Valve To Begin Steam Box Tests In Coming Months

[boast]

How so quickly when TF2 still runs better on Wine than native for me?

[AJSB]

They do seem to do all their development against 32-bit Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

It also depends on how often they plan to update the hardware, and their targeted cost.
Since they have to cater for custom built machines, my guess is they would probably release an update far more often than the other console makers, so you don't have to start super-high-end.

Either way, I don't think they don't _need_ 8Gib right now, so they may try to save costs.

As for an AMD apu, are they into using a custom processor or are they going to choose an existing off-the-shelf one? I don't have enough info.
I wonder how good the new Kaveri processor is? It is coming out soon, apparently, and supports GDDR5. That could be quite cool, as I have a Lano based system, and its GPU is very clearly bandwidth starved.

:P Speculation :P

They are making 32 bit Linux client like they do for all other OS...the client is always 32 bit....as for OS, because vast majority of PC gamers are using discrete GPUs, 4GB of mian RAM do just fine when we use a discrete GPU with it's own memory.

The 64bit OS is almost a mandatory thing if they go APU instead of discrete GPU...and there will not real problems to use the 32bit client+games in a 64bit OS...at least not nowdays.

As for 8GB vs 4GB RAM costs that means, in Euros, IIRC, around 30? (this was for 2133MHz RAM)....in USA will be probably only 30$....and those are retail prices, last time i bought RAM (end of last year) that was the difference and for 2133Mhz RAM...such a price difference will be hardly a show stopper.

[iniudan]

They are making 32 bit Linux client like they do for all other OS...the client is always 32 bit....as for OS, because vast majority of PC gamers are using discrete GPUs, 4GB of mian RAM do just fine when we use a discrete GPU with it's own memory.

The 64bit OS is almost a mandatory thing if they go APU instead of discrete GPU...and there will not real problems to use the 32bit client+games in a 64bit OS...at least not nowdays.

As for 8GB vs 4GB RAM costs that means, in Euros, IIRC, around 30? (this was for 2133MHz RAM)....in USA will be probably only 30$....and those are retail prices, last time i bought RAM (end of last year) that was the difference and for 2133Mhz RAM...such a price difference will be hardly a show stopper.

Memory limit of 32 bit OS is not just the RAM, it all system addressed memory, so discrete card would also count toward that limit.