Project Steamboy - The Portable Steam Machine

[VMM]

Except then all games would lose support since none of them would run on ARM...so it'd be absolutely stupid for them to do so. Not to mention there are turns of mobile processors and GPUs that would work in a mobile handheld.

EDIT: OK FINE FOXI I'LL STOP POSTING IN THIS THREAD. FUCK.

Once again ninja'd by Foxi, no offense, I laughed really hard

Even if you port SteamOS to ARM (which would be silly), the game executables are for x86/x86_64, so it's counter-productive - none of the games would work without porting and recompiling them for the ARM distribution. I can guarantee you that this will be mobile x86_64.

You still don't get my point.
Let's suppose it will use something like Intel Atom, which is an x86 CPU,
even them, it won't magically make you able to use better CPU or RAM than the smartphones used nowadays.
You are still limited to mobile CPU and RAM, that will never compete with PC ones.

 

[Foxi4]

You still don't get my point.
Let's suppose it will use something like Intel Atom, which is an x86 CPU,
even them, it won't magically make you able to use better CPU or RAM than the smartphones used nowadays.
You are still limited to mobile CPU and RAM, that will never compete with PC ones.

Intel Atom is a "PC" CPU, it's just not a terribly good one, hence my "modest" comment. Again, it's good for mobile, I was talking from a "Steam gaming" perspective. I'm not expecting the impossible, I know mobile platforms have their limitations. In fact, I think one of the quad-core Jaguars will do this thing nicely - it's more than sufficient for moderate gaming while still keeping the power consumption low. If it can provide a good gaming experience on the PS4/XBox One, it sure can in a portable Steambox, even with half the cores.

 

[jonthedit]

Steamboy...Valve

You do know this is not endorsed or even related to Valve?

 

[Foxi4]

You do know this is not endorsed or even related to Valve?

Yes, I do. It's slapped all over the video description, the article and the website I've linked. T'was a joke.

 

[VMM]

Intel Atom is a "PC" CPU, it's just not a terribly good one, hence my "modest" comment. Again, it's good for mobile, I was talking from a "Steam gaming" perspective. I'm not expecting the impossible, I know mobile platforms have their limitations. In fact, I think one of the quad-core Jaguars will do this thing nicely - it's more than sufficient for moderate gaming while still keeping the power consumption low. If it can provide a good gaming experience on the PS4/XBox One, it sure can in a portable Steambox, even with half the cores.

http://ark.intel.com/pt-br/products/family/70095/Intel-Atom-Processor-for-Smartphone-and-Tablet
You can't simply use a PC CPU on a mobile device.
These Atom CPUs are made especially for Smartphones and Tablets.
You're not going to get much better than this on a mobile.

 

[jonthedit]

Yes, I do. It's slapped all over the video description, the article and the website I've linked. T'was a joke.

No, it is not a joke. It is just not endorsed by Valve.

 

[Foxi4]

http://ark.intel.com/pt-br/products/family/70095/Intel-Atom-Processor-for-Smartphone-and-Tablet You can't simply use a PC CPU on a mobile device. These Atom CPUs are made especially for Smartphones and Tablets. You're not going to get much better than this on a mobile.

That's the CPU's classification, it doesn't change the fact that Atom's are used in ranges of low-powered Netbooks, still. I'm calling it a "PC" CPU because it's running "PC" operating systems like Windows or Linux... or SteamOS - the rest is a matter of nomenclature. You can absolutely get more power on mobile - think back to Project Fiona by Razer. That doesn't mean that this setup is bad, it's just "modest" for gaming purposes.

No, it is not a joke. It is just not endorsed by Valve.

Wow... uhm... Okay. We know that.

 

[VMM]

That's the CPU's classification, it doesn't change the fact that Atom's are used in ranges of low-powered Netbooks,

The atom processors that run on PCs do not run on smartphones/tablets and vice-versa.
They have some similarities and share that name, but that's it.

still. I'm calling it a "PC" CPU because it's running "PC" operating systems like Windows or Linux... or SteamOS - the rest is a matter of nomenclature.

I can use Ubuntu on smartphones, yet it doesn't change they're smartphones and not PCs

You can absolutely get more power on mobile - think back to Project Fiona by Razer. That doesn't mean that this setup is bad, it's just "modest" for gaming purposes.

Project Fiona is a PC gaming disguised as a tablet.
You will never get specs like that on a handheld smartphone sized, they simply won't fit

 

[Foxi4]

*Snip!*

They're the same family of chips, just with a different lithography and form-factor. Ubuntu for smartphones is a whole different distribution than desktop Ubuntu, they're two different systems. You're making the argument that Project Fiona was a gaming PC in tablet disguise and then you say that "the components wouldn't fit" when they literally have. Again, APU's are a good marriage of performance and horsepower, not to mention that the Steamboy (about which we're still talking, I hope) will be running the bog-standard version of SteamOS, and that's intended for desktops hence all the comparisons to PC's I'm throwing around. It won't be running some imaginary mobile revision of the OS, it won't be running any imaginary mobile versions of the games, it will be exactly the same as any other Steam Machine, just with less juice.

 

[VMM]

They're the same family of chips, just with a different lithography and form-factor.

I doesn't change what I said.
Try using one Atom CPU from Netbooks on a smartphone, can you? No you can't.

Ubuntu for smartphones is a whole different distribution than desktop Ubuntu, they're two different systems.

I'm talking about Ubuntu for Android, not Ubuntu Phone:

You're making the argument that Project Fiona was a gaming PC in tablet disguise and then you say that "the components wouldn't fit" when they literally have.
Again, APU's are a good marriage of performance and horsepower, not to mention that the Steamboy (about which we're still talking, I hope) will be running the bog-standard version of SteamOS, and that's intended for desktops hence all the comparisons to PC's I'm throwing around. It won't be running some imaginary mobile revision of the OS, it won't be running any imaginary mobile versions of the games, it will be exactly the same as any other Steam Machine, just with less juice.

Just less juice because you can't fit

Let's compare a bulky tablet with a smartphone sized handheld, totally right -not
You can't fit PC specs on a smartphone sized handheld, how many times do I have to say it.

 

[Foxi4]

*Snip!*

Again, not my point. I'm not expecting this to have as much juice as a heavy duty gaming PC rig, I'm merely saying that the resources provided are "modest, but sufficient" for PC gaming. The hardware is "PC-grade" for the simple reason that it runs PC software by design.

 

[VMM]

Again, not my point. I'm not expecting this to have as much juice as a heavy duty gaming PC rig, I'm merely saying that the resources provided are "modest, but sufficient" for PC gaming. The hardware is "PC-grade" for the simple reason that it runs PC software by design.

Android smartphones run PC software with Ubuntu for Android.
Running PC softwares doesn't make them PC-grade hardwares.

 

[Foxi4]

Android smartphones run PC software with Ubuntu for Android. Running PC softwares doesn't make them PC-grade hardwares.

Except Android phones are running PC software through a compatibility layer, which makes all the difference here. By extension a phone isn't a SNES just because it's running SNES games on an emulator. Anywho, it's a matter of nomenclature - to me, this is a "portable PC" just like a laptop is, it's just running a gaming-oriented OS.

 

[VMM]

Except Android phones are running PC software through a compatibility layer, which makes all the difference here. By extension a phone isn't a SNES just because it's running SNES games on an emulator. Anywho, it's a matter of nomenclature - to me, this is a "portable PC" just like a laptop is, it's just running a gaming-oriented OS.

No it's not, you're running Ubuntu directly from a partition where you actually installed it, you're not just emulating it.

 

[Foxi4]

No it's not, you're running Ubuntu directly from a partition where you actually installed it, you're not just emulating it.

Yeah, Ubuntu for *ARM*, not for your average desktop computer, and that makes all the difference in terms of software support. Anywho, let's not further divert the topic, alright? This is about the Steamboy, our personal classification of the hardware is irrelevant here.

 

[grossaffe]

No it's not, you're running Ubuntu directly from a partition where you actually installed it, you're not just emulating it.

Smartphones are built on ARM processors. Ubuntu has indeed been ported to the ARM architecture, but that alone will not make into your typical x86 PC, because despite having an OS that PCs can run, individual programs still need to be ported to ARM, as the x86 binaries will not run on it even if they work with Ubuntu on a PC.

 

[VMM]

Yeah, Ubuntu for *ARM*, not for your average desktop computer, and that makes all the difference in terms of software support. Anywho, let's not further divert the topic, alright? This is about the Steamboy, our personal classification of the hardware is irrelevant here.

Smartphones are built on ARM processors. Ubuntu has indeed been ported to the ARM architecture, but that alone will not make into your typical x86 PC, because despite having an OS that PCs can run, individual programs still need to be ported to ARM, as the x86 binaries will not run on it even if they work with Ubuntu on a PC.

You can run Ubuntu for Android on Razr-i, which uses Atom CPU, which is x86 architecture.

 

[Foxi4]

You can run Ubuntu for Android on Razr-i, which uses Atom CPU, which is x86 architecture.

*Slow clap* Fantastic, we've established that some mobile devices have x86 CPU's, now, back to the Steamboy, shall we? Calling it "PC-grade" hardware is a very broad generalization by which I meant that it's x86-64 and it's compatible with PC software that you'd normally play on a PC - I think we can move on from here back to the original subject now, we're beating this like a dead horse here. The Steamboy is very unlikely to be running on smartphone-grade components, it's supposed to support Steam games so it will require some juice - the mobile APU's known from laptop computers are a better match, even if it will be using one of the the low-powered, energy efficient models.

 

[VMM]

*Slow clap* Fantastic, we've established that some mobile devices have x86 CPU's, now, back to the Steamboy, shall we? Calling it "PC-grade" hardware is a very broad generalization by which I meant that it's x86-64 and it's compatible with PC software that you'd normally play on a PC - I think we can move on from here back to the original subject now, we're beating this like a dead horse here. The Steamboy is very unlikely to be running on smartphone-grade components, it's supposed to support Steam games so it will require some juice - the mobile APU's known from laptop computers are a better match, even if it will be using one of the the low-powered, energy efficient models.

Everything I posted so far was to prove why it will run on smartphone-grade components.
Why can't you understand it? You simply can't compare it to PC specs.

I can't see why you're so stubborn at this. I tought it was really obvious,
and if we look at the specs we can see it clearly, they are high-end specs for mobile devices.

 

[Foxi4]

Everything I posted so far was to prove why it will run on smartphone-grade components. Why can't you understand it? You simply can't compare it to PC specs. I can't see why you're so stubborn at this. I tought it was really obvious, and if we look at the specs we can see it clearly, they are high-end specs for mobile devices.

I'm not saying that it's going to run on i7 Extreme, I'm saying that it's likely to run on AMD's Jaguar which is an architecture known for low-powered PC solutions, it's unlikely to run on a low-powered smartphone-grade Atom because those do not have enough juice to play Steam games, the bare and essential purpose of the Steamboy being just that - playing Steam games. It will be "high end" for mobile devices, but not "high end" for gaming in general.