(note: sort of a follow-up to last entry: https://gbatemp.net/blogs/building-my-own-steam-machine-or-not.20290/
So...my steam machine arrived now a week ago. And because I'm a fan of it (and because it's fairly slow at work), let me share the experience...
THE UNBOXENING:
Inside the postal package is another carbon box with similar teasers as the steam deck. It's a nearly perfect cube that I didn't want to just rip open. I'm embarrased to admit, but I had to consult an unboxing video for to know how to unbox it (there's a strap on one of the bottom edges). Though confusing at first, the idea is rather nifty. The box opens and closes like a jewel case, and the machine and basic cables have exactly the right amount of space. Yes, it's bulky, but it's clearly aimed at ensuring the thing can travel. More so than perhaps any other hardware package I've ever bought, I'm keeping this.
Connecting the cube is a breeze. I wasn't sure from the video, but the electricity cable is fairly standard around here in Belgium as well (old printers or part of laptop adapters tend to use this kind). To the point that I've put spare electricity cables (as well as HDMI) next to my desk, television and (soon) spare television. I started on my desk, and plugged my USB-C docking station into it. As with other desktops, it drew the keyboard and mouse as well as audio and network, but not electricity nor external image. Not sure if more powerful docking stations would manage that, but it's fine.
After turning it on...I kind of got what I bargained for. That is: people praise it on its ease of use. But here I am, criticizing it exactly for that. When influencers describe this thing as a mix of a PC and a console, people presume it's somewhere in the middle. I, for one, want to argue that it's closer to the console side. The installation certainly is minimal: plug it in, turn it on, connect your account and Bob's your uncle. I won't lie: it does exactly that...with all caveats that entails. Name your computer? Nope (and I can confirm: the thing is called 'deck'). Set a location or keyboard? Not a chance (we use AZERTY in Belgium, btw). Set a root password? Nope! I can't even recall if it even asked for my wifi password because it's plugged into ethernet. Up to this point, it has all the caveats of a console, including semi-mandatory updating of the device, steam controller dongle and controller itself.
And I presume the next part isn't unknown for console users either: I downloaded the witcher 3 and tempest rising for a combined 100GB+ filesize...and that took way longer than my average file size (as an indie gamer, i'm used to waiting but a fraction of that time for things to be installed). But once I got playing, all potential things I could even try to criticize melted away. The steam machine was less than 10 cm away from my keyboard but completely silent, and after an hour of witcher 3 playtime the heat was also less than I would think (my switch 2 gets warmer on Mario Kart world, for comparison).
I bought my machine with a second steam controller, but it would take another week before I unpacked that one. But rest assured: my first controller gets plenty of playtime between the machine and the deck.
Wait...the deck? Yes...See, I had set up my (second) steam deck in a docking station on the television. Along with a good bunch of emulated and couch co-op games to play with my daughter. I plan to migrate most if not all of that to the machine, but for now I plan to have a steam deck AND a machine under my TV. (as well as a switch 2, by the way).
The wiiu I spent around 15-20 minutes to untangle and pack up completely to make room. We nearly ever used that one anymore, and I planned to port the one missing game through emulation. But this is after about a week or so.
EMULATION:
keep this in mind: I absolutely loved the wiiu in its day, and the ability to play without the TV was a worthy asset up until the deck came along. But I can't deny that nearly anything good is ported over to the switch...so I spent just one evening ensuring that the one unported gem worked perfectly: Yoshi's woolly world.
Despite witcher and tempest rising being graphically superior, wiiu emulation is where the machine starts to pay off. Yes, the deck's emulation of the wiiu isn't bad...but either the steam controller, the great framerates or both make the game so much more enjoyable than I have ever seen (EDIT: come to think of it: my desk also has a good audio setup).
While I thought cemu ran fine after installing emudeck, that...wasn't entirely true. Woolly world worked, but dr Luigi and pushmo world flat out didn't receive input. Presumably because they don't support the pro controller that is apparently the default. Some tinkering accidentally broke woolly world, but some more tinkering and some AI-help got it to finally work.
In detail (and IIRC):
1. ensure the latest cemu version is installed (let emudeck update manually...just because it installed it through there doesn't mean it's the latest)
2. open the cemu app on the desktop (I use native...no idea on proton)
3. open general input settings. Set the following for <gamepad - screen - gyro>... ???. Save that profile on that name.
4. rightclick a game that works WITHOUT pro gamepad, then click game settings, then controller
5. set the profile edited through 3.
6. repeat 4, 5 for other games
7. in theory, you shouldn't touch the settings of games that work with pro controller. The default is probably still <deck 2>
8. use emudeck to add the games to your steam library (if not done already)
9. go back to the steam interface
10. click the games WITHOUT pro gamepad support and go to "controllers". There, disable steam input.
(note: I'll check details if there's interest in this)
As said: this went back and forth for a bit. But I think I got my three games working the way I want now.
I also set up Eden, but with my switch 2 consisting almost exclusively out of switch 1 games I think I'll only try it out of curiosity (will games run better, and if so: to a degree that you even notice without a spyglass?). In other words: I have it set up correctly, but other than that, I have not messed with it.
Same with the wii: there are a few games I want to play, but thus far I've held it off because I don't want to know how pairing and connecting wiimotes works.
CUSTOMISATION:
And then there's customisation. I admit I was jealous of the larger models getting a wooden faceplate (which I only learned after getting in the reservation queueu). I certainly want one somewhere down the line, but I'm not sure which one yet.
And then it hit me: why not just try it out? I have a color printer at work, and it didn't take long to find the dimensions of the faceplate (12.6cm high, 15.6 cm wide). I googled a stupid piece of wood, reshaped it, printed, cut, and then taped it over the front faceplate. The result is nice. Much nicer than I anticipated, in fact.
...and of course I didn't feel like stopping when I got barely started. I printed another wooden plate, a few Escher-like images, that busy "cat"-faceplate I asked chatgpt to generate based on the side view and a Chell & companion cube image. My steam machine is hardly a couple weeks and it already has more modifications than my years-old steam deck. Or any other console or handheld I ever owned.
On the complete other end of the spectrum: turning off the LED was one of the first things I did. Perhaps because it's quite noticeable if it's on my desk and in plain view, perhaps because I just don't get the appeal of neon on computers. Took me some tries to figure out it required a restart to work. Now...I'm not saying it's bad...just that it's not my cup of tea.
DECK COMPARISONS:
I've blogged about my steam deck(s) a whole bunch. To me, the machine is a stronger, less mobile version of that. Somewhere during the pandemic I tried and gave up on getting one to work as a console. Not because it NEVER worked, but because the proccess was tedious and unreliable. Display throughput, controller woes, shoddy connection, loss of connection. It was great when it worked, but you couldn't comfortably presume it did work in that setup.
The best proof that valve was building a console was that the updates trickled down to the steam deck. Somewhere in the version updates were solutions to my frustration years ago. I could say "controllers are still shoddy"...but I should remind you that I've given my daughter a second-hand, dented wiiu pro controller. And it no longer LOSES connection, but only has trouble connecting (I have to turn bluetooth off and on again after resuming). Meanwhile, the steam controller has been the perfect compliment to that: reliable, quick to pair (that magnetic charger/pair device is a stroke of genius) and those trackpads make slower-paced mouse games genuinely fun to use. They're also better than joysticks for FPS and RTS games, but on that front a mouse is still the way to go.
Over the course of around 2 years, my daughter has grown from a frustrated 4-year old toddler into a little gamer with whom I co-op through Luigi's mansion 3, Woolly world and a few other games (we're currently plowing our way through untitled goose game). Also because I don't play stuff that's too violent or fast paced with her, a docked deck was absolutely fine so far.
...or was it? Games like Pode I was hesitant about, Lego city undercover works at 30FPS and lego voyagers...I'd say "doable". It's that "it's fine" mentality. The switch 2 has been ironically great for us because switch 1 games go cheap secondhand. Switch 1 emulation on the deck works if you don't count frames or heat, but it's different if you try to output BotW on a large screen.
On that front, the machine obviously wins out. But the portable factor is no small feat. And the price. It felt stupid to buy a second deck then, but with that price hike I'm almost hitting myself not buying a third one.
I'm not sending these portable guys to retirement either. Rather the contrary: all three have an SD-card slot, and I've heard that if you install a steam game to your sd-card, you can afterward just replug it to another device and it'll find everything instantly. But between all the tinkering (one of them has a tweaked but working version of rocksmith 2014, FFS!), I can't deny that things got a bit messy over the years. I just might install bazzite onto one of those. And less niche: inhouse streaming might also be quite valable. Apparently, through moonlight you can set up a stronger device (like the steam machine) to stream to a weaker device (say a deck...or maybe even a repurposed old desktop PC) with little issues. Will have to check on that later.
CLOSING THOUGHTS:
Can't get around the elephant in the room that the device cost a whole lot of money. And to be frank: I don't see why anyone who has an equally or stronger desktop PC should buy one. SteamOS ceratinly is great compared to windows, but you can already get that right now! Yes, it's a smaller form factor, but if streaming is really that good it only takes a small PC to stream to (those old HP G4's apparently go less than 100 bucks on the secondary market).
But...I don't. I've got a lot of PC's at home, but I can't glue several garbage PC's together into a single powerhouse. I've got two decks but (closed system switch 2 aside) nothing stronger. I want something small, powerful and I value ease of use. And connect to a Frame at some point down the line. The machine ticked all the boxes.
Does it has a disadvantage aside the money? To be honest, I couldn't care less about the max setting of some games. Upgradeability might be at some day, but not today (let's talk in 5 years or so).
Oh, it occasionally had the irritating thing where it booted up again a couple seconds after I set it to sleep (took me a few tries to realise that wasn't just me). That's apparently fixed in the latest patch.
So...no. For me, it's the perfect device.
So...my steam machine arrived now a week ago. And because I'm a fan of it (and because it's fairly slow at work), let me share the experience...
THE UNBOXENING:
Inside the postal package is another carbon box with similar teasers as the steam deck. It's a nearly perfect cube that I didn't want to just rip open. I'm embarrased to admit, but I had to consult an unboxing video for to know how to unbox it (there's a strap on one of the bottom edges). Though confusing at first, the idea is rather nifty. The box opens and closes like a jewel case, and the machine and basic cables have exactly the right amount of space. Yes, it's bulky, but it's clearly aimed at ensuring the thing can travel. More so than perhaps any other hardware package I've ever bought, I'm keeping this.
Connecting the cube is a breeze. I wasn't sure from the video, but the electricity cable is fairly standard around here in Belgium as well (old printers or part of laptop adapters tend to use this kind). To the point that I've put spare electricity cables (as well as HDMI) next to my desk, television and (soon) spare television. I started on my desk, and plugged my USB-C docking station into it. As with other desktops, it drew the keyboard and mouse as well as audio and network, but not electricity nor external image. Not sure if more powerful docking stations would manage that, but it's fine.
After turning it on...I kind of got what I bargained for. That is: people praise it on its ease of use. But here I am, criticizing it exactly for that. When influencers describe this thing as a mix of a PC and a console, people presume it's somewhere in the middle. I, for one, want to argue that it's closer to the console side. The installation certainly is minimal: plug it in, turn it on, connect your account and Bob's your uncle. I won't lie: it does exactly that...with all caveats that entails. Name your computer? Nope (and I can confirm: the thing is called 'deck'). Set a location or keyboard? Not a chance (we use AZERTY in Belgium, btw). Set a root password? Nope! I can't even recall if it even asked for my wifi password because it's plugged into ethernet. Up to this point, it has all the caveats of a console, including semi-mandatory updating of the device, steam controller dongle and controller itself.
And I presume the next part isn't unknown for console users either: I downloaded the witcher 3 and tempest rising for a combined 100GB+ filesize...and that took way longer than my average file size (as an indie gamer, i'm used to waiting but a fraction of that time for things to be installed). But once I got playing, all potential things I could even try to criticize melted away. The steam machine was less than 10 cm away from my keyboard but completely silent, and after an hour of witcher 3 playtime the heat was also less than I would think (my switch 2 gets warmer on Mario Kart world, for comparison).
I bought my machine with a second steam controller, but it would take another week before I unpacked that one. But rest assured: my first controller gets plenty of playtime between the machine and the deck.
Wait...the deck? Yes...See, I had set up my (second) steam deck in a docking station on the television. Along with a good bunch of emulated and couch co-op games to play with my daughter. I plan to migrate most if not all of that to the machine, but for now I plan to have a steam deck AND a machine under my TV. (as well as a switch 2, by the way).
The wiiu I spent around 15-20 minutes to untangle and pack up completely to make room. We nearly ever used that one anymore, and I planned to port the one missing game through emulation. But this is after about a week or so.
EMULATION:
keep this in mind: I absolutely loved the wiiu in its day, and the ability to play without the TV was a worthy asset up until the deck came along. But I can't deny that nearly anything good is ported over to the switch...so I spent just one evening ensuring that the one unported gem worked perfectly: Yoshi's woolly world.
Despite witcher and tempest rising being graphically superior, wiiu emulation is where the machine starts to pay off. Yes, the deck's emulation of the wiiu isn't bad...but either the steam controller, the great framerates or both make the game so much more enjoyable than I have ever seen (EDIT: come to think of it: my desk also has a good audio setup).
While I thought cemu ran fine after installing emudeck, that...wasn't entirely true. Woolly world worked, but dr Luigi and pushmo world flat out didn't receive input. Presumably because they don't support the pro controller that is apparently the default. Some tinkering accidentally broke woolly world, but some more tinkering and some AI-help got it to finally work.
In detail (and IIRC):
1. ensure the latest cemu version is installed (let emudeck update manually...just because it installed it through there doesn't mean it's the latest)
2. open the cemu app on the desktop (I use native...no idea on proton)
3. open general input settings. Set the following for <gamepad - screen - gyro>... ???. Save that profile on that name.
4. rightclick a game that works WITHOUT pro gamepad, then click game settings, then controller
5. set the profile edited through 3.
6. repeat 4, 5 for other games
7. in theory, you shouldn't touch the settings of games that work with pro controller. The default is probably still <deck 2>
8. use emudeck to add the games to your steam library (if not done already)
9. go back to the steam interface
10. click the games WITHOUT pro gamepad support and go to "controllers". There, disable steam input.
(note: I'll check details if there's interest in this)
As said: this went back and forth for a bit. But I think I got my three games working the way I want now.
I also set up Eden, but with my switch 2 consisting almost exclusively out of switch 1 games I think I'll only try it out of curiosity (will games run better, and if so: to a degree that you even notice without a spyglass?). In other words: I have it set up correctly, but other than that, I have not messed with it.
Same with the wii: there are a few games I want to play, but thus far I've held it off because I don't want to know how pairing and connecting wiimotes works.
CUSTOMISATION:
And then there's customisation. I admit I was jealous of the larger models getting a wooden faceplate (which I only learned after getting in the reservation queueu). I certainly want one somewhere down the line, but I'm not sure which one yet.
And then it hit me: why not just try it out? I have a color printer at work, and it didn't take long to find the dimensions of the faceplate (12.6cm high, 15.6 cm wide). I googled a stupid piece of wood, reshaped it, printed, cut, and then taped it over the front faceplate. The result is nice. Much nicer than I anticipated, in fact.
...and of course I didn't feel like stopping when I got barely started. I printed another wooden plate, a few Escher-like images, that busy "cat"-faceplate I asked chatgpt to generate based on the side view and a Chell & companion cube image. My steam machine is hardly a couple weeks and it already has more modifications than my years-old steam deck. Or any other console or handheld I ever owned.
On the complete other end of the spectrum: turning off the LED was one of the first things I did. Perhaps because it's quite noticeable if it's on my desk and in plain view, perhaps because I just don't get the appeal of neon on computers. Took me some tries to figure out it required a restart to work. Now...I'm not saying it's bad...just that it's not my cup of tea.
DECK COMPARISONS:
I've blogged about my steam deck(s) a whole bunch. To me, the machine is a stronger, less mobile version of that. Somewhere during the pandemic I tried and gave up on getting one to work as a console. Not because it NEVER worked, but because the proccess was tedious and unreliable. Display throughput, controller woes, shoddy connection, loss of connection. It was great when it worked, but you couldn't comfortably presume it did work in that setup.
The best proof that valve was building a console was that the updates trickled down to the steam deck. Somewhere in the version updates were solutions to my frustration years ago. I could say "controllers are still shoddy"...but I should remind you that I've given my daughter a second-hand, dented wiiu pro controller. And it no longer LOSES connection, but only has trouble connecting (I have to turn bluetooth off and on again after resuming). Meanwhile, the steam controller has been the perfect compliment to that: reliable, quick to pair (that magnetic charger/pair device is a stroke of genius) and those trackpads make slower-paced mouse games genuinely fun to use. They're also better than joysticks for FPS and RTS games, but on that front a mouse is still the way to go.
Over the course of around 2 years, my daughter has grown from a frustrated 4-year old toddler into a little gamer with whom I co-op through Luigi's mansion 3, Woolly world and a few other games (we're currently plowing our way through untitled goose game). Also because I don't play stuff that's too violent or fast paced with her, a docked deck was absolutely fine so far.
...or was it? Games like Pode I was hesitant about, Lego city undercover works at 30FPS and lego voyagers...I'd say "doable". It's that "it's fine" mentality. The switch 2 has been ironically great for us because switch 1 games go cheap secondhand. Switch 1 emulation on the deck works if you don't count frames or heat, but it's different if you try to output BotW on a large screen.
On that front, the machine obviously wins out. But the portable factor is no small feat. And the price. It felt stupid to buy a second deck then, but with that price hike I'm almost hitting myself not buying a third one.
I'm not sending these portable guys to retirement either. Rather the contrary: all three have an SD-card slot, and I've heard that if you install a steam game to your sd-card, you can afterward just replug it to another device and it'll find everything instantly. But between all the tinkering (one of them has a tweaked but working version of rocksmith 2014, FFS!), I can't deny that things got a bit messy over the years. I just might install bazzite onto one of those. And less niche: inhouse streaming might also be quite valable. Apparently, through moonlight you can set up a stronger device (like the steam machine) to stream to a weaker device (say a deck...or maybe even a repurposed old desktop PC) with little issues. Will have to check on that later.
CLOSING THOUGHTS:
Can't get around the elephant in the room that the device cost a whole lot of money. And to be frank: I don't see why anyone who has an equally or stronger desktop PC should buy one. SteamOS ceratinly is great compared to windows, but you can already get that right now! Yes, it's a smaller form factor, but if streaming is really that good it only takes a small PC to stream to (those old HP G4's apparently go less than 100 bucks on the secondary market).
But...I don't. I've got a lot of PC's at home, but I can't glue several garbage PC's together into a single powerhouse. I've got two decks but (closed system switch 2 aside) nothing stronger. I want something small, powerful and I value ease of use. And connect to a Frame at some point down the line. The machine ticked all the boxes.
Does it has a disadvantage aside the money? To be honest, I couldn't care less about the max setting of some games. Upgradeability might be at some day, but not today (let's talk in 5 years or so).
Oh, it occasionally had the irritating thing where it booted up again a couple seconds after I set it to sleep (took me a few tries to realise that wasn't just me). That's apparently fixed in the latest patch.
So...no. For me, it's the perfect device.
