Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Steam Machines Prototypes: Intel CPU, NVIDIA GPU

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #91
    Originally posted by juanrga View Post
    The problem is in what it means "best". As I mentioned before the closed drivers can generate problems, including security holes, due to Nvidia refusing to answer kernel developers questions. Again read what Linus said. I don't think that is "best".

    It is not about ideology. In fact, there are much more games available for Windows than for linux. Why is then Valve pushing linux this hard? Because some FOSS ideology? No.

    Best-case scenario? Even considering only raw performance, as I mentioned before, R9 + MANTLE will humiliate Nvidia Titan with its 'best' drivers.

    I don't understand Valve selection of hardware. I makes no sense for me. Ultra priced CPUs that perform poor than cheap ones. Again, all triple-A game developers choose the FX-8350 over the i5-3570k. Haswell desktop chips considered a "joke" by Anandtech or Tomshardware.

    3 GB VRAM, when 4BG is the minimum recommended for modern gaming rigs. 450W PSU when Nvidia recommends minimum of 600W for the cards mentioned by Valve. It is all weird.

    Valve would be working with Nvidia to make sure any big issues are fixed, as they have been doing up to this point. There's always going to be a security issue at some point in the pipeline, but the raw performance is too good to let go of. Do you think normal users would care about possible but not probable security issues (probably none worse than would be faced in Windows or any other console) when the performance is several times more potent on the non-free solution? Probably not.

    Of course it would be GREAT if Nvidia and AMD started putting more work into a foss driver, but Valve needs to balance being a good FOSS citizen with having the most functional platform it can. Other companies that work with Linux do the same, some better than others. In this case, not going with Windows actually proved to have not only ideological wins, but also real world performance gains and user experience improvements in some ways. Linux was clearly the better choice for them, even though they need to pick up games along the way. Realistically, I don't doubt they can pull that off.

    The downside of mantle as I understand it, is it only works with AMD cards (cutting down on user choice) and isn't nearly as cross-platform.

    I don't know why they picked the CPU/vram/psu exactly, or why all the damn ram. 16 gigs seems like overkill I think. But I dont think many games have been made to make use of over 4 cores, so Intel CPU's might not be that terrible of a choice. Maybe Intel is cutting them a good deal? I dunno.

    Comment


    • #92
      Originally posted by DDF420 View Post
      APU's used as main graphics in a steam box? A console meant to be on par with a PC? Ridicules!!! About as ridicules as those wanting opensource drivers. Wake up people. 99.9 % of people buying and using the steambox will be windows folk. Windows gamers want high end best performing hardware with the best drivers for the job.

      What's confusing is valves choice of i7 cpus. for years its been known that i5 is on par with i7 for gaming since hyperthreading often hinders rather than help gaming. It may be future proofing but how many games actually take advantage of hyper threading ? I know of only 2 and even the newest intel i7 cpu's only give an additional 3 to 4 FPS over i5 which really isnt worth the extra $$.
      Yeap, users coming from consoles or Window$ don't give a s++t about OSS...*they* *WANT* *PERFORMANCE* or else SB will be considered crap and will be a giant flop.

      There is no way *nowadays* that a SB with OSS video drivers from anyone will have performance enough to play AAA games.
      SURE....there are *SOME* games that can get very high frame rates with OSS drivers, but the word there is ***SOME***...and that makes their performance with those games irrelevant, what it mattesr is what we get in average...and in average, we get garbage.

      I bet that in the end they will use a i3 or i5...but they simply just want to test everything...after all, *WE* can me make our own SteamBoxes and they need to collect as much data as possible about different hardware.

      Comment


      • #93
        Originally posted by brosis View Post
        How much will this blob be different from m$ blob?
        I don't understand your point there...i was talking about the Valve gamepad and you talk about blobs ?!?

        Unless because Valve gamepad is proprietary you are putting it at same level than a video driver blob...and i can see your point to a degree....but the thing is that Valve already told they would release the API specs to "talk" with it....and i'm sure someone in China will "reverse engineer" the hardware
        I also believe that hackers with API info from Valve,etc. will reverse engineer it completely at sofware level to use that gamepad with non-Steam games and other OSs.

        Comment


        • #94
          Originally posted by MartinN View Post
          How would you have acted if you were in NVidia's shoes to create an acceptable compromise for both OSS/Linux as well as NVidia?
          i don't think that it couldn't be done very different from that are doing...sure , they might have started to move their feet sooner instead of dragging them to a halt (but then again, before Valve's Linux push, *where* was truly the need to do so ?!?)....but the thing is Nvidia have same serious problems with patents....their hardware uses (enough) significant part that wasn't designed by them at core level.

          Many of use (and in special Linus) seem to forget that "small" detail.

          Comment


          • #95
            Originally posted by brosis View Post
            Seriously, in 2011 open arena did 3 fps on your hardware, because even support for OpenGL2 was weak, not only driver being immature - now it runs at over 200 fps.
            Now I tell you about OpenGL4 not materializing, and you shove me DX11 game. WTF?

            Man, how about you stop writing questions and go sleep out instead ?
            The game engine of crysis, is being ported to Linux.

            Serious Sam 3 does openGL too, so what's your point ?
            I did not run it through wine, It was running native on Linux.
            For this game I could use a faster vid card, then the one I have.

            But go ahead and live in denial.

            Comment


            • #96
              Originally posted by uid313 View Post
              Really nice to see CAD files.
              I like that!
              I like the open source spirit, the free software spirit, the the DIY spirit.
              I never had a console in my life...precisely because the darn things are such a closed piece of hardware...that, even worse, will last only 5-10 years and then we have to start all over again and buy completely new hardware and games (unless that we stream those games via Net needing to pay a premium service to do so and consuming a bunch of traffic that is a big no-no to any one with traffic limits).

              what i like in this console is a such a degree of open spirit....the simple fact that *we* can make the console or transform any PC in a console and then as time goes by, slowly upgrade it if and where we need to do so, it's simply

              Comment


              • #97
                Originally posted by Pallidus View Post
                I will probably get banned, again, for talking shit about valve but here goes:

                You people are just as insanely stupid as valve, there won't be "selling machines at a loss" like someone said since VALVE WON'T BE MAKING THEM

                OEM's will and they will make them for PROFIT... meaning even the cheapest model will be ~$700

                So who is the targetted audience for these expensive machines??

                The core gaming audience will be perfectly content with their new ps4's and xbones.... are pc gamers all supposed to ditch their rigs and windows in droves and jump to stemboxes?? Maybe the reason they are pc gamers in the first place is that THEY DON'T WANT TO PLAY IN THE SOFA WITH haptic CONTROLLERS

                This is the beginning of the end for valve.... mark my words
                Mark my words:
                There will be SBs at 500 USD that beat the crap out of PS4...at least i hope so

                It's perfectly possible with GTX660 and i3 (maybe some i5 in special considering bulk prices) achieve that value.

                Comment


                • #98
                  Originally posted by Bathroom Humor View Post
                  A comment on another website just reminded me of another big price reduction at play here, and one I'm sure they will advertise:
                  Steam costs nothing extra to use online. The OS and the service are both free of charge, and many of the games on there are also significantly less expensive than modern console games, and they have big sales all the time (Sony and MS are playing catch-up here). So you could actually expect to pay far less for the steam machine over its lifetime considering you won't need a "steambox gold network account" that add to the price over time for the premium online service. Accessing the Internet, including game servers, are free by default. And some very popular Valve games are free to play as well.
                  If they advertise this point well enough, this could be a big draw I think.

                  Ooooh i bet they will !!!

                  Comment


                  • #99
                    Originally posted by Gps4l View Post
                    The game engine of crysis, is being ported to Linux.

                    Serious Sam 3 does openGL too, so what's your point ?
                    I did not run it through wine, It was running native on Linux.
                    For this game I could use a faster vid card, then the one I have.

                    But go ahead and live in denial.
                    Serious Engine was native up to version 2 (Serious Sam, second encounter). Afterwards, they removed the rendering plugins and left just directx backend.
                    That means, SS 2 and up all - are ports. Ports will always run slower.

                    I also don't know how SS3 was ported, we should probably ask Icculus. Does it internally run parts of winelib?

                    Finally, I am going to repeat myself third time: MESA does not offer functionality of OpenGL4 (yet) and offers only partial functionality of OpenGL3.
                    Shader optimizations and dynamic clocking are present. This means - titles that do not depend on OpenGL3(partially)/4 features, will get exactly same or very close performance on open driver.
                    If Valve would foresee that using open driver will reduce their partnership cost A LOT and would ship AMD, explicitly requiring AMD to fix the open driver, MESA would get OpenGL4 very fast.
                    Thus fulfilling the requirements of (even current) titles, that demand OpenGL3/4 features.

                    If Valve invests in Nvidia partnership instead, the driver advancements will only be available for nvidia blob, thus putting Intel, AMD (any) and even nouveau in further disadvantage.
                    Keep in mind - Nvidia (blob) could have used any propositions from the open driver, should the partnership have happened, by trivial copy-paste.
                    Thus, Valve would have Linux platform optimized much more efficiently than by relying on (currently more featurefull, yet) closed driver.

                    And I am not living in any denials, I have not contradicted your statement of OpenGL4 tier games performing slower on MESA. Had Valve seen the potential, this driver would have the chance to perform much faster - at level of being acceptable.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by brosis View Post
                      Serious Engine was native up to version 2 (Serious Sam, second encounter). Afterwards, they removed the rendering plugins and left just directx backend.
                      That means, SS 2 and up all - are ports. Ports will always run slower.

                      I also don't know how SS3 was ported, we should probably ask Icculus. Does it internally run parts of winelib?

                      Finally, I am going to repeat myself third time: MESA does not offer functionality of OpenGL4 (yet) and offers only partial functionality of OpenGL3.
                      Shader optimizations and dynamic clocking are present. This means - titles that do not depend on OpenGL3(partially)/4 features, will get exactly same or very close performance on open driver.
                      If Valve would foresee that using open driver will reduce their partnership cost A LOT and would ship AMD, explicitly requiring AMD to fix the open driver, MESA would get OpenGL4 very fast.
                      Thus fulfilling the requirements of (even current) titles, that demand OpenGL3/4 features.

                      If Valve invests in Nvidia partnership instead, the driver advancements will only be available for nvidia blob, thus putting Intel, AMD (any) and even nouveau in further disadvantage.
                      Keep in mind - Nvidia (blob) could have used any propositions from the open driver, should the partnership have happened, by trivial copy-paste.
                      Thus, Valve would have Linux platform optimized much more efficiently than by relying on (currently more featurefull, yet) closed driver.

                      And I am not living in any denials, I have not contradicted your statement of OpenGL4 tier games performing slower on MESA. Had Valve seen the potential, this driver would have the chance to perform much faster - at level of being acceptable.
                      Use of winelib or wine is forbidden by Valve. How could you forget that? Serious Sam 3 is a native port.

                      Open source drivers suck with gaming, we all know that. However, if AMD or NVIDIA were to put full development effort into Linux like they do with Windows, this could be solved quickly.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X