Actually there are a few people (like myself, my brother and a bunch of our friends) who are waiting to see what the steam machines will be like. We're still using xbox360, wii, laptops etc to game on. Now looking to upgrade sometime this year... we've been waiting for steam machines... but the specs are way too confusing.
I just about understand nvidia cards and the numbering system, but how they interact with i5/i7 and different memory?
(cue 1,000 geeks who will try and educate me)
I just want to buy a box that is better than XBoxOne at the same price. At this rate I think a used XBoxOne off ebay is a better option. Let steam machines bake for a year or so.
The worst thing that can happen for steam machines is when 99 people buy the budget version and 1 person buys the dream machine, the 99 people see the dream machine beat their budget machines and now you've got 99 disappointed customers and 1 happy customer.
This doesn't happen with playstation, wiiU or xbox. Steam machines are going to fail and I'm pretty gutted about that.
Honestly why don't they have an easy to understand rating system? Specs do nothing for me, having been out of the PC gaming market for ages since I swapped to Mac. I do have a basic understanding of the CPUs and GPUs but when you combine X with Y and throw in W, what do I have?
Give me a solid number so I can compare machines quickly. How much Steam does my SteamMachine have?
Because this year's "Steam grade 1" will be next year's "Steam grade three".
Even if you include a date - "Steam 2016 grade 1" you're going to need some kind of comparison table to work out if your game ("runs on 'steam 2017 grade 3'") will work on your machine or not.
Oh, I don't know. They could just take some aggregate standard benchmark, and coerce it down to an integer. Have higher numbers be strictly better. Sure, you might get box makers trying to game it, but it would still be better than "here's some specs, you figure it out".
After a recent review of low-end (well, compared to an i7) AMD apus paired with high-end gpus[1], I'm not even sure most "professionals" can get anything meaningful out of specs alone. Sure an i7 with ddr4 is "better" than a dual-core AMD APU -- but if your target is 1080p gaming, it might not be much of a difference -- given the same GPU.
So it shouldn't be that hard make the statement "runs on Steambox rated 24 or higher" be true for all generations of steamboxes. Even when that'll have to be changed from 24 to 24000.
> I just want to buy a box that is better than XBoxOne at the same price. At this rate I think a used XBoxOne off ebay is a better option. Let steam machines bake for a year or so.
Honestly the XboxOne has more value, right now, than the Steam Machines in terms of how well games will run on it. But you can say that the Steam Machines may have more games (but not as many that you can play with a joypad - since some PC games require a keyboard anyway). It's not a straightforward comparison, and it depends a lot on what games you want to play in the end. If you want AAA games, right now it looks like the Xbox one is a better option, but maybe that will change later in 2016. Who knows...
> now you've got 99 disappointed customers and 1 happy customer.
Which is precisely why they should have setup minimum specs for their Steam Machines, or at least have a Valve Steam Machine that sets the standard. But Valve did not do that, and I am also concerned they will fail precisely because of that.
>But you can say that the Steam Machines may have more games (but not as many that you can play with a joypad - since some PC games require a keyboard anyway).
Apparently the steam controller is designed to be a suitable replacement for a keyboard/mouse, and will include a system for sharing controller mappings for games over steam.
> Apparently the steam controller is designed to be a suitable replacement for a keyboard/mouse, and will include a system for sharing controller mappings for games over steam.
I have tried the Steam controller (the beta version from a while ago) and it is certainly not as easy to use at they make it look like. It certainly takes a while to get used to it.
It's understandable that it will take a while to get used to (it's a fairly new interface/form factor combination for an input device), a Valve employee on Reddit has confirmed that the steam controller use in the launch video was live action[1] and that the programmer who designed the keyboard interface can type faster than him on a standard keyboard using it.[2]
So it might require practise, but according to this anecdotal evidence, it has the potential (if your dedicated enough) to form a suitable replacement.
I just about understand nvidia cards and the numbering system, but how they interact with i5/i7 and different memory?
(cue 1,000 geeks who will try and educate me)
I just want to buy a box that is better than XBoxOne at the same price. At this rate I think a used XBoxOne off ebay is a better option. Let steam machines bake for a year or so.
The worst thing that can happen for steam machines is when 99 people buy the budget version and 1 person buys the dream machine, the 99 people see the dream machine beat their budget machines and now you've got 99 disappointed customers and 1 happy customer.
This doesn't happen with playstation, wiiU or xbox. Steam machines are going to fail and I'm pretty gutted about that.