> I hope you are joking, because branding-wise the Steam Machines are a clear mess and completely confusing for people who don't know how to read PC specs.
The entire point of Steam Machines is not to deal with this, just buy the cheapest Alienware, done. If you care about that sort of thing, you buy a different one.
> check almost every benchmark out therefore for Borderlands 2, CS:GO, Witcher 2, Bioshock Infinite and almost every other AAA game out there.
Doesn't matter. I have an Alienware Alpha and I can get 60 fps on every one of these games in SteamOS, as least as good as the modern consoles, Windows performance it depends; some are better, some are not; all TVs and projectors are 60hz, so unless someone is coming out with 144hz gsync TVs, then it's more than fine.
Sure, we get boned by games like Dying Light, but that's just software, totally fixable.
> t should be, but many ports on Linux are far from being optimized
You could make that argument about any crossplatform game.
The entire point of Steam Machines is not to deal with this, just buy the cheapest Alienware, done.
Except that obviously won't work. In the console world I really don't have to deal with this. I buy a PS4 at launch and I can play every PS4 game that comes out from now until they stop making PS4 games. That is obviously not with Steam Machines. Will the cheapest Steam Machine play every SteamOS game that comes out in 2 years time without problem? If the answer is 'no' then it is something that I have to be aware of and deal with.
The other option is that Valve steps in and says that if you want your game to be SteamOS certified it must be optimized to run well on the slowest Steam Machine we've ever released, but I wonder if they're willing to that. Can you imagine telling game developers in 2017 that they must make their games work fine on 2015 era Intel graphics cards?
>Can you imagine telling game developers in 2017 that they must make their games work fine on 2015 era Intel graphics cards?
This is totally fine for loads of indie games already. And If you replace 2015 with 2013, of course you could do this. PC technology has slowed down a lot compared to 10 years ago, and it's not the constant upgrading it used to be.
Sure it's fine for loads of games, but unless it's fine for all games you're going to have to produce an N tiered system of steam machines (maybe class them on an A-E scale, and developers write something like "must have a C or better steam machine) and and the consumer is going to have to deal with system specs just like they do today (and just like they don't have to with consoles).
This HAS to happen otherwise Steam Machines are useless. Sure, in a few years Steam Machine Two will come out, then games can target that if they want.
On the other side of the coin they WILL stop making PS4 games, just like all consoles when they reach EOL. Yet you can play new games on a steam machine in decades to come.
You can play 2017 games on lower graphics quality (the same quality you get in 2015 games now) just like the consoles. Even if the games they get on the PS4 in 2017 are new, they are bound to remain the same quality in graphics.
you can play new games on a steam machine in decades to come.
Decades? Decade, maybe. But then again they where still releasing PS2 games a decade after the PS2 came out and they'll almost certainly be releasing PS3 and Xbox360 games a decade after those consoles came out too.
No doubt that there will be lots of games coming out in both 2017 and 2020 that will run just fine on a 2015 steam machine, but unless it is ever single game they release for SteamOS, then we're right back to the classic PC gaming problem and you've lost the only real competitive advantage that consoles have.
> Yet you can play new games on a steam machine in decades to come.
Where? Good luck playing something on a 2014 Steam Machine in 2024. If there is still one game 10 years later working on such a configuration that will be a miracle. PC gaming moves very fast, that's the point of PC gaming usually : you upgrade often.
> that's the point of PC gaming usually : you upgrade often.
No. That hasn't been the case for years, now. I built a machine in 2010, and gave it its first upgrade a couple of months ago.
And to tell the truth, I could've gone on a couple years more before I really needed to upgrade. The biggest bottleneck was the GPU (an nVidia GTX 460). However, I splurged on a few upgrades (GTX 960, up to 16GB of RAM (from 8), and an SSD). It's once again a beast, even with the same CPU from 2010 (AMD Phenom II X6 1090T).
And that extra money that I've put into this system? I've made most of it back in the way of cheaper games.
> The entire point of Steam Machines is not to deal with this, just buy the cheapest Alienware, done. If you care about that sort of thing, you buy a different one.
Yeah, and then complain that the newest games in 2016 don't run well on your hardware, while you thought it was just like a console! What a surprise!
> I can get 60 fps on every one of these games in SteamOS
Put in ultra details, with anti aliasing maxed up, and I'll be very surprised if you still get steady 60 fps, in all honesty. And oh, it's been benchmarked that anti-aliasing makes the performance go down significantly, I'll get numbers for you if you don't believe me.
> Sure, we get boned by games like Dying Light, but that's just software, totally fixable.
Yeah, except that it has taken them 3 months to fix to an acceptable level. Please explain that to consumers buying it on Day 1. Oh, and remember, they are "console gamers" since you said so, so I hope you enjoy the fun communication with people who don't care about specs or optimization or drivers.
> You could make that argument about any crossplatform game.
Yes, except that the requirements for Linux ports are usually higher than for Windows. Source: Steam requirements. Again, please go explain that to console gamers.
Custom built high end PCs have problems getting 60fps at ultra with maxxed AA in some games. Literally nobody is expecting such performance from these machines.
I do not know for steam os, but I am using ubuntu since many years and I do not tweak much my system. Each time I encounter a crash, a couple of days latter, there is a fix that is automatically installed (apt-get update, upgrade).
I imagine that steamOS can update drivers transparently to have always best configuration for gaming. The support team will only need to answer clients when a fix will arrive automatically.
The entire point of Steam Machines is not to deal with this, just buy the cheapest Alienware, done. If you care about that sort of thing, you buy a different one.
> check almost every benchmark out therefore for Borderlands 2, CS:GO, Witcher 2, Bioshock Infinite and almost every other AAA game out there.
Doesn't matter. I have an Alienware Alpha and I can get 60 fps on every one of these games in SteamOS, as least as good as the modern consoles, Windows performance it depends; some are better, some are not; all TVs and projectors are 60hz, so unless someone is coming out with 144hz gsync TVs, then it's more than fine.
Sure, we get boned by games like Dying Light, but that's just software, totally fixable.
> t should be, but many ports on Linux are far from being optimized
You could make that argument about any crossplatform game.