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I wish it was actually called the 'gabecube' lol, gamecube was the first thing I thought of when I saw the reveal

Gabecube! Lol!

This said my first reaction was: "Now it really looks like a Steambox".

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Wasn't interested in the steam machine..... until now.

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@johndoe i wonder if software such as tailscale could be used to create easy mesh networks over VPN where by a home computer can host the players and others join on the same network (also by using tailscale clients)

There has been a huge increase in computing power & stable internet since the LAN-to-WAN days , and with things such as tailscale (wireguard) you don't need a cloud server or a great deal of technical knowledge.

i mean you can use steam for 'remote play' and play a co-op game, it's not quite the same as i think it doesn't cater for 16+ players in one remote play session (but i could be wrong)

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Fixed Alone in the Dark (2008)

let's fucking GOOOOOOOOO!!!

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What Valve (or third-party) would need to do here is simply an easy way to make the LAN-Server reachable

I agree that this would excellent, but it won't happen, because there's no money in LAN servers. None of your friends will shell out actual money for skins/inventory tabs/hats/upgrades if they're playing local.

Maybe I'm wrong there though. Maybe there's a way to allow that monetisation, but it still works in a LAN-party, as well through Steam Networks. That would be cool.

But I doubt it'll happen.

From the sounds of it Valve aren't going to go super aggressive on the pricing. I wish they would though as it would really shake things up.

Sony, MS and Nintendon't all provide hardware as loss-leaders against their walled-garden stores. I suppose, in a sense, Steam is also a walled-garden, in so far as you need a PC to use it... but I doubt Valve will be happy burning money to create a loss-leader. Honestly, if the original Steamdeck launch is anything to go by, it's clear that Valve don't have a manufacturing capacity to create a loss-leader! If they loss-lead the price on Steam Machine and demand goes through the roof - they could find themselves with months- or each years-long supply shortage (ala PS5).

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I used my Steam Controller so much I wore out the thumbstick and broke some of the plastic surrounding the stick. I also broke one of the shoulder buttons and had to have somebody 3d print a replacement part. In the end, I bought a barely used second hand controller. So I will definitely be grabbing the new Steam Controller.

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I feel like the user base needs to triple before they will even look our way. 3% is a great start.. But we need closer to 10% imho. For that to happen the Steam Machines would have to be very competitively priced. From the sounds of it Valve aren't going to go super aggressive on the pricing. I wish they would though as it would really shake things up.

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The hope is that the Steam Machine would help push developers to just abandon kernel level anti-cheat and think of smarter ways to prevent cheating. I mean, seriously, we're in the age of AI, kernel level anti-cheat will not be able to stop someone using AI to cheat without even changing a single bit in the game's code that kernel level anti-cheat can detect. The only way to do real anti-cheat is by a combination of server based AI enabled anti-cheat system + community reporting system.

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Just going to take a moment to once again steal this joke, because I love it too much not to beat it to death.

There's a very good name that nobody seems to be capitalizing on, and that's making it the Orange Box.

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I realize most Linux folks don't like the Ubi launcher (or seemingly any non-Steam launcher for that matter) but, for what it's worth, I installed the Ubi launcher as a non-Steam game in Steam, logged in once and installed the game without any issues, and then added "uplay://launch/5405/0" to the Steam launch options.

Now when I click Play Fenyx in Steam, the Ubi launcher automatically starts up, minimizes itself to the taskbar, and takes me straight into the game - no interaction with the Ubi launcher needed, except to click the close button when I exit the game. In fact, the majority of the wait time is spent waiting for Steam to start up...

Frankly, I've always thought this worship of the Steam client and aversion to other launchers a bit silly, especially for free games: in the end, I spend 99.999% of my time in-game, not staring at a launcher, whether Steam or otherwise. Normally I wouldn't even use Steam to launch non-Steam games on my desktop (Wine with DXVK works fine), but in this case Proton seems to fix problems with cutscene audio.

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I think it's fairly likely what will happen in the next 2-3 years is they'll make EAC work on Steam OS. Essentially all it needs is to boot in secure boot mode with a signed kernel and a module that does the verification. It will piss off a lot of purists, but it can happen. It won't work on all Linuxes of course, but it can work on these devices.

Without some form of remote attestation this won't prevent the kernel from lying towards user space (including to root!) that it has indeed booted into secure boot mode, and is signed. (an example in that direction is how microg bypasses the signature requirement of googleplay in that case the android rom has been modified to lie about the microg signature) On windows being closed source this is much easier to achieve since MS has tight control over who can install drivers, sure it ain't perfect but do pull something of like lying about secure boot and signatures you'd first need to find an kernel exploit.

Anyway that out of the way I think it is my turn to call the devs who want kernel level anti-cheat lazy, because it is the lazy solution to cheaters. Cheating isn't going away and the best you can hope for is that most people don't notice it (and think that those people who where really good where just some people who are playing at a lower rank then they are actually capable of for funsies (aka smurfs)), kernel level anti cheat just moves the cheat to hardware (a raspberry pi and some advanced image analyzing can do a lot here on the low end, a PCI-e low level RAM debug card with hacked firmware does a lot on the high end). On top of that note that really obvious cheating is pretty easy to prove even without kernel level anti-cheat, and thus that kernel level anti cheat is mostly a way for devs to go "see we are doing something about those cheaters!" without having to spend a lot of actual effort. (Also that "more linux users where cheaters than legitimate" statistic is fishy, how would you know if your anti-cheat tech didn't work? If it was just that the reports on cheating dropped maybe it was just because more linux users reported cheaters? Or some kind of placebo effect where a lot of players where like "sure can't be a cheater since they banned linux users"?)

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I hope EU outright ban kernel level anti-cheats (or any other government, EU is just the most likely to have the hooompf).

It would force the devs and publishers to actually do their homework and help linux gaming as a side bonus.

One man can dream.

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I installed Ubisoft Connect through Bottles, no issues, immediately worked.

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Stopping cheaters is very easy... play with your friends.

I'm not talking about MOBA/MMO games here... these kind of games are not my kind.
30 and more years ago I played Diablo 1+2, CS 1.6, Quake or UT with my friends and we simply started a "LAN-Server". We never used BattleNet or Public servers and none of us used cheats or something like that, because that simply ruins the challenge and you don't want to f**k up with your friends.
And why the hell should I want to play multiplayer games with people I don't know... me not.

I think that multiplayer game developers should go back to the roots and release a LAN-Server along with their games. This way they don't need to setup that on themselves in the cloud/onprem for thousands of people, pay al lot of money to keep it running, fight cheaters, monitor the load... and so on. A LAN-Server capable for 8-16 players should be enough! This would also help game preservation.

What Valve (or third-party) would need to do here is simply an easy way to make the LAN-Server reachable for my "Steam-Friends" (a pick list would be great) through the internet, that's all!
If you are experienced enough you can do that on yourself but you NEED the f**king LAN-Server.
It's really sad that game developers do not release a server binary with their games anymore.

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Now im not saying these are the exact specs time will tell. However i still think even lowering settings running a 4k canvas with such a small bus will make some graphics engines cry, lowering the Physical resolution would be the only fix imho

AFAIK Steam Deck's Gaming Mode (aka Gamescope - https://github.com/ValveSoftware/gamescope) allowed the tiny handheld console to escape precisely that conundrum

It tells the game that it should target a small rendering resolution (faking this as the native resolution as far as the game engine knows) then upscales this to the actual physical resolution. Because Gamescope's upscaling is of the FSR type, it was still too computationally expensive while plugging the Deck to a 4k TV, but not to a 1080p hardware... so folks asked for a way to force the output resolution lower via SteamOS settings too, and after some Valve Time™ they did it, so now you get full control over this balancing act.

eg: game renders in 480p, Gamescope FSRs it to 1080p then TV set upscales to 4k the easy way

Plus the Gabecube is much stronger, so it's not a stretch to hope for games rendering in 1080p and being FSRed to 4k thus skipping the TV's upscaling.

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Please do not forget that kernel level anticheat is not the holy grail against cheaters.
When BF6 came out this one streamer had access to a cheat ... only took hours.

The more money is involved the more cheating there is.

On the other hand - counter strike, a game that is also a trading platform runs on linux.

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My advise is always:

1. Create a subnet which cannot access your home network.
2. Build a dedicated PC and put it on this subnet. And never put your personal stuff on it.
2.a. or get a console like a ps5 and put that one in that subnet.

most consumer ISP's in my country don't supply a router with that capability. Let alone having wifi on a separate subnet to the LAN. Having VLAN configuration is usually for custom routers. I mean it's good advice albeit could be a bit cumbersome if you want to do other things than just gaming on your PC such as home file-sharing, streaming to another PC etc..

Not to mention once you have a custom router you are now the sole system administrator for the home, which many people will probably forget to keep upto date with firmware, security updates.

And of course once you are on the internet in any capacity with that machine there is lots of tracking.

So my advice is to not install Kernal level anti-cheat. And it might be better to use encrypted partitions on drives in your PC which are mounted temporarily to access personal information and they are never mounted when Steam is running or any other 3rd party client software.

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I continue to call bullshit on these 'devs' statements about the amount of cheaters using Linux. Their numbers sound comically inflated.

While I think the Steam Machine will definitely help, I still maintain that we are only ONE Crowdstrike situation away from cleansing all these clown rootkits off the face of the earth.

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My bet is February next year for the release date announcement.

ok so if I were to wager, then it'll see release sometime around October I bet.

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What I also see is many testimonials on YT of people switching to Linux. And most of the time the reasons are Windows getting bloated and all the spying tools being installed.

If people are concerned about their privacy and security, then it's only a matter of time before they realize that giving a random company ring zero access to their system is a very bad idea.

My advise is always:

1. Create a subnet which cannot access your home network.
2. Build a dedicated PC and put it on this subnet. And never put your personal stuff on it.
2.a. or get a console like a ps5 and put that one in that subnet.

If Valve comes up with something which would allow for KLAC then I hope there is an opt-in switch. So default off and let the owner choose to enable it.

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I'm always skeptical of the Apex Legends claim because the player base was dropping at the same time during that time like some of it was people leaving.

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for some there comes a point when a corporation is rolling their own 'linux' distro with another corporations kernal level anti-cheat for games stops feeling like a trust-able ecosystem. So far Valve have done very good work and are on the whole benevolent towards Linux (lets not talk about loot boxes)
But i think there is a limit to what a lot of people will accept for the simple reason that if you take away whats good about linux you almost may aswell run windows. I think it's important that anything Valve adds to SteamOS fits in with the linux 'philosophy' as much as possible to maintain trust.

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(and why wouldn't it - handheld gaming is niche compared to living room gaming)

Not really, Nintendo DS is the second best selling console of all time. The Nintendo Switch has sold lots (all-time #3) as a hybrid. Unlike Nintendo's consoles, their handhelds were always a success.

And unlike the Steam Deck, the Steam Machine has not the same novelty factor. Anyone can already buy/build a small form factor PC.

It will piss off a lot of purists, but it can happen. It won't work on all Linuxes of course, but it can work on these devices.

Yes, I also believe Valve will kill Linux gaming in the long run.

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I think it's fairly likely what will happen in the next 2-3 years is they'll make EAC work on Steam OS. Essentially all it needs is to boot in secure boot mode with a signed kernel and a module that does the verification. It will piss off a lot of purists, but it can happen. It won't work on all Linuxes of course, but it can work on these devices.

But even if that doesn't arrive soon, the Deck has already proven this isn't that much of a barrier to success, even if it is a barrier to world domination.

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I'm just glad that the kinds of games that have anti-cheat are the kinds I don't play. They are all competitive games which I avoid like the plague. Thankfully MMORPGS don't use these, at least not yet.

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il be the person to make the comment this time, it's my turn

There are many games outside of those with anti-cheat both current, retro and modded that get my time and money..

there, i said the obvious comment

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It's funny how they admit that KLACs don't solve the cheating problem any more than other system, but have just dug themselves in so far that they don't see any problem with that, just imposing ever more restrictive requirements like Secure Boot and TPM. These don't even deal with cheating methods outside the OS like display assist tools.
I foresee a backlash in the not-too-distant future where people see how much cheating is still going on, especially given how much developers have touted KLACs as the be-all-end-all of anti-cheat.

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any kind of name would be better than Steam Machine LOL ... aka an iron.

Someone in Valve likes to name products in a fashion of steam/gas/water/hydraulic engineering. Even the company name is VALVe.
Other names:
Pressure Vessel for Valve's container system for files access isolation.
Steampowered - the website name.
Pipeline - a project for training inexperienced developers.

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Played it on Xbox Game Pass. Pretty fun. A bit repetitive but a solid game with decent humour.

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I'd say it is the opposite. Steam Machine will be the killer of kernel level anticheats. Of course, there will be stupid managers that will lock their games out of millions of steam decks and steam machines, but many will reconsider. Percentage of linux and steam os systems doesn't matter, when it is millions in absolute numbers.

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