• Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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    7 months ago

    I’d like the Steam Machine to come back with the addition of being an HTPC. Why? Because Valve is big enough to arm wrestle streaming services into releasing an official app.

    I basically want a user customizable, privacy respecting Xbox.

      • towerful@programming.dev
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        7 months ago

        Way back when netflix was new, windows had a Home Theatre edition of windows.
        Beautiful 10ft UI, worked with tuners, could record from them, had no issues dealing with auto-ripped DVDs and had a native netflix integration.
        Then netflix pulled out, but windows HTPC was still pretty decent.
        Nowadays, it’s basically “you have to pay for everything” with a smart TV or a set top android box, maybe lucky enough to have a tuner in it.
        Or it’s high seas.
        I don’t think there is really a middle ground.

        • aodhsishaj@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          XBMC became Kodi, you can still get that 10ft UI and it integrates with local media files like ripped DVDs and Blu-ray, or it’ll interop with any streaming service, or it’ll interop with high seas URLs.

          That gave way to Plex, which is a webapp to host your local media, which has grown very large and is out of favor. Jellyfin and others have taken up the mantel.

          In-between the two are the *arr suites of software which automate file sharing.

          It’s a rabbit hole if you’re interested. Feel free to google any of these names and you’ll find a glut of how to articles online.

          • towerful@programming.dev
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            7 months ago

            Yeh, I’ve looked at a bunch over the years. None have that DVR ability that windows Media Center Edition had.
            I feel like I should build up an arr stack, go down that rabbit hole, spend my streaming subscription money on a VPN and a private tracker (or whatever is required).
            I just haven’t yet.

          • anivia@lemmy.ml
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            7 months ago

            That gave way to Plex, which is a webapp to host your local media, which has grown very large and is out of favor. Jellyfin and others have taken up the mantel.

            I think you overestimate the prevalence of Jellyfin. Plex is still more widely used, for good reason

        • fadedmaster
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          7 months ago

          HTPC wasn’t a Windows thing though Microsoft did have Windows Media Center, which was a pretty slick interface for HTPCs

          I used to use XBMC, which is now Kodi, for an interface. Before that I just used a PC running Mandrake Linux with a wireless mouse and keyboard. Haha.

          Had a TV tuner, acted as a DVR, and also could play my library of SNES and NES games through it.

          • towerful@programming.dev
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            7 months ago

            Windows MCE, that was it! Not HTPC.
            I knew a guy that built a career using xbmc in a professional environment, scripted out the wazoo to make it not look like xbmc.
            I think I even tried running it on an actual Xbox, and being impressed with it. But MCE on a spare laptop was better. I eventually built an HTPC to run MCE.

    • makyo@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      They are like 1-2 little steps away from a very good HTPC Steam Deck.

      Like if they could just take a little time to make Firefox work 100% in game mode (right now it’s not quite there, like you can’t go full screen with videos) and make controllers just a little more comfortable for browsing and it’d already be there for me.

    • Lemmy@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      If they added Coreboot support, I would buy it just because of that. (Not 100% FOSS, but it’s still nice to have more control over your hardware)

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Or better yet, Libreboot.

        Edit: why is this controversial?

        • Lemmy@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          Libreboot nowadays would most likely still contain blobs in the BIOS, but not as much as regular Coreboot. I don’t know why you’re being downvoted lol. If Coreboot is supported, they can port it to Libreboot.

    • Luke@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      I’m not sure what else they would need to do. You can just install Plex or Jellyfin on your Steamdeck right now, and you’ve got yourself an HTPC. It works great!

      What are the missing pieces you’re still looking for?

        • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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          7 months ago

          4K, Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos to start with. Then it needs an HDMI 3.x port along with support for a regular TV style Remote.

          I meant it when I said I would like a “user customizable, privacy respecting Xbox.”, so basically any capability that an Xbox has (aside from Live obviously) is what I’m looking for and why I want Valve to officially bring back Steam Machines.

      • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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        7 months ago

        What are the missing pieces you’re still looking for?

        The addition of JF or Plex, even with a Steam Dock, doesn’t turn a Steam Deck into a user customizable, privacy respecting Xbox.

        For starters it needs integrated streaming apps. I don’t WANT to have to use a web browser to access streaming content. Next up those streaming apps need Audio and Video support for 4K resolutions, Dolby Vision / HDR, and Dolby Atmos. My Wife doesn’t want to watch Outlander in 1080p with stereo sound on a 65" 4k television and I don’t want to do it when I’m watching shows on Disney Plus.

        How about an HDMI 3.x port? (Steam Dock is only 2.x).

        It needs support for a normal tv style remote control. Game controllers are great but I’ve yet to find a half decent one that has volume and mute buttons.

        The last time I checked a Steam Deck wouldn’t automatically start in a 10’ interface.

        Please understand that I’m not bagging on the Steam Deck with these comments. It’s a damn capable device for mobile gaming but it wasn’t mean to be an HTPC and because of that its never going to function quite right if you try and make it be one.

        An Xbox Series X absolutely murders a Steam Deck as an HTPC when used with commercial services but its not user customizable nor privacy respecting. That’s why I want Valve to bring back Steam Machines.

        • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          I wouldn’t expect HDMI 3 given the HDMI group are openly hostile to open source implementations of HDMI 2.1.

          • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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            7 months ago

            I wouldn’t expect HDMI 3 given the HDMI group are openly hostile to open source implementations of HDMI 2.1.

            It just takes a company with sufficient market power, like Valve, to get involved. For example Android had this same problem in the early days, then Google realized that their OS required it for market adoption and found a way to get it done.

            I understand that it may not be possible but that doesn’t stop me from wanting it. :)

    • Neato@ttrpg.network
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      7 months ago

      Yes! I already have a full gaming desktop attached to my main 4k HDR OLED tv for watching streaming services that don’t have apps on the actual TV (and adblocking). If I could replace that with an HTPC that has gaming capability that’d be great!

    • Nate Cox@programming.dev
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      7 months ago

      I’ve tried this, and I think it’s worth providing a more powerful console if playing on the tv is your primary use case.

      It works fine but it doesn’t really hold up to the 4k 60fps HDR experience that most people are getting used to from the main console makers.

      • drspod@lemmy.ml
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        7 months ago

        4k 60fps HDR experience that most people are getting used to from the main console makers

        What games are you playing on console where you are actually getting 4k native resolution at 60fps?

            • David_Eight@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Forza Motorsport will do 4k60 on Series X for example. Most Racing and Sports games will do 4k60 on modern consoles since they’re easy to render.

              • drspod@lemmy.ml
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                7 months ago

                No, Forza Motorsport uses dynamic resolution upscaled to 4k in Performance mode, and in Quality mode it also uses dynamic resolution but targets 30fps.

              • Tag365@lemmy.zip
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                7 months ago

                Why are they so easy to render compared to other genres? What makes realism so easy to render like it’s a newer generation than the console it’s on? Like Forza Motorsport 2 on Xbox 360 looks far more detailed than the average Xbox 360 game. What gives?

            • Nate Cox@programming.dev
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              7 months ago

              On the ps5: FF14, borderlands 3, Monster Hunter: World, Destiny 2, Metro Exodus, Far Cry 6, Resident Evil: Village, etc…

              Most of them run dynamic 4k so there is periodic upscaling which is seamless in my experience.

              • drspod@lemmy.ml
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                7 months ago

                I was asking specifically about native 4K games, not dynamic resolution upscaled to 4k.

                • Nate Cox@programming.dev
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                  7 months ago

                  Well… you were responding to a post by me… which had no mention of “native” anything.

    • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      A steam machine with a Radeon 7600 class GPU sold for under $500 would be a surefire hit and it would blow the deck out of the water in terms of performance.

      • David_Eight@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I think the biggest thing would be getting a PC with decent specs for $500. Why would anybody buy a Dell desktop or the like ever again? Like even if you don’t game and need to do office work it’d probably be the best option.

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          7 months ago

          You can almost build something like that for this price. Or you can do it if you buy some second hand stuff. But for an OEM building a few million units it would definitely be doable.

          • David_Eight@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Yeah, but I was thinking more parents buying a console for their kids. Like oh little Jimmy can do his homework on this thing too, great I didn’t have to buy him another computer. Or imagine if Microsoft put windows on Xboxes, every office building would be full of them lol.

            • Sprawlie@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              And it would be great and would break Microsoft’s hold on the “desktop” for the average user.

              These sorts of computers do already exist though. They’re called NUC’s. Valve could basically just take one fo those, use a custom APU from AMD again, and have their own full fledged console. Heck, the XBOX and PS5 is exactly that. A Custom AMD APU in a small box.

          • 4am@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            Especially if they’re going to make their profit in increased game sales.

        • Nate Cox@programming.dev
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          7 months ago

          MiniPCs are surprisingly good at this price point; good enough that I would say for most people’s average use case they would be satisfied.

          I’d like to see them get more popular.

      • Damage@feddit.it
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        7 months ago

        Problem is, any occasional performance issue with Proton on the Deck can be justified with “it’s an underpowered portable”, if it happens on a powerful PC, people aren’t going to be as forgiving.

      • fishos@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        They already exist. They’re called mini PCs or NUCs. Just buy one of those and you’re already there. Literally. This whole article and thread is garbage. They already exist. They just aren’t branded Steam.

        • theonyltruemupf@feddit.de
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          7 months ago

          For the average person, that is impossible. Also, you lose a lot of features compared to SteamOS. Also, the controls are (at least to me) a main selling point and there is no controller on the market that comes close to the capabilities of the Deck.

          • foggenbooty@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I recognize thr average person won’t do this, but you can get the same steam deck experience by installing Bazzite.

            Now the controller issue I definitely agree with. They need a second gen Steam Controller pronto!

        • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Yeah duh. A real gaming PC you’d want to hook up to your 4k TV would need to have a GPU, not just an APU. Also, having to install everything yourself kind of defeats the purpose. Do you think the Steam Deck would have been successful if it had shipped with Windows?

          • fishos@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            A lot ship with Linux. And having a full PC you can use is a downside? So you’d rather have a limited box? That’s not even valves philosophy, so I don’t know where you’re getting that BS from.

    • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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      7 months ago

      What you, @[email protected] and @[email protected] are missing is a TV isn’t necessarily a single user item.

      Deck hooked to the TV to play a game? Great…now what happens when you leave and someone else wants to play?

      The problem gets even more obvious if you use the Deck as an HTPC to stream content. How does anyone watch a show once the deck has gone walkabout?

      • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        The inverse is also true though, someone else is watching, I dunno, “The Crown”, pick up the Steam Deck and walk away. ;)

        • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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          7 months ago

          I know you are making a funny comment but my Wife would be exceptionally displeased if I did that while she was watching “Outlander”. People who live alone don’t have this concern but for the rest of us a TV and it’s attached streaming box are not single user devices. :)

    • Plume (She/Her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      7 months ago

      My TV is 4k. The Steam UI alone is still a laggy mess at 4K. Setting the Deck at 1080p makes the whole thing really blurry. While upscaling games from 720p or 1080p to 4k looks better. Until they changed something about the FSR settings and it now cripples the performance at 4k as soon as you turn it on.

      A Steam Machine aiming for Xbox Series S type of performance would be sweet.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        7 months ago

        So a Linux computer that looks like a console? I can see how it’d sell, but it’s already available to anyone who isn’t oblivious. You can even install the SteamOS if you want that particular flavor of Arch.

        • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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          7 months ago

          the point is that you don’t have to fiddle with anything, you can trust the product sold by valve to be good, you have everything preinstalled and configured, and because thousands and thousands of people have the same device it’s easy for developers to target it.

          • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            And with the way Xbox has been going, a solid Steam Machine could theoretically replace it in the market. Sure, your old discs wouldn’t work, but it would have all the Microsoft exclusives anyway. Even Sony exclusives are making it to Steam now.

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              7 months ago

              have old xbox discs really not been cracked? would feel very odd if people hadn’t figured out how to run them from regular old CD readers and emulators…

              • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                Original Xbox, probably. 360 emulation is still pretty rough. I doubt anyone has a functioning One emulator and definitely not a Series X emulator. Not much interest since almost all of it is on Windows anyway. The only reason I’ve been watching 360 emulation is for Fable 2.

                Also, it’s fairly unlikely that Valve would include an optical drive unless they want to license blu ray stuff from Sony.

        • 0x1C3B00DA@fedia.io
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          7 months ago

          that looks like a console

          Not just looks, but provides the UX of a console. So you buy it, plug it up, log in, and immediately start playing. Even consoles don’t provide that streamlined UX anymore, but ppl want all the benefits console used to provide with all the benefits PC gaming provides now. But the key part is the PC benefits don’t get in the way of the ease of it. You don’t have to install or administer a linux distro, you don’t have to twiddle settings for every game (unless you want to), etc

          • nul9o9@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            That’s the big thing. After my postive experience with the Steam Deck, I switched my gaming PC to Linux. There were settings I had to tinker with to get my games running as optimally as they would on the deck, that I assume are set by default on the SteamOS.

            • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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              7 months ago

              I don’t think they have yet, which is a bit of a sore point. Third party alternatives like Bazzite may do the job, though.

        • zalgotext
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          7 months ago

          an evo212 cooler

          So I only bring this up because I had my world shattered like 3 months ago when I built a new PC - the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo cooler is really expensive these days, like, $80-$90 (there are some models that use the same name but have different heat pipe configurations that drop down into the $50-$60 range, but aren’t the ol tried and true 212 that we all bought in the 2010s), and a complete ripoff, and it’s really sad.

          You can get some Noctua coolers for a few more bucks, or pay a third of that price for a Peerless Assassin, or pay about half again that price for something from ID-cooling, all for similar or better performance to the 212. It’s no longer the automatic choice it once was. The king has been dethroned.

          • SynopsisTantilize@lemm.ee
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            6 months ago

            Dude what!? I bought my 212 for like 35 bucks back in 2014. As far as I know my nephew is still rocking that setup every day since 2019. That’s wild they’re selling them for 80ish…smh my head.

      • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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        7 months ago

        An Xbox Series S (or even X) but not locked down and able to run Steam games would be great. But that’s the kind of price you’d be looking for. Price of a PS5 would be the absolute maximum. Any higher, and mainstream people won’t be interested because they can just buy a PS5 for that.

        I think it’s achievable at scale (millions of units like the PS5), but it’d be a huge gamble.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          7 months ago

          So a PC in a cool case?

          The problem with going proprietary is that then, well, it’s proprietary. So either they use off the shelf components in which case it’s basically a PC, or they use custom stuff which might improve performance depending on what they do, but will make it difficult to repair and upgrade. Then you rely on Valve producing hardware components, and they’re not really a hardware company, although in fairness they’re also not doing badly at it.

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            7 months ago

            It’s more about the hardware/firmware/software uniformity and reliability for some people. My friend is in this camp, he doesn’t want to need to manage a PC, he just wants a box he can reliably turn on and use.

            • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk
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              7 months ago

              And to expand a little on your point, uniformity means devs can target specific optimizations/performance. I.e. this will run like this on a Steam medium system.

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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            7 months ago

            Internally, yes, basically a PC in a smallish form factor case.

            If you’re aiming at the console crowd, upgrades and end-user repairs aren’t a primary concern. But you’re thinking of it like a desktop aimed at the desktop market where those things are more important, and you could hypothetically just do the same thing on the PC you already have, so what’s the point?

            For a console the high priority items are being quiet, able to fit in most TV stands and the like without standing out too much, and having the smoothest possible UX - if it’s more involved than unpacking it, plugging it into power, plugging it into the TV, connecting a controller, turning it on and logging into an account to go from sitting in a box on the floor to ready to play (or at least install) a game then you’ve already lost. If installing a game is more complicated than clicking the install button once and waiting for the process to finish, you’ve already lost. If you are required to fiddle with drivers, settings, tweaks or config files to be able to play, you’ve already lost. If you are required to think about package managers, libraries, or any kind of usual PC management stuff, you’ve already lost.

          • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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            7 months ago

            Not really a PC is it? You can’t even buy an APU of the spec in a PS5/XSX and you certainly can’t run it all from one set of unified GDDR6 (and I know people say you can’t run a CPU from that, but you demonstrably can run it well enough to run modern games).

            Even just buying a GPU on the level of a PS5 (and that’s somewhere on the level of a RX 6700) is going to take nearly all your budget, leaving you maybe £100 to build the rest of the PC.

            I don’t think it’s an impossible problem to solve, but you can’t do it if you’re selling a couple of thousand units.

      • Toribor@corndog.social
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        7 months ago

        Bazzite is basically this with bring-your-own hardware. A first party Valve version doesn’t make as much sense compared to a handheld like the Steam Deck but it would be pretty cool.

  • Gamoc@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Two popups before I can read an article means you don’t get read. Bye.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      7 months ago

      Using an ad blocker is basically requirement of browsing the internet at the moment.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          7 months ago

          I have no idea if this works iPhones because Apple pretty restrictive (Do they allow anyone to use anything other than Safari or are they still on that anti-consumer kick), but on Android you can set the browser engine the in-app browsers use. So you can set it to Firefox and then have plugins.

          I’m using that now.

          Or you can just turn in-app browsers off.

          • Stampela@startrek.website
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            7 months ago

            I have no idea if this works iPhones because Apple pretty restrictive (Do they allow anyone to use anything other than Safari or are they still on that anti-consumer kick)

            In this instance it’s an oddly good thing that in app browser engines are restricted to Safari: because it gets the ad blocking you set up for Safari. I didn’t even know that site had ads!

            That aside, while the in app engine is still locked, Apple has been allowing different browsers (not browser engines, mind you) for many years now and with the eu regulators curiously doing their job lately, they are going to allow different engines too. Although I’ve read that it’s a bit of a trick, because then developers would have to develop and support two different versions of their browsers, one with whatever engine, and one for the rest of the world…

            This comes from a Vivaldi user btw.

        • smeg@feddit.uk
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          7 months ago

          Depends on which browser is the default, I think. Even if that doesn’t work you can set you private DNS and block most things though.

      • SlothMama@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Gross.

        I think people misunderstood what I meant entirely. I’m saying it’s gross to need an ad blocker just to browse the web, which should be in line with the values of the people here. I got down voted badly and I think it is because there was some possible alternative explanation that I still don’t understand.

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        7 months ago

        I’m sure there’s more ads further down the page and now I won’t be opening any more links to their site.

  • fishos@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    It’s called a Mini PC or a NUC. They already exist. Go buy one and slap Steam on it. Done.

    The people who actually want this have already done it.

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      7 months ago

      Yah. Makes more sense for Valve to spend their time improving Proton or working on their reference handheld device. A reference desktop device is a solution looking for a problem.

    • Fubarberry@sopuli.xyzM
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      Valve’s big advantage here is the same as it was with the steam deck: they can sell at a loss and make it back on software sales.

      A lot of the appeal of consoles is a polished experience and that they’re generally less expensive up front compared to a comparable power gaming PC. Many consoles are sold at a loss to hit that price point. Valve could actually make cheap gaming PCs that can compete in price and offer a smooth user experience.

      • fishos@lemmy.world
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        Install steam. Run in big picture mode. Done. That’s a steam machine. I don’t get what you think a dedicated machine is going to do any differently. There is a reason Steam abandoned the idea themselves.

        • Install steam. Run in big picture mode. Done. That’s a steam machine. I don’t get what you think a dedicated machine is going to do any differently. There is a reason Steam abandoned the idea themselves.

          Big picture mode on my windows PC and the gamescope-focused UI on the Deck look similar, but offer very different capabilities IME.

          To name a handful: FSR support for all games - including those that don’t support it, per-game hardware performance profiles, excellent hardware integration - not just limited to the instant sleep and instant wake. With the third party Decky Store you can also configure the fan profile to your liking, control music apps running in the background on the Deck, and more. On the PC BPM these sadly do not exist

          I 100% prefer playing on the deck any day of the week - the OS simply makes it so straightforward to jump into a game and forget about needing to also think about maintaining a desktop: no Windows updates, no telemetry service CPU spiking, and no Windows resetting my customized settings or forcing Edge browser defaults after an update.

          That said, I don’t particularly have an interest in a full blown Steam Machine - for me the Deck works just fine when docked.

      • Kadaj21@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I love the idea of a Steam Deck or the other portable pcs like it, but man I think it would just sit lol. The techie in me just wants it to have. Same with a VR headset. I’d play beatsaber for a bit and it would be dusty.

        • null@slrpnk.net
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          7 months ago

          I don’t use my Deck much outside my home, and I do tend to just sit on the couch most of the time.

          I find I’m way more inclined to pick it up and start gaming that way and I end up using it more than my PC.

        • LucidNightmare@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I mainly use the Deck to play retro titles, and use my desktop rig to play newer or more demanding games. It was worth every penny, thanks to being so easy to set up for the retro games!

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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    7 months ago

    What value do they have? They were just custom prebuilt PCs running a special version of Linux that weren’t that much cheaper than a non-Steam Machine PC. Nothing is stopping you from building a PC and installing the same OS running on the Deck (or the old SteamOS) and then calling it a Steam Machine.

    • Takumidesh@lemmy.world
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      Except knowledge.

      It’s foolish of you to assume that most people want to build a computer.

      And before people respond with ‘its just Legos’

      There is so much more to it for someone with little to no knowledge.

      Bios and firmware updates that require certain CPUs coupled with certain motherboards.

      CPU sockets and inter compatibility.

      The different specs of any given component and the value they provide to someone looking for specific workflows

      Sizing of components and cases

      Knowing where to find parts and what prices are acceptable.

      Etc, etc ,etc.

      Pick something that you know nothing about, let’s say cars just as an example.

      Now imagine, let’s, say want to buy a car but it doesn’t come with wheels, you don’t get a list of 4 wheels to choose from, You get, lug patterns, sizing, and type, offset, wheel diameter, wheel width, bead lockers or no bead lockers, 1 piece, 2 piece or 3 piece, etc.

      Now you have to spend all this time researching just about wheels, and then how they fit with the car you chose specifically earlier in the process, it would be frustrating and incredibly difficult for people who just want a car.

      Go on any thread or forum and ask ‘what GPU should I get’ which is already making assumptions about someones understanding and knowledge (that they even know what a GPU is), and you will get 20 conflicting answers and need to write a paragraph in responses to narrow it down enough.

      Present someone with no knowledge this: ‘DDR3-2666 CL9’ vs ‘DDR3-2000 CL7’. How do you really expect someone who just wants to play a video game to just implicitly know what those numbers mean, how they relate to each other etc.

      Building a computer is an immensely difficult task for someone who doesn’t know much or anything about it, and believe it or not, the reality is not everyone wants to learn, places like lemmy and other tech focused echo chambers seem to forget that.

      • szczuroarturo@programming.dev
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        7 months ago

        Also the scale. With steam scale its likely that they could just buy a massive numbers of gpus and cpus from amd for much cheaper.

        • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          Guaranteed good driver support too, since Valve fund devs to work on the AMD GPU drivers on Linux.

      • shneancy@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        i’m perfectly happy with my pre-built machines. I like tech and love learning about it but- I don’t really find value in putting a huge amount of time into building my PC from scratch when someone else can do it, and that person knows way more than me already!

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        7 months ago

        All of your comment is true, although it’s ignoring the fairly sizable pre-built market. You don’t have to do it yourself, although I would say people should so they can diagnose issues themselves.

        Pre-built sellers just need to offer SteamOS, or other Linux distributions, as an option at checkout instead of Windows.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      7 months ago

      Or indeed just buying a gaming PC already running Windows that runs 100% of Steam games with no effort at all.

      What’s holding them back and killing the idea of a Steam Machine PC, is that GPUs are ludicrously expensive.

      Shoehorn Steam into an Xbox Series S/X… Well that might work, but it needs MS to eat some humble pie.

  • earmuff@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 months ago

    I would not even hate this idea. To be honest, I would even think about buying one. I switched to Linux a year ago, while having Windows as dual boot option. I only used Windows for one game, which had a nasty Anti Cheat back then. Nowadays it is working on Linux. So I have no reason to use Windows anymore. And as I love Valve since the early days, I always try to get my hands on their products.

    • shaytan@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 months ago

      Is your statement true? Probably

      But if we set our standards to “enough”, there wouldn’t be any progress

      Was the switch enough for couch gamers? Sure. Did valve want to progress further? They did.

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    7 months ago

    I would love to have a Steam Machine. I love my Steam Deck. However… the nature of Steam games, so far, even on the Deck, is that you need to bop “ok” every once in a while, or even enter a username or something for some unwashed-ass game, and that’s a lot harder on a form factor that doesn’t have a touchscreen…

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      7 months ago

      I thought I did, but I just couldn’t get on with it. Fucking around with the touchpad was a very poor substitute for a right analogue stick.

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        7 months ago

        Agreed. If they’d just put a right analog stick in there somewhere it would have been awesome. The vibrators just don’t provide the right tactile feedback

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    7 months ago

    I’ve seen these mockups for a steam controller that is essentially a steam deck without a screen multiple times now and it looks like absolute dogshit. This would be far from “the perfect controller”.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      Yeah, I don’t know why they’d use that image. It’s so lazy and uncreative. That’s not what it’ll look like. They literally just cut the edges of the Deck and shoved them together. I’ve seen better concepts of how it’ll look.

      As an owner of a Steam Controller, it’s actually pretty nice. It’s probably the most ergonomic controller out there, though for functionality it hits a different niche than the typical controllers you find everywhere. Its better for some games, particularly ones designed for mouse, but worse for others. I’d bet on the Steam Controller 2 being very ergonomic and adding sticks, as well as the track pads, to be quite possibly the best controller available for every game (excluding keyboard and mouse obviously).

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          7 months ago

          Like you said, these are Steam Deck prototypes, not the controller. They made a cheap controller with the same potential profile of the Deck without the screen because it’s cheaper. It was to iterate on the Deck quickly and cheaply. They’d never release a controller like that. They do the same thing for all their products.

          They already tried a ton of designs for the Steam Controller to figure out the ergonomics of that. They’ll likely iterate some more with Version 2, but it’s likely to follow the controller design, not the deck design. It has very different considerations since it doesn’t need to contain a screen.

            • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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              7 months ago

              I would bet on the same hand grip bits and a similar set of back buttons. The touch pads will be revamped and it’ll probably force the shape to change a lot.

              I think the controllers sold relatively well though. Just not Steam Deck well. I know a good number of people who own at least one.

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      7 months ago

      When you say looks like shit, are you referring to the appearance of it or the functionality looks shit?

      Because I don’t really care what it looks like, I care how useable it is.

      • mnemonicmonkeys
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        7 months ago

        When you say looks like shit, are you referring to the appearance of it or the functionality looks shit?

        Probably both. The hand position to use that thing would be an ergonomics nightmare to your wrists

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      7 months ago

      I mean, why not bring back the OG Steam Controller aswell? I still use it and it works great, and it is almost creepy how it handles almost the same as the SD.

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      7 months ago

      The steam controller itself is pretty good, especially for like RTSs. But tbh the closest I’ve got to a KB/m is the DS5E. Just so damn expensive.

    • Squirrel@thelemmy.club
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      7 months ago

      I’ve used my Steam Deck as a controller (via remote play) while sitting at my desktop PC. It is by far my favorite of the various controllers I’ve used.

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        Can’t imagine it’d be worth doing considering you could just dock your deck to the tv. I know the deck is a beast at streaming to it though.

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      7 months ago

      The problem is they keep breaking in-home streaming to/from the Deck. My Mac has a significantly more GPU oomph so there are some games I’d like to play streamed, but streaming hasn’t worked in either direction since last year.

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        7 months ago

        I would hope they’d be able to get that working much more reliably when both ends are known to be their hardware…

        But also yeah, IHS is a huge coinflip depending on your home network too

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      7 months ago

      It became what it is currently the Steam Deck OS or at least the lessons learned were applied to create it. That being said you have distros like Bazzite and Pop OS focused on gaming, you could try those.

      I recently deleted my Windows partition and went full Linux for my personal devices. I use Windows for work and it reminds me that I made the right decision.

      I use Arch btw

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        7 months ago

        Now that TunnelVision has been disclosed to the general public, I’m just trying to finish up my modded games, then I’m going to switch over to Linux and run Windows in a VM as needed.

        Even with my pro license, I’m still at the whims of capitalist decision-making; tired of not really being in control of my own computer.

        • drspod@lemmy.ml
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          7 months ago

          Now that TunnelVision has been disclosed to the general public

          That vulnerability affected every OS except Android.

          • Telorand@reddthat.com
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            Yes, but you can relegate your network interface to a namespace in Linux, which is a remedy the researchers recommend. You have to use your internet-facing programs in a VM in Windows to achieve the same effect, and that’s a lot of overhead just to protect yourself.

            Edit: typo

            • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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              You have to use your internet-facing programs in a VM in Windows to achieve the same effect

              Eh, there’s 20 different ways to detect DHCP Option 121 fuckery and once you know it’s happening its fairly trivial to stop. Any VPN client worth its salt will be updated in 60 days or less to fix this and existing VPN clients can be hardened against TunnelVision with some fairly simple scripting.

              It’s a serious vulnerability but it’s hardly the unfixable world ender that the media has made it out to be.

              • Telorand@reddthat.com
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                7 months ago

                Good to know. Got any specific sources for the scripting, or should I just search for something like “option 121 mitigation?”

                • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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                  I don’t know if there’s any pre-built scripting out there (yet) for this but it’s relatively straight forward in Windows to use powershell and either look in the registry for the assigned dhcp options ( HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dhcp\Parameters\Options) or check the routing table for illogical routes.

                  Assuming that you aren’t using split tunneling you could also have powershell check your external IP address for the expected result.

                  Another possibility is to grab the dhcp test tool from Github, run it in non-interactive mode and then parse it’s output. Something I find VERY interesting is that Andrey Baranov specifically added Option 121 to that tool in March of 2023!

                  With any of those it’s a matter of what you want to have happen when you detect the problem such as warning the user and disconnecting the vpn or attempting to mitigate the problem by reconfiguring the routing table.

                  I should point out that Option 121 is a legit thing and it does have valid uses so you can’t assume something nefarious just because it’s being used.

                  I’ll probably be scripting up a remediation over the next few days, I’ll try and remember to come back and share what I did.

    • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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      7 months ago

      What ever happened to SteamOS?

      It’s still going strong! https://store.steampowered.com/steamos

      Personally, I just like to install Debian or Ubuntu as the OS, and then install the Steam launcher:

      https://www.linuxcapable.com/how-to-install-steam-on-debian-linux/

      I think the outcomes are pretty similar, for an average user. But I find it a bit easier to search for help about other things I want to do with Debian/Ubuntu.

      I say Debian/Ubuntu a bunch of times here because, while I like Debian a bit better, there’s tons of help articles out there for Ubuntu, and 99% of them work perfectly on Debian.

    • Telorand@reddthat.com
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      7 months ago

      It went to the Deck. I did read an article from someone who forked SteamOS and customized it for their own hardware, but it isn’t a simple process.

      Bazzite is probably the closest you can get to a Deck-like experience (and it’s supposed to work for HTPCs), but there’s several other distros that are gaming focused as well, such as Nobara, Garuda, and Chimera.

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    7 months ago

    Bring it back as an HTPC like the peeps are saying, low-ball it on the price like 500 bucks or less, maybe even take a hit on it or just a hit on the profit margins, pre-install all the stuff people might need, and then blam, you’ve guaranteed that most people will be casual users who want a lower-end computer and a smart TV/console replacement, and not higher tier hobbyists who want a more powerful machine. Confining your audience to that specific market share basically guarantees they won’t take advantage of the lower or negative margins on the hardware itself, and will probably buy some amount of steam games. They’re also using a device in your ecosystem now but idk what you do as far as that goes to make a good profit while not being a scumbag

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      7 months ago

      Steam is already the biggest fish by far in the digital games market for PC. Only reason for them to do this is if they’re worried about losing that dominance. Basically, is Epic keeping them up at night enough to warrant a major push into a new hardware loss leader?