Steam Machines work. Kinda.
I hooked it up to my TV in the living room, set it to boot directly into Steam Big Picture mode, marvelled at how few (20%-ish) titles in my Steam library were 100% controller enabled then set about playing some of them from the comfort of my sofa.
A Steam Machine, yesterday.
The big problem is UI scaling. A PC game running on a 1080p monitor with me sitting a couple of feet from the screen is different to the same one running on a 42" 1080p TV with me sitting 10 feet away. Text in Witcher 3 is unreadable even with my newly 20-20 eyeballs so I can either sit closer to the screen (which kinda defeats the objective) or lower the resolution of the game.
Which kinda defeats the objective.
Something designed with console play foremost, like Skyrim, is fine - That awful UI finally begins to make sense although you still need a mouse to get past the initial options screen if you're not running through SKSE, a mod that isn't really on the radar of the typical 'plug and play' user that Steam want to capture.
Basically we need a 'TV' button whereGerald fabulously transforms into Ciri fonts are embiggened with the native resolution staying the same.
I hooked it up to my TV in the living room, set it to boot directly into Steam Big Picture mode, marvelled at how few (20%-ish) titles in my Steam library were 100% controller enabled then set about playing some of them from the comfort of my sofa.
A Steam Machine, yesterday.
The big problem is UI scaling. A PC game running on a 1080p monitor with me sitting a couple of feet from the screen is different to the same one running on a 42" 1080p TV with me sitting 10 feet away. Text in Witcher 3 is unreadable even with my newly 20-20 eyeballs so I can either sit closer to the screen (which kinda defeats the objective) or lower the resolution of the game.
Which kinda defeats the objective.
Something designed with console play foremost, like Skyrim, is fine - That awful UI finally begins to make sense although you still need a mouse to get past the initial options screen if you're not running through SKSE, a mod that isn't really on the radar of the typical 'plug and play' user that Steam want to capture.
Basically we need a 'TV' button where
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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan
"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan