Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

[Posted June 26, 2015 by n8willis]

Valve has announced the first preview release of its forthcoming SteamOS update. The new release is based on Debian 8.1 with long-term support kernel 3.18; there are downloadable builds linked to in the announcement for both UEFI and legacy BIOS systems. There appear to be few user-visible differences between the new release and the current SteamOS so far, though; the announcement notes: "Although there are a lot of changes under the covers, the overall functionality and experience of brewmaster is the same as alchemist."

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Posted Jun 27, 2015 13:12 UTC (Sat) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link]

I pre-ordered one of the Steam Machines recently... I can't wait for October!

Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

Posted Jun 27, 2015 14:56 UTC (Sat) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

I followed the link, and... they are a bit vague on GPU details. Are there more detailed specs at some other site? I was not able to find them, but I haven't been following this at all.

Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

Posted Jun 27, 2015 15:11 UTC (Sat) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link]

There are actually a few different models with different specs... If you click through to the GameStop page, and select a specific model, there are more details about each... But, yeah, all of them just say "nVidia GeForce GTX GPU w/2GB GDDR5" for GPU; they may not want to get specific about a particular model, since they haven't yet decided which ones to use... I'm definitely going out on a limb and trusting they'll pick something decent by preordering, but I'm fairly sure I won't be disappointed... (I ordered the i5 model... Almost sprung for the i7, but couldn't quite talk myself into it...)

Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

Posted Jun 27, 2015 15:25 UTC (Sat) by ean5533 (guest, #69480) [Link]

Ars reports that:

All Alienware's configurations come with GTX 860M+ graphics cards.

I assume that "+" means that it'll be an 860M or better. Hopefully better, because an 860M is fairly unimpressive.

Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

Posted Jun 28, 2015 9:05 UTC (Sun) by ledow (guest, #11753) [Link]

It's not top-of-the-line but there's nothing wrong with it for the vast majority of Steam games, it has to be said.

I've just seen benchmarks etc. that say that:

"Crysis 3 compared at the high quality level with SMAA T2x anti-aliasing and v-sync on with two different rendering resolutions - 900p and 1080p. We'd recommend either 900p on high or 1080p on medium for sustained performance above 30fps on this game."

That's not at all bad for a consumer item at all. In general, that'll laugh at anything you might put on it, but maybe not run it on "Extreme" at stupendous resolutions. Which, for the money, is not at all a bad compromise.

Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

Posted Jun 29, 2015 4:52 UTC (Mon) by JdGordy (subscriber, #70103) [Link]

except, isnt the point of steam machines so you can run your windows box on full res in another room and stream it to your tv on the less-than-adequate GPU there?

Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

Posted Jun 29, 2015 6:47 UTC (Mon) by ledow (guest, #11753) [Link]

Not really, you can already do that with any number of devices.

The point of SteamOS is to be a console.

Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

Posted Jun 29, 2015 7:17 UTC (Mon) by fishface60 (subscriber, #88700) [Link]

No, that's the Steam Link gizmo. http://store.steampowered.com/hardware/

Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

Posted Jun 29, 2015 10:24 UTC (Mon) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link]

Yeah, you only need to do that if you want to play Windows games that haven't beeen ported to Linux/SteamOS yet... And, if that's all you care about, like others have said, there are much cheaper options than a full Steam Machine... I certainly have no plans to use it in that way (since I don't have a Windows box!)... I'm only interested in the 1000+ native Linux games on Steam, and I hope Valve keeps convincing people to port future games...

Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

Posted Jun 29, 2015 15:30 UTC (Mon) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

Out of curiosity - can this SteamOS run Sid Meier's Pirates, Civilization IV or Grand Theft Auto? Not that I'll have any time to play with games in the foreseeable future...

Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

Posted Jun 29, 2015 15:40 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]

None of those I'm afraid. You can find out if Linux/SteamOS is supported by seeing if it's listed as an option in the "system requirements" section of the game's Steam page.

Alternatively, you can look at the whole list of Linux-supported titles here: http://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=&sort_by=_... (currently 2348 results).

Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

Posted Jun 29, 2015 15:52 UTC (Mon) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link]

Yes on Civilization V, at least... But, not Civ IV, it appears... There's also something called Civilization Beyond Earth which definitely has a Linux/SteamOS version... It appears there's no Linux port of Pirates, though... And, sadly no on the GTAs either...

Here's all the Linux/SteamOS games if you want to browse...

Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

Posted Jun 28, 2015 17:37 UTC (Sun) by xorbe (guest, #3165) [Link]

Too bad it wasn't 965M.

Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

Posted Jun 29, 2015 15:01 UTC (Mon) by ean5533 (guest, #69480) [Link]

Self-reply: It's worth noting that the second (so far) Steam Machine partner, Syber, is offering a comparable range of products.

Their cheapest option is $50 more than Alienware's, but it includes a GTX 750 which scores significantly higher than the GTX 860M (insert standard disclaimer about 1-dimensional benchmarks being too simple to predict situational performance).

Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

Posted Jun 30, 2015 16:26 UTC (Tue) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> insert standard disclaimer about 1-dimensional benchmarks being too simple to predict situational performance

Or even model numbers being directly comparable. I've pretty much gotten to the point where GPU model numbers are just different names with no real meaning because I can't keep it straight (never mind ATI logic too).

Valve: Introducing SteamOS "brewmaster"

Posted Jun 29, 2015 16:35 UTC (Mon) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link]

Actually, I wonder now if Ars wasn't off a bit... I just checked out the specs on Alienware's Alpha machines, which are basically earlier versions of their Steam Machines running Windows instead of SteamOS... They say there of the GPU: "Based on NVIDIA’s newest ‘Maxwell’ architecture, with 2GB of GDDR5 memory at its disposal, the Alienware Alpha’s custom-built GPU ensures you get plenty of performance to crank up your settings on your big screen TV. In fact, the Alpha's NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPU outperforms the NVidia GeForce GTX 860M GPU." So, maybe that's what was implied by the "860M+"? It sounds like they're not going to use any standard model, but something custom built...