No? Not sure where you'd get that idea. The only games that aren't on Steam are the ones that have Origin exclusivity. And increasingly they have SteamOS (=Linux) compatibility, thanks to the Steam Boxes.
More like thanks to Valve. I have not see ANY indication that the Steam Machines marketed by Alienware or other vendors are selling well at all. Most of them are massively underpowered for some of the best games available on Steam for Linux.
Hey Leo, maybe I wasn't 100% accurate. Comparing games in Steam vs. Origin, I get the idea, but console gaming has moved into a whole new level already and they are the ones that are (relatively) more power-hungry in my assessment. The fact that console games have started diverging from PC games, and even when there is a PC version, the big title games are primarily being developed for consoles and then being (kind of) ported to PCs, was my point in evaluating SteamOS. In a world where 2 consoles will single-mindedly focus on driving hardware power and distribution plays with big studios, I am still thinking that Steam might end up representing primarily the distribution channel for indies to get into console business.
Both the PS4 and the XBone are PCs. They just run a fancy OS. It's still Intel and a standard GPU underneath.
There's no "porting" going on, not like in previous gen systems, which were Weird.
Console exclusives are exclusives because the console manufacturer paid for them to be so, and not because the hardware is special, because it just isn't.
Yes, Steam is great for indies, but that's completely irrelevant here.
I do enjoy my xbox one, but the author is right, the DRM checking which has a significant user interface bug and slow boots, slow loads make it much less fun than it should be. The interface bug is that it checks the drm with no reference to what is currently in the tray, asks if I own the disk and will only continue if I eject and reinsert the disk in that interaction. If I click continue because the disk is in there it won't load.
This is a case of lazy lazy ui design and management!
Also when I did rivals first in Forza 6 it gave me a target of 41min for Nurburgring!
For $699 you can build a Skylake based mini-ITX system that uses a real, PCI-Express 3.0 x16 video card (in the $225 price range for the video card alone) that will kick this thing's butt in every benchmark.
The Intel "gaming" NUC is $699 before you put in any RAM and an SSD, so its actual total build cost as a barebones is probably around $899.
The mini-ITX system will be slightly bigger, but also more robust in nearly every way.
Yes it's tiny and slim but it's effectively laptop grade CPU with onboard GPU in a single motherboard.
For $664.26 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/49cd8d you can buy an ITX motherboard, CPU, case, PSU and even a GPU. Needs memory and storage added, same as the NUC, after all it's the same price.
Of course because you are not restricted by the integrated parts if you were to spend another $150 then you can get a GTX 970 which is thrice as fast as a 750 Ti and in three weeks when the GTX 1070 lands at the same price as the GTX 970 that'll be four-five times as fast as the GPU in NUC.
For the NUC to be competitive, it would need to be $499 perhaps $549 and the external GPU box $150 tops. Now that'd be a very different ballgame -- at that point we would need to look at the significant size advantage and concede that the much smaller ITX cases are typically small run and tend to be more expensive so then the NUC+GPU box would give them a run for their money when space is at the absolute premium. At the current $699 and $499 prices it's hard to see their niche.
Here's an example for a real small, artisanal :) ITX case for when space is at an absolute premium: http://nfc-systems.com/shop/s4-mini-chassis You could buy this chassis, the necessary accessories as listed on the page, a GTX 960 GPU ITX card for the price of the NUC + Razer Core and end up with a single box barely bigger than the Razer Core still packing a much bigger punch. Here's a forum post http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/post-... mentioning a similar build (i5 6600 vs i7 6700 is the only diff, it might worth the savings actually).
The i7 is a bad fit IMHO. Yes, it has hyperthreading, but an i5-6600K is >$100 cheaper, still a quad-core and has way better single-thread performance. Should be a better choice for gaming, and even an i5-6500 might be an option. Either brings the entire price down to ~700 or leaves room for a GPU upgrade, a bigger SSD, ...
In the http://pcpartpicker.com/p/49cd8d list, are you sure the video card fits in there? It's a BIG video card. I have a 950 sitting here on my desk and I assume 960 is similar size, if not the same.
That case has max GPU dimensions max length 13", max height 5.88". That's the original PCI standard length so there is no video card or any PCI/PCIe card longer than 13".
Among the current video cards I believe the Asus GTX 980 Ti STRIX is the longest and even that's only 12" long and 5.5" high. Most video cards are 10.5" or less, even the TITAN X and most 980 Ti cards are only 10.5". You will have other problems: the 980 Ti has a 250W TDP and you probably need a liquid cooler in a case this small. (A few years back Asus had an even bigger card, the MARS II but even that would've fit if only for the length -- the reason it wouldn't fit is because it had a three slot cooling system! For very good reasons, it had 365W TDP.)
Please read the first sentence of original comment.
>For $699 you can build a Skylake based mini-ITX system that uses a real, PCI-Express 3.0 x16 video card (in the $225 price range for the video card alone) that will kick this thing's butt in every benchmark.
You're missing the biggest feature for a console gamer: not having to plan a full blown PC build and build it yourself. The whole point of consoles is to be able to plug it in and have it just work. While the NUC isn't quite that easy, it's much closer than what you're suggesting.
That said, I'm not sure what the NUC gets you over a steam machine. Couldn't Intel sell one with an SSD and RAM in it already and pre-install it with the steam OS?
These two statements from the article seem to argue against his point.
> The CPU and disk performance on offer here [in the latest NUC] are hilariously far beyond what's available on current consoles ... But most importantly, its GPU performance is on par with current consoles.
> Zero games are meaningfully CPU limited today
Why would I pay over $1000 for a game machine that is basically identical to current consoles in the most important aspect of hardware?
It'd have to be an external GPU though, and the harness alone looks like it's $500. That's likely to get cheaper with time, but even if it were free, an external GPU takes away the primary advantages of a NUC over a mini-ITX or micro-ATX PC, which would likely be much cheaper as well.
"Games aren't CPU limited" is a myth, and if you build your own PC instead of following Jeff Atwood's affiliate codes, you can easily put something together for half that price that absolutely smokes all the current gen consoles, has a 20+ year library, and is useful for work. And when you look at the most popular game genres in the west today, you basically have MOBAs (which aren't even playable on consoles) and FPS (which have, dare I say, the objectively superior input scheme on PC).
It used to be that you would have a PC for FPS, and a home console or three for all of the niche Japanese stuff. Then almost all of the niche Japanese devs packed up shop and started developing for handhelds, so you'd get a PC for FPS and a DS/3DS/PSP/Vita for the niche stuff. Now they're finally catching onto the fact that most of the "niche gamers" in the west are on Steam, and we've arrived at the bizarre reality that there are more interesting JRPGs being released on PC these days than on there are for PS4. The bizarre reality where I am literally more interested in the PS4 as a Netflix machine than as a gaming device.
> if you build your own PC instead of following Jeff Atwood's affiliate codes, you can easily put something together for half that price that absolutely smokes all the current gen consoles, has a 20+ year library, and is useful for work.
This was more or less my point. He's trying to shoehorn the NUC into a place where other options fit better.
Eh, it's gear he's actually using. Jeff has a massive audience, so if he's going to be advocating for tech he's researching and using then I have no problem with affiliate links. To suggest that's all these blog posts are for is really poor form.
For what it's worth this build and many previous builds are focused on HTPCs. Having a quiet, power efficient, and capable box is the aim. That is the theme. I personally don't see the value in this particular build, but this isn't trying to be an ultimate gaming rig. Just compareble to current gen consoles, with upgrade potential, while still being the quiet, small, power efficient HTPC box sitting under the TV.
He is placing a huge premium on the novelty of connecting a GPU over Thunderbolt3. I got the impression that the author was completely out of touch with the economics of the situation. When the article wrapped I thought he was completely nuts. Nearly 500 for a GPU CASE? PROBABLY less than 10% hit to performance due to Thunderbolt3?!
I also nearly took offense to this setup being presented as future-proof.
I'll admit it's pretty cool, but until there is a better GPU interconnect and a GPU case that doesn't alone cost more than a very good video card.. I'll stick with the mini-ITX build I'm planning.
The golden age of x86 gaming is past (or ahead of us).
We are in a bad valley right now. Modding is getting progressively harder - compare the fan made content for BGII vs MASS EFFECT. Local servers to play multiplayer too - we had them back in doom and starcraft, so there is no excuse from excluding them from new doom and starcraft II.
Save at anytime is long past gone - everything is checkpoints, or in the case of XCOM - even if allowed not "real".
There was more to PC gaming than 4K PC master race superiority (guilty of being proud member of said race myself).
Back in the day - you played the game, the ways you liked. Right now you play the game, the ways the developers like in the majority of big games - that is the console way.
As someone who has been gaming since the early 80's, I think we indeed are in a golden age of gaming. But the thing is that you (mostly) have to look at indie titles, not AAA titles.
Games like FTL, The Curious Expedition, Rocket League, Papers Please, Super Hexagon, Crypt of the Necrodancer, Chaos Reborn, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes... bring back the originality and the pure, unadulterated fun that we had gaming in the late 80s and early 90s, which had been mostly lost in the late 90s and in the full 00s decade, where everything seemed to be franchises and iteration on old formats.
Of course if you look at AAA games it's still mostly rehashes, grindfests and simplified remakes of classics, but I'd argue you're looking at the wrong place.
There is a problem with the indies (I have played a lot of the games on your list and more) - they rarely make the big money to graduate to big AAA houses and trendsetters so their production values remain low (and we have the travesty of retro pixelation on purpose, which is beyond me).
The only company that so far repeated the Bioware/Id story is CD Project RED - although I do have high hopes for Croteam, Klei and Flying Wild Hog making it big too.
An ecosystem in which we have only rough diamonds and polished turds is not healthy. I hope that we will get more polished gems soon.
In fact, the term "x86-64" came into existence as a term-of-art because "x64" technically refers to the Itanium ISA (Intel's first now-forgotten attempt at a 64-bit ISA), not the IA64 ISA (Intel's canonicalization of AMD's unofficial extension to IA32.)
Yeah, Itanium is IA-64. It's also dying but not forgotten: people who like RISC, reliability, security features, and high-speed all in one remember their vain attempt well. Are also reaping benefits of used HP Integrity and SGI Altix boxes on eBay selling cheaper than consoles. I'm eyeballing a few of those suckers myself. :)
If you really want a name, just call it "the architecture that Intel made in te 70ies, with a lot of weird stuff (like 20 bits addresses) and that Intel, itself, tried and failed to kill with Itanium."
The PC gaming treadmill is the worst. You're committing to throwing so much money to continue to be able to play the latest games at a consistent FPS.
At least developers are forced to fine tune games for a very specific platform when it comes to consoles. Sure, the PC can look better, but at least the console plays better most of the time.
Maybe that's exactly the reason why consoles are successful.
It provides an unified device, which lasts around 8 years, which permits to play recent titles, which is simple to setup up and which is comparatively cheap.
The PC I'm typing this message is a 9 years old thinkpad, and I would not attempt to play any "less than 5 years old games" on it.
Some people don't give to much of a shit about highly impressive graphics and just want to play the fucking game without checking the "minimal configuration required".
However if consoles tend to be like PCs (same or worst hardware, same or worst upgrade process, etc), they will just become meaningless.
That's assuming that you run games at maximum settings. My multiple-year-old GTX660Ti and 2600k runs "Just Cause 3" at higher settings, higher resolution and higher framerate than consoles. These days it's the same hardware architecture. The only difference is API overhead, which DX12/Vulkan will sort out as time goes on.
However, my build totally not competitive in the PC scene. I don't mind: it achieves 1080/60 at competent quality and that's all I care about.
In the next year I'll be replacing it outright only because of VR. I could have kept this build for at least another 2 years.
The treadmill only applies to those who want to run max settings all the time, matching console is as cheap as chips.
The PS4 Neo is coming out with upgraded specs (better RAM, CPU, and GPU), just like a PC. It will be required to play some titles in VR and others at higher quality. You're basically in the same boat OP is, except they had a choice about the lower end hardware they bought.
And they don't have to upgrade for all VR[1], just top end VR. The PSVR has lower specs than the Oculus Rift to compensate for the performance constraint of the platform, which already meets its limits in native gaming.
Besides the only games you can compare across platforms being developed with the lowest common denominator in mind, there are a multitude of tricks in play to homogenize the experiences between them, like dynamic resolution, level of detail, and depth of field. It's kind of like saying you're advantaged by avoiding the burden of ever needing to buy a 1440p 144Hz or 4k display and high end GPU because your games are all capped at 1080_60.
> This is old hat for PCs, but to release a new, faster model that is perfectly backwards compatible is almost unprecedented in the console world.
Nintendo has done this for years with their consoles. You can play Game Boy games on the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance (1989 -> 2001), Gamecube games on the Wii and Wii games on the Wii U. The same was true for Playstation 2 games in the first few versions of the Playstation 3.
There will definitely be games that require a Playstation Neo and will not run on the Playstation 4.
67 comments
[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 148 ms ] threadYou can browse the Steam store on the web: http://store.steampowered.com
More like thanks to Valve. I have not see ANY indication that the Steam Machines marketed by Alienware or other vendors are selling well at all. Most of them are massively underpowered for some of the best games available on Steam for Linux.
There's no "porting" going on, not like in previous gen systems, which were Weird.
Console exclusives are exclusives because the console manufacturer paid for them to be so, and not because the hardware is special, because it just isn't.
Yes, Steam is great for indies, but that's completely irrelevant here.
This is a case of lazy lazy ui design and management!
Also when I did rivals first in Forza 6 it gave me a target of 41min for Nurburgring!
The Intel "gaming" NUC is $699 before you put in any RAM and an SSD, so its actual total build cost as a barebones is probably around $899.
The mini-ITX system will be slightly bigger, but also more robust in nearly every way.
Yes it's tiny and slim but it's effectively laptop grade CPU with onboard GPU in a single motherboard.
Disclaimer: Last time I built my own computer was in 2004 or 2005, so I have no idea what to look for and what is considered powerful these days.
How much faster wil this be? Intel's own benchmarks show Iris Pro 580 to be between a 750 and a 750 Ti. The GTX 960 is about twice as fast as a 750 Ti. http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-960-vs-Nvidi...
CPU wise the difference is much smaller, I couldn't find a direct comparison but I found for the 6700HQ but that's just as good because the 6700HQ and the 6770HQ uses the same CPU http://ark.intel.com/compare/88967,93341 and then user benchmarks show the 6700 desktop a 20% performance benefit over the 6700HQ http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-6700-vs-I...
Of course because you are not restricted by the integrated parts if you were to spend another $150 then you can get a GTX 970 which is thrice as fast as a 750 Ti and in three weeks when the GTX 1070 lands at the same price as the GTX 970 that'll be four-five times as fast as the GPU in NUC.
For the NUC to be competitive, it would need to be $499 perhaps $549 and the external GPU box $150 tops. Now that'd be a very different ballgame -- at that point we would need to look at the significant size advantage and concede that the much smaller ITX cases are typically small run and tend to be more expensive so then the NUC+GPU box would give them a run for their money when space is at the absolute premium. At the current $699 and $499 prices it's hard to see their niche.
Here's an example for a real small, artisanal :) ITX case for when space is at an absolute premium: http://nfc-systems.com/shop/s4-mini-chassis You could buy this chassis, the necessary accessories as listed on the page, a GTX 960 GPU ITX card for the price of the NUC + Razer Core and end up with a single box barely bigger than the Razer Core still packing a much bigger punch. Here's a forum post http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/post-... mentioning a similar build (i5 6600 vs i7 6700 is the only diff, it might worth the savings actually).
Among the current video cards I believe the Asus GTX 980 Ti STRIX is the longest and even that's only 12" long and 5.5" high. Most video cards are 10.5" or less, even the TITAN X and most 980 Ti cards are only 10.5". You will have other problems: the 980 Ti has a 250W TDP and you probably need a liquid cooler in a case this small. (A few years back Asus had an even bigger card, the MARS II but even that would've fit if only for the length -- the reason it wouldn't fit is because it had a three slot cooling system! For very good reasons, it had 365W TDP.)
>For $699 you can build a Skylake based mini-ITX system that uses a real, PCI-Express 3.0 x16 video card (in the $225 price range for the video card alone) that will kick this thing's butt in every benchmark.
Why 2 SSDs? Is it really needed?
That said, I'm not sure what the NUC gets you over a steam machine. Couldn't Intel sell one with an SSD and RAM in it already and pre-install it with the steam OS?
> The CPU and disk performance on offer here [in the latest NUC] are hilariously far beyond what's available on current consoles ... But most importantly, its GPU performance is on par with current consoles.
> Zero games are meaningfully CPU limited today
Why would I pay over $1000 for a game machine that is basically identical to current consoles in the most important aspect of hardware?
Because you have access to thousands more games than on consoles? And you know, you can do about everything with it, not just gaming.
It used to be that you would have a PC for FPS, and a home console or three for all of the niche Japanese stuff. Then almost all of the niche Japanese devs packed up shop and started developing for handhelds, so you'd get a PC for FPS and a DS/3DS/PSP/Vita for the niche stuff. Now they're finally catching onto the fact that most of the "niche gamers" in the west are on Steam, and we've arrived at the bizarre reality that there are more interesting JRPGs being released on PC these days than on there are for PS4. The bizarre reality where I am literally more interested in the PS4 as a Netflix machine than as a gaming device.
This was more or less my point. He's trying to shoehorn the NUC into a place where other options fit better.
For what it's worth this build and many previous builds are focused on HTPCs. Having a quiet, power efficient, and capable box is the aim. That is the theme. I personally don't see the value in this particular build, but this isn't trying to be an ultimate gaming rig. Just compareble to current gen consoles, with upgrade potential, while still being the quiet, small, power efficient HTPC box sitting under the TV.
I also nearly took offense to this setup being presented as future-proof.
I'll admit it's pretty cool, but until there is a better GPU interconnect and a GPU case that doesn't alone cost more than a very good video card.. I'll stick with the mini-ITX build I'm planning.
We are in a bad valley right now. Modding is getting progressively harder - compare the fan made content for BGII vs MASS EFFECT. Local servers to play multiplayer too - we had them back in doom and starcraft, so there is no excuse from excluding them from new doom and starcraft II. Save at anytime is long past gone - everything is checkpoints, or in the case of XCOM - even if allowed not "real".
There was more to PC gaming than 4K PC master race superiority (guilty of being proud member of said race myself).
Back in the day - you played the game, the ways you liked. Right now you play the game, the ways the developers like in the majority of big games - that is the console way.
Basically after the Amiga died and before the Xbox360 came out (I would say off the top of my hat).
Tobold was a very minor character in The Lord of the Rings (better known as Old Toby), so it's not an entirely original nickname ;)
Games like FTL, The Curious Expedition, Rocket League, Papers Please, Super Hexagon, Crypt of the Necrodancer, Chaos Reborn, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes... bring back the originality and the pure, unadulterated fun that we had gaming in the late 80s and early 90s, which had been mostly lost in the late 90s and in the full 00s decade, where everything seemed to be franchises and iteration on old formats.
Of course if you look at AAA games it's still mostly rehashes, grindfests and simplified remakes of classics, but I'd argue you're looking at the wrong place.
The only company that so far repeated the Bioware/Id story is CD Project RED - although I do have high hopes for Croteam, Klei and Flying Wild Hog making it big too.
An ecosystem in which we have only rough diamonds and polished turds is not healthy. I hope that we will get more polished gems soon.
If you really want a name, just call it "the architecture that Intel made in te 70ies, with a lot of weird stuff (like 20 bits addresses) and that Intel, itself, tried and failed to kill with Itanium."
At least developers are forced to fine tune games for a very specific platform when it comes to consoles. Sure, the PC can look better, but at least the console plays better most of the time.
A decent build could last a console generation with a GPU upgrade in the middle.
Only if you make bad choices buying hardware, like the obsolete stuff that comes with consoles (even on release)
> console plays better most of the time
PCMasterRace plays real 1080@60 for over a decade
Enjoy your PS4K/Neo/neXt
It provides an unified device, which lasts around 8 years, which permits to play recent titles, which is simple to setup up and which is comparatively cheap.
The PC I'm typing this message is a 9 years old thinkpad, and I would not attempt to play any "less than 5 years old games" on it.
Some people don't give to much of a shit about highly impressive graphics and just want to play the fucking game without checking the "minimal configuration required".
However if consoles tend to be like PCs (same or worst hardware, same or worst upgrade process, etc), they will just become meaningless.
However, my build totally not competitive in the PC scene. I don't mind: it achieves 1080/60 at competent quality and that's all I care about.
In the next year I'll be replacing it outright only because of VR. I could have kept this build for at least another 2 years.
The treadmill only applies to those who want to run max settings all the time, matching console is as cheap as chips.
And they don't have to upgrade for all VR[1], just top end VR. The PSVR has lower specs than the Oculus Rift to compensate for the performance constraint of the platform, which already meets its limits in native gaming.
Besides the only games you can compare across platforms being developed with the lowest common denominator in mind, there are a multitude of tricks in play to homogenize the experiences between them, like dynamic resolution, level of detail, and depth of field. It's kind of like saying you're advantaged by avoiding the burden of ever needing to buy a 1440p 144Hz or 4k display and high end GPU because your games are all capped at 1080_60.
[1] http://www.wareable.com/headgear/the-best-ar-and-vr-headsets
Nintendo has done this for years with their consoles. You can play Game Boy games on the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance (1989 -> 2001), Gamecube games on the Wii and Wii games on the Wii U. The same was true for Playstation 2 games in the first few versions of the Playstation 3.
There will definitely be games that require a Playstation Neo and will not run on the Playstation 4.
According to leaks Sony doesn't allow that.
It's like he's arguing against PC gaming.