We’ve tried SteamOS for kids, and it works great! It’s super cool how connecting Xbox controller makes steamOS show right icons. Anywho, steps to install:
Turn off secure boot (press F2 when booting up, there’s administrator something option. It’s not in BIOS settings)
Ethernet didn’t work until i did BIOS update, but that could be my perception. Wifi worked fine so i used that for initial setup.
Flash USB (i used etcher, but any method works i think) with that image
Boot from that USB (F2 when starting up), and rest is just following the steps!
I don’t think most folks will need this, but kids love it! Desktop is just the right size, stickers and panels are very popular too. SteamOS means less maintenance work for me (way less troubleshooting why games and controllers aren’t working), and as kids get older we can move them to another distro.
One thing to note is that some recent games on Steam still do not use cloud saves (looking at you, Paw Patrol World!). A bit of caution is still advisable before wiping the hard drive. But yes, it’s a good OS, even better once the kernel bump finally hits the stable channel
Performance is great, at least for what kids are playing. However I think steam machine will have more bells and whistles (steam controller and VR connector, HDMI TV controller, etc) and official steam support
That said no issues on FW with steamOS so far, except old Xbox controller has to be used wired instead of paired.
The caveat to judging value is that pricing for the Steam Machine hasn’t been set. And given the ram-pocalypse, it is probably going to be nowhere near as cheap as anyone wants. And that is assuming Valve tries to pull its usual slight-loss-leader because of Steam-games-sales-paying-the-bills gambit.
But I’d be completely amazed if the base Steam Machine configuration is less than $1099USD when they finally announce pricing. I’m honestly expecting it to start at $1500USD. I’d like to be wrong, and will happily eat Humble Pie if so.
The only desktop computers you can find at BestBuy now that are under $1000-$1500 have 3+ year old mid-range CPUs and GPUs or mac minis. The economic situation is going to be ugly for the Steam Machine–Kudos to Valve for trying it, but the strategy only really worked given COVID-era pricing for RAM and dGPUs that were never in-stock for less than 2x MSRP.
Agreed on general computing. And, I think your right about the price. LTT guestimated the price of the steam machine at around $700 before memory prices got even worse. My guess is more like $900 now. Still cheaper than the 32 gig framework desktop.
Valve seems to think 8 gigs of vram is enough, and worth gddr6. Even if main memory is plain ddr5. The Steam deck and frame are both unified pools of lpddr5 (5x for the frame), but they position the steam machine as being the powerhouse of the lineup. Claiming it can handle your entire library. Seems either significant, or a smaller amount of higher end memory was cheaper for them. VR is more demanding than flat games and the frame uses lpddr5x. I’m sure cost and power savings fit into that, but that implies lpddr5x is good enough. I don’t know what to make of that, but seems a safe bet that either one would be fine.
I keep seeing these predictions, and don’t understand how the math checks out. Yes, the price for 16GB of DDR5 RAM has exploded from €35 to €115 on my favorite German price tracking portal. That is a shocking ~3x difference, but it doesn’t mean that the Steam Machine as a whole will become ~3x more expensive. If I look at GPUs like the RX 9070 XT, the price is a pretty normal download slope over the course of this year.
Admittedly, I am not taking the US tariff situation into account because I’m hopping between Europe and Taiwan.
The Playstation 5 Pro retails for 800 Euro or $700 right now. That is the same as their 2024 launch pricing, still. Do you think Valve/Steam is going to release a console to compete with a last generation system from Sony, priced for a 2024 market?
A) If the answer is yes–then maybe they can get the price as low as people want. (599-699 territory)… and reminder, people already complain about the affordability of.
B) If the answer is no (read, they want to beat the PS5P and actually sell units), it is simply going to cost a ton more money. Valve is a far smaller hardware player than Sony–and everything costs a lot more now–and LLM server farms are devouring all hardware production capacity.
Since steam machine uses a Navi33 dgpu, it only has a 128 bit bus so faster gddr6 is a necessity.
Regarding framework and gaming though. It’s not my main gaming machine but I was surprised with how decently it games. Very much comparable to a full power laptop 4060. I have mine configured so the 8060s uses 16gb, which gives leeway for the demanding unreal5 games. That said, when a next generation of consoles comes and increases the baseline for graphics in 3-5 years or so, I don’t think the 395 will have the raw horsepower to really provide that great of an experience unless you are okay with low settings and aggressive upscaling.
So gddr6 on 128bit bus is not far off from lpddr5x on a 256 bit bus? Can you explain how that works? Had trouble parsing it out from wikipedia articles.
Was surprised to see 8gigs vram at announcement. Nvidias lowest end from 2 generations ago, the rtx 3060, has 12 gigs. Arent consoles supposed to last about 7 years? At least storage and main memory are upgradable.
Either way, think you answered the longevity question on both. The only thing left is to see if flat game devs hold back on specs for the steam machine like vr game devs do for quest 2/3.
Yeah, gddr6 typically paired with n33 chips like valve is using is about twice as fast on half the bus width, so the bandwidth to feed the dgpu in the steam machine is about the same as the bandwidth of the 395 chip.
I mean. 8 gb of video memory is fine. For 1080p medium or low settings. But this is a console, probably paired with a TV that is more like 4K. So. Yea. Problems.
Had no problem doing vr on an rtx 2060 with 8gb. Quest2 is 1832x1920 at 90hz into each eye. That includes vr ports of flat games. Upgraded to 3060 with 12gb before trying borderlands 3 in vr, but its so smooth I think it would have been fine on the older card. Is 4k gaming common for consoles?
Consoles are mainly plugged into TVs. And 4K resolution has been the normal resolution in consumer TVs since before COVID. You have to shop for a specifically not 4K tv, or you have a pretty old TV still around.
Which is another silent problem. All TVs basically exclusively ship with HDMI. And the HDMI monopoly holders refuse to grant v2.1 capabilities to AMD drivers for Linux. Which only matters if you want more than 4K 120Hz.
Valve doesn’t have to subsidize price. Steam games are cheap. And theres a whole linux desktop hiding behind the console. You can even make games on it.
