Follow up question: How does it perform as a Windows PC?

I was so excited to get this set up after it was delivered. As expected, it was a breeze to get going. The game here (The Last Caretaker) has been a recent obsession of mine. Sunk ~160 hours of it on Deck, all while getting between 15-25FPS. Sometimes lower.

It can’t power it at epic quality but I expected that. But I am getting better quality with a higher frame rate, and it’s much more comfortable to play with the controller. Other games work beautifully and run better than I had been getting used to.

Overall, I’m satisfied with it. I don’t have other hardware for PC games, and have no interest in building it. I wanted something that gave a console experience, was quiet and small, and worked well. At the cost of raw performance, that’s what it provides and to that end I’m thrilled with it.

I haven’t quite gotten HDMI-CEC working out. Is that problematic for other folks? Works perfectly with my PS5.

Opinion: The Steam Machine or your DIY equivalent one is good enough for a very long time.

Don't let the people who have to buy the latest greatest hardware that costs an arm, leg and a kidney make you think the affordable avenues are gonna be lesser experiences. They talk about copium, but they're the ones who cope and need to justify that their experiences are far superior to yours. They spend insane amounts of money for the 4k 200fps ultra setting experience for what? Cool, Battlefield 6 looks kinda better... Wow you got three more blades of dead grass on a slightly better looking desert texture map.

How many "AAA" bestest ultra graphics blah blah games have come out in the past 5 years or so and brought the best Gaming PC's to their knees AND was incredibly well optimized? Not many... Like one or two a year, compared to the hundreds others that run and look great on your friends PC with a GTX 1080 still in it. Now it's always poorly optimized so you buy better hardware to make up for the games many technical faults. Do you feel the graphical leap from console generations still feels as massive as PS1 to PS2, Xbox to Xbox 360? Yeah, exactly. Diminishing returns.

Developers are going to target the lowest common denominator in the gaming space. That's where the money is, the players. Very few will leave the masses behind just to be the guys with the "Can it run Crysis" experience for the latest tech. It's not worth it anymore. Especially with rising costs in the hardware space.

The Steam Machine is great, I've loved every minute. FSR is really cool to see the difference on a massive screen for those FEW games that just aren't optimized well enough to handle the higher resolution or graphics options.

I leave you all with blessings that you get your purchase email soon.

Run pretty smooth at 60FPS even on high settings.

Surprised how well the track pads work on a mouse-centric game.

Got the Jackery Explorer 1000 as a backup for my 3D printers, and to take camping, but it always comes in handy for stuff like this. 24in 1080p 144hz Scepter monitor I got for like $60, whole setup peaks at ~203w, so with 1000wh I'm getting about 5 hours of gameplay. The power draw is the main reason I went official instead of building a DIY, absolutely nothing compares for the form factor and power draw

I have a PS5 controller, and a USB cable connect it to the Steam machine. The Steam machine doesn’t recognize the controller, so now I stuck at the very first screen that asks me to connect keyboard/mouse and controller!

I don’t have a wired keyboard or mouse, everything is Bluetooth Apple product.

First time I stuck at the very first step.

How did you guys solve it?

And yes, the controller is in pair mode!!!!!

[[[Solved finally by connecting the Apple Trackpad using usb cable, Jesus Christ…]]]

Also, that’s finger print on the machine, not dust! The desk can have a bit of cleaning for sure 😆
The dusty controller is NINTENDO Pro which I found under the box in hope of it would work…. But not.

Also, Nintendo Switch Pro disconnected a lot unlike PS5 controller, really stable.

So, three weeks ago I got my steam machine 512+C. Honeymoon phase is over.

Currently I'm hyper focused on Clair Obscur. Steam deck oled performance is 26-30fps. Playable, but meh.

So the first 3 hours I played it on my gaming pc with the RTX 4090. 4k, ultra settings, all bells and whistles. But since I have the steam machine, everything became so convenient. I don't miss UHD, I'm not glued to the screen. Ultra, high, medium, low... I don't care anymore. It's not like this is my first console at home, it sits right to the Xbox series X. But this Steammachine feels different. Some would say the cope is real, but imho it's like people preferring the steam deck over some higher powered handhelds. It's the complete package. It's the controller. It's the familiarity of steam.

Whe it was announced months ago, I said shut up and take my money. And this is how I still feel about this device. Definitely not a buyers remorse. I hope all the people in the waitlist get their machine soon. I hope this thing is a huge success for valve. I hope game Devs learn to optimise their games again for mediocre hardware. I hope publishers give devs time and money to accomplish that. May this machine be the fresh air pc gaming needs.

This is not a scientific review. It's just a little love letter to this device.

HAVE FAITH ARTHUR HAVE FAITH

I heavily play two games, Tekken 8 and Diablo 4, with Steam machine, both 3440 × 1440, native ultra wide, full settings on, 60fps. And unlike PS5, free online play!

I just played both, close to an hour for each, just flawless!

- My PS5 runs them decently, but not ultra wide, make me really unhappy.
- My MacBook can run them via crossover, but not very good graphic, performance is ok. (M5 Max 128GB)

Now Steam machine handles them like a beast.
My screen is alive!
My life is vivid!
My Steam machine is the source of my delightfulness!

😤😤😤😤😤😤

Haven’t tested other games, but for the two I heavily invested in, I am really happy about this shit!😤😤

Another game, Monster hunter wild, I think might cause some problems 🤣but I only played that on PS5, haven’t even bought a Steam version. Downloaded 70 games 😤😤we will see, all on Steam machine compatible list.

The key, was to turn on AMD FSR mode, it is locked on D4, for Tekken 8, I was playing with the settings hopelessly, like “WTF is this, where is my console experience”, then all of a sudden I picked the AMD FSR, the whole world changed 😍😍😍

I didn’t expect this, but for the first time in my life, I am thinking why should I own a console like ps5…

South East US. Went from day 1 wait-list to random purchase email at 810pm EST

my steam machine setup and why I love it

so before a few days ago I had a steam deck but after 2,5y of playing most of the games I wanted and like 50/50 of the time playing handheld/docked, I was starting to feel that the docking experience for some games I wanted to play right now was underwhelming: god of war, helldivers, plague tale requiem.

Also at the beginning of this year I bought a switch 2 to play some exclusive games (marios, zelda) and some motion games (just dance with joycons) and I was enjoying the handheld experience on nintendo switch 2 like an upgrade also.

So after that, the steam deck lost a bit of value (less handheld desire) to me and I just wanted a better desktop gaming experience. I was very happy with the steam hardware, steamOs and steam store, and the steam machine caught my eyes 👀 So I sold my steam deck for a good chunk of money and I upgraded to the steam machine. I knew the perks and cons (eg anti cheat incompatibility) of playing on steamOs so it was not new to me. The games run better and perfectly good for my standards of beauty and fun in games. It was a natural upgrade of my steam deck (and much better than my notebook laptop).

My steam machine is in my room, where I play single player steam games mostly at night and where I watch netflix, hbo and prime tvshows & movies. Also I can access and continue my chrome session of studying and browsing since it is all synchronized with the laptop.

And it matches the vibes and aesthetics I envisioned hehe

I think my use case is a bit different from some discussions here since I wont be using it in the living room; I don’t enjoy building pcs; nor tweaking or messing with operating systems or drivers; I won’t be playing on emulators; I won’t develop anything;

It is simply a straightforward experience of plug & play steam games and watching movies on pc on my desk. I am very happy and I am glad (although a bit pricey) that Steam engineered this cool sleek and simple gaming pc.

For me it is worth it and fun!

Microsoft just released conker live and reloaded and a few other original Xbox games on pc natively with the Xbox app so I immediately bought all of them and installed them o the steam machine. Sadly no steam controller support but they run great. No issues

I am looking for an SD card for my Steam Machine, but everything is incredibly expensive now. I found this SD card, which is surprisingly cheap, even cheaper than Sandisk 1TB (around 260 CAD). The specs look good and identical high quality SD for Steam Deck, but I wonder how good it ACTUALLY is

It's almost comical right now. I press sleep in the menu, the controller turns off, the screen goes black, and then suddenly it turns right back on. And so I reconnect the controller, press sleep again, same thing. Etc.

I have the "turn on TV when steam machine wakes" and the "turn off TV when steam machine sleeps" enabled. But neither of these should be un-sleeping the steam machine. I'm confused.

Happy Wednesday, everyone! It was a delight to wake up and see not only Bernie getting his email today, but a bunch of emails from the EU — both 512GB with and without controller SKUs to boot! Will the US be next? WILL BUGS BE NEXT?? Only time will tell, haha. Best of luck today! <3

Had the steam machine for all but two hours. However this thing is what it says it is. My TV is native 4k but been playing games at 2k ultra settings granted older gta titles and mostly games that are great on machine. Tested 2tb ssd comes in tmw. I know people are saying under powered but for single player or local multi-player this tjing knocks it out the park. Will set up emudeck and go crazy on retro games too.

Side note: all you had to do was follow gabe cj

There is a FAQ section on Valve's Hardware Page that explains how they're sending out orders. Go read it. It defines "Regions" as well as the shipping process, explain that units are still being made, and most importantly how soon you may or may not get a Steam Machine. NO you shouldn't switch lines, there is a queue, you do in fact jump straight from Waitlist to "Purchase invitation" according to Reddit, but please go read it. Half the posts on here "speculating" really would be resolved if folk read "If you switch lines, you'll be at the furthest back of the line" or whatever silly things impatient minds come up with.

If you're on the Reserved list you just wait and check your email. If you're on the Waitlist, you're just hoping everyone in front of you cancels their order, otherwise you'll never get a Machine no matter how long you wait, the current "Production Run" is a set # of units and everyone in the Waitlist is outside what they have or can build...

I found this guide for upgrading an SSD that I thought was very clear, concise and extremely easy to follow. It’s for steam deck but the first half I think can be done on Steam Machine. I’m running out of space so made up my mind to put in my 2TB Samsung 990 pro SSD after all. Should I use this method? https://youtu.be/MVKs2WntK5w?is=e6k7PYGPZmBMVK04

Curious how these would run on the Steam Machine and if VR was even a remote possibility with it?

https://www.tomshardware.com/3d-printing/3d-printing-enthusiast-resurrects-cancelled-dbrand-steam-machine-companion-cube-as-diy-project-project-shelved-due-to-copyright-can-now-be-made-and-assembled-at-home

The only question is, will dbrand sue?

Cut the tip off my thumb and can't use it for a week

Upgraded my 512GB Steam Machine to 2TB, something I noticed was the PCIe support wasn't listed anywhere I could find, is it PCIe 5.0?

The built in nvme SSD is rated for around 7000mb/s so in theory provided the board and SteamOS support it this 9100 doubles it's read/write. I'm hoping it gives a little boost, but initial testing on the OG drive was quite nice, solid performance on Clair Obscur, Space Marine II and Enshrouded before I decided to open it up.

One thing I noticed in the GamersNexus tearsown was there are 2 screws holding the fan to the chassis that werent shown as removed but they were easy to take out. Moving to the 2280 style nvme was also easy, a hex can remove the screw for the 2230 ssd and the hole a bit further back it screws back in easy.

Overall 9 screws and about 10 mins to the swap, not quite as easy as a laptop or desktop but still incredibly easy provided you have the right t screw. Ifixit's kit has all of them. Machine goes brr!

I couldn't wait for Valve to release the CAD files for the Steam Machine, precisely to do this. Since the wood faceplate matched my living room's aesthetic perfectly, I wanted something that would emulate it as closely as possible.

So I decided to 3D print the various parts and then cover them with a wood-effect vinyl wrap.

The wonderful thing is that the geometry is already split into 2 pieces, which lent themselves perfectly to forming a sort of clamp on the wrap and preventing it from peeling off over time.

I made a few small modifications to the geometry of one of the two pieces to make it easier to print and to improve the grip on the wrap.

I stretched the film using a hot hairdryer to make sure there were no creases on the edges, and once it was clamped between the two pieces, I secured it with super glue.

I already had some magnets ready, and voilà.

My girlfriend says it's adorable, and honestly I'm really happy with the result too. Maybe I'll make more of these in the future (seasonal ones, perhaps).