The new Steam Machine was announced recently, but I did not see a thread on it. So, here it is:

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/cyberpowerpc-steam-machine-beats-ps4-xbox-one-price-performance-61434.html

The hardware of the Steam Machine looks to be more robust (less cores but they do more) than the other offerings. Looks pretty good, if you don't not have a PC to play games on.

Please Note, this is not the thread to discuss DRM of any kind. We have a thread for that and if you bring it up in here, the post will be deleted and you may be warned for derailing the thread. If you want to discuss DRM, then use this thread for that

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1477500-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-32/

Please limit your discussion in this thread to the Steam Machine and how it compares hardware wise to the other consoles. Thank you

Before we get to comparing hardware, let's look at the reliability of the cited source.

Headline "CyberpowerPC Steam Machine Beats PS4, XBox One in Price, Performance"

Text in article "The CyberpowerPC Steam Machine is $499. The Xbox One is $499. The PS4 is $399."

It starts out with a headline that is patently false about price, so how much credibility can we give the anolysis of performance? I don't know where to go with it from there.

I wonder if Valve will be able to market it well, it's going to be tough to sell with Xbox Ones and PS4's already out on the market and selling rather well.

http://hexus.net/tech/news/systems/64517-more-third-party-steam-machine-details-emerge-ces/

It means price/performance ratio.

It means we operate in a world where ten times more people will read the headline than the story, and someone paid us to write that headline.

I will be intrested when they get all games to run native on their Steam OS. Until then whats the point of streaming a Windows game from your PC?

The articles I've been reading are calling it a PC with a controller interface. Because of its ability to be upgradeable. They are also saying the first Steam Machines will cost $1,599!!!

I can get an Xbox One or PS4 and still have money left over to build a decent PC to play the PC games I want.

So I wonder what games a $499 Steam Machine will be able to play? Sounds like a low end PC to me.

The 500 one I heard is as good as the PS4.

I agree, but alas my paycheck hasn't arrived yet.

The pilot versions were quite expensive, but that makes sense. This is the ready for Prime Time model.

http://hexus.net/tech/news/systems/64401-twelve-steam-machine-hardware-partners-revealed-far-ces/, only dual core but seems like a gaming machine, whereas the cheaper one has a good low-mid card tied to a very questionable CPU.

That's a good dual core, I've had a 2nd-gen i3-2120 before and it was absolutely splendid. Paired with a GTX 760, that is cheaper than something I could build myself.

Since I'm in NZ and don't know the hardware prices over there, how's the price stacking up for a Steam machine vs. buying the parts yourself?

Ok, I'm confused now. If there's no difference between a Steam Machine and a PC, why are these small form factor Steam Machine designs only now surfacing? What was preventing PC makers from using similar designs previously? And what's the point of a Steam Machine that costs the same as a PC?

http://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/1xaQafFaOFBkQPQe.medium

Question...how many people will stuff a Steam Machine into some sort of component rack sandwiched between their cable box and their DVD player and blow it up?

http://media.steampowered.com/store/steammachines/SteamMachinesBroc_WEB.PDF issued by Valve containing several steam machines, specs and prizes.

(for me the .pdf file seems to be highly unoptimized or something though, it takes up about 1 gb of ram which makes foxit reader nigh on unusable)

They have made these for years. The Micro-ATX form factor is a very small Motherboard. These are mostly used in HTPC (Home Theater PC's) or in smaller dedicated PCs. I think the streaming boxes have reduced the demand for HTPCs. Newegg still sells barebones HTPCs and of course cases so you can build your own:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100008345&IsNodeId=1&Description=HTPC&name=Mini%20%2F%20Booksize%20Barebone%20PCs&Order=BESTMATCH&isdeptsrh=1

i tried making a thread to discuss the possibility of a console that was made to be more like a PC or vice versa a couple years ago and it immediately got locked because "That will never happen". i guess the mod at the time thought some how it was platform war related.

either way i find that amusing now that the steam machine is trying to be just that.

Steam Machine = small form-factor PC designed for a living room (a.k.a. "Home Theater PC" or "HTPC"...not a new concept at all) with SteamOS pre-loaded and including a Steam controller.

The CPUs and GPUs in the Xbox One and PS4 aren't exactly mind-blowingly powerful compared to a typical gaming PC (unlike the previous generation when it was released), so it's not outside of the realm of possibility (or even probability) that a budget rig could be competitive with current-gen consoles.

You could buy or build a very cheap small form-factor PC that isn't powerful enough to run games on its own, install SteamOS on it (free), and use your gaming rig in your den to play PC games in your living room without needing to move the gaming rig or buy another one. It'd almost be like having a cheap console in your living room that can run the PC games you've already bought for your gaming rig.

I've been thinking that for about 10 years since I've essentially been running DiY versions of just that at home for about that amount of time.

I feel like they need to come up with some sort of rating system built into the Steam store about playability and performance based on the Steam machines hardware if they want to get the more casual crowd. I know I read at one point Steam was working on a "can-you-run-it" for the desktop client, I'm not sure whatever became of that. At the very least Valve could release guidelines and then categorize the Steam machines based on performance, to give someone who doesn't necessarily know what a 760 is an idea of where a product places with the others. Right now they're just small form factor PC's with custom cases and a Linux distribution. It's not a bad thing, but I don't see this as a game-changer.

It would be interesting if they could include a benchmarking suite included with the Steam client, then by Steam machine guidelines get manufacturers to put that number on the box somewhere. Ideally you could correlate this number with game performance, IE "This game needs a 1600 or above CPU score and a 900 or above GPU score on 'Steam-test' to be able to run at medium settings". I feel like that would be good for the average consumer.

You and I share the same sentiments. Before I discovered Steam had a "Big Picture Mode" I had literally designed a GUI application that resembled a console dashboard to handle launching my games with direct-input compatible controllers. Every game 'banner/button' I added had specific code tied to it for launching games uniquely. Some games required special treatment for proper controller use or TV-friendly experience. Third party applications were relied upon such as nomousy, Logitech Profiler, some app for adjusting the FoV in Halo CE, Auto-it scripts to bypass stubborn game launchers, etc in order to make the whole experience work.

Steam BPM covers most of this with having a command line argument to attach on a game, but it's still not enough for a completely compatible experience. I have to resort to batch files configured to launch in place of the game's shortcut to keep some third party apps working as needed.

Heh, yep, I've used a ton of different solutions over the years as well...from software that I wrote to scripting tools within launcher apps to WSH and Powershell scripts to automation tools like Girder. I try to do everything with a Harmony remote and a USB-UIRT device rather than using the controller so it fits in with my media playing interfaces right up until I actually launch the game, though. That's actually a lot easier than it sounds since the software I use to respond to remote commands falls back on keyboard emulation when there's no pre-defined profile for a given application. Steam BPM does make launching games a LOT easier and more reliable (not to mention prettier)...even for launching non-Steam games, so as you said, fewer workarounds are needed for that now.

In general doing the HTPC thing has gotten a lot easier over the years...there was a time when getting everything working simply and reliably was a fairly involved hobby. I imagine that this will only get better in the future.

SteamOS isn't the first Linux-based OS flavor that attempted to achieve an appliance-like living room PC experience, but IMO it probably has the most potential to be a winner. I guess we'll see what happens, but I hope it leads to PCs in the living room becoming more commonplace.

Things got trickier later in the development of my application. I didn't make anything for configuring a direct-input controller, and instead pre-defined everything under the hood to be mapped to certain face buttons and such on my Logitech wired Dual Action controller at the time. When I later (2007-ish) got a Wireless Logitech Rumblepad 2 the face buttons weren't the same configuration. Button 0 was where Button 1 would be on the wired controller and what-not. So I added a secondary configuration. The program would upon launch detect which controller was ID 0, if it was one of the two specific hardware vendor ID's I manually added it would make the right presets happen.

Then about 4 years later I got an Xbox 360 controller. It was then I felt this program was at a total loss due to it's very specific and non-generalized programming. It wasn't designed to detect any controller in Direct-Input nor did it have any XInput coding at all. It wasn't designed to map your buttons or even let you add other game slots. Everything was and had to be manually coded in. Ah well, I never had any proper schooling in software/programming so it didn't bother me that much.

Steam BPM almost revitalized that seamless experience and with less effort. My two biggest gripes with it is 1) It is resource hungry even when running in the background, 2) There seems to be no such thing as Vsync in this application even when forced on in the control panel. Maybe it is because it actually runs in a native resolution border-less window instead of fullscreen?