Great news, but they have to find a way to make the community fixes usable in Linux as well. The base game is broken.

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Runs like a dog on Windows. I'd wait for some benches before I get it for Linux if I were you guys.

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Hope that goes for the old R9 as well, seeing how the new series is mostly a copy/paste with added VRAM.

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Wonder what that means for the updated version of Wasteland 2 since it will be Unity 5 based...

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I'm waiting for the update before I can play it. One thing I hate about the current release are the textures. They look super blurry. In Windows you can force the game to render in 4K and downsample and things looks substantially better but there is a huge performance hit. And in Linux I'm not sure whether the official drivers even supports DSR.

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I love it when devs haven't even fixed their crappy games but hurry to announce a new one. They were talking about adding DX12 support (and possibly Vulcan) to compensate for their awful engine but instead why not squeeze another 50 bucks from gullible customers by releasing a "new" game. This will be as much new game as Windows 7 was a new OS to Vista.

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Quoting: CybaCowboyOkay, the GPU in the Alpha - which is likely to be the same or similar to the Alienware Steam Machine - appears to be a custom connection...

That's just retarded, but it also means you win - the GPU would be virtually impossible to replace.

You were saying...?

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Quoting: CybaCowboy

Quoting: IlyaHe's right though, Alienware is the one where the GPU is fixed on the motherboard (at least according to the steam forums). Not sure if you can add another one yourself.

I find it unlikely users already know that the GPU is fixed to the motherboard, considering that even those pre-ordering won't get their Alienware Steam Machines until October... Unless users in the Steam Forums are referring to the Alienware Alpha, which won't necessarily be the same as this Alienware Steam Machine (particularly given Alienware have made various hardware changes as a result of the "learning experience" that is the Alienware Alpha).

Either way, "Chris" from Alienware implies that the GPU can be upgraded ("fully upgradeable", he claims of this 'Machine in the video), being unable to change the GPU is no different to any laptop (including "gaming" laptops) and if you're really keen, there's no reason one can't remove the GPU from the motherboard... After all, this is almost certainly using a desktop GPU (considering it's using a desktop CPU), so it's not that hard to do a bit of soldering and exchange the GPU (though anyone going to this extent is probably going to building their own Steam Machine, anyway).

Dude, they're using a slightly modified mobile GPU. You CAN'T upgrade it - accept it. Alienware is not a card manufacturer and Nvidia is certainly not going to make a special line of GPUs just so they can be replaces in Alienware Steam Machines, especially when 90% of the other brands will be using pci extensions in order to put proper GPUs in the small cases. So how about next time, instead of playing all smug and know-it-all and telling people to "watch the video", you stop and think over the information that was just given to you.

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Quoting: CybaCowboy"After Alienware originally shipped out a Windows-based Steam Machine the Alienware Alpha"

A "Steam Machine" is a hardware platform that runs the Linux-based "SteamOS" operating system, not a Microsoft Windows-based operating system... This was a Windows-based gaming computer, nothing more.

There's a pretty big difference, a fact this site should be well aware of.

Call it being picky if you want, but the terminology is important, if Steam Machines and SteamOS are ever going to marketed correctly... Otherwise you'll confuse people, and possibly even discourage people from SteamOS (e.g. someone buys a Windows-based computer with the Steam client - "Look, I have a 'Steam Machine!'"

Just because the majority of the users on this site use Linux-based operating systems, a Windows-based computer user might be reading this article... More likely, a third-party site will pick this article up, and then someone reading that site will mus-interpret what a "Steam Machine" is.

Quoting: maodzedunI hate the fact you can't upgrade it.

Um, did you even watch the video?

Aside from the obvious fact that a "Steam Machine" is quite literally a standard computer running the Linux-based SteamOS in a flashy case (i.e. it's just as upgradable as any other computer), "Chris" from Alienware even specifically states that you can upgrade the components!

I daresay that some Steam Machines will go with a console-like approach and make component upgrades difficult (e.g. with custom cases purpose-designed to be secure and tamper-proof, etc...), but it certainly won't be impossible for any of them and I would imagine that the process would be simple for most Steam Machines...

I disagree. I think we can call a Windows computer that boots into Steam Big picture a Steam Machine as well. Like the first Alienware ones we saw last year. They shipped with modified win 8.1 and the user never had to actually boot into desktop. It's the purpose of the device that makes it a Steam machine not the operating system. It is a gaming computer primarily aimed at TV gaming via the Steam platform. Steam OS is just Debian, nothing more. I don't know why people are making that much fuss about it. Any OS can be made to boot into Big Picture mode and have the Steam client manage the drivers.

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I hate the fact you can't upgrade it. And the price tag, as well. I understand it's all due to the small form but it still bugs me immensely.

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