Do you have a Steam Machine (gaming)?

[The_Ogre]

If so, what are the specs? I'm thinking of building one which would double as an HTPC for the lounge.

Since my motherboard of my HTPC gave in a few months ago I never had the cash to replace it (it was a DDR2, socket 775 board so it was a bit of a mission to find replacement parts).

My wife has recently started nagging about not being able to watch her series in the lounge anymore so I'm trying to use this as motivation for a Steam Box

The idea is to run Steam as well as something like XBMC or Plex for media.

Anybody try this yet?

 

[Electric]

Yes, many people do just that.
I do it as well.
But I primarily game in my computer room.

It has however got the capabilities to use Steam Streaming for gaming as well.
That way I can have a media pc that can play Steam games from my main machine which is much more powerful.

 

[The_Ogre]

Yes, many people do just that.
I do it as well.
But I primarily game in my computer room.

It has however got the capabilities to use Steam Streaming for gaming as well.
That way I can have a media pc that can play Steam games from my main machine which is much more powerful.

So you're telling me I can actually get a mid-spec PC for the lounge (as long as it can decode and play mkv's flawlessly), Set up Steam Streaming and play from my PC in the study?

That would actually work out much, much cheaper (I've been scouring carbonite for bargains for the last few hours )

 

[Soul Assassin]

Buy the cheapest board you can get with HDMI, add a Pentium G3258 and 4GB RAM and use Steam In-Home Streaming.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Do you mean SteamOS box? Or just a small PC with Steam?

 

[Electric]

So you're telling me I can actually get a mid-spec PC for the lounge (as long as it can decode and play mkv's flawlessly), Set up Steam Streaming and play from my PC in the study?

That would actually work out much, much cheaper (I've been scouring carbonite for bargains for the last few hours )

Yes, that's exactly what I mean.
It works very well as well.
I have a Dual core pentium in my lounge for media and it plays flawlessly via Steam Streaming.
As long as your main pc is powerful enough to run those games then the only limitation is your line speed.

 

[The_Ogre]

Buy the cheapest board you can get with HDMI, add a Pentium G3258 and 4GB RAM and use Steam In-Home Streaming.

This is one of my ideas now. thanks

I have this itch to upgrade the i5 4690K in the above PC with one of PotterH's i7's and move the i5 to this new machine, but I'll have to see how finances look. If I do move it, I might as well get half decent components to complement it. I have a spare mechanical drive and 4GB RAM which was part of set - I'll have to scratch around to see if I can find the other DIMM.

Do you mean SteamOS box? Or just a small PC with Steam?

See above, my initial idea was to run SteamOS, but it dawned on me that this is linux-based with only a handful of games. So I might go windows with Steam and Plex/XBMC for the wife.

 

[The_Ogre]

Yes, that's exactly what I mean.
It works very well as well.
I have a Dual core pentium in my lounge for media and it plays flawlessly via Steam Streaming.
As long as your main pc is powerful enough to run those games then the only limitation is your line speed.

What controllers are you using for playing? And does it run over Bluetooth, 2.4Ghz or wired?

 

[SauRoNZA]

See above, my initial idea was to run SteamOS, but it dawned on me that this is linux-based with only a handful of games. So I might go windows with Steam and Plex/XBMC for the wife.

Exactly why I asked the question as I'm also keen and then ask myself if I'm going to do Steam OS I might as well just have a console

You can do Plex/Kodi just find on Linux.

 

[CamiKaze]

The sad thing about building an HTPC is that there aren't any decent looking chassis in SA.

 

[Nerfherder]

So you're telling me I can actually get a mid-spec PC for the lounge (as long as it can decode and play mkv's flawlessly), Set up Steam Streaming and play from my PC in the study?

That would actually work out much, much cheaper (I've been scouring carbonite for bargains for the last few hours )

Ya, im using a 2.8 core2duo with 4 gig ram and a fairly old GPU ,ATI 4370 or something like that. Just remember that the PC you stream from is unusable while streaming though.

 

[Electric]

What controllers are you using for playing? And does it run over Bluetooth, 2.4Ghz or wired?

I use an xbox wireless controller with the supplied xbox receiver.

 

[Vegeta]

This is one of my ideas now. thanks

I have this itch to upgrade the i5 4690K in the above PC with one of PotterH's i7's and move the i5 to this new machine, but I'll have to see how finances look. If I do move it, I might as well get half decent components to complement it. I have a spare mechanical drive and 4GB RAM which was part of set - I'll have to scratch around to see if I can find the other DIMM.

See above, my initial idea was to run SteamOS, but it dawned on me that this is linux-based with only a handful of games. So I might go windows with Steam and Plex/XBMC for the wife.

i suppose one can run Windows & steam on the Host and SteamOS(linux) on the client.
Haven't tested that yet I run Windows on both.

 

[Electric]

i suppose one can run Windows & steam on the Host and SteamOS(linux) on the client.
Haven't tested that yet I run Windows on both.

Steam OS is pointless.

 

[Vegeta]

Steam OS is pointless.

Why do you say that? I haven't tried it but it sounds like it could be great and console like.
I thought of running SteamOS off a USB stick and only plug in the stick into my laptop and fire it up when I want to use Steam InHome streaming. Rest of the time I just boot the PC normally into windows. The USB stick will act almost like inserting a physical medium into your console, I call it my console stick.

 

[Neoprod]

The data streamed to the client PC is H.264...a discrete graphics card is overkill unless you dig out a mainstream CPU from 7-8 years ago.

 

[Electric]

Why do you say that? I haven't tried it but it sounds like it could be great and console like.
I thought of running SteamOS off a USB stick and only plug in the stick into my laptop and fire it up when I want to use Steam InHome streaming. Rest of the time I just boot the PC manually. The USB stick will act almost like inserting a physical medium into your console, I call it my console stick.

Explain why you would need Steam OS over windows?
I have windows installed for Streaming and Steam works 100% just like that.
Steam OS is a way of utilizing available resources more effectively to game.
You aren't gaming, you are streaming the game.

 

[Vegeta]

Explain why you would need Steam OS over windows?
I have windows installed for Streaming and Steam works 100% just like that.
Steam OS is a way of utilizing available resources more effectively to game.
You aren't gaming, you are streaming the game.

Only for a more console like experience booting up straight into SteamOS & controlling everything with a controller from the get go.
Instead of booting up into windows entering a password and then opening steam.
I know I can disable the password and run steam in full screen at launch but I don't always use my client for gaming sometimes I want to get to word or chrome and nothing else. Other times I want to boot straight into Steam

 

[Electric]

Only for a more console like experience booting up straight into SteamOS & controlling everything with a controller from the get go.
Instead of booting up into windows entering a password and then opening steam.
I know I can disable the password and run steam in full screen at launch but I don't always use my client for gaming sometimes I want to get to word or chrome and nothing else.

Ok, that makes sense.
Steam OS is just so limited at the moment though.

 

[Vegeta]

Ok, that makes sense.
Steam OS is just so limited at the moment though.

I only want to use the InHome streaming nothing else. The client is too weak to run anything locally anyways. So the client really becomes a "steam link" when the USB is inserted and a normal windows work PC when the stick is not inserted.