Quoting: dmantione

Quoting: XaeroVincentIMO, it makes more sense to buy an Alpha R2 then put SteamOS or another distribution on it instead of buying the Steam Machine at this point.

Definately not, because the hardware is the same. You can connect the graphics amplifier to the Steam Machine, you just need to support yourself. Because of lack of Windows license to spend money on, the Steam Controller and the game bundle, the Steam Machine is way preferable over installing SteamOS on the Alpha R2.

The hardware is not the same.

Alpha R2 with graphics amplifier port (Port #3):


Steam Machine R2:

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: TheRiddickI was talking about the PCIe cards, you know, gpu on a pcb mini board. Not sure if that is whats happening here but not long ago they were talking about how they got a standard 980gtx running in a laptop fine. NOT USB ADAPTER.

What your suggesting will add $200 to the price tag, kinda pointless.

This is an external graphics card unit that accepts a PCIe x16 graphics card and has it's own PSU unit. The cable and connector is proprietary but handles the PCIe and USB traffic.

Yes, it's $200 plus the cost of a graphics card which means it isn't a great deal but my point is that the Alpha has it as an option and isn't required to be bought, whereas with the Alienware Steam Machine, you're stuck with the GTX 960 period, with no upgrade option. Basically, Alienware screwed Steam Machine users by not officially bringing external graphics card support when it's supported by the kernel. That's not to say a GTX 960 is a bad GPU but it doesn't go as far on Linux with some demanding AAA games running at lower framerate than on Windows. This just means the Windows Alpha R2 and Syber Steam Machines w/ 6th gen CPUs are better options.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: TheRiddickYou talking about those graphics cards on a pcie stick things laptops use? Yeah that would be a good solution for steam machines...

Yeah. It's a $200 external graphics card enclosure + USB hub. The new Alpha R2 has the proprietary amplifier port for it while the Steam Machine R2 doesn't.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/alienware-graphics-amplifier?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19 [External Link]

View this comment - View article - View full comments

What sucks is that the new Alienware Steam Machine doesn't have a graphics amplifier port, while the new Alpha does. Yet the graphics amplifier does unofficially work on Linux and there were a few kernel commits a few months back for support too. This gives the Alpha a very big advantage over the Steam Machine--support for upgradable graphics, if you buy the graphics amp. You can even put a GTX 1080 inside the amplifier.

IMO, it makes more sense to buy an Alpha R2 then put SteamOS or another distribution on it instead of buying the Steam Machine at this point.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

My guess is that the RX 480 will perform like a GTX 970 on Windows and a GTX 960 on Linux.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I found this:

https://forum.rollercoastertycoon.com/showthread.php?9920-mac-users-!&p=74835&viewfull=1#post74835 [External Link]

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I wonder how 1.7.55 Nine with RadeonSI would compare to 1.8 Staging w/ CSMT enabled and Catalyst 15.12 and Nvidia 355.11.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: LeerdeckIt's probably only a stream from a Windows PC ;)

Of course that's what it is, except that it isn't a PC in my home nor that I own. It's streamed from a data center with Nvidia GRID vGPU servers about 400 miles from me (closest data center). There are several data centers around the world and I can play FPS type games from selectable data centers upto 2000 miles away before latency/input lag starts becoming fairly noticable. It's all closed beta ATM and not taking new testers until general rollout early next year and I don't want to advertise for a 3rd party so use google and find out about it yourself, if you want.

The point of all this is the SMACH Z could techincally have access to all games on SteamOS because unlike Playstation Now or GeForce Now, which only have a small selection of games, this service gives you a full cloud Windows desktop and therefore full access to almost any type of app and of course your Steam, Origin, Uplay, etc. accounts and all the games on them.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

The SMACH Z is impressive hardware but I agree that the AMD GPU technology might be disapointing due to the trash Linux Catalyst/Crimson drivers that SteamOS uses by default. RadeonSI is shaping to be much faster for OpenGL 4 games than Crimson but while SteamOS's Mesa and FOSS GPU driver stack is newer than Debian Jessie Stable, it isn't updated frequently enough to take advantage of the latest advancements to RadeonSI.

I think when they throw around terms like "play all games" they are referring to the fact that you can use Steam In-Home Streaming to stream demanding Windows-only games from another Windows PC to the SMACH Z much like is the case with the Steam Machines. However, another less talked about option is cloud gaming. Linux and SteamOS will gain native access to an upcoming cloud gaming service that will essentially let any Linux gamer play any game for PC, not just Linux ports and also potentially play on cloud hardware much more powerful than the SMACH Z or baseline Steam Machines, thus offering better graphics and performance.

An example of this for instance is Fallout 4 on SteamOS:


View this comment - View article - View full comments

Clearly some games benefit from using Unity 5 over 4:

View video on youtube.com

View this comment - View article - View full comments