If all the VR stuff is finally Linux native, then I'm sold.
Bought my first gaming hardware when Valve announced Steam on Linux. Gabe introduced me to Mike Sartain who suggested which graphics card. Super nice folks.
If this headset is all Linux, then I think I'm ready to own VR hardware!
According to the tech specs, the headset runs SteamOS.
Indeed, it's an Arch variant. I meant more that I hope enough good games are native! I'm voting with my dollars for developers that ship native Linux code =D
It does say that the VR headset is running steamOS as well, which gives me hope for vr support on linux. Really neat.
The mini pc box is running zen 4 8c/16t @ 4.8 ghz and a "modified" rdna3 amd gpu with 8gigs of vram which doesn't sound super high end just like the steamdrck so I'm expecting a reasonable price there too.
I mean Arch doesn't Support ARM, ARM Arch is an independent project.
SteamOS (as Ubuntu and others) doesn't rely on the distro it's based on when It comes to their repos. So they can add Support for ARM64 and It won't affect mainline Arch.
They also funded/supported FEX which was made by the Asahi linux people for Linux on Apple Silicon Macs
In video demos they were showing x86 games like Hades 2 and Half Life Alyx running on the ARM processor
and ARM also allowed them to add support for Android APKs so theoretically developers that made games for Oculus Quest could just publish their APKs on steam and have it work with minimal work
All HLA footage AFAIK was being streamed to the headset from a PC. They seem to be working on trying to get the game to be good on standalone from an interview with Digital Foundry, but it isn't there yet.
A distribution distributing things is pretty much what I'd consider supporting something. ALARM isn't that great in terms of being maintained as regular Arch is.
Valve doesn’t need external help to maintain things. They can literally fund a team to build/maintain steamOS on arm and upstream the changes if they wanted
In the video they claim all devices work seamlessly together, which would imply the dongle will work out of the box on the steam machine, which in turn will mean it will work on linux. Lets all hope it does!
By itself that cut-down RDNA3 is workable, turning down lighting quality to hit 4K30 or 1440p with FSR isn't that big of a deal usually and would be fine for most players.
But trying to play AAA games made for current consoles with 10GB+ of VRAM means either dramatically lowering texture quality and a very blurry experience or stutters and hitches.
Well it depends on the price. Like Steam Deck, it is not the most powerful handheld, not the best screen, but the price is so competitive that they have no competition in the price range
It's using foveated rendering, only rendering the full resolution in a small area where you're eyes are focusing. So that would cut down on the effective resolution that the GPU needs to process, improving performance.
I wonder if the devices are already in production, because the Frame SoC is already 2 years old. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 is much more expensive while it boosts the specs by a lot.
Great specs on the VR headset with a slight bummer. I hope they release a slightly higher end model with eye tracking eventually. The sooner we get support for (real) foveated rendering by all/most developers the easier it'll be to run heavier graphics VR titles from something like the Steam headset / PC.
It means you can get better graphics from a computer closer to a potato because the headset is only asking for awesome graphics exactly where you're looking. If you want AAA eye candy, then current approach is to throw a monster system at the headset so it can display those graphics across the whole screen.
I was thinking about the Steam Machine specs, and it may well just be copium, but I think it'll perform well enough.
My laptop 4060 only has 8GB of VRAM, but hits a stable 60fps on most AAA games I've played like KC:D2 and Expedition 33 in 1080p.
However, and here is the copium, Valve says in the advertising material the Steam Machine will hit 4K60 with FSR, which is pretty much all consoles do anyway. I'm struggling to think of a console game that runs in native 4K60, so I reckon I'd be happy with Steam Machine performance.
Yeah I'm hoping there'll be better support but in the end, it's really in the hand of the manufacturer of the headset to better compatibility...
Valve is obviously going to make their own headset compatible but that doesn't really mean other headsets will work as well.
He did much more for Microsoft later on too, including the biggest reason he left and started making his own games and business. He put up the team together in Microsoft to port Doom to Win9x, which became known as Doom95. This all was due to Bill Gates being so impressed with Doom and wanted to even buy Id Software at the time, because he wanted Windows to be the ultimate gaming platform.
I mean if Valves first time was the 2013 native Steam release and game support, I suppose Proton and SteamDeck was the doubling down. This is tripling down for sure.
Since obviously they know what they are doing we can assume there is a really good reason why the HW is so "outdated"
My bet is on the price, it will be ridiculously low. Maybe they figured that there is no way to compete with consoles going head to head performance vise. Consoles have custom optimized games and HW is usually sold cheaper than manufacturing costs (higher game price makes up the loss). Valve has no such advantages with cheap and badly optimized PC games so they have to use some other means of standing out.
Steam deck seemed to be a success even though it too lacked raw power. The price made the difference!
more like 7400F in eco mode and 7600M. the GPU has a bit over half the TDP and slightly less CUs than the 7600 and the performance scales accordingly.
If you only take theoretical FP32 numbers the 7600M seems to line up well with their 6x steam deck claim, and is again, a bit over half of the 7600's performance.
I agree, but performance is not linear with TDP. You can usually drop TDP 30% and only lose 5 or 10% of real world gaming performance. This is due to V/F curve being non-linear.
I think "real world", steam machine should match a 5600 non-x and RX6600
The higher the price the more they're filtering for buyers with large existing Steam libraries that might not buy too many games anymore.
But if they go low enough to grab a huge number of console gamers that barely have a Steam library and will start buying a bunch of games... oh boy, it might actually be quite viable to underprice it.
the other side of this is that every time a console is truly underpriced, it gets immediately bought up in bulk including by state actors who just want cheap computers to do unrelated work.
so if it's too cheap people will struggle to get ahold of one because some chucklefuck wants to use it for LLM shit or crypto or the US government wants to do war crimes with it, and since it's just straight up a regular ass Linux computer it's going to be exceedingly easy to repurpose it.
I mean if it's like two Steam Machines in a given timeframe per address that's a lot of addresses if you want to build a fleet. And it's still probably better to build a multi-GPU setup for AI. Have multiple cards per PC. Besides this thing is midrange. I seriously doubt anyone's going to actually use them like that.
$299 and on shelves, if they want to drop an atom bomb on the market and destroy the Series S, and rake in enormous market share.
This has to be the way to go. I believe they have to offer a greater value than the existing console market. I don't think they will rake in an enormous share but if they play their cards right they can def eat xbox's lunch and become the third player in the space behind sony and nintendo.
My desktop died late last year and I’ve not had the ability or desire to rebuild another one. Depending on the price point & if it uses a 2280 nvme and is user serviceable I may just nab this…
I have my deck holding me over for most pc gaming, and I have a macbook but the disk is smaller than I want on a “main computer”
Deck is kind of awkward for some games where a traditional kbd & mouse are good. And the docking setup works for me mostly, but I have dual 4ks & deck is kind of fucky with that unless it’s in desktop mode.
With a steam machine I’ll almost certainly be mainly in DT mode (possibly dual booting Windows for some stuff unrelated to games…)
valve is far from dumb -- they probably have a very good reason for not releasing it. 1) they may feel if they release steamOS, it'll de incentivize open source devs from working on "lesser" linux distros. Or perhaps they just don't feel ready to be responsible for software / hardware configurations beyond their own tech
Or perhaps they just don't feel ready to be responsible for software / hardware configurations beyond their own tech
I would think this is the main thing. Considering Nvidia's market position among gamers and Nvidia's support for Linux, it might just be a headache they want to avoid dealing with at the moment.
That said, I think stuff like Nobara or bazzite makes sense and valve sticking to SteamOS for stuff like their hardware or other handhelds makes the most sense.
So much of the work valve has put into steamos is in the form of contributions to open source libraries that projects like bazzite are pretty much steamos. Their willingness to invest in open source with their engineering time is incredible for Linux.
From the very beginning, it seemed to me that it was easier for Valve to start investing money in Bazzite and make them the "official" ambassador of their OS in order to make it accessible to everyone
that technically already exists. you CAN put it on your PC already, it just doesn't have an installer because it's a recovery image so wipes everything.
My understanding is that it would already be possible with a signed kernel and security modules. There are just not enough linux users for it to be worth it. (Also, I think a lot of user would prefer dual booting into a separate OS to avoid spyware issues anyway).
Ask the publishers to fix that. Not only can it work on Linux, most anti cheat developers already have Linux variants available, and Windows variants that work on Linux.
But the kernel part does not, and likely never will. It's a rootkit, and unlike on Windows is not accepted by Linux users.
Why doesnt the controller have a 3.5mm jack? Want to play on the TV and talk to your friends? Screw you. Thats my only gripe, wish it had that feature. Everything else looks aweosme and im excited for how its going to change linxu gaming
The hardest part is that the modding community is addicted to windows runtimes. Seriously, try to do any modding on linux you'll quickly realize all the old tools are build in various versions of Windows bullshit. It's obnoxious.
What modding community? The modding community in most familiar with doesn't care and doesn't need to care about "windows runtimes". Since the game has built-in modding support.
Now you changed your tack to "most mods"… and that's okay, still depending on the game though. Before, you talked about "the modding community" which doesn't exist. There are various modding "communities" around various games. "any modding" is also wrong. When you mod Factorio (the modding community I was referring to), you… well, Factorio has a native Linux version, so of course you don't have to touch anything Windows on Linux. And mods are full Lua source always.
First of all, if by "mods" you mean modding software like W3 Script Merger, most of it is open source. For instance, the (kinda old) 0.65 version of Script Merger you linked to is Script Merger Vortex Edition, which is hosted in this repo, which is a community fork of the 0.62 version (linked within the linked repo) with various improvements and vortex support. It was then subsequently forked into Script Merger Fresh and Automated.
I could do this with nearly all modding software. Smithbox (DS3/Elden Ring All-In-One mod creator software and map editor) is open source. Mod Organizer is open source. Borderlands modding tools are open source. And so on and so forth. Sure, there are probably some tools that are closed source, particularly in the more niche modding communities, but open source is the widely accepted norm because open, collaborative development just makes sense for modding software. Note that this doesn't necessarily mean they run on Linux. Smithbox is open-source but is tightly linked to Windows because it uses .NET Core.
As for the actual mods, most mods modify game data, code or params and they do it in a fairly obvious way. They aren't really "precompiled packages", most of the time they use the packaging digestible by the game. Code licensing is up to each individual modder, but the only way in which mod "licensing" is enforced is through community action or by the moderation teams of modding sites. The actual code is at least visible source. In the case of Witcher 3 mods, most gameplay mods that don't just mess around with params modify the plaintext WitcherScript files that all come with a massive ALL RIGHTS RESERVED header, which makes it kinda fucking weird to gatekeep your three changed functions, so most people don't:
Generally speaking, most mods are either explicitly open-source or made by people who don't even think about the concept of code licensing. Sure, there are some explicitly closed source mods where the author fiercely guards their code, generally because they make money off of it using Patreon, but that is not the norm.
At this rate Valve is going to replace Microsoft as the 3rd console pillar too. Mind you this is mostly because MS literally cannot stop shooting themselves in the foot. If they were actually competent there's no way Valve could catch up in the console space.
Wonder if the controller will use SDL instead of proprietary steam input. Had to get rid of my old steam contollers because I couldn't get multiple controllers to work with gyro in emulators.
https://github.com/FrogTheFrog/steam-gyro-for-cemuhook I've used this for years and years without issue on my Steam Controller, works with more than just CEMU. Though I never tried doing multiplayer with gyro on them (is that what you meant by multiple?), so if that's always been a limitation then yeah that sucks. There's a different project for Steam Deck, though I wonder if it would support the Steam Controller as well - or if it intends to add support for the new Steam Controller.
That's not too dissimilar to Sony they also make money from the platform. Hardware costs, prices have gone up for consoles for a reason. I don't think Valve would be willing to sell at a loss.
you have to understand.. Sony is super huge and they are partly using the PS5 to subsidize other parts of the company. Valve is super small for its income and does not actually need to make money on the console at all, and they have no obligation to do it either becasue they arent public and dont have investors
A lot of outlets are speculating it might be in the $800 to $1000 range, but while Valve is being cagey about the price, they have repeatedly used terms like "competitive price" and "affordable". I just don't see a device with the Steam Machine's specs being considered competitive or affordable if it costs much more but is slightly less powerful than the PS5 that was released in 2020.
But with the recent increase in RAM costs and the fact that Valve has said that it's going to be pricing the Steam Machine as a mini PC rather than as a game console, I'm not sure that we should be getting our hopes up that it's going to be much lower than that, either. I'm thinking $500 is closer to reality.
They dont need to add in any kind of support, its just a computer running a linux distro, you could just install HA on it. Its not locked down or anything.
It would certainly be able to do that one way or another, but it would generally be better to get a cheapo Pi knockoff or something as Home Assistant doesn't need more than a fart's worth of compute and the power savings alone pays for itself, not to mention that you don't want a game causing the OS to crash from overheating or whatever to take down your house's automation services with it. Your kid rebooting the system right when you get home so your porch light doesn't come on so you can find your keys (or use your phone to unlock the door) would be an unnecessary annoyance to avoid spending the extra $50 or so.
You mean for the console? It should be possible to install and run HA on it, but then you can't let it go to sleep. If it's low power enough on idle it might not be an issue though.
I'm cautiously optimistic about this to the point that I kinda want to start thinking 2026 might really, finally be the year of the Linux desktop. (Yeah, I know, but hear me out...)
Back in ye olden days when people were using DVDs to watch movies but new HD video was becoming a thing, there used to be two competing formats available: HD-DVD and a little something called BluRay. What decided that format war was the PS3 being released with a built-in BluRay drive. Suddenly, BluRay movies were everywhere, and basically no one remembers HD-DVD even existed.
With Windows 10 reaching EOL, Windows 11 not being installable on older (meaning more than a year or two old) hardware, and the Steam Machine being a Linux PC disguised as a gaming console, I'm thinking there's a chance that we could see a repeat of the situation with the PS3 and BluRays. As long as the Steam Machine is relatively affordable, a lot of people might see it as an opportunity to have both a game console and a home PC -- which happens to run Linux rather than Windows. Even the people who only purchase it as a console might keep it for use as a PC once it's gaming capabilities become outdated. Either way, it gets more Linux PCs into people's homes, and the more that people use Linux, the more people are willing to use Linux.
And if the Steam Machine has similar success as the Steam Deck, it might finally convince the AAA developers that insist on using anti-cheat to allow their games to work on Linux. While I don't play games that use anti-cheat, that's really the final obstacle keeping Windows gamers from switching to Linux.
At the very least, it has me personally thinking of transitioning away from my PS5. I don't have a huge Steam game library, but if I had a Linux-based gaming console with even vaguely comparable capabilities to the PS5 but that could also run games from other sources like GOG using Lutrix AND be able to use mods... there's a really compelling case to be made to switch to the Steam Machine as my primary gaming device. Especially since even PS5 exclusives are now eventually making their way to PC.
I have an old steam index controller. I just used it once, its very powerful. Steam Controller - Wikipedia. Where can i find configurations for games, because every time I have to play a game using this device i have to change minor details.
Don't get me wrong. ARM CPUs are technologically impressive. Even ARM Ltd. is kinda nice because they allow for much-needed diverse competition we haven't had on x86 since the 80s/90s when we still had IBM that forced Intel to allow backup suppliers (such as Cyrix, NEC, Texas Instruments, IBM itself and of course AMD).
And all the love for Linux, I've been a user for over ten years.
The problem is - ARM and Linux being nice doesn't mean OEM PC manufacturers will form a customer friendly ecosystem based on ARM and Linux. Just look at smartphones. Except for Apple, which uses ARM but not Linux, we've had ARM/Linux dominance on smartphones for years in the form of Android phones. And they're not just bad, they're way worse than x86/Windows dominance on PCs.
Android may be mostly open source, but that hasn't stopped Google from making it a data kraken that locks the user out of control over the internals in a much more invasive and paternalistic way than Windows never has. And, worse, other than on the x86 PC platform, there is no UEFI, no way to change the OS with reasonable effort if at all. Linux systems on smartphones that are true to the Linux spirit aren't a thing.
I'd love to say I'm excited about ARM, but I fear it will be a trojan horse that expands Android's domain even more into what used to be the PC market than tablets already have. I fear that open bootloaders will be killed, restricted or balkanized along the way and that it will eventually be detrimental to (ethically valuable) Linux.
Maybe a more knowledgeable person can answer me:
What usual desktop GPU is equivalent to the "Semi-Custom AMD RDNA3 28CU - 2.45GHz max sustained clock, 110W TDP" Steam machine GPU?
How about the "AMD Zen 4 6C / 12 up to 4.8 GHz, 30W TDP" CPU? What desktop CPU is akin to it?
I’m really sad to hear that the OG index is now considered EOL.
The rest of this announcement though - holy shit, I’m buying at the very least the new controller and headset. Idk if I need a gabecube, but I might get it just to “vote with my wallet” and show that this is exactly the kind of thing I want to see.
I absolutely did not expect them porting steamOS to ARM so quickly, and I guess that makes sense why they haven’t talked much about it.
I wonder if we will be able to run it on other ARM devices? I’m sure someone will figure that out.
Rather than buy a device you won't use, if you're gonna "vote with your wallet" or whatever you should gift it to someone. I'm sure there's a niece or nephew who'd love this as a late Christmas present.
Haha I’m only 32 and my brother hasn’t had kids yet so no nieces/nephews/etc.
But I am kind of “communist” with my hardware. Whenever a close friend says “oh yeah my computer broke”, if I have the stuff sitting around unused to fix/replace it, I just give it to them.
I just gave one of my old poweredge r710s to an intern at work who is a HUGE Linux nerd. I retired that server from my personal rack a few years ago, and I love to encourage young people who love technology.
So don’t worry too much about generating ewaste, I try to make sure my unwanted/unneeded electronics go to good homes when it’s time :)
Depending on the price point for the gabecube I might jump on that. I was already looking to build a small PC for couch gaming and this looks like it'll fill that niche nicely. My console buying days are over I think.
If steam themselves offers some customization options that makes sense, actually now that you mention that I’m realizing that I really am too harsh on the design. Will likely have a lot third party skins/decals made for it, allowing for thematic choice that fits the person’s own style
I feel like a proper desktop SteamOS distribution is going to be huge. One of the things linux has consistently struggled with is 3rd party peripheral support, and a mainstream desktop form factor device with linux on means that linux will likely get much better support from vendors here
The RGB thing has me curious too. I really hope they did it through OpenRGB, and that this leads to vendors having to advertise OpenRGB/Steam Machine support for their glowy stuff to work rather than everyone having their own shitty datamining app.
That VR Headset might actually be the first one I'd consider buying. Of course, wait for reviews, get a look at if the pricepoint makes sense and if it sells your data, but if those match I might honestly look into buying one.
If it's running SteamOS it would be strange for it to be selling data, since it'd presumably be pretty easy to flash a version without that shit and Valve hasn't been doing that with the Steam Deck. They're all running SteamOS except for the controller.
i mean, "on par" with the apple vision pro seems like a big leap given how those numbers you're putting up there are way bigger, but in terms of actually playing a fucking video game on the things it definitely looks sufficient.
3 per cent of what? Percentages are completely meaningless if you don't know the actual user numbers behind them. Even 3 per cent can represent such a large number of users that it's worthwhile. Or not.
That would be enough for many game makers to at least test against, and optionally improve their games for Linux. I think the anti-cheat issue for competitive games and those with in-game transactions may require 10-20% before they are addressed.
purpleidea@reddit (OP)
If all the VR stuff is finally Linux native, then I'm sold.
Bought my first gaming hardware when Valve announced Steam on Linux. Gabe introduced me to Mike Sartain who suggested which graphics card. Super nice folks.
If this headset is all Linux, then I think I'm ready to own VR hardware!
Omotai@reddit
According to the tech specs, the headset runs SteamOS.
purpleidea@reddit (OP)
Indeed, it's an Arch variant. I meant more that I hope enough good games are native! I'm voting with my dollars for developers that ship native Linux code =D
Indolent_Bard@reddit
Usually the native versions suck.
PsyOmega@reddit
Yes. SteamOS on snapdragon (this snapdragon SOC has the vague rough same power as the Steam Deck in CPU and GPU)
robertpro01@reddit
Yes, probably valve is expecting to add more support from game devs, they didn't have any reason to do it before, I think this is that reason.
As long as it can stream the games from another steam os or bazzite box, we should be ok.
yo_99@reddit
Supports x86 games via FEX, journalists played Hades 2 on it.
PsyOmega@reddit
I tried FEX as well. Performance on my 8cx snapdragon, per core, was pentium2/3 ish
ADeerBoy@reddit
In an interview they said 30% CPU overhead compared to x86. I'm unsure how they came to that number.
Big_Wrongdoer_5278@reddit
https://store.steampowered.com/sale/hardware
It does say that the VR headset is running steamOS as well, which gives me hope for vr support on linux. Really neat.
The mini pc box is running zen 4 8c/16t @ 4.8 ghz and a "modified" rdna3 amd gpu with 8gigs of vram which doesn't sound super high end just like the steamdrck so I'm expecting a reasonable price there too.
This is great for linux!
SoilMassive6850@reddit
The VR headset is also ARM based, so improved Arch ARM support? Currently it's pretty dead afaik.
Ok-Winner-6589@reddit
I mean Arch doesn't Support ARM, ARM Arch is an independent project.
SteamOS (as Ubuntu and others) doesn't rely on the distro it's based on when It comes to their repos. So they can add Support for ARM64 and It won't affect mainline Arch.
Working_Sundae@reddit
I mean they have to get started somewhere, can't tie everything to x86, but going with ARM is a pretty bold move ngl
GlenMerlin@reddit
They also funded/supported FEX which was made by the Asahi linux people for Linux on Apple Silicon Macs
In video demos they were showing x86 games like Hades 2 and Half Life Alyx running on the ARM processor
and ARM also allowed them to add support for Android APKs so theoretically developers that made games for Oculus Quest could just publish their APKs on steam and have it work with minimal work
LowZonesWasTaken@reddit
All HLA footage AFAIK was being streamed to the headset from a PC. They seem to be working on trying to get the game to be good on standalone from an interview with Digital Foundry, but it isn't there yet.
braaaaaaainworms@reddit
FEX predates ARM Macs by a couple of years
GlenMerlin@reddit
Really? The oldest release I'm seeing on their github was January 2021 and the ARM Macbooks came out in November 2020
mort96@reddit
Software projects often start some time before they have their first release.
The initial commit of the repo is from 2018: https://github.com/FEX-Emu/FEX/commit/dce985f8593af3eed94c89c12a9daac59d78b8e3
Though development seems to have been very slow until 2020.
robertpro01@reddit
I'm so excited about it, I really like the idea of arm devices, but I haven't moved because the lack of support, I hope this helps with it.
perogychef@reddit
Arch doesn't not support ARM. They just don't ship ARM binaries.
ilep@reddit
https://archlinuxarm.org
SoilMassive6850@reddit
A distribution distributing things is pretty much what I'd consider supporting something. ALARM isn't that great in terms of being maintained as regular Arch is.
deviled-tux@reddit
Valve doesn’t need external help to maintain things. They can literally fund a team to build/maintain steamOS on arm and upstream the changes if they wanted
bitwaba@reddit
Cool. Maybe you could explain this for us then:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1fssfow/comment/lpne5p0/?context=3&utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
SoilMassive6850@reddit
Yes you don't need to explain that, thats why I speculated better Arch Arm support in the future (as compared to current ALARM).
recaffeinated@reddit
They're invested in FEX too to support x86 on Arm, which is an interesting side effect.
RaXXu5@reddit
That means official arch arm, I didn't even think of that!
ViolentSempie@reddit
In the video they claim all devices work seamlessly together, which would imply the dongle will work out of the box on the steam machine, which in turn will mean it will work on linux. Lets all hope it does!
MCPtz@reddit
The VR Headset is ARM based. Interesting...
Steam PC:
VR Headset:
TheSleepyMachine@reddit
Steam PC is like even less than an RX 7600 GPU. That seems... Low ? 4K gaming might be a far fetch.
DontWannaMissAFling@reddit
It's that 8GB VRAM that will hurt.
By itself that cut-down RDNA3 is workable, turning down lighting quality to hit 4K30 or 1440p with FSR isn't that big of a deal usually and would be fine for most players.
But trying to play AAA games made for current consoles with 10GB+ of VRAM means either dramatically lowering texture quality and a very blurry experience or stutters and hitches.
teddybrr@reddit
It hurts because textures are a free upgrade while only really costing vram.
BolunZ6@reddit
Well it depends on the price. Like Steam Deck, it is not the most powerful handheld, not the best screen, but the price is so competitive that they have no competition in the price range
YKS_Gaming@reddit
It should be a 7400F in eco mode+7600M, judging by core count and TDP
99_lives@reddit
It's using foveated rendering, only rendering the full resolution in a small area where you're eyes are focusing. So that would cut down on the effective resolution that the GPU needs to process, improving performance.
PsyOmega@reddit
According to valve, per DF, it's 4K60 via FSR.
It'll probably have a 720p or 1080p internal render target.
Vortelf@reddit
I wonder if the devices are already in production, because the Frame SoC is already 2 years old. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 is much more expensive while it boosts the specs by a lot.
SeraphicalChaos@reddit
Great specs on the VR headset with a slight bummer. I hope they release a slightly higher end model with eye tracking eventually. The sooner we get support for (real) foveated rendering by all/most developers the easier it'll be to run heavier graphics VR titles from something like the Steam headset / PC.
Isofruit@reddit
I have no idea what those funny words you said mean, magic man, but they do sound like it could be a worthwhile buy even at a higher pricepoint ?
SeraphicalChaos@reddit
It means you can get better graphics from a computer closer to a potato because the headset is only asking for awesome graphics exactly where you're looking. If you want AAA eye candy, then current approach is to throw a monster system at the headset so it can display those graphics across the whole screen.
julchiar@reddit
It's got native foveated streaming built in that works with any content.
Chad-Buttsniff@reddit
I was thinking about the Steam Machine specs, and it may well just be copium, but I think it'll perform well enough.
My laptop 4060 only has 8GB of VRAM, but hits a stable 60fps on most AAA games I've played like KC:D2 and Expedition 33 in 1080p.
However, and here is the copium, Valve says in the advertising material the Steam Machine will hit 4K60 with FSR, which is pretty much all consoles do anyway. I'm struggling to think of a console game that runs in native 4K60, so I reckon I'd be happy with Steam Machine performance.
oneiros5321@reddit
Yeah I'm hoping there'll be better support but in the end, it's really in the hand of the manufacturer of the headset to better compatibility...
Valve is obviously going to make their own headset compatible but that doesn't really mean other headsets will work as well.
natermer@reddit
It is nice that they are doubling down on Linux gaming.
kaplanfx@reddit
This whole thing is because Microsoft launched the windows store and freaked Gaben out. Pretty awesome honestly.
Dwedit@reddit
Fun fact, Gabe Newell is in the Windows 1.0 credits.
LunaTheExile@reddit
He did much more for Microsoft later on too, including the biggest reason he left and started making his own games and business. He put up the team together in Microsoft to port Doom to Win9x, which became known as Doom95. This all was due to Bill Gates being so impressed with Doom and wanted to even buy Id Software at the time, because he wanted Windows to be the ultimate gaming platform.
True_Human@reddit
Another fun fact: Microsoft, decades later, actually bought Id Software together with Bethesda
teddybrr@reddit
Only to discard a damn nice engine with insane performance in favor of raytracing
kingrooted@reddit
Which engine are you referring to?
Cheap_Ad_9846@reddit
Idtech7
xcorv42@reddit
It'd not that beautiful
Mumuskeh@reddit
No it's because Windows as a whole. But also yes...?
bitwaba@reddit
That sound like a "yes" to me!
jikt@reddit
So, nyes?
deanrihpee@reddit
I'm disappointed they're not tripling down on Linux gaming
/s
SoilMassive6850@reddit
I mean if Valves first time was the 2013 native Steam release and game support, I suppose Proton and SteamDeck was the doubling down. This is tripling down for sure.
ggppjj@reddit
Factually, this is true.
Counter-factually, we all know Valve can't count to 3 and thus must be false.
K722003@reddit
Tbf they did say 3 at 0:29 in the release vid for the 3 new machines on their official yt page
aeltheos@reddit
Half Life 3 confirmed ?
ggppjj@reddit
/vineboom
KnowZeroX@reddit
There was also the push towards Vulkan.
natermer@reddit
If you double down on a double down then that a quadruple down.
hesitantly-correct@reddit
Eh. Everyone knows that Steam can't count to 3.
Kasenom@reddit
the year of the linux gaming desktop is here!
CaptainObvious110@reddit
Oh yeah
PsyOmega@reddit
A 7500F-ish CPU, a 7600-ish dGPU. I love it but i hope they price it right. I can build an SFF PC with those parts pretty cheap.
woox2k@reddit
Since obviously they know what they are doing we can assume there is a really good reason why the HW is so "outdated"
My bet is on the price, it will be ridiculously low. Maybe they figured that there is no way to compete with consoles going head to head performance vise. Consoles have custom optimized games and HW is usually sold cheaper than manufacturing costs (higher game price makes up the loss). Valve has no such advantages with cheap and badly optimized PC games so they have to use some other means of standing out.
Steam deck seemed to be a success even though it too lacked raw power. The price made the difference!
PsyOmega@reddit
Valve has this advantage though. 30% of game sales would subsidize it nicely, especially selling to new gamers who will buy lots of games.
YKS_Gaming@reddit
more like 7400F in eco mode and 7600M. the GPU has a bit over half the TDP and slightly less CUs than the 7600 and the performance scales accordingly.
If you only take theoretical FP32 numbers the 7600M seems to line up well with their 6x steam deck claim, and is again, a bit over half of the 7600's performance.
PsyOmega@reddit
I agree, but performance is not linear with TDP. You can usually drop TDP 30% and only lose 5 or 10% of real world gaming performance. This is due to V/F curve being non-linear.
I think "real world", steam machine should match a 5600 non-x and RX6600
kaplanfx@reddit
What do you think is a good price? $600?
PsyOmega@reddit
Probably 500 since it's weaker than a PS5. 600 at an upper max, but that's going to hit a market buy-in wall and will tank sales.
ric2b@reddit
The higher the price the more they're filtering for buyers with large existing Steam libraries that might not buy too many games anymore.
But if they go low enough to grab a huge number of console gamers that barely have a Steam library and will start buying a bunch of games... oh boy, it might actually be quite viable to underprice it.
Helmic@reddit
the other side of this is that every time a console is truly underpriced, it gets immediately bought up in bulk including by state actors who just want cheap computers to do unrelated work.
so if it's too cheap people will struggle to get ahold of one because some chucklefuck wants to use it for LLM shit or crypto or the US government wants to do war crimes with it, and since it's just straight up a regular ass Linux computer it's going to be exceedingly easy to repurpose it.
Diligent_Caramel6429@reddit
The solution to this is to just limit how many Steam Machines can be shipped to the same address. This can be tracked automatically on the backend.
CrazyKilla15@reddit
do you think state actors only have one address
Diligent_Caramel6429@reddit
I mean if it's like two Steam Machines in a given timeframe per address that's a lot of addresses if you want to build a fleet. And it's still probably better to build a multi-GPU setup for AI. Have multiple cards per PC. Besides this thing is midrange. I seriously doubt anyone's going to actually use them like that.
ric2b@reddit
Has that ever happened besides the PS3 example? And it wasn't even cheap, the CPU was just quite unique and useful outside of gaming, IIRC.
PsyOmega@reddit
I think that's why it only comes with 8gb vram. Useless for AI.
matrixifyme@reddit
This has to be the way to go. I believe they have to offer a greater value than the existing console market. I don't think they will rake in an enormous share but if they play their cards right they can def eat xbox's lunch and become the third player in the space behind sony and nintendo.
BeefyMiracleWhip@reddit
My desktop died late last year and I’ve not had the ability or desire to rebuild another one. Depending on the price point & if it uses a 2280 nvme and is user serviceable I may just nab this…
I have my deck holding me over for most pc gaming, and I have a macbook but the disk is smaller than I want on a “main computer”
Deck is kind of awkward for some games where a traditional kbd & mouse are good. And the docking setup works for me mostly, but I have dual 4ks & deck is kind of fucky with that unless it’s in desktop mode.
With a steam machine I’ll almost certainly be mainly in DT mode (possibly dual booting Windows for some stuff unrelated to games…)
Dramatic_Mastodon_93@reddit
A STEAM PC??? Any news on the full SteamOS release?
drockalexander@reddit
this is also my million dollar question
Dramatic_Mastodon_93@reddit
If they don’t release it now they’re honestly just dumb
drockalexander@reddit
valve is far from dumb -- they probably have a very good reason for not releasing it. 1) they may feel if they release steamOS, it'll de incentivize open source devs from working on "lesser" linux distros. Or perhaps they just don't feel ready to be responsible for software / hardware configurations beyond their own tech
vemundveien@reddit
I would think this is the main thing. Considering Nvidia's market position among gamers and Nvidia's support for Linux, it might just be a headache they want to avoid dealing with at the moment.
BeefyMiracleWhip@reddit
Hopefully with nvk we might see this change.
That said, I think stuff like Nobara or bazzite makes sense and valve sticking to SteamOS for stuff like their hardware or other handhelds makes the most sense.
maboesanman@reddit
So much of the work valve has put into steamos is in the form of contributions to open source libraries that projects like bazzite are pretty much steamos. Their willingness to invest in open source with their engineering time is incredible for Linux.
YouRock96@reddit
From the very beginning, it seemed to me that it was easier for Valve to start investing money in Bazzite and make them the "official" ambassador of their OS in order to make it accessible to everyone
necrophcodr@reddit
that technically already exists. you CAN put it on your PC already, it just doesn't have an installer because it's a recovery image so wipes everything.
Dramatic_Mastodon_93@reddit
I don’t want it for myself, I want it for all the PC gamers and Valve fanboys who are still on the fence
jc_denty@reddit
What about games that use kernel anti cheat?
SiegeRewards@reddit
Can’t unless the anti cheats changes or some sort of Linux breakthrough but you can change the OS or dual boot.
aeltheos@reddit
My understanding is that it would already be possible with a signed kernel and security modules. There are just not enough linux users for it to be worth it. (Also, I think a lot of user would prefer dual booting into a separate OS to avoid spyware issues anyway).
necrophcodr@reddit
Ask the publishers to fix that. Not only can it work on Linux, most anti cheat developers already have Linux variants available, and Windows variants that work on Linux.
But the kernel part does not, and likely never will. It's a rootkit, and unlike on Windows is not accepted by Linux users.
Kaleodis@reddit
That's entirely on the devs (of the games) and very likely to not change for now.
erwan@reddit
I don't play games that install malware on my machine, it doesn't matter the OS
Mcginnis@reddit
Thats awesome news, but...
Why doesnt the controller have a 3.5mm jack? Want to play on the TV and talk to your friends? Screw you. Thats my only gripe, wish it had that feature. Everything else looks aweosme and im excited for how its going to change linxu gaming
nico_ryan600@reddit
ahem the console its self has proper Bluetooth and support for actual mics so you don't have to rely on the controller
Mcginnis@reddit
True, but maybe I don't want to deal with Bluetooth headphones? Or maybe I don't want to have a cable going from the couch?
The Xbox and PS remotes with the headphone jack were a fantastic inclusion. Valve should have followed
LandCruiser1000@reddit
What's a 3.5mm jack?
/s
TheYang@reddit
I think the prices will make or break this, similar to the steam deck.
If that would have been $1000+ it wouldn't have worked half as well.
Pyroglyph@reddit
The announcement mentions streaming from the Steam Machine to the Steam Frame. Does this mean SteamVR for Linux will be receiving more love?
georgehank2nd@reddit
I'm hoping for a real killer price for the Frame. Might finally get a VR headset.
deviled-tux@reddit
Games: exist primarily on windows x86
Valve: the games are going to run wherever I say they’re going to run.
EmeraldCrusher@reddit
The hardest part is that the modding community is addicted to windows runtimes. Seriously, try to do any modding on linux you'll quickly realize all the old tools are build in various versions of Windows bullshit. It's obnoxious.
georgehank2nd@reddit
What modding community? The modding community in most familiar with doesn't care and doesn't need to care about "windows runtimes". Since the game has built-in modding support.
EmeraldCrusher@reddit
Simple example go to nexus mods and examine mods and click on anything, this is an exe:
https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/484?tab=files
georgehank2nd@reddit
Now you changed your tack to "most mods"… and that's okay, still depending on the game though. Before, you talked about "the modding community" which doesn't exist. There are various modding "communities" around various games. "any modding" is also wrong. When you mod Factorio (the modding community I was referring to), you… well, Factorio has a native Linux version, so of course you don't have to touch anything Windows on Linux. And mods are full Lua source always.
Nereithp@reddit
Neither of these are true.
First of all, if by "mods" you mean modding software like W3 Script Merger, most of it is open source. For instance, the (kinda old) 0.65 version of Script Merger you linked to is Script Merger Vortex Edition, which is hosted in this repo, which is a community fork of the 0.62 version (linked within the linked repo) with various improvements and vortex support. It was then subsequently forked into Script Merger Fresh and Automated.
I could do this with nearly all modding software. Smithbox (DS3/Elden Ring All-In-One mod creator software and map editor) is open source. Mod Organizer is open source. Borderlands modding tools are open source. And so on and so forth. Sure, there are probably some tools that are closed source, particularly in the more niche modding communities, but open source is the widely accepted norm because open, collaborative development just makes sense for modding software. Note that this doesn't necessarily mean they run on Linux. Smithbox is open-source but is tightly linked to Windows because it uses .NET Core.
As for the actual mods, most mods modify game data, code or params and they do it in a fairly obvious way. They aren't really "precompiled packages", most of the time they use the packaging digestible by the game. Code licensing is up to each individual modder, but the only way in which mod "licensing" is enforced is through community action or by the moderation teams of modding sites. The actual code is at least visible source. In the case of Witcher 3 mods, most gameplay mods that don't just mess around with params modify the plaintext WitcherScript files that all come with a massive ALL RIGHTS RESERVED header, which makes it kinda fucking weird to gatekeep your three changed functions, so most people don't:
Generally speaking, most mods are either explicitly open-source or made by people who don't even think about the concept of code licensing. Sure, there are some explicitly closed source mods where the author fiercely guards their code, generally because they make money off of it using Patreon, but that is not the norm.
ric2b@reddit
"Microsoft is trying to lock down Windows with their own curated store"
Gabe: "And I took that personally"
Microsoft half-assing a store on Windows and causing panic for Valve will go down as one of the biggest business fumbles in history.
Diligent_Caramel6429@reddit
At this rate Valve is going to replace Microsoft as the 3rd console pillar too. Mind you this is mostly because MS literally cannot stop shooting themselves in the foot. If they were actually competent there's no way Valve could catch up in the console space.
necrophcodr@reddit
Well it helps that they've been pouring time and money into existing projects (FEX, Wine, etc) that make their solutions possible in the first place.
AndrewNeo@reddit
and they pay open source developers to write open source code to make it happen
win-win-win
bindiboi@reddit
Wonder if the controller will use SDL instead of proprietary steam input. Had to get rid of my old steam contollers because I couldn't get multiple controllers to work with gyro in emulators.
Helmic@reddit
https://github.com/FrogTheFrog/steam-gyro-for-cemuhook I've used this for years and years without issue on my Steam Controller, works with more than just CEMU. Though I never tried doing multiplayer with gyro on them (is that what you meant by multiple?), so if that's always been a limitation then yeah that sucks. There's a different project for Steam Deck, though I wonder if it would support the Steam Controller as well - or if it intends to add support for the new Steam Controller.
bindiboi@reddit
https://www.phoronix.com/news/New-Steam-Controller-SDL woop!
bindiboi@reddit
It only works with one controller, yes. I had 4.
AndrewNeo@reddit
they said bluetooth to phones so it probably supports HID at worst
SandySnob@reddit
I think with the Steam Machine showing a tiling window manager and vscode, I believe the Year of the Linux Desktop might be near.
Gullible-Rate-671@reddit
for once im going to agree.. If they price this right its going to increase the linux userbase massively
OfflerCrocGod@reddit
More like 500ish I'd say, just look at the PS prices.
Gullible-Rate-671@reddit
Yes.. but Sony is a public company.. Valve is a private company without any investors so they have no obligation to do payouts.
Steam will make back what they lose on the Machine easily by simply getting more people on the ecosystem.
This means that what is most important is not actually making money on the console, but getting people on the Steam ecosystem.
OfflerCrocGod@reddit
That's not too dissimilar to Sony they also make money from the platform. Hardware costs, prices have gone up for consoles for a reason. I don't think Valve would be willing to sell at a loss.
Gullible-Rate-671@reddit
you have to understand.. Sony is super huge and they are partly using the PS5 to subsidize other parts of the company. Valve is super small for its income and does not actually need to make money on the console at all, and they have no obligation to do it either becasue they arent public and dont have investors
TheWorldIsNotOkay@reddit
A lot of outlets are speculating it might be in the $800 to $1000 range, but while Valve is being cagey about the price, they have repeatedly used terms like "competitive price" and "affordable". I just don't see a device with the Steam Machine's specs being considered competitive or affordable if it costs much more but is slightly less powerful than the PS5 that was released in 2020.
But with the recent increase in RAM costs and the fact that Valve has said that it's going to be pricing the Steam Machine as a mini PC rather than as a game console, I'm not sure that we should be getting our hopes up that it's going to be much lower than that, either. I'm thinking $500 is closer to reality.
vazark@reddit
Add in some kind of support for self hosted home assistant and thread/matter. I’ll replace all my home automation in an instant
CrazyKilla15@reddit
They dont need to add in any kind of support, its just a computer running a linux distro, you could just install HA on it. Its not locked down or anything.
Helmic@reddit
It would certainly be able to do that one way or another, but it would generally be better to get a cheapo Pi knockoff or something as Home Assistant doesn't need more than a fart's worth of compute and the power savings alone pays for itself, not to mention that you don't want a game causing the OS to crash from overheating or whatever to take down your house's automation services with it. Your kid rebooting the system right when you get home so your porch light doesn't come on so you can find your keys (or use your phone to unlock the door) would be an unnecessary annoyance to avoid spending the extra $50 or so.
ric2b@reddit
You mean for the console? It should be possible to install and run HA on it, but then you can't let it go to sleep. If it's low power enough on idle it might not be an issue though.
TBTapion@reddit
Steamdeck, Steam Frame, Steam Machine. That's 3 types of devices running SteamOS.
Hold on, 3 devices? Half Life 3 confirmed?
TheWorldIsNotOkay@reddit
I mean, every great console needs that one killer launch title, right?
TheWorldIsNotOkay@reddit
I'm cautiously optimistic about this to the point that I kinda want to start thinking 2026 might really, finally be the year of the Linux desktop. (Yeah, I know, but hear me out...)
Back in ye olden days when people were using DVDs to watch movies but new HD video was becoming a thing, there used to be two competing formats available: HD-DVD and a little something called BluRay. What decided that format war was the PS3 being released with a built-in BluRay drive. Suddenly, BluRay movies were everywhere, and basically no one remembers HD-DVD even existed.
With Windows 10 reaching EOL, Windows 11 not being installable on older (meaning more than a year or two old) hardware, and the Steam Machine being a Linux PC disguised as a gaming console, I'm thinking there's a chance that we could see a repeat of the situation with the PS3 and BluRays. As long as the Steam Machine is relatively affordable, a lot of people might see it as an opportunity to have both a game console and a home PC -- which happens to run Linux rather than Windows. Even the people who only purchase it as a console might keep it for use as a PC once it's gaming capabilities become outdated. Either way, it gets more Linux PCs into people's homes, and the more that people use Linux, the more people are willing to use Linux.
And if the Steam Machine has similar success as the Steam Deck, it might finally convince the AAA developers that insist on using anti-cheat to allow their games to work on Linux. While I don't play games that use anti-cheat, that's really the final obstacle keeping Windows gamers from switching to Linux.
At the very least, it has me personally thinking of transitioning away from my PS5. I don't have a huge Steam game library, but if I had a Linux-based gaming console with even vaguely comparable capabilities to the PS5 but that could also run games from other sources like GOG using Lutrix AND be able to use mods... there's a really compelling case to be made to switch to the Steam Machine as my primary gaming device. Especially since even PS5 exclusives are now eventually making their way to PC.
vinayrajan@reddit
I have an old steam index controller. I just used it once, its very powerful. Steam Controller - Wikipedia. Where can i find configurations for games, because every time I have to play a game using this device i have to change minor details.
OliBeu@reddit
I get one for the living room
huantian@reddit
year of the ARM Linux desktop
Sataniel98@reddit
Yeah... Can't say I'm excited about that.
Don't get me wrong. ARM CPUs are technologically impressive. Even ARM Ltd. is kinda nice because they allow for much-needed diverse competition we haven't had on x86 since the 80s/90s when we still had IBM that forced Intel to allow backup suppliers (such as Cyrix, NEC, Texas Instruments, IBM itself and of course AMD).
And all the love for Linux, I've been a user for over ten years.
The problem is - ARM and Linux being nice doesn't mean OEM PC manufacturers will form a customer friendly ecosystem based on ARM and Linux. Just look at smartphones. Except for Apple, which uses ARM but not Linux, we've had ARM/Linux dominance on smartphones for years in the form of Android phones. And they're not just bad, they're way worse than x86/Windows dominance on PCs.
Android may be mostly open source, but that hasn't stopped Google from making it a data kraken that locks the user out of control over the internals in a much more invasive and paternalistic way than Windows never has. And, worse, other than on the x86 PC platform, there is no UEFI, no way to change the OS with reasonable effort if at all. Linux systems on smartphones that are true to the Linux spirit aren't a thing.
I'd love to say I'm excited about ARM, but I fear it will be a trojan horse that expands Android's domain even more into what used to be the PC market than tablets already have. I fear that open bootloaders will be killed, restricted or balkanized along the way and that it will eventually be detrimental to (ethically valuable) Linux.
kaplanfx@reddit
Did it say Fex was open source anywhere?
ExaHamza@reddit
🤐🤐🤐
Great, we can control it the TV remote and enjoy plex, kodi.
Flashy_Frame_6836@reddit
Gabe Cube
LinuxForEveryone@reddit
Talk about a company playing the LONG game. This definitely feels like the culmination of a perfectly realized vision.
hwoodice@reddit
I am very happy.
TheRavenProfessor@reddit
Maybe a more knowledgeable person can answer me:
What usual desktop GPU is equivalent to the "Semi-Custom AMD RDNA3 28CU - 2.45GHz max sustained clock, 110W TDP" Steam machine GPU?
How about the "AMD Zen 4 6C / 12 up to 4.8 GHz, 30W TDP" CPU? What desktop CPU is akin to it?
meditonsin@reddit
An RDNA3 desktop GPU with 28CU would be the RX 7400 (see here).
And a Zen 4 6c/12t desktop CPU would be a Ryzen 5 (see here).
Unicorn_Colombo@reddit
That would be a nice upgrade for my Tonga...
recaffeinated@reddit
Gamers Nexus, who I'd trust, reckon it'll come in around a 7600
kuroimakina@reddit
I’m really sad to hear that the OG index is now considered EOL.
The rest of this announcement though - holy shit, I’m buying at the very least the new controller and headset. Idk if I need a gabecube, but I might get it just to “vote with my wallet” and show that this is exactly the kind of thing I want to see.
I absolutely did not expect them porting steamOS to ARM so quickly, and I guess that makes sense why they haven’t talked much about it.
I wonder if we will be able to run it on other ARM devices? I’m sure someone will figure that out.
necrophcodr@reddit
The Index is not gonna stop working, and the software is gonna stick around for it too.
Helmic@reddit
Rather than buy a device you won't use, if you're gonna "vote with your wallet" or whatever you should gift it to someone. I'm sure there's a niece or nephew who'd love this as a late Christmas present.
kuroimakina@reddit
Haha I’m only 32 and my brother hasn’t had kids yet so no nieces/nephews/etc.
But I am kind of “communist” with my hardware. Whenever a close friend says “oh yeah my computer broke”, if I have the stuff sitting around unused to fix/replace it, I just give it to them.
I just gave one of my old poweredge r710s to an intern at work who is a HUGE Linux nerd. I retired that server from my personal rack a few years ago, and I love to encourage young people who love technology.
So don’t worry too much about generating ewaste, I try to make sure my unwanted/unneeded electronics go to good homes when it’s time :)
DirtyMen@reddit
Hello, I would like to apply to be your nephew. Thank you for your consideration.
KokiriRapGod@reddit
Depending on the price point for the gabecube I might jump on that. I was already looking to build a small PC for couch gaming and this looks like it'll fill that niche nicely. My console buying days are over I think.
deviled-tux@reddit
They said the Index will be supported indefinitely, not EOL
Just end of production
At least it shouldn’t become useless over time
hurtfulthingsourway@reddit
nice looking little cube to hide by the TV, I hope the wireless on the headset works well.
Lmaoboobs@reddit
8GB of VRAM is a bit of a let down though.
Mordiken@reddit
I wish Loki was still around to see this... 😢
Dolkilu@reddit
2026 is the year of Linux desktop
Mordiken@reddit
year of the Linux console.
jbr7rr@reddit
https://youtu.be/dU3ru09HTng
This is crazy!! They are even working on VEX a compatibility layer to run x86 win games on arm Linux... So crazy and sooo cool
recaffeinated@reddit
FEX and they've invested in it - it already exists.
FinisRonin@reddit
Microsoft is so done, as are all tripple Bullshit Studios that use Windows only anti cheat or DRMs :D
killersteak@reddit
I look forward to its distribution in Australia in 8 years from now.
st33lb0ne@reddit
Fantastic news.. Valve is a gift that keeps on giving
AiraHaerson@reddit
Very excited for the hardware but who thought it was a good idea to ask Elon Musk for design choice advice on the Machine? Lmao
PsyOmega@reddit
How is any of this "elon musk"? It's a Rick Sternbach Borg Cube if anything.
AiraHaerson@reddit
I find it really boring. Maybe the Musk part is off but I don’t think is a very good design aesthetic, it’s boring
PsyOmega@reddit
A black cube is perfectly boring. It's what you wanna be to sell into livingrooms.
The PS5 tried for an exciting design and, well, look how BAD it looks.
FrozenLogger@reddit
Boring is good. The ps5 for example is just a nasty looking piece of hardware.
I want something that is not noticed and simple. I think it fits a great clean and simple aesthetic.
But did I see correctly in the video that you can customize the front?
AiraHaerson@reddit
If steam themselves offers some customization options that makes sense, actually now that you mention that I’m realizing that I really am too harsh on the design. Will likely have a lot third party skins/decals made for it, allowing for thematic choice that fits the person’s own style
FinancialPause@reddit
Wait, what? Did Elon Musk actually have any input on it or are you just roasting the Steam Machine design?
AiraHaerson@reddit
No I’m being sarcastic. And probably too harsh. I just think the design is very boring
FattyDrake@reddit
Cubes are a recurring motif in computer design. Steve Jobs loved cubes, even if the market didn't.
woj-tek@reddit
insert here meme <3
those are awesome and as I was pondering for a while getting a "gaming PC" (as SteamDeck can't handle everything) Valve's timing is perfect <3
James20k@reddit
I feel like a proper desktop SteamOS distribution is going to be huge. One of the things linux has consistently struggled with is 3rd party peripheral support, and a mainstream desktop form factor device with linux on means that linux will likely get much better support from vendors here
Helmic@reddit
The RGB thing has me curious too. I really hope they did it through OpenRGB, and that this leads to vendors having to advertise OpenRGB/Steam Machine support for their glowy stuff to work rather than everyone having their own shitty datamining app.
Isofruit@reddit
That VR Headset might actually be the first one I'd consider buying. Of course, wait for reviews, get a look at if the pricepoint makes sense and if it sells your data, but if those match I might honestly look into buying one.
Helmic@reddit
If it's running SteamOS it would be strange for it to be selling data, since it'd presumably be pretty easy to flash a version without that shit and Valve hasn't been doing that with the Steam Deck. They're all running SteamOS except for the controller.
SithLordRising@reddit
How's the display? Might need to upgrade
elatllat@reddit
Magnetic analog !
2160 x 2160 LCD (per eye) !
2026 is looking expensive.
Helmic@reddit
i mean, "on par" with the apple vision pro seems like a big leap given how those numbers you're putting up there are way bigger, but in terms of actually playing a fucking video game on the things it definitely looks sufficient.
lannistersstark@reddit
Huh, you should mention it to my PS/Xbox/Stadia controllers that have been going on for more than half a decade if not more now.
otakugrey@reddit
Okay, but how much will it be?
blacksd@reddit
The Gabecube™️
MessyKerbal@reddit
Gabecube
abbzug@reddit
Yeah I guess that 3% share on steam hardware survey is going to go up.
FryBoyter@reddit
3 per cent of what? Percentages are completely meaningless if you don't know the actual user numbers behind them. Even 3 per cent can represent such a large number of users that it's worthwhile. Or not.
abbzug@reddit
The Steam hardware survey is a survey of people who funnily enough use Steam.
RoyAwesome@reddit
3% of people on steam
Oricol@reddit
Steam has 132 million monthly active users. 3% would be a little under 4 million. Seems worthwhile
chrono13@reddit
5% by end of 2026 would be great.
That would be enough for many game makers to at least test against, and optionally improve their games for Linux. I think the anti-cheat issue for competitive games and those with in-game transactions may require 10-20% before they are addressed.
LotlKing47@reddit
I was so sad I could no longer play pcvr because my pc hardware is simply too weak on linux because nvidia (bottom text)
well I know what I will be keeping my eyes peeled upon 👀
I am genuinely so hyped !!!
obfuscinator@reddit
OHHH GOD! MY WALLET!
Rocketman7@reddit
First PC gaming on Linux and now on ARM too. Valve is hellbent on doing the "impossible"
aksdb@reddit
Fuck you Valve. Where should I get all the money from?! AND I WANT THAT STUFF NOW! 😭
Freibeuter86@reddit
📈 Linux Gaming ❤️🔥
perogychef@reddit
This is amazing. Gonna buy the console as soon as it's available.
D3USS424@reddit
I wish you guys could see the smile on my face
infexius@reddit
valve take my money i want the controller and the steam machine for now
elatllat@reddit
Magnetic analog is a huge win. It would be awesome if they could get the controller working with PS/Xbox/Nintendo.
Scw0w@reddit
They cant. Even if they know how to do it. Its just against licenses.
purpleidea@reddit (OP)
This page says it's Linux! WOO =D