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[Krisprolls]

Steam machines flopped harder than WiiU and Xbox One combined.

That's because mass market already has consoles and they don't want any of the hassles which come with PCs.

 

[Nzyme32]

I honestly wouldn't trust a Valve controlled future either.

Good thing it is Linux (Debian), so Valve can't control everything

 

[Sorcerer]

I honestly wouldn't trust a Valve controlled future either.

Valve would never control the future, just present an alternative. I think no matter how restrictive windows becomes/will become, theoretically, some users will always shout its the go to OS for playing games.

 

[Caronte]

I don't get people like this. Building computers in fun and if you really start having trouble there are a million different youtube videos to help you through the process. It's even easier than putting Lego together.

Not for everyone.

 

[Nzyme32]

Steam machines flopped harder than WiiU and Xbox One combined.

That's because mass market already has consoles and they don't want any of the hassles which come with PCs.

Never even intended as a "mass market" device. From 2013, following their announcement:

“The focus of most of this work has really been on bringing value to Steam customers,” he said. “Even if we’re only serving a fraction of them, we feel like we’ll be very successful if that fraction is having a great experience in the living room. That number will probably grow over time. We’re not even trying to push our existing users toward the living room or the TV if they don’t want to have that experience. All those customers are currently pretty happy doing what they’re doing in the den with their PCs or laptops. This is just an extra avenue for them, if they want to sit on the sofa like a lot of them do, I think. Then it’s great to have this other option through which you can access Steam. It’s not an attempt to go very far, or really at all at first, beyond our initiated customer base. We’re going to learn a bunch from the people who already value Steam really highly. We don’t feel like we have to jump exponentially outside that group just to be successful in that realm"

“Usually, when a platform like this gets brought out, it’s a very different working method and proposition to customers,” he continued. “It looks more like a team that’s much larger than us has worked at perfecting something and finishing it, and then reducing risk as much possible and locking down that design, making it ready for a massive initial manufacturing push, spending billions of dollars on marketing. Very different from what we’re trying to do. We don’t have to be so risk-averse. We intentionally are operating this way because we think it will result in a much better product, in the short term and the long term, to be public about this, and to have it iterated with us and with partners and with users. But it lets us start small and grow over time.”


They are not paying attention to going for any particular market, but just putting some solutions out, learning from what happens and then iterating from there,. They mention something similar recently.

“We built Steam for the same reasons we did all this: it didn’t exist, a bunch of people wanted it to exist, no one was building it, so we built it. There was this post-rationalisation of Steam after it was launched; like ‘of course you’d build that, it’s obvious’ – but, at the time, when we were building it, no one else was,” says Valve’s business development specialist Erik Johnson.

“Who knows if it’ll be the same this time, but if you ask customers, ‘do you want to be able to play all your Steam games in your living room with a controller?’, they’re like: ‘yeah, that sounds cool.’ That’s good enough for us to move forward. We’re not obsessed with what market we’re creating or what users we’re cannibalising from other platforms. No one ever makes good decisions based off that kind of data"

 

[Sorcerer]

Not for everyone.

I tried looking at the diagram for plugging in the headers and holy shit it made no sense in relation to the motherboard it came with. I felt if I took my best guess and made approximations the machine would explode or something.

 

[UpDownLeftRight]

I was gonna get my dad to buy one for himself but I couldn't sell him on it. He wants a PC with some actual power rather than a cheap piece of junk from the stores like he'd usually get, but we couldn't find anything for a decent price so I just gave him my old 580ti and he's gonna build a system around that.

It's a shame because the form factor is ideal for him but there just didn't seem to be anything of eye grabbing value out there. Anecdotal evidence and all yeah, but it actually seemed like the ideal product for him at first glance.

I'm leaning on building a high end pc going forward.

problems i have:

-my entertainment center isn't anywhere close to my router meaning i would have to run some long wires somehow.

- i cant stand how loud they are.

My thinking is that i have it plugged in close to the router and running and just use Steam Link to get it to the TV. Alas, i run into the same problem really, i would still prefer a wired connection.

It doesn't need to be that way. Just buy fans with low noise output and you won't have an issue. Also buy a decent case. I've got a reasonably bad case for noise but good fans which a number of them don't even seem to turn on at all unless my PC has been rendering for 8+ hours. By far the loudest thing in my PC is my HDD's read and write noises.

 

[univbee]

I still don't understand what the difference between a I don't get people like this. Building computers in fun and if you really start having trouble there are a million different youtube videos to help you through the process. It's even easier than putting Lego together.

I touched on this before but I've been building computers for about 25 years and while it used to be fun times I'm really sick of it now that I don't really have the time for it with a family of my own. Fun starts to wear thin once you have a few rough patches, like that time my screwdriver slipped putting the CPU fan in and actually hit the mobo with enough force that it no longer booted, and this was a motherboard which cost a few hundred at the time too. Or when you start having really weird conflicts or realize you're going to money pit even harder because the power supply you have isn't actually powerful enough or whatever. Or that you got mis-information online, like graphics card X won't work with system Y because the person online made a mistake on the model number, or the SKU is slightly different in your country and it's enough to cause problems, and on and on. Sure on PS4, I don't get sick nasty 4K graphics, but I can buy enough booze with the few thousand I saved for it to not matter, plus a game unlocking at midnight is actually playable on-the-dot at midnight on PS4 (the unlock happens internally with the console instead of server-side, and doesn't have to decrypt all the game data).

 

[taoofjord]

What kind of issues did you have? As for the second part of your comment you really don't need to do any research by yourself as people (in the I need a new PC thread) will already give you tested builds if you ask for one. The only thing you need to "figure out" is lego work and there are tons of tutorials online. Or just get a prebuilt like those HP deals and call it a day.

I used that excellent thread to pick the parts for my last two gaming PCs. It's a great resource that I'm very thankful for.

As to your question on the problems I've had: USB devices randomly becoming unrecognized on two different machines on two different PCs, where my current one has to be rebooted 1-2 times whenever this happens. One improperly grounded machine that rebooted from indirect static electricity across the room, took it to two different repair shops that couldn't fix it and the mobo eventually fried. Overheating problems in two separate machines.

I'm not saying that these may not be easy fixes for people that know what they're doing, but the people I took them to didn't have easy solutions and I've almost never had any problems with pre-built electronics and when I do the people that know how to fix it are better at it because on closed systems the problems are often shared and recurring.

I totally get the love that people have for building, tweaking, and maintaining Pc's. I wish I had that drive cause it does seem fun but I have enough hobbies already. I just wanted to point out that not being interested in it is a legit position to have.

By the way, if you have any thoughts on my USB devices going nuts I'd appreciate it.

 

[Crayon]

It's coming along.

Think of a steam machine as a set of alternatives that can replace or supplement part or whole of the typical PC gaming setup.The controller for the keyboard and mouse, the steamOS for Windows, bpm for the desktop, and the linux game economy for the windows economy. Just take what you need and leave what you dont.

PC gamers like to moo about how everything they have is already good and theyd rather valve just make hl3, but these developments are good for people around the edges of PC gaming or who have something holding them back.

For example, the controller and the linux game market have been game changers for me. I use both and the result is me playing more PC and less console. I don't mind building my own machine or anything, but never felt like making a Windows boot or getting a gpu just for some more games. With the steam machine stuff, I kinda got tipped into it because some of the components really spoke to me and the reservations I had about PC gaming. You can say I'm an edge case, but I think that's just the point of the whole thing.

 

[OmegaTreeFish]

Over the weekend I rediscovered Diablo II after learning that Blizzard recently patched the game to work with modern versions of OS X. It brought my back to my late 90s/early 2000s PC Gaming days, and along with it a lot of fond memories.

Back in the 90s and early 2000s I was an avid PC Gamer. In my early days I was all about shareware and the libraries of companies like Apogee and 3D Realms, and I eventually moved into Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and all of the other iD software titles. I remember when Unreal hit the market and wowed everyone, and I also remember when 3D Accelerators first hit the scene. I would read PC Gaming magazines all the time in the middle school library...learning all about upcoming releases like Everquest and Quake. It was the good old days, and like all retro gaming, I miss it.

When I graduated High School in 2003 I bought my first Apple computer, an eMac. OS X Panther just hit the scene and was arguably the first "made for primetime" version of OS X, and for the first time in a long time Apple's operating system was really kicking the pants off of Windows XP.

Because of this, I slowly slid out of the PC Gaming world. The last upgrade I dropped into my PC was a Radeon 9800, and it lasted me until around 2006, where I eventually moved on; I gave the PC to a relative and moved completely into OS X for my computing needs.

At this time the Xbox 360 had just hit the market, the Wii was right around the corner, and I was knee deep in Nintendo DS and Playstation Portable releases. With all these games out on the market and coming down the pipeline, I felt no reason to look elsewhere for gaming.

And so it went...until tonight.

After a fun weekend with Diablo 2 I realized that I never tried out Diablo 3. Now my current iMac is a late 2011 model with a rather anemic 512MB Radeon video chipset. This is more or less towards the minimum side of things for Diablo 3, as I soon discovered.

I downloaded the game, and after a half-hour or so of flipping around with settings, I discovered that I could get a near constant 58 to 60fps by setting everything to a mixture of low to medium and playing at 1280x720. Considering the resolution of my iMac's display is twice that, it wasn't optimal, but playing at the native resolution resulted in sub-20fps frame rates, something I wasn't about to tolerate.

It's about this time I started to think of Valve's recent push for the living room with their Steambox initiative. How are these coming along? Is there anything worth putting my money up for at the moment?

I still know how to build PCs; in fact I built one for my workplace about 9 months back; but after years of not paying attention to CPUs, Motherboards, and Video Cards, I was a little lost and frankly overwhelmed by my choices. Choosing between 30+ varieties of each component was daunting, and trying to figure out my best performance-to-price ratio was frankly a headache.

This is something I was hoping to avoid. I don't want to drop thousands of dollars on some ridiculously-designed Alienware unit but at the same time I don't want a integrated graphics computer either.

Can anyone offer any current insight on this?

I also lost all interest in building a PC my self these days and I also wanted something as small as possible. In the end I bought an i5 alienware alpha with 8 gig ram for about £550 and I think it's fantastic.

First up its tiny. About 30% the size of my ps4. It's also fairly quiet.

I applied a very simple overclock to it, that there are plenty of vids showing how.

If a game will run on the consoles it will easily run on this too.

I got the witcher running at a solid 1080p 30fps or I could leave it unlocked and get 40-55 fps.

I have Street fighter v running 1080p 60fps. And I also have rise of the tomb raider running at 1080p 30fps locked.

I'm really impressed with it and considering its alienware its very decently priced for the performance and size of the thing.

It comes with a unique UI that allows you to control it all with a controller and switch to windows when needed but I personally wanted windows only so I reinstalled windows using the USB recovery provided to remove the additional UI. If I want it to work like a console I set big picture mode in steam to auto boot.

Also a steam controller is nice for certain games as well.

It's HDMI only so you can have it run off what ever. I have both my ps4 and alpha hooked up to a monitor but I can hook it up to the TV when ever I need to.

To be honest my ps4 only use is exclusives since getting this thing.

As for actual steam boxes I personally wouldn't recommend them. Same hard ware but with a very limited OS that can only play a fraction of the games. When the windows and steam OS versions of the alpha are the same price I see no real reason to not get the windows one. Especially when windows allows you to do so much more.

 

[NOLA_Gaffer]

Well this thread has become a bit disheartening. Looks like my only real option is to just suck it up and build one, something I'm not particularly in the mood for at the moment.

 

[Galang]

I don't get people like this. Building computers in fun and if you really start having trouble there are a million different youtube videos to help you through the process. It's even easier than putting Lego together.

I built my computer, but when it had problems it became much more of a hassle to fix. It's easy to put it together, but I can completely understand not wanting to build it either

 

[Jimrpg]

This is exactly what I want to avoid. If I have to build my own PC I'm not interested.

I don't get that. You say you can build PCs yourself and you built one as recently as 9 months ago. Do you have trouble selecting the parts, if so ask in the hardware thread in Neogaf, lots of knowledgeable people to help you. Otherwise it's probably more difficult sifting through the steam box choices wondering if they are reasonably priced and whether you are happy with the case. There's always going to be one or two parts you don't want, you may as well select every part you want and don't pay for the things you don't want.

 

[OmegaTreeFish]

Well this thread has become a bit disheartening. Looks like my only real option is to just suck it up and build one, something I'm not particularly in the mood for at the moment.

If the alpha doesn't interest you do you not have sites that do the building for you?

In the UK you can use pcspecialist.co.uk and you pick all the parts and then they build and then send it to you. It really doesn't work out that much more than buying all the parts yourself but you do gain assurance that the parts all work together and a warranty for the product as a whole which is really nice.

I never want to build a PC myself again because I just don't find that side of things fun anymore. Sites like that are a good alternative. Then you can just upgrade them yourself down the line.

 

[Xis]

If you want more power than the Alienware Alpha, but still something pretty small, you could look at the Alienware x51. I picked up one last fall (i7 / 960) and have been very happy with it. It's a little bigger than an XBOX ONE, but much smaller than a traditional PC.

 

[Crayon]

I don't like building pc's, either. But for games, I just buy a gpu and a power supply and slap em into any old shitbox. :/

It's not as involved as a "build" and easier and more cost effective. When whatever host box burns out, I just take the gpu and power and throw it in another one. I move the hdd over and I don't even reinstall. Like... a lazy build. Anyone else do this?

 

[callsignkrogan]

I do not know any of my gaming friends that own ones. Everyone that I know either uses a DIY PC or a gaming laptop. However, anything that gets more people to jump into pc gaming is a good thing.

 

[bman94]

Quick question here. I mostly game on console but I have around 100 or so games on PC. I'm mostly playing old school games since those are mostly what my computer can handle so I wonder if a Steam Machine is for me? My VGA cable for my laptop broke and the audio cable broke inside my TV so PC gaming on my TV is not longer an option and it's simply just uncomfortable for me to game a lot on my laptop.

Doesn't the Steam Machine come with a custom OS? Is there anyway for me to install Windows on it and if so how? Cause I have a lot of games spread over Steam, GOG, as well as a few on Origin and uPlay. Are there any small form factor Steam machines that would be perfect in power wise to play a bunch of old PC & indie games like Doom, Half-Life 2, Deus Ex that's easy to transport and easy to use? I don't like waiting 5 minutes to just start steam.

 

[dickroach]

I got an Alienware Alpha a few months ago and I love it. I know it's un-upgradable, but it's my first gaming PC, and I've got more PC games than I ever have had on any console I've ever owned; games I can actually play on the next system I buy without having to worry. I've never used the Hivemind UI, so I just boot the thing straight into Win10 every time, but I usually have Steam Big Picture start up with that as well, so that's a fine UI for me. Steam controller rules.

 

[Crayon]

Quick question here. I mostly game on console but I have around 100 or so games on PC. I'm mostly playing old school games since those are mostly what my computer can handle so I wonder if a Steam Machine is for me? My VGA cable for my laptop broke and the audio cable broke inside my TV so PC gaming on my TV is not longer an option and it's simply just uncomfortable for me to game a lot on my laptop.

Doesn't the Steam Machine come with a custom OS? Is there anyway for me to install Windows on it and if so how? Cause I have a lot of games spread over Steam, GOG, as well as a few on Origin and uPlay. Are there any small form factor Steam machines that would be perfect in power wise to play a bunch of old PC & indie games like Doom, Half-Life 2, Deus Ex that's easy to transport and easy to use? I don't like waiting 5 minutes to just start steam.

Yeah steam machines come with steamos but you can install windows if you want to. Steamos is actually pretty good for setting up emulators and legacy games, but with origin and uplay and everything you are possibly looking at headaches so you would be better off with windows.

If 400 bucks is acceptable then the alpha might be good for you. Kinda overkill for just old games, tho.

 

[bman94]

Yeah steam machines come with steamos but you can install windows if you want to. Steamos is actually pretty good for setting up emulators and legacy games, but with origin and uplay and everything you are possibly looking at headaches so you would be better off with windows.

If 400 bucks is acceptable then the alpha might be good for you. Kinda overkill for just old games, tho.

Didn't know the Alpha ran off of Windows 10. So does that mean everything should work right out of the box OS wise? Where did you find it for $400? I see it for $500.
Edit: Also am I able to put in a larger hard drive?

 

[OmegaTreeFish]

Didn't know the Alpha ran off of Windows 10. So does that mean everything should work right out of the box OS wise? Where did you find it for $400? I see it for $500.
Edit: Also am I able to put in a larger hard drive?

The alpha can come with either windows or steam OS. Windows makes a million times more sense and it is a fully functioning PC. You can do anything on it any other PC can.

I would recommend an i5 and 8 gig ram though.

And yes you can manually change the HDD but they should come with 1tb 7200rpm drives now which are fine.

 

[Crayon]

Didn't know the Alpha ran off of Windows 10. So does that mean everything should work right out of the box OS wise? Where did you find it for $400? I see it for $500.
Edit: Also am I able to put in a larger hard drive?

I'm not sure what the price is at the moment. I do know it's been up and down with coupons and promotions and whatnot. The hdd is upgradeable.

 

[Steel]

I'd suggest going for the Alienware X51 rather than the Alpha. It's upgradable and has better specs, but it still has a pretty damn small form factor.

 

[Yudoken]

My friend gave me a budget of about 1k to choose parts for a high end gaming pc and we build one pc on the basis of the Fractal Design Node 202 (pic above is a similar one to our build).

The only true important difference with that itx console like case is that you have to be sure that two internal drives (SSD/HDD combo) is enough.

My friend (and normally everyone who I know) just need two and honestly this itx pc changed my opinion about small pc's.

His pc is so quite that we can't even tell if it's on or not and it doesn't get much noisier when it's running intensive games.

The temps are also really good, the Thermaltake cooler just fit right in and was worth every penny.

They can be really powerful without paying that much more than a regular system if you build it nowadays with modern sockets.

 

[bman94]

The alpha can come with either windows or steam OS. Windows makes a million times more sense and it is a fully functioning PC. You can do anything on it any other PC can.

I would recommend an i5 and 8 gig ram though.

And yes you can manually change the HDD but they should come with 1tb 7200rpm drives now which are fine.

I'm not sure what the price is at the moment. I do know it's been up and down with coupons and promotions and whatnot. The hdd is upgradeable.

Awesome, thanks.

 

[OmegaTreeFish]

Awesome, thanks.

I mean the base i3 4 gig ram is massive overkill for those old games you have but having the i5 8 gig model will let you run anything out, at least matching console performance (with the options to turn off stuff you don't care about to get better performance).

 

[bman94]

I mean the base i3 4 gig ram is massive overkill for those old games you have but having the i5 8 gig model will let you run anything out, at least matching console performance (with the options to turn off stuff you don't care about to get better performance).

I don't really plan on getting a PS4 so If I do get this I'll be able to enjoy my old games and I will still be able to get the PS4/PC games like Street Fighter V and Shenmue 3 so I guess it all balances out.

 

[shandy706]

Here, get this.

i7-4785T Quad-Core
GTX 860M
8GB DDR3L 1600MHz
1TB HDD
Windows 10

Use code ALPHA$100 and it's only $599

Dell has an instant $150 off, plus the code above. Drops it from $849 to $599


You could also get the i5-4590T Quad Core build for $549 with the same code if you want to save another $50. For $50 you might as well get the i7 if your budget is open to it.

For some reason my links aren't working... go here http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-alpha/pd and pick one, lol

You may have to type in the URL on your own or copy paste the URL in a new tab.

 

[Dreadr]

Console style PCs maybe have some form of market share in the future, but it's not for me. PC means freedom. It means technical literacy and I wouldn't want to outsource the aspect of choosing the parts and building the rig. Even though it's more Lego than anything seriously complicated. I'm playing on the TV via Steam Link and Steam Controller / M/KB (depends on the mood and the game), works perfectly fine, so that's also covered.

A future where Linux has more than 80% of all games is something to look forward though, as I only own Windows because of its gaming monopol. Problem is though, that's unlikely to ever happen and would diminish one of the most important aspects of PC Gaming: the absolutely insane back catalog of games for EVERY need and taste, if you can look behind marketing driven games.

 

[OmegaTreeFish]

I don't really plan on getting a PS4 so If I do get this I'll be able to enjoy my old games and I will still be able to get the PS4/PC games like Street Fighter V and Shenmue 3 so I guess it all balances out.

Yup. My ps4 gets little use since I got mine.

 

[roadrunn3r]

By the way, if you have any thoughts on my USB devices going nuts I'd appreciate it.

I get what you say and yes, sometimes you will have issues with PCs. (most of them are easily fixable with a short google search but still) It's just that I've never had issues because of the fact that I built it, I mean those would usually happen on prebuilts too.

You could try to change the "USB selective suspend setting" to disabled. Go to power options then "change plan" then "change advanced power setting", find USB settings and select disable.