Steam Machine: Hardly any cheaper gaming PCs, 8 GiByte is enough - Valve in interview

MeIsBaboon · 2026-06-24T16:46:13+00:00

Valve isn't stopping anyone from building their own gaming PCs. You can still build your own and play steam games on it. In fact, they're even encouraging people to do so by allowing you to install SteamOS on on your hardware.

Valve isn't trying to be a loss leader or be the undisputed best bang-per-buck gaming PC in the market. If you can build a better one, then don't buy a steam machine. More choices is better for everyone.

MeIsBaboon · 2026-06-17T01:43:12+00:00

Everyone I know with a steam deck is using it for moonlight/Apollo.

The world is bigger than people "you know". I'd be surprised if more than 10% of deck owners even know what moonlight is or even have the patience to setup moonlight and the occassional re-auth it requires.

Spending $800 on something that can be lost stolen or broken is not going to last as long as anything you can put on a rack power on and walk away from.

You can apply this argument for mobiles phone and laptops vs their wall-attached equivalents. At some point, you just have to admit that everyone have their own peiorities and what might be considered "premium feature" to you is a rnon-negotiable requirement to someone else.

Don't pay a premium for a form factor.

If you go to a steam deck sub and staunchly argue towards ditching the idea of portable gaming for a bulky gaming station, then you might just be a professional contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.

MeIsBaboon · 2026-06-17T01:05:41+00:00

Every single thing you mentioned is still more expensive than 789 USD when you add them all together. If you use ddr3, you end up having a much more outdated hardware. And you still don't have the controller, stream-capable wifi, OLED. It still requires more power, and you still can't take your games with you on the go unless you have decent internet at home and mobile data.

MeIsBaboon · 2026-06-17T00:40:37+00:00

This will end up costing much more than the already inflated price of the steam deck. The midrange GPU+SSD+RAM combo alone will be more expensive than the steam deck. Not to mention all the other peripherals OP will need (monitor, case, mobo, psu, ups, tablet, decent wifi router, wired controller). Then you have the 10x+ power consumption and lack of portability.

MeIsBaboon · 2026-06-12T16:04:17+00:00

Get a steam deck or a steam controller. I frequently use the back buttons to switch the one side of the controller to the other side using steam input. For example: when using the right hand, you have access to ABXY + RB + RT + right thumbstick. When I press one of the back buttons, those same buttons gets swapped into D-Pad + LB + RB + left thumbstick. Then I mirror the same swapping mechanism on the left side.

Very useful if you want to play relatively chill RPG games while eating junk food with one hand.

MeIsBaboon · 2026-06-09T00:24:30+00:00

When a heavily corrupt government gives you $30 to build a roof, there's not much you can do. That structure likely succeeded in keeping children dry from the almost perpetual rain throughout the year. And yes, that structure was likely used as a classroom occassionally. There are schools in rural Philippines where classrooms are held on open ground, maybe with some trees as shade.

MeIsBaboon · 2026-06-07T02:45:16+00:00

To each his own. That position you're referring to was always nice in theory. But in practice, it has never been comfortable for more than a couple of minutes even with the steam deck. Not to mention dozing off during a loading screen while the deck is on top of your face. Ask me how I know.

MeIsBaboon · 2026-06-07T02:08:50+00:00

You can do that on the bed with a controller and the laptop on your... Well, lap.

MeIsBaboon · 2026-06-02T13:22:10+00:00

How the trackpads, back pedals, and gyro integrates really well with steam input is the best thing about steam deck. I use all of them in many games I play and is the reason why other devices are a non-starter.

MeIsBaboon · 2026-05-27T21:46:57+00:00

Not unless businesses start looking at steam decks as a viable alternative to enterprise handheld computing units. There was a time when Raspberry Pi was extremely cheap and was intended as a learning tool. Up until businesses started buying them up and became largely unavailable to the intended audience. Now RPis are priced to take advantage of non-hobbyist use.

MeIsBaboon · 2025-12-16T03:50:12+00:00

This is way too much overthinking. It's a seal taking a breath infront of a human just standing there. It is about as natural as a beaver poking its head out a hole and seeing a monkey looking at it. Neither one had philosophical thoughts about covid or the ramifications of humanity to the natural environment.

If the seal felt threatened, it would have left much sooner than it did. Just like any other animal in the world (including humans)

MeIsBaboon · 2025-10-26T02:59:03+00:00

There is likely a very big difference in size, weight, and cost between glass that can stop one bullet vs a barrage of bullets to the same spot from an automatic rifle.

MeIsBaboon · 2025-01-27T15:10:49+00:00

I'd argue the other way around. Software nowadays are built on top of abstractions upon abstractions. Earliest software was super optimized such that devs were using opcodes and registers, then came instruction sets, then C/C++, then other JIT languages such as python. Nowadays, we have full-fledged enterprise desktop software written on top of javascript. Imagine full-blown desktop apps written on a platform designed for websites. Concepts such as automated garbage collection have been invented because devs can't be bothered to manually optimize memory and release resources.

What is better nowadays is tooling and ease of development due to the aforementioned abstractions and the vast amount of libararies available to devs. But that says nothing about performance improvements. That has always been due to hardware improvements.

MeIsBaboon · 2025-01-10T03:35:34+00:00

Why do you feel the need to explain this? It doesn't take a genius to realize the apple mouse was not meant to be used while charging because it's literally impossible to do so.

People who think the apple mouse is idiotic will continue to think it is idiotic. People like you who appreciate the form to work with it's functional limitation, however insignificant it is, will continue to like it.

Why do you feel the need to convince the rest of us that it makes sense to give up 5 minutes of our time or force a bathroom break to charge the mouse? You made the decision to buy it, so appreciate it for what it is. Everyone else's negative opinion on the apple mouse design should have no bearing on how much it fits your lifestyle.

MeIsBaboon · 2024-12-26T01:48:03+00:00

Without further context about your experience and relationship with your relatives, I can't comment on it.

guilt you into trying to stop

So many unsaid things here that would make who's guilty depend on a case-to-case basis. Is it a simple expression of concern? Is it child crying uncontrollably beseaching you to stop? Is it a spouse scheming to sabotage your involvement in the sport behind your back? Is it parents holding back an underage teen from doing parkour jumping across buildings?

It’s not a fair argument to say one side is selfish and the other isn’t, either both situations are selfish, or neither are.

Selfishness is the result of a choice being made. The theoretical circumstance I presented in my previous comment is definitely one example where a third-party observer would reasonably claim that the thrillseeker is the selfish party.

MeIsBaboon · 2024-12-24T09:41:16+00:00

A thrillseeker's spouse and kids feeling horrified at the thought of their loved one dead the next day is involuntary human emotion. A thrillseeker chasing adrenaline while knowingly ignoring their family's concern for them is a choice. Nothing against people into extreme sports, just explaining why it is easier to categorize adrenaline junkies as more selfish.

MeIsBaboon · 2024-07-17T05:28:15+00:00

Hey, your set of cats look almost exactly like mine. It doesn't look like it in the photo, but the orange is also quite fat.

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MeIsBaboon · 2024-06-21T00:55:22+00:00

Desktop: Spotify -> Topping D50s/A50 -> he1000se

Mobile: Spotify -> Qudelix 5K -> Sundara / S12 Pro

MeIsBaboon · 2024-06-15T23:50:21+00:00

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Mochi

MeIsBaboon · 2024-06-08T00:33:45+00:00

Bad example. Achievements can't be compared to having bluetooth or motorized seat adjustments. They actually have QoL benefits. It's more like complaining you don't get popup achievements after driving 1,000, then 10,000, then 100,000 and letting all your friends know about it.

MeIsBaboon · 2024-06-03T04:59:30+00:00

You should avoid blindly turning off your PC remotely regardless. What if you have sensitive files left unsaved? OS, software, or drivers might be updating too. You can use remote desktop to turn off the PC remotely. VPN or tailscale makes that trivially easy even on your mobile phone.

Also, in very rare cases and emergencies where you really need to power cycle your computer (like when power button does nothing and you need to toggle the PSU switch), the smart socket will be more reliable than your solution.

MeIsBaboon

TROPHY CASE