Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Valve's Steam Box Will Most Likely Use An X.Org Server

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

  • #11
    ( unless i have missed an article on this... )

    I wonder why Michael hasn't bothered to cover the H/W aspect of what Valve appears to be using for 'Steambox'??

    it was covered all over CES 2013, tons of Youtube videos about it. Xi3 (OEM) and Valve were both displaying 'Piston' ~ developmental H/W, that will likely be Steam box. Xi3's hardware is x86_64 based and is completely modular and definitely cool and has been fully-tested for running Steam/games in 'big picture mode'...

    interestingly, the H/W does NOT use Nvidia, but instead AMD APU. (i mention this, since people keep talking about Valve using Nvidia ~ which would make sense, but i haven't seen any evidence for that... The only arrangement that i have heard of between Valve and nVidia is the hand-held console (called SHIELD) that can stream your steam games from your PC onto your T.V.

    Coverage on both (but mostly the Xi3 stuff)

    Xi3 and Valve are working on a game computer codenamed Piston. This sure sounds a bit like the Steam Box to us. After Monday's reveal by Nvidia, it's the sec...

    Taking a look at the Xi3 Piston "Steam Box" with Xi3 Chief Marketing Officer David Politis. See what all the hype is about. Add me: http://plus.google.com/+n...

    Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.


    and a couple news articles from Xi3, who say their products/prototypes will be the Steam Box:




    Originally posted by Xi3 news article
    Think of Valve's Steam Box as a PC. Its early prototypes might be squished into a small cuboid at the moment, they might be more at home under your television than your monitor, and - most shockingly - it might not be running Windows: but it is a PC.

    The Steam Box is designed to play PC games. Specifically, it's designed to play Steam games: Steam being the developer behind Valve's proprietary game download service, blessed with a good chunk of the platform's best ever titles.

    It's Valve spearheading the Steam Box concept, and Valve that showed the first mock-ups of what an eventual Steam Box would look like at CES 2013.
    ...if michael/phoronix hasn't covered this stuff - i think that is just hilarious...

    it also appears that Steam box will not be locked down in any way ~ so you can run whatever OS you like, but will likely ship Linux + Steam by default.

    cheerz
    Last edited by ninez; 05 March 2013, 09:37 PM.

    Comment


    • #12
      The Piston is one of Xi3's steam boxes. There will be others. It is not -the- steam box, but rather it is -a- steam box.

      Xi3 is not the only company that will make steam boxes.

      Comment


      • #13
        Originally posted by duby229 View Post
        The Piston is one of Xi3's steam boxes. There will be others. It is not -the- steam box, but rather it is -a- steam box.

        Xi3 is not the only company that will make steam boxes.
        I had wondered about that ~ but i have yet to see another company showing off anything. (any other examples from different companies, or news articles on the subject?)

        Comment


        • #14
          Originally posted by duby229 View Post
          The Piston is one of Xi3's steam boxes. There will be others. It is not -the- steam box, but rather it is -a- steam box.

          Xi3 is not the only company that will make steam boxes.
          I believe this is indeed the case. As far as I can tell, Valve is to Steambox as Intel is to Ultrabooks-- a set of specifications for hardware manufacturers to create their own renditions, released with the Valve stamp of approval.
          Last edited by milesmeloro; 05 March 2013, 10:08 PM. Reason: I'm unsure.

          Comment


          • #15
            We just have to wait a little longer for more announcements. So far the Piston is the first one shown. Others will come. Some will be cheaper. I'm a "do-it-yourself" kind of guy so I have just built my own. I'm still waiting for Valve's input handling work before I start offering them to my customers. Plus I'll probably be using Windows because of its title selection. My boxes with steam won't be cheap though.

            Comment


            • #16
              Originally posted by benjamin545 View Post
              uh,im not all that super in touch with programming, put i was under the impression that nobody writes applications for X or wayland or dur(mir). you write your application with toolkits and middlelayer apis like gtk or sdl and let those libraries handle all that bullcrap.
              In theory, yes. In practice, toolkits don't cover everything, so apps do use a scattering of X-specific libraries.

              Comment


              • #17
                Originally posted by ninez View Post
                it also appears that Steam box will not be locked down in any way ~ so you can run whatever OS you like, but will likely ship Linux + Steam by default.
                I've been saying that since well back into 2012... There's Phoronix articles mentioning it when others were saying it would be locked down.
                Michael Larabel
                https://www.michaellarabel.com/

                Comment


                • #18
                  Originally posted by duby229 View Post
                  We just have to wait a little longer for more announcements. So far the Piston is the first one shown. Others will come. Some will be cheaper. I'm a "do-it-yourself" kind of guy so I have just built my own. I'm still waiting for Valve's input handling work before I start offering them to my customers. Plus I'll probably be using Windows because of its title selection. My boxes with steam won't be cheap though.
                  Yeah, it would make sense to offer Windows for that reason. Hopefully, lots of Titles wil come to linux, though... I'm not a big gamer, but this stuff interests me, regardless.

                  Personally, I am very interested in xi3 hardware ~ and am thinking about picking up one of their offerings. Like yourself, i am a DIY kind of person too, Although my own focus tends to be more musical (or artistic), ie: i have 2 hacked wii remote-based (foot) pedal boards (wireless/bluetooth) with some cool software to map everything to MIDI (linux-based), i have built several synth modules(linux based, but i use Wine-l-pa too for some stuff), as well as a few other toys and/or experiments

                  I think the xi3 stuff is very appealing because of the modular design, size and being x86 based (rather than Arm-based).

                  but i digress

                  cheerz

                  Comment


                  • #19
                    Originally posted by Michael View Post
                    I've been saying that since well back into 2012... There's Phoronix articles mentioning it when others were saying it would be locked down.
                    It's funny Michael, because even after CES 2013 - there still seems to be some confusion on this (among some people anyway). i'm just going off of what xi3 and Valve said ~ which is that it is an open-platform / run whatever you want.

                    anyway, good for Valve in being smarter (imo) than the competition - if there is in fact, going to be multiple vendors making their own Steam boxes, then they _should_ be able to do very well.

                    cheerz

                    Comment


                    • #20
                      Originally posted by ninez View Post
                      It's funny Michael, because even after CES 2013 - there still seems to be some confusion on this (among some people anyway). i'm just going off of what xi3 and Valve said ~ which is that it is an open-platform / run whatever you want.

                      anyway, good for Valve in being smarter (imo) than the competition - if there is in fact, going to be multiple vendors making their own Steam boxes, then they _should_ be able to do very well.

                      cheerz
                      Michael had an article about the Xi3 and I think Gabe has said (on video) that Valve will also be rolling their own hardware for their own take on a Steam box.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X