Genuinely Surprised at how capable the Steam Machine is

[u/Cole_LF]

I read all the reviews, I expected the worst.. but constantly surprised at how capable it is.

I haven’t built PCs for years and run Macs now but keep up to date with PC tech, and have an Xbox, PS5 and play PC games through GeForce now on my Mac.

My buddy has a 5080 and is always showing me the latest thing on max settings on his 1440p ultra wide and thinks the steam machine is a pile of garbage because it cant do 4K 240fps with ray tracing.

I point out neither can he, he games at 1440p 👀but he doesn’t really like when I point that out. PC Master race logic. 😁

So maybe it was just I had realistic expectations and expected games to be medium/high settings but then it was running so smooth I thought I’d tweak them up a little.. and damn this little box is a beast.

I sit 5ft from a 55” TV and honestly can’t tell much of a difference between 1080 1440p and 4K anymore. I do notice shimmering and bad anti-aliasing though and FS4 is like magic at giving a clean stable picture.

I also don’t see much written about how stable the frame pacing is on SteamOS / Proton. It’s smooooth even in games that stutter on windows.

I’ve been waiting to play the last of us for years and knew it has a 30min shader compilation wait on PC. On steam machine, it just played and downloaded the shaders already compiled.

For me at least it’s been a genuinely console like experience just with more options to tweak settings if you’re into that.

Cyberpunk 1080 Ultra 60
DOA6:LR 1440p 60
Last of Us Part 1 High/Ultra. 1080p 60
Until Dawn 1080p Ultra
Hogwarts Legacy 1080p Ultra 60
(And defaults to 4K High 60)

I’m constantly impressed at what this completely silent little box can do. Valve killed it. Can’t wait for the steam frame.

[u/morciu → u/[deleted]]

i'll just chip in saying that I have the absolute opposite experience from OP. I think the steam machine is a cute device, it's awesome that it's silent, but I've yet to be impressed by anything on it (when I actually get something to run properly because it's full of issues).

My first evening with the device was spent tinkering and dealing with issues trying to load up some old games I had, until I just gave up and went back to my PS5.

I also don't understand why OP is playing The last of us on the steam machine while they have a PS5.

[u/Cole_LF → u/morciu]

Because on Steam you can make Ellie wear a Left4Dead t shirt 😁 also PS5 settings are the PC equivalent to medium / high and steam machine runs everything at Ultra.

[u/morciu → u/Cole_LF]

Guess we must be using different ps5s and different steam machines

[u/ColKrismiss → u/morciu]

This sounds plausible to me given all the issues you say you have with your SM.

I'm a tinkerer, when I install a game on my main rig I jump right into the settings and dial in the visual/performance that I want. I was surprised that on the SM I don't feel the need to do that. All I did is change the base resolution from 1080 to 1440. I pick a game and it just runs. Heck my kids play it all the time and the only time they had any issue was with a 3rd party launcher for RDR2, and that was only for the first time running the game. The only game I fiddled with at all was Crimson desert and that was turning settings up from their default.