Its the game cube 2, finally I waited so long.
Linux gaming is best gaming.
Lutris my beloved
Those Steam Machines are just normal PCs. There should be no reason why you couldn’t dualboot windows to play those few games that do not work on Linux.
The reason is, I don’t wanna.
There isn’t any game I want to play bad enough to install malware on my device.
I have heard that Windows tends to ‘nuke’ the EFI boot partition if it’s shared with Linux. I’m not sure if it’s valid to have two EFI partitions on the same disk, but if the box can handle a second EFI boot partition, that would be a safer option.
There is also the issue that normal windows shutdown does not mean shutdown, but “hibernate”. In this state, touching any of the partitions the windows was previously using could corrupt them if mounted in Linux. (The same applies in reverse, and would be even more dangerous.) This doesn’t prevent dual-booting, but some care should be taken that the swiched-from-OS was actually shutdown.
Windows is like the selfish little kid that won’t play well with others if they aren’t picked first.
Note that you can disable the hibernate shutdown (called fast startup) in windows in the control panel. IIRC it’s in control panel > startup > fast startup.
If I recall that was a bug. Generally windows does not randomly start rewriting boot partitions unless maybe you put it into repair mode from the boot menu and you have both partitions on the same disk.
The online multiplayer for the original version of Modern Warfare and other older games still works fine on Linux and even has community modded maps and modes.
Quote from a HN thread
My main game console right now is one of those little gaming boxes you can buy on Amazon for about $400, where I have installed NixOS + Jovian to get the “SteamOS” interface.
I really like it. It really does feel like a “game console”; usually when I’ve made my own console using Linux, it always feels kind of janky. For example, RetroPie on the Raspberry Pi is pretty cool, but it doesn’t feel like a proper commercial product, it feels like a developer made a GUI to launch games.
I have like 750 games on Steam that I have hoarded over the years, in addition to the Epic Games Store and GOG, which can be installed with Heroic, and the fact that I can play them on a “console” instead of a computer makes it much easier to play in my living room or bedroom. It even works fine with the Xbox One controllers; I use the official Microsoft USB dongle to minimize latency, it works great.
I think there actually is a chance that Valve could really be a real competitor, if not a winner.
I have one of the higher-end beelinks. Super small, quiet, doesn’t get hot and I can play modern AAA titles on it, driving my huge screen TV in my living room.
Can you quantify this? Which Beelink? Are you powering a 4K TV? When you talk about playing modern AAA games, which ones, and what settings do you run at?
Fortnite, Cyberpunk, Starfield, probably others I’m forgetting I believe the TV is 4K, yeah. It’s the Beelink SER9 AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 12core/24thread AI PC Turbo Freq 5.1GHz
Like 80% of the games I already play are random indie stuff. I buy maybe 1-2 new big studio games a year, and even those aren’t exactly AAA. Right now, feels like big studios aren’t trying hard to produce actually interesting games, just more franchise slop.
Steam machine got a solid “Oooooooo! Can’t afford one right now but I’m sure keeping an eye on this one!” out of me.
Honestly the whole “modern tech style” thing is making me feel feel off.
The controller looks nice tho. Supports linux and would go well with retroarch to emulate old games on thinkpad.
Hell maybe a raspberry pi connected to the TV monitor.
Did you want it to come in a Beige Box?
Throw it in a G4 Cube case and we can talk.
I personally like wood exterior or utilitarian sheet metal with no lights.
https://www.digitalfoundry.net/features/hands-on-with-steam-machine-valves-new-pcconsole-hybrid
The front panel comes off, you can have a steam machine with a wood exterior if you really want
We love wood grain around here
Honestly I expect someone to make custom cases for it. If valve don’t release a model there will at least be someone doing a 3d printed model that fits the board.
Yeah, for looks, I’m not sure valve could stop a customization market from popping up even if they wanted to. Case in point: search for “steam deck custom shell”… Ugh, wasn’t planning on customizing my deck, but some of them look pretty good. I bet the steam machine will have ones that make it stand out and others that make it blend in with furniture.
Dbrand already announced a companion cube shell for the steam machine https://dbrand.com/shop/limited-edition/companion-cube
I would absolutely fuck with a beige/Earth tone box.
It’s mostly heat sink and fan out the back, cube shape is no frills and works great for what it is.
I think the faceplates will be swappable so I can get that custom gabecube look.
In my case I just can’t see the appeal. If you want a small desktop computer, just build an itx machine that can be fixed and upgraded.
It’s likely the steam machine will be repairable, what makes you think otherwise?
Not everyone loves to build a computer, look for compatible parts, compare 100 prices, choose a distro, spend 2 or 3 days troubleshooting unexpected things anyhow… The appeal of this box for people who want a “decent” hardware with steam/Linux on an open machine (free to install whatever you want afterwards) plug and play ready out of the box looks pretty damn big too me, if the price will be low enough. Not everyone is a tinkerer to the same degree or has enough time for it. This will for sure open Linux to a broader audience, that are interested but scared or short on skill/knowledge/time. Plus you get support, the real kind, not only random people on forums. Maybe it’s not for you, but to me the appeal is enormous. If it’s priced sharp enough I’ll probably get one and make it my “smart” TV device.
It has a custom soc that is most likely soldered and most of the components (except maybe storage and ram) are custom as well. If you need to repair it, you depend on steam still providing the parts. I doubt the parts will be available in retail stores, so that’s another inconvenience. Upgrading (the cpu/gpu, etc) will also probably be impossible.
Also, building a pc is a lot simpler than you make it out to be. Not sure what you mean about that “support” bit either. People have always been fixing their computers getting help online. Either from forums or manufacturers.
To top it off, the “benefits” you’re mentioning are literally the same as if you bought a prebuilt pc.
To top it off, the “benefits” you’re mentioning are literally the same as if you bought a prebuilt pc.
Do you have a favorite pre-built PC that ships with Linux and Steam installed?
That’s something I want pretty badly, but haven’t run across a good lead for.
With a good recommendation, I might not wait for (the Steam Machine in) January!
System 76 sells pre-builts
Not a fan of prebuilts tbh. As far as linux goes, Bazzite is free so create a bootable thumbdrive with rufus and literally just follow the installation prompts. If you can’t even do that, then maybe you ahould learn how to.
Why would you want “steam” installed? It’s just a normal program, you can install it yourself in 5 minutes.
Why would you want “steam” installed? It’s just a normal program, you can install it yourself in 5 minutes.
Because having Steam pre-installed signals that the hardware producer planned for gaming and has done some basic testing for gaming.
The new “Steam Machine Verified” badge is the most exciting part of all this.
The steam deck seems very repairable, I would be surprised if this machine won’t be. They know their core customers and how to please them.
It’s simple for you and people you know to build a pc and install an operating system. I think that kind of people % of total population is way smaller than you think it is.
And prebuilt PCs 95+ % of the time come with windows and all crap it brings along pre-installed. Really, installing Linux seems child play for you and me but for the vast majority of the population it’s still a big big scary thing to try. On top, I expect for the hardware you get it will be very well priced, just like steamdeck was, because the real revenue is customer bonding and steam purchases.
It’s not repairable in the sense that it doesn’t use standard parts so whether you can get replacements or not depends on where you are, geographically. If it used a standard atx psu for example, you’d be able to buy that anywhere. Same thing for the cpu, if it used a standard cpu+gpu instead of a custom apu, you’d be able to replace just that if it broke, instead of the whole motherboard. Or even upgrade it if you wanted to.
Even motherboards themselves have different features. You might need 2.5g ethernet whereas someone else is fine with gigabit but wants better wifi. In my case, I always buy boards with spdi/f to use them with a dac. You lose that flexibility with a device like this.
Regarding the OS in prebuilts, it’s very common to have the option to order them without Windows. If you don’t know how to install Bazzite, just pay a technician to do it. It will still be cheaper than Windows. That’s not an excuse or impediment.
Not trying to attack you or anything because you did say that you don’t see the appeal for your own case, but that’s because this product isn’t for you. If you see building a PC and putting it in your living room as an alternative, it’s not meant for you. This is for everyone else who doesn’t see those things as easy. Being someone who has been building/upgrading my own gaming PCs since I was a preteen, I understand how simple it seems to you. But not everyone has that perspective. What seems like simple step-by-step instructions to you is actually really complicated. Part compatiblity alone is difficult, and even the best sources of info can get it wrong, and that’s really demoralizing for someone who doesn’t even know what RAM is. Step-by-step guides seem easy, but there are many predatory ones out there, which suggest using a free trial of paid software to do the things FOSS software can do. You and I know how to avoid it, but if someone doesn’t even understand the concept of an .iso file, how would they know that better alternatives exist? Also, an extremely common case when following tutorials online is that they are out of date, or an unexpected error happens when following them. You and I can quickly RCA these issues and get back on track, but when you don’t even understand what the steps you are taking are actually doing, these minor hiccups leave you dead in the water.
What you are actually suggesting here is people do like, a year of introductory computer classes. It doesn’t feel like that to you because you’ve been figuring all this crap out as you go along, but having walked people through the most basic of IT problems, you are overestimating what a normal person finds intimidating when dealing with a computer.
No, you don’t need to do an introductory year. You also don’t really need to know what’s compatible with what. Tools like pcpartpicker already do that.
Finally, you’re comparing building a pc with buying a prebuilt, which is something people have been able to do since forever. The argument then becomes, why buy a steam machine with custom parts, which will be harder to fix and impossible to upgrade instead of a mini itx prebuilt with standard parts?
You really do, and you not thinking so is telling of how skewed your view of what common knowledge really is. Where does someone start when building a computer if they don’t know what goes into a computer? How do they pick parts if they don’t know what changes will make their computer better or worse? I love PC part picker, but let’s be real, it’s for people who already know what they are looking for. PC part picker makes things so easy for you and I, but drop any tech-illiterate person into PC part picker, and they won’t actually get anywhere. Plus, I’ve had it get the dimensions of a GPU wrong before, and without verifying through a different website, I would have bought a card that didn’t fit in the case I was using. Even the gold standard sources of information make mistakes.
As for the pre-built argument, to someone like my brother who knows nothing about computers, but regularly games on his PS5, the steam machine and a prebuilt are essentially the same. He wouldn’t know how to fix the computer without sending it off to the company, which is how he’d fix the steam machine as well. He also wouldn’t see the PC as something that could be upgraded. If a game wasn’t running well, he certainly wouldn’t know what part would need upgrading in his machine to make his experience better. In that sense, the pre-built is effectly non-upgradable. He might know to adjust the in-game settings, but wouldn’t know what settings to change. On a prebuilt, this would be an issue. On a device that millions of people use, all with the exact same specs, this information is readily available. Think of the steam deck, you could look up “<game name> steam deck settings” and get the best loadout for your exact hardware. Hell, a bunch of modern games have a “Steam Deck” settings loadout built in. With a prebuilt, that’s not possible. And finally, the steam machine is considerably smaller than any mini itx prebuilt I’ve seen on the market. Hell, a mini it’s motherboard couldn’t even fit in the steam machine’s case. To a lot of people, not having a big box in their living room matters. I’ve had a hard time convincing my partner to let me have a PC in a Fractal Design Terra case in the living room, and that’s a case that is small and clean looking.
I don’t agree that it’s that hars to build a pc. Even if it was, saying that adjusting visual settings is complicates is waaay too much. You’d have to be straight up dumb not even be able to use the low/medium/high/extreme presets every game has.
Also saying that since he can’t build it, he can’t upgrade it, is false. Any “pc technician” can do that for him.
The size part is also kinda moot. A Fractal Terra is smaller than a console and it can fit an itx build with most gpus.
Stop normalizing incompetence. We use computers, people should at the bare minimum know how to use them.
Sure, people can use the presets, but on a lower end machine, those aren’t perfect for getting the most out of your specific hardware. What I meant there was that consoles, and by extension the steam deck/steam machine, have the exact setting loadout for that hardware dialed in.
Sure, he could pay someone to upgrade it for him, but at that point it loses a lot of the benefits that come with being able to upgrade in the first place.
The Fractal Terra is actually larger than all modern consoles. The Fractal Terra is 11.4 liters. The PS5 is 7.2 liters. The Xbox series X is 6.9 liters. The steam machine is 3.8 liters, 3x smaller than the Fractal Terra. When it comes to dimensions, the Xbox series X is smaller in all dimensions, and while the PS5 is longer and wider, it’s height is half that of the Fractal Terra. The steam machine is pretty similar in two of the three dimensions, but the depth is less than half that of the Terra. The Fractal Terra is a really nice, small case, but it’s only small for a PC, not a console.
As for normalizing incompetence, I doubt you have as extensive a knowledge as you do for computers for every single thing you interact with every day. Knowing “how to use one” is different from knowing how to build and upgrade one.
You come across as someone who is smart, and yet doesn’t fully understand that half the population is below the 50th percentile. The generalizations you make for yourself and those you regularly interact with cannot be made for everyone.
If the price point is around 500$/€ I think it would be challenging to build a good pc for less than that
That’s wishful thinking. Valve hasn’t even announced a price range.
Maybe, but it would be more or less in line with consoles. I would be surprised if it was much more.
Feels like a solid replacement for my Apple TV.
Also no Roblox, if you were still on the fence.
Stop, I can only get so erect!
Actually you can play Roblox on Linux. There’s Sober.
I know it’s probably named in reference to wine, but I like the idea of a Linux Roblox program (emulator? I don’t know Linux or video games) as someone’s manic sobriety project*.
/* I don’t know if this is an identified thing, but most of the large number of recovering addicts I know sort of displace that manic type of love for the substance or behavior into one or more hobbies of some sort at first (examples include: repairing an old boat or classic car, building a house or cabin, making furniture or art, a bunch of types of exercise, joining a club, building furniture or bikes, or cooking) and gradually learn moderation afterwards.
I thought so too but I was able to get it running when my friends partner really wanted to play bingo in roblox with me. Worked fine after some setup
Lucky for me, my kids are past it.
No League as well.
No League, no Valorant, no GTA Online, no Battlefield 6, no Rainbow Six Siege
So not much of value is lost
GTA V Online is not working - too bad! I play a lot of single player mode without any issues.
I’m already buying it, you don’t have to sell it to me.
I once tried Valorant, recommended by a friend. I liked it but the community didn’t like me (since I suck), so I didn’t play more.
Trying to uninstall it was such a mess that I think the kernel level anti cheat was in my windows install until I got rid of said windows install
Stop, I can only get so hard.
there is Dota though, proving once again that it’s the superior MOBA
Hmm… I’m getting the urge to play league again. It’s annoying that linux doesn’t run it because of their ridiculous anticheat.
It is quite fun if you don’t take it too seriously.
Fortnite can’t be played on Linux?
The CEO has a wierd hate boner for Linux. Like it would be one thing if it was just anti cheat but he like personally hates Linux. It’s weird.
There was binary for UT2k4 that never made it to Steam for no good reason. Fuck Tim Sweeney for delisting the Unreal franchise.
That’s dumb. Steam needs competition.
wdym? fortnite is owned by epic games. that is steam’s competition
We just said Epic doesn’t like Linux. I want a Linux compatible competitor to Steam.
I run Heroic Games Launcher and it works well, but support should be native
And apart from that, Fortnite makes money through in app purchases or micro transactions, not games sales. Improving their store would be huge
So, it could be. Like, there’s no reason that the program its self couldn’t run through a comparability layer like wine or proton.
It’s just that it, like many other big multi-player live service shooters, it requires kernel level “anti cheat” programs. Basically programs that run at the lowest level of your system and check what’s running on the system, making sure the user isn’t running any cheats or altering how the game runs to cheat. They need to be at the lowest layer to prevent programs below them spoofing the checks they are running. So if they detect that they’re not running at the lowest level, they tell the game not to run, or at least, not to allow the player to join online matches.
These could theoretically could run through a compatibility layer, but then they wouldn’t be running at the lowest layer of the system, defeating the point of them. They would have to run natively on Linux, and the companies that make them have not made versions that run natively on Linux.
The actual efficacy of these anti cheat systems is dubious, as there is still cheating in games that use them, and they’re super invasive, being basically spywear. But they’re required by a handful of major games.
I think if the steam machine is a huge success like we think it will be and a large Linux playerbase emerges it will happen eventually. No way they would just lose out on all that profit.
Probably because of anti cheat.
It’s because the CEO is a weird corporate ghoul
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ they’re cutting themselves out of a potential market, while I still have ton of other games to play.
You couldn’t pay me to play cod or fortnite.
The Simpson’s update in Fortnite looks nice ngl.
Graphics don’t matter if the game isn’t fun.
That’s a you thing
Obviously. But apparently not only a me thing.
Sure we’re on Lemmy, but this isn’t that true to outside world people. Most of them play a few games at best, and most of them are made by companies with a lot of money
Looking at the recent success rate of indie games I’d say quite a few people are less than happy with the development of AAA titles in the last couple of years.
Technically there is Call of Duty, just the older ones, which do still have people playing, and you can get bots for them, etc.
One has to be careful when going online on “old” CoDs, because most of them have an RCE exploit and won’t get (at least officially) patched
Oh how I would love to boot up the original MW2 and feel that old rush again but alas, without sandboxing (and even with) the experience is probably not worth my time or money.
you can play on plutonium or something. It has it fixed
That’s rather unfortunate, and probably should be illegal that they won’t patch it (although they’d never be held accountable) although I think the fact that I’m using Linux would likely make an RCE less severe anyway.
Probably not that severe, but I wouldn’t bite the bullet. I think running malware, or in this case, RCE exploits, should be given more testing under Linux Wine/Proton. Also depends on how permissive your system is, I think (i.e. SELinux vs normal kernel, file permissions etc.)
True, I’d imagine most default settings for most systems would allow a ransomware to happen anyway, since wine can likely access the home folder (and possibly other folders) by default.
just use Alterware and you don’t have to worry about that
Ok but those Call of Duty games for the DS were always so interesting to me. The attempt to take such a bombastic console experience and squeeze it onto a handheld often produced janky results, but it was a charming kind of jank
I was on a forum, back in the day, focused on weird, or otherwise niche DS ports, and those games were easily the most popular.
They even had tournaments with the Developers, which was neat
You can already get a decent generic brand mini gaming PC for like $380 with a Ryzen 7 7840HS, which has a 780M that is twice as powerful as the Steam Deck’s GPU and a significantly faster CPU. I have my doubts that Valve can pull off making a mini PC 2x as powerful as that for like $500. I’m guessing it’ll probably be more like $700-$800.
I like the idea of the Steam Machine, but it won’t be worth it to me at that price for a HTPC and PC games I’d be playing on the couch. A cheaper mini PC sounds like a better fit.
Steam machines are not aimed toward pc gamers… they are aimed to convert console peasants.
honestly. I’m still impressed by my 2020 laptop that was around 700£ with a 3060.
yhea, the keys are falling out and the battery barely holds charge, but as a gaming pc? it can play everything at “good enough” levels. I’m satisfied with CP2077. feels like there’s a lot of diminishing returns past that price point.
I’ve never understood these memes. If you don’t want to play whatever game, don’t play it. How do you somehow convince yourself that you’re superior to others due to your inability to run certain programs?
Issa joke. Making fun at the expense of AAA games :)
I understand that it’s a joke, but the humor isn’t making sense to me, and I especially don’t see how it’s at the expense of AAA games
The joke is just “Call of Duty and Fortnite are shit / overrated” which you can disagree with
I guess it comes from a point where Linux gamers have been neglected by major studios for so long and now that there are enough other options they don’t have any power on them.
joke is that not being able to play things you don’t like are a bonus. it’s a joke about how much you dislike that. now if you excuse me, I have a frog to dissect
The thing is that with W10 going EOL, everyone is going to be forced to learn a new OS, regardless if they want to or not (W11has been out for years, if you havent jumped, there is likely a reason). Lemmy users being the socially concious crusaders that they are, are encouraging people to make a better choice than defaulting to Windows again (given all its very real issues of useability and data harvesting).
Not having access to preditory games due to self-imposed tech limitations isnt high on the list of reasons to choose linux, but its good shitpost material.
it’s associative, the negative associations with Call of Duty players cannot be transferred to a console that doesn’t support that game, so for people who want to avoid those associations it’s a plus
There’s definitely something to this. Like I’m often scared to be part of any group because inevitably someone in that group will be an asshole. I have played video games for a long time but I refuse to refer to myself as a “gamer” because of the associations.
I also notice I hate when something I love becomes too popular, precisely because it loses its initial associations with the group I was happy to associate with, and becomes associated with a larger group that I don’t feel connection with (or worse, becomes associated with a toxic fan base I actively don’t want to be associated with - e.g. Rick and Morty, I love the show but developed shame for enjoying it, once it became popular and its biggest fans created negative associations with liking the show; you can tell yourself to ignore the shame, but I admittedly no longer identify as a fan of Rick and Morty because of what it will communicate to people about me).
Linux users are a different breed.
G*mers are a different breed.
Linux G*mers. Holy jesus.
As a part time Linux gamer myself I couldn’t agree more
Regrettably this stops me from forcing my archaic belief system on my children.
I mean you can always do it anyway and take away their ability to play those games. They will hate you for now, but later when they grow up, they will probably still hate you but a little less.
