Anyone use one of these? Just wondering how well they run or if there worth it. I currently PC game on a laptop and I'm surprised how most steam games run on an average PC really well. I love PC gaming and PCs but it's a price issue that I'm debating.
Why would you buy one? You're paying for the same or more than a console, for what? Csgo and indie games? 60 fps on some titles over the 30 on console? You don't even get the advantages of having an actual conputer, since I think steam machines can only run steam games so no pirating either
>>330386159
But isn't steam mostly indie games? And who says I need to buy one I could easily just build a steam machine.
Also most of the good steam games are 2009 and older. I've seen it run TW3 so it is console standard.
>2 usb slots
>TWO
Keyboard, mouse... alright, how I do hook it up to my monitor, or speakers, or charge my phone while playing on it? Is this thing Ouya 2.0 and having a 10lb power brick 6 inches out the backside? Can it be upgraded? If something goes wrong can you repair it yourself? Does it at least have a blu-ray reader on the side?
>>330386618
You could hook up a wireless keyboard and mouse.
>>330386527
My point being, why not just save up and get the utility of a PC, can you upgrade steam machines? I know you have money problems, but you could easily build a budget PC and build off that in the future
>>330385541
>I currently PC game on a laptop
ayy lmao boxes are the same thing; laptop board in a case with more leds. all you can upgrade is ram and storage.
>>330386618
>ouya 2.0
not so, a large part of ouya's failure was the abysmal selection of games they had (all phone games)
>>330386839
Everything is upgradeable except the graphics card which sucks. But I heard building them are cheaper. Maybe because I like playing games in a living room setting?
>>330386618
>how I do hook it up to my monitor, or speakers, or charge my phone while playing on it?
its a set top box, hdmi out to receiver/tv and plug a 360/bone controller into the usb and that's it. you use big picture to navigate your games. i doubt the usb ports are even high current to charge your phone in any reasonable amount of time anyways.
Steam machines will probably become a thing. Not mainstream, but enough to be profitable.
Look at how MS is desperately trying to turn the xbone into a PC. Valve has them beat here, because the Steambox is literally just branded as a living room PC that plays loonix games (and some supported windows games). From a developer's standpoint, should the Steambox grow to be a thing it makes more sense to make dedicated Steam/Linux games rather than make two Windows and Xbone Windows versions.
MS is seriously going the way of Sega (getting out of the hardware market) and Valve will take their place.
>>330387092
you can already do that anon
If you can't figure out how to move literally two cables, you might be retarded
>>330388098
>>330387092
forgot to mention that the not being able to upgrade graphics card is bullshit
>>330387092
>Maybe because I like playing games in a living room setting?
anon..
>>330387776
>Valve will take their place
pls no
>>330387092
>Maybe because I like playing games in a living room setting?
is your generation taught some urban myth in school that you can't make a small pc with hdmi out to plug into a tv and use wireless peripherals with it???
I bought one. $650 for 1TB HDD, Intel 4770 i5 processor, Nvidia 970, and 8GB RAM. I then installed WIndows 10 on it, because I couldn't be assed to learn Linux.
Did they rise from the grave?
their kinda cool if you already have a t.v and steam library.
but i think it speaks alot about the product when its better to install windows 10 to have a faster OS with more FPS in games.
>>330388186
Really? I heard the Alienware model graphics card couldn't be switched out?
>>330389386
no, it's soldered
or he just meant you can unsolder it to solder a new one maybe
>>330388679
Debian isn't even hard to learn.
>>330389670
You know what's easier?
Installing Windows 10.
>>330390376
This man speaks the truth
>>330390376
>Changing an OS is easier than typing sudo apt-get
>>330385541
Some of them are really nice machines, but you can build done yourself.
Once you have one, install windows for better performance. Linux just isn't there yet, sadly.
>>330390534
Installing os now days are pretty simple.
>>330386159
>>I think steam machines can only run steam games so no pirating either
>being this wrong
you can always enable desktop mode, which gives you normal Debian GNOME3 dektop, where you can then install Dosbox / WINE and play all the pirated games you want
Or you caninstall Windows on it if you are so fucking willing to get raped by Microsoftand then play all your pirated games.
I've been gaming exclusively on Linux for a long time now, an attempt to reduce my backlog and give me some more focus. Its proven to be totally unsuccessful since there are now so many games on Linux and more on the way. Dirt Rally in particular seems set to consume my time.
I've also got a Steam Controller and playing games with it is definitely a good experience.
>>330391413
so, why would anyone buy a steam machine and not a pc/notebook?
>>330385541
You could just have gotten an extension cable anon-kun
>>330390627
>install windows for better performance
>windows
>performance
even my andriod phone plays video back smoother than my W10 PC with 16 gb ram
>>330393516
Windows PCs aren't well suited for living room duty and Microsoft haven't exactly improved them for that purpose since they would rather force you to buy into their locked down living room ecosystem with the Xbox.
Building a Steam Machine on the other hand gives you something that really hasn't existed since you could hack a first-gen Xbox, a console-like system that is 10 foot friendly but which also is open to installing Kodi, Retroarch, or anything else you might want.
Retail Steam Machines are just the prebuilt version of that and have the same market as any other prebuilt though with the advantages of frequent sales and a tiny form factor to make them more attractive.
I've looked into the steambox as well anon, but it just doesn't seem worth it for the price.
You're much better off building a $350-$400 budget PC.
Just get a decent CPU(it doesn't have to be an expensive one, anything from an Intel Pentium G3258 to an i5 processor will do just fine)
You could easily get a cheap GPU that will play most games for about $100(you could even go cheaper and it would be fine)
Slap you in some dual-ram(4-8gb) and get a cheap power supply, motherboard, SSD(for fast load times on the OS), at least a 1TB hard-drive and a decent case.
This would be the way to go if you want to build a cheap emulation/steam gaming PC.
>>330394178
thanks for the answer anon
>>330394178
Could you run nexus mods/steam workshop on a custom built steam machine?
>>330393516
form factor for those who don't know how to build small compact PC.
I personally believe that only about 3/4 of consolefags are kids who got console just so that parents don't have to deal with him.
If Steam Machines get more models / bigger selection and therefore get wide adoption, they will become the go-to product for parents to buy for their spoiled kids, which would mean that all those little shits who are currently fucking each other's mother over the Xbox Live would come to PC ecosystem.
Yes, I know that there already are lot of angry kids and russian hackers here, but I think it would get noticeably worse if consolefags started coming.
>>330394306
Exactly right, the main advantages of building a Steam Machine are that you get a nice 10 foot interface with drivers and Steam installed out of the box, and you get to save the $100-$200 for a Windows 10 license which for a $300-$500 build is a significant expense.
Plus philosophically running SteamOS or another living room focused GNU/Linux distribution is a nice blow back against Microsoft's ambition to turn the PC into an Xbox in all the wrong ways with UWP.
>>330394467
Steam Workshop yes
Nexus mods yes with WINE
Native Nexus mods as soon as you convince Bethesda to make Linux build of Skyrim.
>>330394702
You don't need a windows license is you build your own PC.
I bought it last year OP, except not preloaded with garbage ass Steam OS and just Windows 8.1
For $400 it was an excellent deal. It basically matches and slightly surpasess a ps4 in gaming. And you get the added benefit of actually having a PC.
>>330394467
Yeah, why wouldn't you be able to?
Unlike Windows 10's UWP which is a trojan horse console in PC clothing, SteamOS is the reverse, a console that is secretly a PC. The games still have executables and files that can be modded. Some mods need some extra attention to make them work on GNU/Linux based OSes but its usually just an issue of file name capitalization.
>>330394835
I'm planning to add W10 so I don't think I'll have an issue with Nexus.
>>330394882
True, you can run another GNU/Linux distribution.
>>330385541
Until Valve and other parties can get their shit together and port more games onto the SteamOS, make games run with at least parity with their Windows-running counterparts, and make the SteamOS a viable alternative to Windows 10 in at least a home entertainment usage, the Steambox is a overly expensive waste of potential.
>>330387092
>Everything is upgradeable except the graphics card which sucks
This is a fatal mistake, especially with a much improved generation of GPUs releasing this year.
>>330395082
That's not a Steam Machine then.
Keep in mind that a Windows 10 license adds $100-$200 to the cost and that any claims of piracy of Win10 giving you a legitimate license, or it being safe for piracy of other software are false. That and UWP are the reasons why SteamOS and Steam for Linux exist.
>>330395024
Thanks anon sounds good. Is it worth getting the alpha?
>>330395469
Ahhhh ok. But can you play every game on Steam without W10?
>>330395514
Imo it was, what you get in that form factor and at that price is unbeatable. It's not a full fledged "gaming PC" imo, but it handles gaming better than any console at the same price.
seriously I dare someone to build a same spec machine in that tiny ass box. It's slightly larger than a wii
>>330386618
>2 usb slots
Yes, it has 2 USB ports on the front, like a lot of other desktop cases.
There's also two more USB ports on the back and one on the bottom (which is by default occupied by the Steam Controller receiver).
5 USB ports total.
>charge my phone while playing on it
Why would you use this to charge your phone? Do you normally plug your phone into every game console you touch?
>speakers
Use the TOSLINK or HDMI outputs.
>can you repair it yourself?
You can swap out and replace some components like hard drive, RAM and even CPU, but notably not the video card.
It's designed to be a living room / TV device. While you can use it as a general-purpose PC if you really want to, the entire point of a small form factor with low power draw and simplified setup is lost there.
At least the price is decent for what it offers, but typical PC gamers like having GPUs that are much more expensive and hot.
>>330395645
The only game I can think of that requires W10 is the newly ported Killer Instinct.
>>330395645
You can't even play every game on Steam with Windows 10. Most of the same compatibility layers or work arounds you'd use to run them on Win10 will work on Linux because they were originally developed for Linux anyway.
SteamOS/Steam for Linux right now has just over 1/4 of all the games on Steam with higher rates of games ported among the top 100 games.
>>330395645
>can you play every game on Steam without W10?
Without Windows 10? Almost every game, with very few exceptions so far.
Without Windows? You'll miss out on a lot of games, even more if you don't want to bother with Wine.
Unless you're using Linux, pirating Windows, or reusing a Windows key you obtained by other means, you have to buy a Windows license to play most PC games.
>>330395963
All of Microsoft's new UWP games only support Windows 10, but they also only run in their new virtualized console environment which places severe restrictions on those games.
This is why battle lines have been drawn and why Valve started on their Steam for Linux initiative three years ago. Microsoft intends to attempt to turn the PC into a locked down platform like the Xbox's OS. Unfortunately staying on Windows 7 isn't going to be an option long term, and Microsoft have already said they won't support new hardware on their legacy OS platforms meaning that the effective EOL date for Win7 as a gaming platform may come sooner than January of 2020.
Did anyone else get a steam controller? What do you think of them? I like mine except it's a little on the larger side for my taste. On thing I'd change is to make the pre launch version official with a real dpad, or at least buttons. I can't stand this touch dpad shit.
>>330395963
So pretty much steam os/Linux is on every game then?
>>330396395
> you have to buy a Windows license to play most PC games.
I'm not sure that's true anymore. Steam has 1/4 native, and it doesn't even have all the native Linux games. All the legacy DOS games run in DOSbox anyway even on Windows. Plus depending on your hardware/drivers Wine is perfectly capable of full speed gaming for all the legacy DX9 or below games that may never be ported (right now this requires AMD hardware using the Linux-exclusive open source drivers).
So you're really only missing out on DX11 and DX12 games, which Valve is leaning on developers to port to Vulkan so that they'll be playable not just on Linux, but also older versions of Windows.
Its not all games you can play on Windows, but I think it is more than half.
>>330396451
After much playing around with settings I've gotten the analog pad to function somewhat acceptably as a d-pad, but I'd still rather play those games with my old logitech gamepad with the physical d-pad.
>>330396451
Can I use it as a mouse on the desktop? I've been considering getting one for a while.
>>330397053
You can, you don't even need steam running. You would still need a keyboard though.
>>330397053
You can on Linux, don't know about Windows it usually lags behind when it comes to gamepad support.
>>330396398
>their new virtualized console environment
I don't know how Microsoft's system works, but isn't at least this part good? A lot of PC games like to screw with way too many parts of the system and many of them break easily from system updates, installing/running unrelated programs, changing locale, etc.
>>330397186
I just watch a lot of films or shows off MPC, and I hate dragging the mouse across the bed or nightstand to get through a bunch of files or folders. It's a pain in the ASS. Eh, fuck it. I'll give it a shot.
>>330397186
To add to that, I use it on W10. If you do have steam running (big picture mode not required), though, you get some added functionality. The left touchpad acts like an ipod touch wheel and scrolls the page up and down. abxy act act like page up/pagedown, and the paddles act as foreward and backward buttons, Otherwise without steam in the background, it's a basic mouse with m1/m2
>>330397236
Maybe, from a certain point of view. Distribution systems like Steam already handle most of that and other platforms don't have those problems to the same degree that Windows does.
The problem with UWP is that you can only really get them easily from one source, and then once you have them you can't easily modify anything about them. If you use them you're also hopelessly locked into the Windows 10 ecosystem.
>>330385541
I actually love mine. The thing is powerful enough to run what I need and it's literally smaller than the first Wii. It can be stored anywhere. It's silent as well.
>>330397929
Is it possible to run a game like Arma 2 or 3 on one of these things? I'm just seeing the scope of these devices.
>>330398682
Yes, Arma 3 has a native port that is in beta.
>>330385541
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