This is potentially actually amazing in so many ways if things hook up correctly. And i think Valve has possibly checkmated the entire industry here including mobile if im reading the room right, and i mean both Apple and Google.

So correct my if im wrong but the Frame uses Arch Linux ARM64-based operating system running on essentially a mobile chipset Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (ARM64 architecture), the same high-end chip found in flagship Android smartphones..

So in theory, we just about wrangled ourselves away from Andriod / IOS and have a clear path way to a Linux Smart Phone. ( that can run PC games ). All it takes is for someone to get the Qualcomm firmware / cellular modem module loaded under Arch and fit a dongle or integrate it into a chassis with battery.

In fact i can just see a cool Grey smart phone with the embedded Valve logo on the back in black. fully running Arch with steam installed (of course).

*edit i wonder if this is why Google just did a full 180 on not allowing users to side load APK's or 3rd party stores. It might not have been for the 'community' after all, they saw what valve were doing.

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This is an excellent game, not much else to say about it.

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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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Quoting: tfkMy 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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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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il be the person to make the comment this time, it's my turn :tongue:

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 :grin:

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Quoting: omeganebulaI'm not sure I understand this part (genuinely, I'm not trying to be condescending). Games are starting in native resolution unless it has been already changed by the user, if not, then it should be reported as a bug. There are cases where the game has issues detecting the display correctly, but it's not the norm.

don't worry i didn't think you were being condescending, were just having a conversation about gadgets and their technical workings. Also thanks for the detailed reply.

One thing i originally mentioned (possibly not to you) was memory bandwidth.. Now we don't know what the memory bandwidth of the Steammachine 2.0 (Gabecube) is, but we do know that a similar card albeit with less RAM is the 7500xt which apparently only has a 96bit memory bus. People have said AMD & NVidia have been reducing the bandwidth in order to separate resolution 'tiers' for instance my 6700XT has a 192bit bus but in theory it could do much better at 4k with a wider bus (like 256bit) but you need the 6800/XT with that 256bit to properly do 4k. Lowering the settings doesn't really fix the stutter at 4k in my experience.

im willing to be corrected on & maybe i should have been clearer in my reply but my contention is that simply lowering the settings to almost nothing isn't always good enough when running 4k because of the physical limitations of the memory bandwidth (not in all cases).

Just to clarify i understand what your saying but i do think the memory bandwidth is playing a big part here with running 4k resolutions (alongside lots of VRAM)

• PS5 16 GB of GDDR6 SDRAM connected via a 256-bit interface, capable of a peak bandwidth of 448 GB/s

• Xbox Series X has a memory bus width of 320 bits. This is used for its 10 GB of GDDR6 memory, which contributes to a memory bandwidth of 560.0 GB/s

• AMD Radeon RX 7500 XT features a 96-bit wide memory interface. This memory bus width contributes to a memory bandwidth of 216 GB/s with its 6 GB GDDR6 graphics memory. ( but the Steam Machine may have more like 128bit memory bus bandwidth .. we just don't know.

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

i could be wrong, there are grey areas it's all about the game/the engine etc aswell.

anyway thanks for the reply.

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@GustyGhost if the price is competitive i might buy one for my partner who is more into casual gaming and wants to move away from the isolating 'big box PC stuck in a small room experience' to play in the living room. And also it should be great for streaming to from a much more powerful big box PC.

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Quoting: omeganebulaOn current-gen consoles (PS5, Xbox Series X/S), true native 4K (3840*2160) rendering is not common in most AAA games. It's like 5-10% of AAA titles on Series X, even less on PS5, and non-existent on Series S. Dynamic resolution scaling, upscaling, and reconstruction techniques are the norm. 4K is just marketing and extremely rare. Most players can't tell the difference in blind tests anyway (Digital Foundry has proven this repeatedly).

interesting. Not to get too into the weeds here but the thing im wondering here is how a 'real' console operates vs a PC with SteamOS. On those '4k' console games that use native resolution but checkerboarding, DSR the TV is still taking a native 4k signal so no upscaling internally meaning the video DAC is not adding too much latency. However PC games don't really work like that in that you as a user tend to have to manually switch to 4k and then fiddle around for ages trying to get things to work and a lot of games not designed with a specific hardware target in mind (like a console) won't have upscaling options, or DSR built into the game. The likelyhood imo is that people will either run games at 1080p or maybe 1440p and let the TV scale to native 4k.

also we don't know the memory bandwidth yet, my 12GB 6700XT is a 192bit bandwidth cannot realistically do 4k because of that limitation in most cases, the best it can manage without really chugging, even on older titles is 2880 x 1600 , sure in *some* case you can run those games but mostly your getting dips into the 40fps region.

So i do think there will be some latency for folks running on a 4k TV in general where games are not catering for the user like a 4k optimized console game.

However i don't think it is trying to compete with the PS5 or is it .. im confused now.

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Quoting: omeganebulaMany people are planning to buy a new gaming device just because of GTA 6

But isn't that game going to have state of the art graphics ? Looking at the footage graphically at least it looks pretty amazing. Is a GPU only 4 - 10% faster than an RX570 from 2017 with 8gb of RAM even going to play it without aggressive 'performance' FSR ( i.e 720p upscaled) and frame generation at any kind of decent settings.

And as a side note, many people are rocking 4k TV's right ? i might be wrong here but i thought there was a latency penalty with TV's when running non native resolution as the image needs to be upscaled ( on top of the game upscaling of course ) ehh.. maybe im out of touch with how it is now with TV input latency technology.

it's not a 4k machine but it will be connected to 4k TV's.

still this is probably just the blueprint / baseline for other vendors to produce SteamOS steam machines with higher specs.

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