Steambox is real

[marurun]

Aside from Windows phone, very few folks really use Windows or even Windows APIs for embedded systems. The *nix universe is much more scaleable and is therefore better suited to RT (real-time) and embedded situations. Helluva lot of devices out there use *nix as the underlying OS because it supports all the advanced features they need and they can turn off the ones they don't.

[RCBH928]

Maybe we are living in a era where we would look back and laugh as "the times when games were Windows only"

[noiseredux]

so I was thinking about the whole streaming aspect of SteamOS. And I think I'm slightly confused. So if your main PC is doing all the work, then you should be able to build a meh PC for the living room and it should stream relying on the main PC? Or do both PC's have to be good?

Meaning, can your gaming PC be streaming to y'know an off-the-shelf PC that has no GPU in the living room? Or to a pretty basic laptop or something?

[ZenErik]

From what I gather, the PC outputting to the TV would not have to be powerful. But I imagine wired connections would be helpful in regards to streaming quality and reducing latency.

I don't know. I was pretty interested in the Steam Machine, but since the vast majority of games are for Windows and Valve claims that there will be no Steam OS/Linux exclusives, there really isn't a need for me to get one. But I will probably try one of those controllers at least. Seems interesting.

[noiseredux]

From what I gather, the PC outputting to the TV would not have to be powerful. But I imagine wired connections would be helpful in regards to streaming quality and reducing latency.

I don't know. I was pretty interested in the Steam Machine, but since the vast majority of games are for Windows and Valve claims that there will be no Steam OS/Linux exclusives, there really isn't a need for me to get one. But I will probably try one of those controllers at least. Seems interesting.

My understanding is that you can Stream non-SteamOS games to a Steambox though. So that's interesting right there. So I'm just thinking if I put a low-power PC hooked up to the TV might be kind of cool. I don't know, maybe I'll see if I can get in the beta.

[RCBH928]

Wasn't there this company that used the game streaming idea and it failed and now it is sold , it was subscription based. I heard it worked well but with games like COD where a split of a second matters , you really do not want that jitter. As media gets heavier with 1080p/4k , loaded textures, 60fps , it is really hard to imagine how fast your net connection should be to stream games. I come from a time when 4mbs is unheard of . I remember when I was excited to get 1mbs and that was only in late 2006

[fastbilly1]

You are thinking of Onlive. It worked decently when I gave it a try. Playing FPS games with other Onlive players was not bad at all actually. Granted all settings were not user changeable. We are a ways away from 4k gaming being the norm, so I would not use that as any sort of benchmark right now.

[GSZX1337]

From what I gather, the PC outputting to the TV would not have to be powerful. But I imagine wired connections would be helpful in regards to streaming quality and reducing latency.

I don't know. I was pretty interested in the Steam Machine, but since the vast majority of games are for Windows and Valve claims that there will be no Steam OS/Linux exclusives, there really isn't a need for me to get one. But I will probably try one of those controllers at least. Seems interesting.

My understanding is that you can Stream non-SteamOS games to a Steambox though.

From the SteamOS webpage:

You can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too. Just turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have - then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV!

Wasn't there this company that used the game streaming idea and it failed and now it is sold , it was subscription based. I heard it worked well but with games like COD where a split of a second matters , you really do not want that jitter. As media gets heavier with 1080p/4k , loaded textures, 60fps , it is really hard to imagine how fast your net connection should be to stream games. I come from a time when 4mbs is unheard of . I remember when I was excited to get 1mbs and that was only in late 2006

SteamOS' streaming is a whole different beast. Your Windows PC would be running the game and the stream would go over your home Wi-Fi network. Modern Wireless-N routers have a max data rate of 600 Mbit/s so lag likely won't be an issue.

[MrPopo]

On a home network you also ping at 1-3 ms, while I tend to ping external game servers (which OnLive would resemble) at around 50 ms, so that already is introducing lag that's independent of the capabilities of the source and destination machine.

[RCBH928]

So I must buy a SteamBox , which has SteamOS , that will stream games from my already capable PC running Windows ? Why wouldn't I just connect my PC to the computer with HDMI?

@MrPoPo

is 0 lag even possible?


@fastbilly1

whatever happened to OnLive ? did they shut down?