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[Ars Technica] Exclusive: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC
- Thread starter Deleted member 10675
- Start date
- Rumor
Valve was actually working with Google to have Steam playable on ChromeOS or something along those lines
OP
OP
I don't know if people are aware that this "console" will be based primarily on open source technologies.
Open source OS, open source GPU drivers, open source middlewares like DXVK ...
If successful, it will be an incredible achievement for the open source communities and principles, and it will drive massive innovation in the Linux gaming space.
Open source OS, open source GPU drivers, open source middlewares like DXVK ...
If successful, it will be an incredible achievement for the open source communities and principles, and it will drive massive innovation in the Linux gaming space.
One of the exciting things from this perspective is increasing the active user base using these, as that will help drive how things like Proton can improve with extra data points and feedback.
The great thing is, it doesn't need to be some massive success or huge shift to this OS etc. It simply helps keep these things sustainable and iterated upon, and particularly Proton benefits from users insight and activity.
Amusingly, all this is a continuation of Valve's "get out of jail" card if their reliance on MS goes sour, and they've managed to keep the effort going in the background since a almost a decade ago.
It's great they haven't abandoned these efforts.
A handheld device relying on Proton has a lot of potential if Valve have got that in a good enough state for it to be trusted and reliable for the largest part of the library. If that's the case, and they hit reasonable price / performance, it would make and awesome complimentary device to a Windows PC.
I'm hoping this portable is successful, and Valve comes up with some modular living room PC thats similar. Really want a controller friendly frontend for a living room PC.
Anybody else amused by the thought that if this were to be produced in any significant volume, then from the wafers that AMD has booked for TSMC N7, they'll most likely be drawing from what would've gone to discrete GPUs? (I'm led to believe that from a margin per area perspective, consumer discrete GPUs are at the bottom within AMD's portfolio)
Agreed. I did see some Bloomberg tests about how rigid OLED has seen some major price drops over time, with the screen Nintendo is using costing the company about $17.
It's too bad we never at least got this case from the original concept:
I'd like to think that if they mass-produced something like that and sold it on Steam exclusively (to avoid retailer fees elsewhere), they could get away with a built-in PSU and PCI riser for the GPU and keep it at a reasonable price, compared to all those fancy PC cases at the moment that have crazy prices like $200+.
Honestly, I never knew i wanted a PC switch like device, but I am now feeling desperate to wanting one. Maybe this might be a jam.
You guys need to look at the concept Intel has right now on NUC:It's too bad we never at least got this case from the original concept:
I'd like to think that if they mass-produced something like that and sold it on Steam exclusively (to avoid retailer fees elsewhere), they could get away with a built-in PSU and PCI riser for the GPU and keep it at a reasonable price, compared to all those fancy PC cases at the moment that have crazy prices like $200+.
Gaming PC Performance with Intel® Technology
Customize your gaming PC and optimize your system performance with the latest Intel® Core™ i7 and i9 processors and gaming-optimized technology.
www.intel.com
Basically, have a PC that is composed of several "units" that can be easily assembled.
I think it is way too expensive right now but I like the concept.
Consumer high end GPUs are very much high margin items. They are only eclipsed by professional GPUs and high end server CPUs.
SoCs for high end phones are decent but mainly get the profit on volume and due to small size. Margins on producing SoCs for this would be on par with low to mid range laptops most likely, ie worthwhile only at high volumes.
So no, GPUs and CPUs would take priority unless AMD is crazy. APUs only are successful at volume.
It's too bad we never at least got this case from the original concept:
I'd like to think that if they mass-produced something like that and sold it on Steam exclusively (to avoid retailer fees elsewhere), they could get away with a built-in PSU and PCI riser for the GPU and keep it at a reasonable price, compared to all those fancy PC cases at the moment that have crazy prices like $200+.
Seriously. That entire original concept was doomed to failure. Nobody was going to buy an expensive PC that could only play a couple Linux ports (it needed Proton to have any chance). But that case! That was the star of OG Steam Machines and should have been put into production. It would have been an hit.
It's too bad we never at least got this case from the original concept:
I'd like to think that if they mass-produced something like that and sold it on Steam exclusively (to avoid retailer fees elsewhere), they could get away with a built-in PSU and PCI riser for the GPU and keep it at a reasonable price, compared to all those fancy PC cases at the moment that have crazy prices like $200+.
The Fractal Design Node 202 has a nearly identical internal layout, and is quite a nice case. It's what my PC is built in.
Ugh. I so regret not buying a mini-ITX mobo. The only reason I didn't do it was because the Vive used PCI-E for the wireless adapter. And I was sure this would be how wireless VR was done in the future. Little did I know wireless PCVR would be a complete still born and effectively be replaced by Oculus hybrid HMDs (that didn't need any of that stuff). I'm too cheap and stuborn to replace perfectly fine equipment now.
pretty cool case, though I'd hope there could be a liquid cooled version built as well.It's too bad we never at least got this case from the original concept:
I'd like to think that if they mass-produced something like that and sold it on Steam exclusively (to avoid retailer fees elsewhere), they could get away with a built-in PSU and PCI riser for the GPU and keep it at a reasonable price, compared to all those fancy PC cases at the moment that have crazy prices like $200+.
yeah the NUCs are quite cool, I have a little PC similar for my plex server that I use. Should have gotten a NUC instead but like you said the price is pretty steep.You guys need to look at the concept Intel has right now on NUC:
Gaming PC Performance with Intel® Technology
Customize your gaming PC and optimize your system performance with the latest Intel® Core™ i7 and i9 processors and gaming-optimized technology.
Basically, have a PC that is composed of several "units" that can be easily assembled.
I think it is way too expensive right now but I like the concept.
It's true that per-unit, consumer high end GPUs are high margin. But the Navi 21 die is 519.88 mm^2 according to wikipedia. Conversely though, something like a regular Zen 3 chiplet's 80.7 mm^2. Cezanne APU is estimated to be about roughly 175 mm^2 while Renoir's 156 mm^2. Does a single 6900 XT get AMD more money than 3 Cezanne or a bunch of (insert combination of Zen 3 CPUs)?
It's too bad we never at least got this case from the original concept:
I'd like to think that if they mass-produced something like that and sold it on Steam exclusively (to avoid retailer fees elsewhere), they could get away with a built-in PSU and PCI riser for the GPU and keep it at a reasonable price, compared to all those fancy PC cases at the moment that have crazy prices like $200+.
have a look at this:
https://www.corsair.com/ww/en/bulldog
if you want some mini case but in vertical shape:
https://www.phanteks.com/Evolv-Shift2.html
Too big for some people.
And by some people, I mean me.
I'd much rather have something mass market that's similar to the Skyreach 4 Mini or the Modivio xCase M.
Skyreach 4 MINI — NFC
nfc-systems.com
But you know, with some front I/O.
The ML08 has that exact layout and even with all the sky high case prices and shortages right now it's still only $87It's too bad we never at least got this case from the original concept:
I'd like to think that if they mass-produced something like that and sold it on Steam exclusively (to avoid retailer fees elsewhere), they could get away with a built-in PSU and PCI riser for the GPU and keep it at a reasonable price, compared to all those fancy PC cases at the moment that have crazy prices like $200+.
Wow that sounds like a security breach waiting to happen.
Also, I doubt this thing will take off. Steam Machines failed spectacularly. They have to have a proposition that's as good as the Switch.
OP
OP
Security breach? Securest software in the world is open source, security by obscurity does not exist.
Too big for some people.
And by some people, I mean me.
I'd much rather have something mass market that's similar to the Skyreach 4 Mini or the Modivio xCase M.
Skyreach 4 MINI — NFC
But you know, with some front I/O.
They're dope designs, but both rely on exotic power supplies which add significant expensive and limit build options. The Node 202 could be more stylish, but it's still smaller than a PS5.
I like this idea quite a bit, and I'd probably consider buying it. But Valve has a really poor track record of supporting stuff they put out if it turns out to be even moderately unsuccessful initially. I think at a minimum I'd wait a couple years before purchasing and see how it all turns out. It is a great idea, though. I'd love to be able to play something like Monster Train on the go.
Nothing really exotic about a Dell power brick. You might need an adapter, but that's about it for the base level PSUs. Or you can get fancy and use the HDPlex internal PSUs, but they aren't required. And if they were mass market, those styles of PSUs would become mass market, too.
That's veeeery interesting! It got me thinking in a wierd direction... has anyone made a screen dock for the Steam Controller?
Honestly if this is a low latency, highly programmable Steam Stream device I'm all over it. Wonder if they can leverage their finger tech to get something even more intuitive than the track pads of yore.
Honestly if this is a low latency, highly programmable Steam Stream device I'm all over it. Wonder if they can leverage their finger tech to get something even more intuitive than the track pads of yore.
From what I heard previously, the idea after HLA was to go into a kind of fast release schedule with more or less 2 other games coming in 3 years... but then Covid struck (and Valve was hurt more than other companies due to its nature). But most of them were either VR, or VR multiplayer with "pancake" so not hte best things to play on a handheld.
(You have to realice that the main block for Valve development was both Source 2 not being fully done by then (and as "What Happened?" series tell us that is the bigges clusterfuck possible in game development) and the much more flexible organization which was more streamlined later on in the development of HLA. A ton of assets / prototypes were done but not finalized during the last 10 years at Valve).
It's too bad we never at least got this case from the original concept:
I'd like to think that if they mass-produced something like that and sold it on Steam exclusively (to avoid retailer fees elsewhere), they could get away with a built-in PSU and PCI riser for the GPU and keep it at a reasonable price, compared to all those fancy PC cases at the moment that have crazy prices like $200+.
I never heard about this part. What was it supposed to be?
Really depends on margins. I can easily see it being higher vs 3 APUs when all is said and done. For CPU, really going to depend which ones and profit margin.
Real reason AMD won't make more GPUs like that, IMO, is that there is still a limited amount of people willing to pay $1500+ for a GPU vs many more for APU/CPU (especially if you include OEMs, consoles, etc). So it's not like they will ask TSMC to have orders / lines changed to GPUs even if these are higher margin.
It was the custom case that Valve made for all the beta testers who got selected for free machines. It was never available to anyone else.
The rumored specs seem pretty sweet tbh:
512+ GPU shaders (~2 Tflops)
4 Core / 8 Thread Ryzen CPU
Quad channel LPDDR5 RAM (~200GB/s bandwidth)
Quad channel RAM, let alone faster LPDDR5, seems too good to be true, but would basically solve the performance-hurting lack of bandwidth that plagues just about any APU that relies on system RAM for its bandwidth.
512+ GPU shaders (~2 Tflops)
4 Core / 8 Thread Ryzen CPU
Quad channel LPDDR5 RAM (~200GB/s bandwidth)
Quad channel RAM, let alone faster LPDDR5, seems too good to be true, but would basically solve the performance-hurting lack of bandwidth that plagues just about any APU that relies on system RAM for its bandwidth.
If it does have a Ryzen cpu, I know those are much more sensitive to the memory and timings than Intel, so it could be worth the cost.
Where did YOU hear these specific figures...? Also, to anyone here whose ears were perked up by my report this week, my DMs are open.
Phawx has provided some insight into this putting together a couple of the rumours:
People keep saying this but what has Valve abandoned? I got a Stream Link when they were getting sold off for $2.50 like two years ago and that still gets updates.
Was valve supposed to be updating the steam machines? If so, then those. And the console versions of the orange box.
You're getting it from Turtle Rock Studios but not Valve funded.
SteamOS itself is on the backburner, but that's largely because Valve's Linux gaming initiative has outgrown it in scope and most updates now occur in the Steam Linux client itself. Someone who has a Steam Machine currently has access to far more games, better performance and improved hardware support than they did when they bought it because of Valve's continued support for Linux in general.
Will possibly get it when it comes out, but tbh I would prefer if Nintendo and Valve did something together. Shame those talks that were rumoured to have happened never amounted to anything.
It's Warner Bros publishing... After Evolve, I'd watch from afar and see how it goes. I know it isn't 2K this time but... who knows.
SteamOS is gonna make a comeback around this Fall according to a Valve employee, it will be Arch based and will gather a lot of work from developers they've contracted through Collabora (i.e robust recovery mechanisms, read-only system by default but read-write mode can be easily activated, case-insensitive filesystem etc).
It'll also provide for a desktop GUI with KDE if users don't want that couch gaming experience.
Quad channel LPDDR5 would be overkill imo. You'd be approaching Series S level memory bandwidth and that is feeding a 4TF RDNA2 GPU and 8 Zen 2 cores. Memory bandwidth in the region of ~100GB/s would be the sweet spot for a 2TF GPU and 4 Zen 2/3 cores I would think. You'd get that from bog standard dual channel LPDDR5.