

Valve Confirms Official AMD-Powered Steam Machines For 2014 - conductor
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2013/10/09/valve-confirms-official-amd-powered-steam-machines-for-2014

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hdevalence
So... what drivers will these machines be running?

The linked article doesn't mention this possibility, but perhaps the reason
that Valve made no mention of AMD machines is because AMD's Linux drivers are
__complete and utter crap __.

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ginko
TBH, I didn't have many problems with AMD's recent Catalyst drivers.

The graphics performance is good and they have the fastest and most feature
complete OpenCL implementation by far. Early buffer swap latency problems have
been ironed out.

The only real gripes I have is that vsync with multiple monitors doesn't work
too well and KMS isn't supported.

And at least with AMD I can be sure that my card will keep being supported by
open source drivers once Catalyst support is dropped.

~~~
puller
I don't agree. The graphics performance is far worse than the Windows drivers.
I see that a game which runs at full normal speed in Windows tends to run at
an unplayable crawl in Linux.

The open source drivers are a terrible power drain on laptops.

Perhaps some of this varies depending on the part? But none of this inspires
confidence.

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ekianjo
Just in time for the Q3 2013 Advanced Micro Devices Earnings Conference Call.
Thursday, October 17, 2013 :)

It was interesting how they had this announced. First they said "we certainly
are planning to make AMD hardware for SteamMachines, but ask Valve yourselves"
and then Valve issued a press statement (probably _slightly_ under pressure).

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thu
I like how they are refering to semiaccurate articles as amusing theories...
then going on on their own.

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mariuolo
Could it be that AMD plans to release a revamped binary driver for Wayland?

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alanh
Well, that’s less surprising than announcing steam-powered AMD machines.

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revelation
So they are going the Chromebook route, hardware from every other company? The
reason current gen consoles lasted as long as they did is certainly not
because they had lots of fragmented platforms with vastly different
performance characteristics.

That model seems to appeal to nobody but tech people.

~~~
abraham
Four of the top 10 best selling laptops on Amazon are Chromebooks. Not sure
how that translates to only appealing to tech people.

[http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Computers-Accessories-
Lap...](http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Computers-Accessories-
Laptop/zgbs/pc/565108)

~~~
GravityWell
The fact that #1 and #2 are Chromebooks is worth mentioning. I found that
surprising.

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yeukhon
It really does. I always think Chromebook is pretty bad in this decade given
how terrible Internet speed is outside your super fast office connection.

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jlgreco
Really? I have a lot of complaints about ChromeOS (I have a chromebook, and
nuked ChromeOS off of it), but that isn't one of them. Gigabit connections may
be rare in the US, but some form of broadband is typically ubiquitous. You
have to get pretty far out into the country before you find people who can
only get dialup. Just a few Mbps is perfectly fine for ChromeOS purposes.

~~~
yeukhon
I guess I am saying reliable and extremely consistent speed. I mean using that
at school is a challenge for a lot of people. I can't get fios yet and I am
stuck with this inconsistent, horrible connection that works excellent only
after midnight at home.

In general, that's very true for a lot of places in the US. While I can find a
lot of free wifi in NYC these days, they are slow and some of them aren't
secured either. So while chromeOS might be secure as OS, I still don't quite
trust the connection.

