Or maybe they'll have a minimum spec that gets bumped every 2 years, so a game can say "runs on all Steam Machines (2014+)".
But it's clear there's going to have to be some way of "tranching" the different hardware levels, because nothing will kill this idea faster than a general public who's heard that you can never be quite sure if a game you buy will run on your particular Steam Machine.
But then I realize something: where do people get Steam games from? The Steam store online! I'm pretty sure they'll build in the equivalent of the windows performance score that can be sent to Steam's servers, and they'll simply be able to show you the games that will run best on your machine and hide games that simply won't run at all.
Thoughts? I think that, as with the controller, this is a really important aspect of getting this whole big idea to work.
No. And none of this tier stuff either. The point of the Steamboxen is to kill the windows dependency of games, probably why they are future proofing them so much. They'll last 3-5 years in their present iteration and at that point it will be moot.
OK, you don't have to hide it, but there still needs to be some kind of guide about how games will play on your Steam Machine.
This is not a big deal right now, but what about in, say, 6 years? You have an original Steam Machine and a new game JUST came out. It doesn't run on your Steam Machine because yours doesn't have a Whatsit Quantum Coprocessor. Shouldn't the Steam UI, you know, let you know that before you go about buying and downloading that 30GB game??
And I don't want tiers, either, but Valve did say they'd have something to say about this; I'm simply speculating about what it could be.
It would have to be some sort of rolling release I think, because this year's gold hardware will be next year's silver or bronze.
> I'm pretty sure they'll build in the equivalent of the windows performance score that can be sent to Steam's servers, and they'll simply be able to show you the games that will run best on your machine and hide games that simply won't run at all.
You'd need to know before you buy the hardware, though.
They can do just the same for the Steambox and use it to display the performance for games on similar systems - if they want to.
There has to be a plan for that.
The trouble is in getting unbiased results. I doubt Valve would want to test each model themselves.
edit: or maybe a triplet, CPU index, GPU index, Storage index.
Then, after I saw AMD announcing the Mantle API, I realized, it would be a perfect match for the Steam Machines, to get some of that console-level performance for more or less the same price. John Carmack agrees that Valve+Mantle would be a deadly combination:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-mantle-api-xbox-one-pla...
Mantle is the future of gaming machines. It will not create lock-in, because both Nvidia and Intel will scramble to create something similar, or even compatible with AMD's API (which will be open soon), and what this will lead to eventually is a reset of standardized overlays for GPU hardware, that will support AMD, Nvidia, Intel, and probably even ARM GPU's, but with much lower overhead than DirectX and OpenGL.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7371/understanding-amds-mantle...
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/09/30/amds-mantle-biggest-chang...
A couple of years ago I built a small AMD Llano based computer using a small enclosure sold by Mini-Box and an 80W fanless Pico Power Supply also sold on the site.
Case - http://www.mini-box.com/M350-universal-mini-itx-enclosure
PSU - http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-80
It is much quieter than an Xbox 360, but also can't play any XBox level games on it (I use it as an HTPC). I'd be curious to see what I can do today with the same amount of power using Haswell, some 28nm GPU and SteamOS.
It's basically a game of chess.
Coincidentally, the League of Legends world championship final is occurring tonight. Anything you learn about the genre or strategy will apply somewhat to any game in the MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) genre, so check it out if you're interested in learning more. Riot Games has hired an entire team of casters and analysts, and I find the commentary to be mostly insightful and enjoyable compared to American sportscasters.
To bring this on-topic: I wonder whether Valve will allow non-Steam games to run on SteamOS. League of Legends is directly competitive with Valve's own DOTA2, but Valve has historically allowed you to use Steam purely as a launcher. My biggest fear is that this is yet another walled garden, just one that has embraced its digital nature sooner and better.
After all of the talk about leveraging the AMD successes with the game consoles -- and about smoothing ports -- surprised to see nvidia only.
Prototype hardware always costs a gzillion dollars.
Another post mentions this as a way of getting SteamOS out there, but really -- as this is just standard PC hardware -- there are already hundreds of millions of candidate devices.
The only real way I can see SteamOS having a chance is if it offers a console-like value proposition (because the next generation of very powerful consoles are just coming out, and even "hard core" gamers are looking at them longingly), which valve needed to make happen through tight integration, optimization, and mass production. Another go at HTPCs == almost certain commercial failure.
At this point if I have to be skeptical about something is about how well the hardware will work with the OS considering the reputation nvidia has with Linux...
nvidia (closed source) > AMD > nvidia (open source)
