Hardware Expectations For Valve's Steam Box

[Kano]

Well call it whatever you like, the Killing Floor game engine has nvidia checks which should not be there. Let em know in a way they get the message, i tried but nothing changed.

Btw. it is not logical that opengl is slower than direct3d when the same hardware features are used. Its really time to profile the games to find the bottlenecks. Maybe some updated design guidelines would help.

[GreatEmerald]

So maybe let intel produce the new amd apus that they could run at higher clockspeeds.

The Win counterparts run much better, some because of more optimizations in the engines like the Unreal 2.5+ based Killing Floor game or Serious Sam 3, the other problematic thing is the default Linux sheduler.

But then they would no longer be AMD APUs, now would they. AMD and Intel are trying to be in as much separate niches as they can get.

And argh, it's Modified Unreal Engine 2.5 (UE2.5). You don't call GPLv3 "GNU Public 3", now do you? :P

[Kano]

It is really hard to decide which hardware should be used for a Linux based console. Basically the Nvidia runs everything rule is already broken by Killing Floor. I tried to report the bug to icculus and via the tripwire contact form but nobody contacted me. I compared fglrx vs. nvidia (and after i packaged mesa 9.1 intel as well). That game checks for nvidia vendor and enables some stupid hack that show rendering errors with OpenGL on Win too - they only work in Direct3D mode. If you use apitrace and record the opengl commands then you can playback a recorded session with fglrx cards flawlessly with nvidia driver - when you try it the other way then you see the rendering errors with fglrx as well.

Basically nvidia 310+ drivers have been tuned a bit for the new steam games. Mainly tested with source engine games like TF2 and Serious Sam 3. Nvidia 304 drivers are much slower especially when you don't force performance mode (cpufreq). fglrx still has got more issues with that - especially with slower cpus (or just say: amd cpus in ondemand mode). Valve could use a wrapper that changes cpu to performance mode when a game is started, maybe in general or just for more demanding games.

So when you look at the next option it would be intel only. Haswell might faster than HD 4000 (could not test that) but Intel driver in general is really bad supported by Serious Sam 3. With a hack and gfx to lowest it runs but it looks extremely ugly.

Killing Floor on Intel is not really fast but you could play it. TF2 was ok, similar to cheaper nvidia gpus.

So what did i do? I exchanged my gfx cards depending on the game i wanted to play... That can not be the solution for a console. It does not really matter which gfx solution will be used for valve's own source games (fglrx is right now only problematic with AA enabled, but i hope amd can sort this out) but for 3rd party games it looks different.

If you really combine a i5 cpu with nvidia dedicated chip then you can not call the result a console, thats just a normal gamer pc. A modified PS4 gpu without sony extra commands maybe with fewer cores but higher clockspeed might be an interesting option but it depends on amd at what speed such a chip could run (and what cooling is needed). Currently amd has interesting gfx options, but intel has the better production process. So maybe let intel produce the new amd apus that they could run at higher clockspeeds. You have to see that when sony wants an 8 core system (basically 8 integer and 4 float cores) the clockspeed will be just adjusted so that the power use does not raise over a certain level. But that resulting speed is most likely too slow for current Linux ports. The Win counterparts run much better, some because of more optimizations in the engines like the Unreal 2.5+ based Killing Floor game or Serious Sam 3, the other problematic thing is the default Linux sheduler. It switches so often tasks when another core is unused but downclocked that it can not scale up fast enough. Games like SS3 suffered from that and they tried to bind the main logic to always the same core. The speed is still not optimal for other games.

It dont see a Steambox winning against PS4 even if would be similar priced (unlikely as PS4 will be sold much more often). It is somehow always a matter of time, but right now the time is not working for Valve because PS4 will hit the stores for xmas. I don't think that ppl will buy a 2nd console thats just a pc in a different (smaller) case to play less optimized games. In case it would really be intel cpu + nvidia gpu combined it would be VERY expensive, intel only would too slow for some games (even with haswell), default amd apus you can completely forget, that ps4 thing maybe. When you need to combine a cpu with ddr3 and a 2nd chip with gddr5 it will be more expensive as well, maybe a tiny bit cheaper than intel but it will use more power.

What should happen is that important 3rd party game devs get help from amd/nvidia/intel to really optimize the opengl codepath. That this can work you can see with the source engine - nothing is more frustrating than a game that runs too slow on Linux and on Win it runs great on the same hardware. Not every game is so demanding but some really need more speed. I don't see the problem only in the driver quality - when you compare SS3 Direct3D vs OpenGL then OpenGL is just slower - no matter if the OS is Linux or Win or if you use Fglrx or Nvidia or Intel gpu.

[Triv00ett]

I wouldn't discard an amd cpu, probably "octacore" piledriver.

[duby229]

You have to take in to account the fact that Steam Box will be Linux based.
All the AMD hate you see here is because of driver issues on Linux. Linux uses OpenGL as 3d hardware acceleration, whereas Windows uses Directx mainly. So the featureset available for Windows and Linux differ. As do the bugs.

Although i do use Linux and i have an AMD Trinity chip (A8-5500), i never encountered any errors with it, be it in games (including TF2 and CS 1.6 on Steam), playback or desktop.

Now everybody here says that will be a SteamBox for everyone, i wouldnt bet on this.
Offering multiple vendor configurations complicates things greatly because Valve has to ship a product that works OOTB with its factory software config. Now if you have AMD, Nvidia and maybe Intel, you have to test every single vendors hardware and drivers - this is both time and money consuming process.
I suppose they will select one vendor, the one that offers the best bang for the buck (from their point of view). Mind you, the hardware has to be in a small package (the SteamBox is very small), so adding dedicated cards here complicates things because it has to be cooled efficiently.
The best solution in this case seems to be an integrated video card with enough oomph to play games. My bet is on the Trinity or newer chips here.
At least on the desktop variants, the driver works really well, i havent encountered any issues playing Steam games.
Anyway, there are months before they unveil the box, so driver optimizations can be done (in fact lately there are quite a few AMD drivers that are aimed specifically at Steam).

Steam doesnt have to test whether or not the games they distribute work or not on your hardware. Either your hardware meets the minimum requirements for the games you've purchased or it doesnt. It is up the the game developer to determine what the expect the minimum requirements for there game should be.

Yes steam is going to have a reference design upon which hardware vendors can base there offering on. But There will be some boxes that are far higher end than others. I expect steam boxes to range from just 100$ on the very low end to as much as 2000$ for the very high end. Remember we arent talking about console games here. Steam is a distribution platform for PC games and the requirements for each game varies greatly. Even a very low end steam box is going to work well with a ton of games.

[gradinaruvasile]

You have to take in to account the fact that Steam Box will be Linux based.
All the AMD hate you see here is because of driver issues on Linux. Linux uses OpenGL as 3d hardware acceleration, whereas Windows uses Directx mainly. So the featureset available for Windows and Linux differ. As do the bugs.

Although i do use Linux and i have an AMD Trinity chip (A8-5500), i never encountered any errors with it, be it in games (including TF2 and CS 1.6 on Steam), playback or desktop.

Now everybody here says that will be a SteamBox for everyone, i wouldnt bet on this.
Offering multiple vendor configurations complicates things greatly because Valve has to ship a product that works OOTB with its factory software config. Now if you have AMD, Nvidia and maybe Intel, you have to test every single vendors hardware and drivers - this is both time and money consuming process.
I suppose they will select one vendor, the one that offers the best bang for the buck (from their point of view). Mind you, the hardware has to be in a small package (the SteamBox is very small), so adding dedicated cards here complicates things because it has to be cooled efficiently.
The best solution in this case seems to be an integrated video card with enough oomph to play games. My bet is on the Trinity or newer chips here.
At least on the desktop variants, the driver works really well, i havent encountered any issues playing Steam games.
Anyway, there are months before they unveil the box, so driver optimizations can be done (in fact lately there are quite a few AMD drivers that are aimed specifically at Steam).

[Medallish]

That is an experience I don't share, that is for sure!

Thanks for that random forum posts of fanboys complaining. I've had both cards, and in my time I've had more nVidia driver issues than AMD driver based issues, but because I don't buy both cards at the same time, (that would be insanity) I don't claim that nVidia's drivers suck. Funny enough at work I've seen tons of nVidia related issues, but again I'm not stupid enough to exclusively blame the drivers, they use very different settings on work computers than I use on my own computers.

But I can honestly say I've never had an AMD driver based crash on any of my PC's, my laptop have had some random driver stopped working, which didn't cause a crash, but it's very rare, and again my Desktop has never had any issues at all. back when I had nVidia however I would have a rare bsod caused by nv4disp or whatever, maybe I should troll forums with how sucky nVidia drivers are all the time? Since that's now proof in forums like this for the quality of drivers.
btw. http://phoronix.com/forums/showthrea...uck-They-don-t

But yes back on topic, I do imagine that Valve won't decide based on current drivers, rather on what AMD and nVidia can deliver to them, but more likely is what someone wrote earlier, that there will be many configurations of Steambox, and they will come in all colors and configurations, it's a sort of Windows/Linux-ee(in the world of PC's) way of approaching consoles vs. what Sony and Microsoft is doing which is more like Apple. I hope Valve has success with this.

[AlbertP]

Some of the new ARM chips are getting scary powerful for low power mobile.

Powerful for the low resolutions that mobile devices use indeed, but this Steam Box will likely be often connected to Full HD TVs.

Also the article mentions Optimus, but I don't think the Steam Box will use that, because: Optimus is now only used in laptops because of battery life. Small-sized desktop systems and thin all-in-ones, do not have Optimus even if they are using an NVIDIA mobile GPU. It does not improve battery life in devices that have no battery, and it won't magically make the device much cooler; the cooling system needs to be able to cool the NVIDIA GPU at full load anyway so it's certainly powerful enough to keep an NVIDIA GPU cool in its lowest level.

[atmartens]

They'll use an AMD APU. It has the best balance of CPU performance vs GPU performance and is priced competitively. Remember, they are on "Valve time," which means that they will have ample time to work out driver issues.

[nightmarex]

There's no reason they couldn't do a quad-A15 + discrete GPU from AMD or Nvidia, it would have plenty of power.

But I expect it will be x86 due to the legacy catalog.

Some of the new ARM chips are getting scary powerful for low power mobile. Just that if you're going to spend a buck on a chip you would want one that is better for desktop/laptop because this thing is going to be plugged in right? Mobile chips are mind blowing but not compared to even modest chips in the desktop arena.