Yet Another Linux Distribution. Because the world really, really needs another one....
The thing with Linux is that a distribution can be fine tuned for a single problem domain, instead of having one distribution trying to meet everyone's needs - even Windows has multiple versions targetting different end-users. So it's not necessarily a bad thing. Problem of aplenty is better than not having something to work with ;)
There is only so much tweaking that can be done to tune performance and it's never going to be as well done as the fixed hardware spec of a console. Then there is the fact that most existing Steam games will then require you to have two PCs, just so you can stream the Windows version to SteamOS, which is just a massive waste of money.
I can see why Valve are desperately grabbing at this, before they find themselves shoved out of the market. However it has no real value proposition for end users. Frankly they'd have been better off with a raspberry pi like device for streaming Steam games from PC/Mac to Tv, which might have helped sustain Steams relevance.
Valve ... ah, ok, so it is that there online thingamajigger.
valves the company, who made games
they developed steam to sell said games and its grown a lil
they decide to make a gaming friendly all encompassing os
this is the short short version of the dummies guide
Professional Mel-the-Bell Simulator................"So realistic, I found myself reaching for the Kleenex King-Size!" - Richard Darling
Sort of a sideways hijack, has anyone actually used onlive?
Yeah, I've had a go with it, but only the 10 or 15 minutes you get per game without paying. It was a lot better than I expected, and not a million miles away from being very usable. Batman Arkham Asylum played pretty well, but Borderlands was as laggy as hell, as was Just Cause 2.
The biggest problem for me was that it looked too much like compressed video. Those mosaic patterns that you get on compressed encoded video is the best way I can explain it. A bit better than that, but not much, and the colours were quite washed out too.
I'm sure the tech is getting better. I don't think Valve would do anything to tarnish their reputation, and it's rumoured Sony will be using that Gakai they purchased to stream PS3 games on PS4. I got enough from OnLive to suggest to me it could be useable in the future, and that was a good couple of years ago now.
I'm pretty sure that Valve can do a bit better than OnLive. If you're just streaming over a LAN, the compression doesn't need to be quite so severe and the latency can be significantly lower too. However, I'd still think it'd be more than enough to take the sheen of a high end PC game; you didn't pay several hundred quid for an Nvidia Titan to get something on your TV that looks like it came out of a PS2, right?
I'm pretty sure that Valve can do a bit better than OnLive. If you're just streaming over a LAN, the compression doesn't need to be quite so severe and the latency can be significantly lower too. However, I'd still think it'd be more than enough to take the sheen of a high end PC game; you didn't pay several hundred quid for an Nvidia Titan to get something on your TV that looks like it came out of a PS2, right?
The fundamental problem with the whole Steam streaming thing is that you then need to buy a PC to run Steam OS as your gaming console, so that needs to be a high end gaming rig if you're going to get any real use out of it. Then you also need the PC you're actually going to stream from, which is running the actual game so once again needs to be a high end gaming PC.
By the time you cost all that up, why would you ever do that as opposed to just buying a PlayStation 4 or Xbox? You won't get the better graphics of the PC, because the limiting factor at this point is the resolution of the TV. You won't get the convenience of being able to just go buy a PS4 game and know that'll play well, because there's no fixed spec for the SteamOS hardware.
If Valve had gone for a dumb, OnLive type device that could juust stream games from your PC/Mac to the telly, they'd have been on to something. It'd have pushed the value of Steam up further and dissuaded people from buying games through the Mac or Win8 stores instead (which is the driving factor behind this after all) and would've done so at a price that made sense.
The fundamental problem with the whole Steam streaming thing is that you then need to buy a PC to run Steam OS as your gaming console, so that needs to be a high end gaming rig if you're going to get any real use out of it. Then you also need the PC you're actually going to stream from, which is running the actual game so once again needs to be a high end gaming PC.
By the time you cost all that up, why would you ever do that as opposed to just buying a PlayStation 4 or Xbox? You won't get the better graphics of the PC, because the limiting factor at this point is the resolution of the TV. You won't get the convenience of being able to just go buy a PS4 game and know that'll play well, because there's no fixed spec for the SteamOS hardware.
If Valve had gone for a dumb, OnLive type device that could juust stream games from your PC/Mac to the telly, they'd have been on to something. It'd have pushed the value of Steam up further and dissuaded people from buying games through the Mac or Win8 stores instead (which is the driving factor behind this after all) and would've done so at a price that made sense.
I could be wrong here but HAVE Valve gone mutually exclusive with the streaming route? It doesn't seem very clear to me. Also I've read about the streaming going to "any living room machine". I can't imagine for a second that includes Sony and MS consoles, but if it works to my crappy HTPC I'll be well chuffed!
I could be wrong here but HAVE Valve gone mutually exclusive with the streaming route? It doesn't seem very clear to me. Also I've read about the streaming going to "any living room machine". I can't imagine for a second that includes Sony and MS consoles, but if it works to my crappy HTPC I'll be well chuffed!
If you can stream from a Windows PC or Mac to any other device, then SteamOS becomes even more pointless.
I could be wrong here but HAVE Valve gone mutually exclusive with the streaming route? It doesn't seem very clear to me. Also I've read about the streaming going to "any living room machine". I can't imagine for a second that includes Sony and MS consoles, but if it works to my crappy HTPC I'll be well chuffed!
Yes, you should be able to do that, and I'm sure that Valve will be hoping that a lot of the people already using HTPCs will give it a try; it'll be free, after all. I wouldn't be expecting miracles, as lag and compressed video are given, but anyone with a half decent collection of Windows games ought to be able to find a few that are playable from the sofa.
I'm not sure if they'll be supporting consoles though. Sony and Microsoft are in the business of selling games for them, and it would work against their interests. However, I'd think we might see streaming to Android devices at some point. Nvidia have already done it with the Shield handheld, albeit using some rather specific hardware, so it's probably a matter of when rather than if.
I'm not yet sure what this new OS or a new Steam Machine based on this will do, but it does sound suspiciously like a Vita TV, but with a PC as a server instead.
Just like the Vita TV is going to be useful for PS4 owners, this new machine should become useful for people with PCs. It's cheaper than buying a console if you can stream from the PC directly.
Especially if you can use a dead cheap 360 controller for it (well, they will be on sale next year when the 360 become "last-gen" anyway.)
if you wanted to sit on your couch and play PC games on your TV (no idea why you would) then shirley you would just plug your PC into the TV rather than add latency for no reason.
if you wanted to sit on your couch and play PC games on your TV (no idea why you would) then shirley you would just plug your PC into the TV rather than add latency for no reason.
Probably because your stereotypical PC gamer uses a hulking great tower case that can only be moved with the aid of a fork lift.
If, on the other hand, you use a laptop or a moderately powerful HTPC, you're probably already doing it.
Probably because your stereotypical PC gamer uses a hulking great tower case that can only be moved with the aid of a fork lift.
Your stereotypical PC gamer also has a nice high res monitor (or several) and a sturdy desk to put their mouse and keyboard on rather than trying to balance it on their knee on a couch :p
Comments
Seems like a good idea, but some people will be fuming when they see this. :p
The thing with Linux is that a distribution can be fine tuned for a single problem domain, instead of having one distribution trying to meet everyone's needs - even Windows has multiple versions targetting different end-users. So it's not necessarily a bad thing. Problem of aplenty is better than not having something to work with ;)
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
I can see why Valve are desperately grabbing at this, before they find themselves shoved out of the market. However it has no real value proposition for end users. Frankly they'd have been better off with a raspberry pi like device for streaming Steam games from PC/Mac to Tv, which might have helped sustain Steams relevance.
they developed steam to sell said games and its grown a lil
they decide to make a gaming friendly all encompassing os
this is the short short version of the dummies guide
Yeah, I've had a go with it, but only the 10 or 15 minutes you get per game without paying. It was a lot better than I expected, and not a million miles away from being very usable. Batman Arkham Asylum played pretty well, but Borderlands was as laggy as hell, as was Just Cause 2.
The biggest problem for me was that it looked too much like compressed video. Those mosaic patterns that you get on compressed encoded video is the best way I can explain it. A bit better than that, but not much, and the colours were quite washed out too.
I'm sure the tech is getting better. I don't think Valve would do anything to tarnish their reputation, and it's rumoured Sony will be using that Gakai they purchased to stream PS3 games on PS4. I got enough from OnLive to suggest to me it could be useable in the future, and that was a good couple of years ago now.
The fundamental problem with the whole Steam streaming thing is that you then need to buy a PC to run Steam OS as your gaming console, so that needs to be a high end gaming rig if you're going to get any real use out of it. Then you also need the PC you're actually going to stream from, which is running the actual game so once again needs to be a high end gaming PC.
By the time you cost all that up, why would you ever do that as opposed to just buying a PlayStation 4 or Xbox? You won't get the better graphics of the PC, because the limiting factor at this point is the resolution of the TV. You won't get the convenience of being able to just go buy a PS4 game and know that'll play well, because there's no fixed spec for the SteamOS hardware.
If Valve had gone for a dumb, OnLive type device that could juust stream games from your PC/Mac to the telly, they'd have been on to something. It'd have pushed the value of Steam up further and dissuaded people from buying games through the Mac or Win8 stores instead (which is the driving factor behind this after all) and would've done so at a price that made sense.
I could be wrong here but HAVE Valve gone mutually exclusive with the streaming route? It doesn't seem very clear to me. Also I've read about the streaming going to "any living room machine". I can't imagine for a second that includes Sony and MS consoles, but if it works to my crappy HTPC I'll be well chuffed!
If you can stream from a Windows PC or Mac to any other device, then SteamOS becomes even more pointless.
Yes, you should be able to do that, and I'm sure that Valve will be hoping that a lot of the people already using HTPCs will give it a try; it'll be free, after all. I wouldn't be expecting miracles, as lag and compressed video are given, but anyone with a half decent collection of Windows games ought to be able to find a few that are playable from the sofa.
I'm not sure if they'll be supporting consoles though. Sony and Microsoft are in the business of selling games for them, and it would work against their interests. However, I'd think we might see streaming to Android devices at some point. Nvidia have already done it with the Shield handheld, albeit using some rather specific hardware, so it's probably a matter of when rather than if.
I see you use the past tense. Does it mean they've not made any good games since ... err ... HalfLife (HL1 or that other one after it).
Yay! So I take it, it supports ye olde Speccy then, eh?
Thanks, you know this particular audience* very well, thank you.
*Read: me
Just like the Vita TV is going to be useful for PS4 owners, this new machine should become useful for people with PCs. It's cheaper than buying a console if you can stream from the PC directly.
Especially if you can use a dead cheap 360 controller for it (well, they will be on sale next year when the 360 become "last-gen" anyway.)
Games List 2016 - Games List 2015 - Games List 2014
Probably because your stereotypical PC gamer uses a hulking great tower case that can only be moved with the aid of a fork lift.
If, on the other hand, you use a laptop or a moderately powerful HTPC, you're probably already doing it.
Your stereotypical PC gamer also has a nice high res monitor (or several) and a sturdy desk to put their mouse and keyboard on rather than trying to balance it on their knee on a couch :p