STEAM!

[Morgoth]

Excellent news.

 

A slim, game-tailored and fast gaming OS should give PC gaming an extra boost.

[Keyrock]

I'll be interested to see if this winds up using Wayland/Weston rather than X.org.  Probably not, at least initially, I doubt Wayland is mature enough yet.  Then there's the issue of the current lack of official drivers supporting Wayland from nVidia and AMD, though Valve could likely help speed up that process, if they haven't already.  X.org is a rather old display server that's quite encumbered by legacy stuff to support ancient hardware and systems.  Obviously anyone running SteamOS isn't going to be doing so on a Pentium 1 with a Verite V1000 graphics card, so it would seem like a good candidate for Wayland adoption.

[Morgoth]

Most likely based on Ubuntu or Mint.

[Oerwinde]

Now if one of the other 2 announcements is a $300 gaming PC preinstalled with SteamOS, screw PS4, I know where my money is goig.

[licketysplit]

Now if one of the other 2 announcements is a $300 gaming PC preinstalled with SteamOS, screw PS4, I know where my money is goig.

 

No way. A custom built gaming PC is still going to cost you 800-1000 usd.

[alanschu]

I assume the idea would be "A console that is effectively a PC and competes on price points with the other consoles."

[Malcador]

 

Now if one of the other 2 announcements is a $300 gaming PC preinstalled with SteamOS, screw PS4, I know where my money is goig.

 

No way. A custom built gaming PC is still going to cost you 800-1000 usd.

 

Could get one for $500. But then again, that might be for now, not "next gen". Not playing games on my TV I'm not getting the exuberance for this, though I guess Linux getting a boost is nice. Wonder how open it'll be.

[Oerwinde]

 

 

Now if one of the other 2 announcements is a $300 gaming PC preinstalled with SteamOS, screw PS4, I know where my money is goig.

No way. A custom built gaming PC is still going to cost you 800-1000 usd.

It wouldn't be custom built, I would assume it would he standardized hardware out of the box, that could be customized if you felt like buying extra parts. The Steambox I would think would he competing with consoles, and as PS3 proved, I the console business, you can't compete by being way more expensive than your competitors.

[AwesomeOcelot]

A $1000 custom built PC is going to be more powerful than the consoles. Xbox One hardware isn't that great, they wouldn't even need to sell at a loss to have a similar low power PC for $400. Retail PC hardware and gaming PCs like Alienware are really expensive, it's probably stifling PC gaming growth since they compete with consoles that are sold at a loss. Doesn't help to have 10 variants at least each GPU generation, over 20 different GPU released every year, each on cards built by several different manufacturers. PC gaming needs more accessibility, more value hardware. Right now PC gaming meands custom built, and that's great for those that can and do, but the alternatives suck for no reason. I hope Valve doesn't just focus on the living room.

 

SteamOS, most underwhelming and predictable announcement ever, apart from in-home streaming, it's good to have another option, since SHIELD is only Nvidia and I don't think I'd use the small screen anyway. Definitely something I'll be looking into, I'd love to be able to play some co-op games on the TV downstairs. It's also great that they're keeping the system open, being able to install software and change the hardware makes it a much more useful prospect. A PC for streaming Steam I'd suspect would be very cheap.

Edited September 24, 2013 by AwesomeOcelot

[Humanoid]

Now if one of the other 2 announcements is a $300 gaming PC preinstalled with SteamOS, screw PS4, I know where my money is goig.

I'd be interested ...if I could then replace SteamOS with a more reputable Linux distro.

 

Would be pretty dirty if there were some shenanigans like games that play fine on SteamOS being artificially locked out of the regular Steam client for Linux. Assuming that doesn't happen, then saving the $100 on the OS when building a backup gaming machine would be pretty nice. Might build a Linux gaming box when Kaveri is released.

[Keyrock]

 

Now if one of the other 2 announcements is a $300 gaming PC preinstalled with SteamOS, screw PS4, I know where my money is goig.

 

No way. A custom built gaming PC is still going to cost you 800-1000 usd.

 

I could put together a gaming machine for $600 that would play any game out now and for the foreseeable future.  I wouldn't be able to max settings on every game at 1920x1080, but I'd be able to take the Pepsi Challenge with PS4 and certainly XBOne, at least in terms of raw horsepower.  And that's me, a regular consumer paying regular consumer premiums.  Valve can strike a deal with hardware manufacturers, much like Sony or Microsoft, because they would be buying in bulk.  I bet Valve could put together a machine for $400 that could trade blows with PS4 and likely still break even on every unit sold initially.

 

Anyway, I'm guessing the hardware announcement is coming tomorrow, so we'll find out soon enough.

[Oerwinde]

A few years back when running Crysis on full specs was the mark of a great machine, didn't some guy build a rig for 4-500$ that ran it on full? If a guy paying retail can do that, Valve certainly can.

[Guest Slinky]

A few years back when running Crysis on full specs was the mark of a great machine, didn't some guy build a rig for 4-500$ that ran it on full? If a guy paying retail can do that, Valve certainly can.

I wonder how many frames per second that actually was, I personally don't think a first person view game runs well if it runs under 60fps.

 

Doesn't majorety of console games run like 30fps? I remember GTA IV ran like crap on my 360 at least.

[Oerwinde]

 

A few years back when running Crysis on full specs was the mark of a great machine, didn't some guy build a rig for 4-500$ that ran it on full? If a guy paying retail can do that, Valve certainly can.

I wonder how many frames per second that actually was, I personally don't think a first person view game runs well if it runs under 60fps.

 

Doesn't majorety of console games run like 30fps? I remember GTA IV ran like crap on my 360 at least.

Anything over 24 fps is barely noticible to the human eye. Under that and people start noticing choppiness. By "run" it probably meant playable, which would have to be over 24 fps

[Keyrock]

I generally can't tell the difference above 30fps.  I guess in a game where there is extremely rapid animation or you change the fov really quickly, the extra fps would make it slightly smoother.

[AwesomeOcelot]

Anything over 24 fps is barely noticible to the human eye.

Definitely not, 24 is the minimum to percieve fluid movement, not the maximum for what's noticble. Minimum of 60 fps for action games for a quality experience.

[Malcador]

I've spent so many years on sub-par PCs I've learned to tolerate low FPS, heh. But I'd think once you get 30-40 consistently without too much stuff blowing up on the screen, you're ok.

[Tale]

Anything over 24 fps is barely noticible to the human eye.

This is based on a misunderstanding. Yes, movies use 24 FPS. But they use motion blur, which covers it up.

 

Humans have no problem discerning higher speeds. Even I can tell the difference between 24 FPS with extensive motion blur and 60 FPS with far less blur.

[LadyCrimson]

I don't know about what my eyes are supposed to be able to do...all I know is these days, on modern games with all the bells and whistles, if the fps starts falling below 35fps, I feel like I'm swimming in molasses. It's certainly playable and it's not all herkyjerky, but it's still not visually fluid or smooth. The difference is highly noticeable (vs. 50fps and above). On older games, however, it seemed like you could play games at 20fps and it still felt largely fine. At least in solo-play.

[Oerwinde]

 

Anything over 24 fps is barely noticible to the human eye.

Definitely not, 24 is the minimum to percieve fluid movement, not the maximum for what's noticble. Minimum of 60 fps for action games for a quality experience.

Minimum of 60? I've been playing Saints Row 3 at about 35 and wouldn't say it wasn't a quality experience. Hell, most games I feel lucky to get 30 and its never been an issue.

 

Either way, a prebuilt PC with an OS dedicated to gaming is likely going to aim for 60 anyway and I wouldnt see that as an issue.

[entrerix]

most of the time my games are in the 30fps range.  when i do play a game getting 60fps, i feel like i can notice a slight difference, but i don't know for sure

[LadyCrimson]

I mostly like 50-60fps (at high settings) so I know I have large amount of wiggle-room for those areas/situations where the fps sometimes spikes down dramatically, in some games. If games stayed at a constant 35-40fps and never moved from that, I'd be fine, but most of the time they don't, so....

[BruceVC]

What software  do you guys use to capture fps?

[Guest Slinky]

most of the time my games are in the 30fps range.  when i do play a game getting 60fps, i feel like i can notice a slight difference, but i don't know for sure

Yeah, everyone sees/feels it differently. I personally use pretty high mouse sensitivity settings on games and can easily notice the difference between 30fps and 60fps, especially on first person view games. 60fps is soo much smoother and responsive.

 

 

What software  do you guys use to capture fps?

Fraps is probably the most popular one. I use it every time I install a new game to help to find graphical settings that give me avarage of 60fps on fast paced games action games and stop using it after that. For games like Civilization I don't care what the fps is as long the game doesn't visibly stutter.

[Keyrock]

I just don't play that many twitch games.  In most of the games I play, the difference in fps is barely noticeable, if at all, and has zero impact on gameplay.  If I was playing fighting games or high pace FPS all the time, I'd be wanting higher framerates too, but I don't.