And play my file.
>>51829830
Sometimes I'll add a file to flash storage and play on ps3, but I've never got into HTPC or any of that, don't see a reason to.
Interested..
What would be best for 100% just media, using a wifi remote, maybe dvr/rip function, and streaming using Windows 10 or Steam?
I already have a dedicated gaming setup, i7 4790k & 970(to be updated whenever good games ever get made again..).
I figure a media pc really just needs a good CPU? Especially if any gaming will be streamed.. Or am I wrong here?
>>51829894
>>I figure a media pc really just needs a good CPU? Especially if any gaming will be streamed.. Or am I wrong here?
Depends on how far you want to take your quest for quality, but if you tweak up your mpv/madvr settings a good graphics card can be a great boon.
If you're fine with stock Plex/XBMC playback any integrated graphics more powerful than Intel HD3000 will work a charm. In that case you'd probably do well with a NUC or some kind of AMD board with an embedded CPU.
old dvd player case
>>51829929
Eh not toooo far. I mean, as long at it shows 1080p properly and wont lag..?
My concern is with ensuring any game streaming is not poor due to poor component choices in the media pc
>>51830046
Yeah the two big bottlenecks there would be network (wire it all up for best results) and CPU.
>>51830439
Gotcha, cool, and I doubt a dedicated network card would matter..
>plus they're windows free
yeah because you don't need fucking directx or anything
>>51830918
If you're shooting for 60FPS 1080p, no you really don't. OpenGL can deliver that just fine with any reasonably well-written game.
>>51831477
>reasonably well-written game.
going to have a hard time finding those anon
>>51831632
Funny enough games by smaller to mid sized studios seem to be written better than those of mega-monoliths (see Frictional for instance, which is tiny and uses an in-house engine). It's definitely not impossible.
silverstone ftz01
>>51829748
NAS
Chromecast
VLC 3.0beta or Videostream extension
>>51831869
That actually looks like it fits the bill nicely. Thanks anon.