Valve and it's new 'wares

[Bounty Hunter]

I just realised we haven't had discussion on here about it!

So valve is launching into the domain of the console (the living room) with a console that is made of PC parts.....in other words a PC....

The other week Valve announced these 3 things:

SteamOS - Linux based gaming OS

Steam Machines - Modular console like PC for the living room

Steam Controller - It's a controller.

I'm personally not too interested in the machine or the controller unless steam games became more lounge social. I enjoy playing little big planet etc in a group but I never liked playing multiplayer COD on ps3.

I am however really interested in steam OS, I've always wondered if someone could hack windows into being less hungry in the background and I guess the answer is "it's easier to just use linux" which is saying a lot. Valve are going to have to convince developers to move away from directx into whatever they're developing for linux, openGL or something?

I think what valve are doing is really smart, especially if they can get on board with the PS4/XBONE developers. If they can structure steamOS so it's as good or better than a console to develop for then we might just see AAA games landing really nicely back into the PC market.

Also it's all wonderfully open and free, valve are releasing the CAD files for their first prototype machine so we can hack it how we want. the controller is designed to be hacked too.

This all seems familiar to that Ouya thing that popped up and seems to have died down a bit...

What do you guys reckon? Think valve have moved in the right direction? think it will work? is this the new generation of PC master race?

[Retardobot]

There's no discussion because there's still no info on the hardware. Nothing I've seen anyway.

I just hope to fuck (for the sake of PC gaming) that they're better spec'd than the steaming pile of utter feces that are the Piston Xi3's.

Over priced, useless boxes of turds they are.

[Bounty Hunter]

There's no discussion because there's still no info on the hardware. Nothing I've seen anyway.

I just hope to fuck (for the sake of PC gaming) that they're better spec'd than the steaming pile of utter feces that are the Piston Xi3's.

Over priced, useless boxes of turds they are.

che-che-check it:

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse#announcements/detail/2145128928746175450

Here are the specifications for Valve's 300 prototypes.

The 300 prototype units will ship with the following components:
GPU: some units with NVidia Titan, some GTX780, some GTX760, and some GTX660
CPU:   some boxes with Intel i7-4770, some i5-4570, and some i3
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600 (CPU), 3GB GDDR5 (GPU)
Storage: 1TB/8GB Hybrid SSHD
Power Supply: Internal 450w 80Plus Gold
Dimensions: approx. 12 x 12.4 x 2.9 in high

I would stress the prototype aspect, and by launch time (next year?) much of this tech will be looking middle of the road, GTX 660 and 16GB ram especially.

The hardware isn't propriety, a home made steam machine ought to cost as much as a home made PC, a pre-built ought to be cheaper, though that depends on what model you follow.

I'm not too worried about the hardware though (oooh I picked a bad title for this thread) my PC is already my "living room" PC, it's in my study where I consume all my media....and occasionally I do some study and work.

[Retardobot]

Oh thank god...

Have you read up about the Pistons? Fucking on-chip AMD's starting at 1K USD...

[Bounty Hunter]

Oh thank god...

Have you read up about the Pistons? Fucking on-chip AMD's starting at 1K USD...

Yeah I did after your post

Saw a pic of them on engadget a few weeks ago and didn't think much of it. Still don't. I'm not sure what piston are thinking tbh....a grand for a crap HTPC?

The only thing steamOS means to me is another boot partition with an OS more dedicated to gaming bringing better performance. But don't get me wrong, I'm excited about that!

[Lias]

Any of you guys jumped through the hoops to get eligible for the hardware beta?

[Bounty Hunter]

Any of you guys jumped through the hoops to get eligible for the hardware beta?

Nah, I'm gonna rock SteamOS asap though.

Might even get an SSD to celebrate too

[Plasma]

The controller makes sense, but to me the rest of it just doesn't.

Is Valve thinking everyone is going to build a Steam PC for the living room to play their titles and other linux games, then also build another Windows box to stream every other AAA+ game?
And if you were planning on just building a single gaming PC, why would you use SteamOS ?

[Bounty Hunter]

The controller makes sense, but to me the rest of it just doesn't.

Is Valve thinking everyone is going to build a Steam PC for the living room to play their titles and other linux games, then also build another Windows box to stream every other AAA+ game?
And if you were planning on just building a single gaming PC, why would you use SteamOS ?

So you have directx right, it's made by microsoft and you have to license it.

You have OpenGL too, which is free.

Already valve have ported some of their games to opengl, TF2, L4D2 plus a few more, probably as a proof of concept. It appears blizzard got on board too and ported dota2 as well. I would speculate that valve are tickling up opengl development, something it has needed for a while as its nearly dead in the water. I would further speculate that they intend to market their ticked up opengl to AAA console game devs, hoping to make the porting process from console to PC easier. Easier than it would be for the new PS4 and XBONE games to be ported to directx. Keep in mind too one of the cool new things about the new consoles is that they are basically a PC, and developing games for them is suppose to be very similar to developing software for a PC.

I think valve are taking on a lot more than just consoles...

Also from the steamOS page:

Hundreds of great games are already running natively on SteamOS. Watch for announcements in the coming weeks about all the AAA titles coming natively to SteamOS in 2014.

Which depends on what you consider to be a AAA title...

I would loooooooove to hear Bells take on this....hang on I'll see if I can find him in Lithuania or something....

[Plasma]

So Valve is just trying to use it to pry devs away from directx and a majority of gamers will continue to use Windows as it offers best of both worlds with directx and opengl support.

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

It appears blizzard got on board too and ported dota2 as well.

Valve made Dota2

[Kayne]

Knowing what its about, possibly a hoax.

But earlier this week, Half Life 3 was trademarked on some random site, but the trademark was later removed from the website. But now a Portal 3 has been listed under the same company on the website.

While it might be a joke or not, it costs around 1000 pounds to do that, So unless Kim Dotcom is fucking with us, Could be on its way. With L4D3 being in development, I can't wait.

^ This post shows I didn't actually read this thread when I posted this. It sounds so out of place. huehuehue

Fuck your technological discussion. <3

[Retardobot]

Blizzard have their own MOBA that they've modeled after DotA now that Valve are using their IP again (DotA 2).

Blizzard All-Stars it's called.

[Bounty Hunter]

So Valve is just trying to use it to pry devs away from directx and a majority of gamers will continue to use Windows as it offers best of both worlds with directx and opengl support.

I suspect, though I could be wrong:

I think PC gamers ought to comply. Ideally all the AAA games would be on steamOS, and steamOS ought to run better for us. Aside from sheer FPS performance, if valve go really hardcore on their optimisation we could see game drive spaces reduce in size, better support for multi screen, a better content delivery system (even better than steam already?!?), even little things like alt-tabbing during game play and overlay apps like voip could be optimised and be amazingly seamless.

Although, I have just been zooming around the internet for the last hour or so reading articles.

It seems as though microsoft has killed XNA, which helped xbox 360 devs to port/develop for directx and xbox360.

It seems this was because it had xbone in the works and xbone uses directx11.1 + some xbone bits.

PS4 uses opengl + some tickled sony bits.

The biggest threat is therefore to microsoft, but microsft have numbers where steamos saves development time.

So it's basically microsoft featuring xbone and windows 8.1 facing off against ps4 and steamos.....I don't even know any more.

Valve made Dota2

Oh, I just cast my eye over the list of linux/opengl games, saw DOTA2, warcraft, blizzard....my mistake!

[Bell]

So Valve is just trying to use it to pry devs away from directx and a majority of gamers will continue to use Windows as it offers best of both worlds with directx and opengl support.

I don't really have that much to add I think the above sums up what Valve is doing and what will happen in the near term.
But I admire the effort, I think we would all be better off having openGL as the standard it's pretty fucked we all need to use windows just because the underlying graphics libs are owned by one company.
Since everything is now using standard pc architecture there really isn't much difference between a phone, a computer or a console. So if all games were based the same open gfx standards, porting would be fucking easy, development costs would be lower and shit would get done quicker.  Your favourite games would be playable on any of your devices assuming they had the processing power to support it.

So go Valve.

[Bell]

As a side note I am now living in the UK

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

As a side note I am now living in the UK

Bell is a side note.

[The Demon Lord]

Bell is a side note.

that is actually a side Quaver - seeing as it isn't placed on a Stave, it can't really be called a side note.

Source - I know my music Theory

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

that is actually a side Quaver - seeing as it isn't placed on a Stave, it can't really be called a side note.

Source - I know my music Theory

TDL is a Quaver.

[The Demon Lord]

TDL is a Quaver.

Eugh

Give me Walkers Salt and Vinegar any day

[Bounty Hunter]

So go Valve.

Yay Bell!

As a side note I am now living in the UK

Yay UK! I didn't like you living in that ghastly georgia. You were far too close to the extremists the CNN tells us about.

[The Demon Lord]

Yay Bell!



Yay UK! I didn't like you living in that ghastly georgia. You were far too close to the extremists the CNN tells us about.

I would say the UK is closer to the Extremists.....

[Bounty Hunter]

I would say the UK is closer to the Extremists.....

There's the punchline!

[Bounty Hunter]

I would say the UK is closer to the Extremists.....

There's the punchline!

[Pyromanik]

its*

Looks cool. We will see though I guess.