Universe Expanding

[[ptx]]

Yeah, i guess the idea is to make a viable controller for gaming in the livingroom, for playing FPS and RTS games and other previously PC-exclusive titles. If i had to sacrifice a little precision to gain the comforts of gaming, whilst laying in a couch or something... i'd take it

[Vibe]

If i had to sacrifice a little precision to gain the comforts of gaming, whilst laying in a couch or something... i'd take it

casual filth!!!

[Kafein]

ptx shamely casul

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[[ptx]]

[Nessaj]

Steam Machines - Prototype Details
Hello from the Steam hardware bunker.

Thanks for joining the Steam Universe community group. As we get closer to shipping the prototype Steam Machines and controllers we talked about last week, we're going to be posting info here about what we're up to, and give you some insight into the work we’ve done to get to this point.

As we talked about last week, the Steam Machines available for sale next year will be made by a variety of companies. Some of those companies will be capable of meeting the demands of lots of Steam users very quickly, some will be more specialized and lower volume. The hardware specs of each of those machines will differ, in many cases substantially, from our prototype.

Valve didn't set out to create our own prototype hardware just for the sake of going it alone - we wanted to accomplish some specific design goals that in the past others weren't yet tackling. One of them was to combine high-end power with a living-room-friendly form factor. Another was to help us test living-room scenarios on a box that's as open as possible.

So for our own first prototype Steam Machine ( the one we're shipping to 300 Steam users ), we've chosen to build something special. The prototype machine is a high-end, high-performance box, built out of off-the-shelf PC parts. It is also fully upgradable, allowing any user to swap out the GPU, hard drive, CPU, even the motherboard if you really want to. Apart from the custom enclosure, anyone can go and build exactly the same machine by shopping for components and assembling it themselves. And we expect that at least a few people will do just that. (We'll also share the source CAD files for our enclosure, in case people want to replicate it as well.)

And to be clear, this design is not meant to serve the needs of all of the tens of millions of Steam users. It may, however, be the kind of machine that a significant percentage of Steam users would actually want to purchase - those who want plenty of performance in a high-end living room package. Many others would opt for machines that have been more carefully designed to cost less, or to be tiny, or super quiet, and there will be Steam Machines that fit those descriptions.

Here are the specifications for Valve's 300 prototypes.

The 300 prototype units will ship with the following components:
GPU: some units with NVidia Titan, some GTX780, some GTX760, and some GTX660
CPU:   some boxes with Intel i7-4770, some i5-4570, and some i3
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600 (CPU), 3GB GDDR5 (GPU)
Storage: 1TB/8GB Hybrid SSHD
Power Supply: Internal 450w 80Plus Gold
Dimensions: approx. 12 x 12.4 x 2.9 in high

As a hardware platform, the Steam ecosystem will change over time, so any upgrades will be at each user's discretion. In the future we'll talk about how Steam will help customers understand the differences between machines, hardware strengths and weaknesses, and upgrade decisions.

We aren't quite ready to post a picture of our prototype - just because they're not finished enough. Before they ship we'll let you know what the prototype looks like. And we expect people to redesign the machine, too. Both from a technical perspective, deciding on different components, and from an industrial design perspective, changing the enclosure in interesting ways.

So high-powered SteamOS living room machines are nice, and fun to play with, and will make many Steam customers happy. But there are a lot of other Steam customers who already have perfectly great gaming hardware at home in the form of a powerful PC. The prototype we're talking about here is not meant to replace that. Many of those users would like to have a way to bridge the gap into the living room without giving up their existing hardware and without spending lots of money. We think that's a great goal, and we're working on ways to use our in-home streaming technology to accomplish it - we'll talk more about that in the future.

Stay tuned for some closer looks at the Steam Controller.

High-end specs, wonder how they'll handle the cooling/noise etc as well.

Overall I like the initiative though, anything to "kill" or take on consoles

[zagibu]

Could be water cooling.

[Butan]

Are those specs inferior or superior to the upcoming playstation4/xbox1 ?

[Kafein]

Are those specs inferior or superior to the upcoming playstation4/xbox1 ?

From what I can tell they are superior.

If this kind of hardware becomes available at console price it will be mayhem in the streets though.

[cmp]

If this kind of hardware becomes available at console price it will be mayhem in the streets though.

Yes, they will definitely sell 1000+€ hardware for 500€.

[Ninja_Khorin]

Are those specs inferior or superior to the upcoming playstation4/xbox1 ?

Way superior. Especially if you look at the best stuff on that list. But this must be crazy expensive. An Nvidia Titan costs 1000 dollars. And that's just the graphic card.

[Kafein]

Yes, they will definitely sell 1000+€ hardware for 500€.

But if Steam markets Steam boxes at 1000 bucks, will they sell any ?

[Rumblood]

Yes, they will definitely sell 1000+€ hardware for 500€.

It's called subsidizing and economy of scale, something Amazon has down to an art form. Given Valve's statement however, they will likely have a range of specifications for various dollar amounts with the low end being in the current console area. An i3 processor, GTX 660, and 16GB RAM can easily come in at ~$500.

[zagibu]

But if Steam markets Steam boxes at 1000 bucks, will they sell any ?

Yes, they will. There are millions of spoiled teenagers that will force their parents to buy one. Just to be different from their PS or XBox friends.

[Leshma]

This so called SteamMachine prototype is nothing more than your regular PC. They don't have anything solid at this phase but that's fine because Sony didn't have console ready 7 months ago. They said games were running on PS4 on E3 but I doubt it. SteamMachines are at least 6 months far from launch. When they launch I think we'll see even AMD APU based SteamMachines, something that's not possible atm thanks to non existent driver support under Linux.

AMD is experimenting with OpenGL 4.4 atm. They are trying to achieve something performance close to what can be done with low level API (Mantle). They are certain extensions introduced in latest version of OpenGL API which could help them. If you want to know more about this subject follow tweets of AMD's OpenGL guy, Graham Sellers.

Streaming tech they are using is most likely they same nVidia used on Shield. That means 99 USD SteamMachines will most likely be based on nVidia tech. This is a decent Shield overview, and it shows how good streaming tech is. Latency is quite low

Edit: SteamMachines need to be affordable to succeed. I'm sure GabeN knows this, he worked for Microsoft when they did the exact same thing with PC and Windows.

[cmp]

It's called subsidizing and economy of scale, something Amazon has down to an art form. Given Valve's statement however, they will likely have a range of specifications for various dollar amounts with the low end being in the current console area. An i3 processor, GTX 660, and 16GB RAM can easily come in at ~$500.

No, it's called fantasy. The configuration you mention can be sold for ~$500 because that's what it's worth.