Steam Big Picture Mode Beta Out
JediYoshi
The Cupcake Boss Join Date: 2002-05-27 Member: 674Members
The Cupcake Boss Join Date: 2002-05-27 Member: 674Members
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<a href="http://store.steampowered.com/bigpicture/" target="_blank">http://store.steampowered.com/bigpicture/</a>
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<a href="http://store.steampowered.com/bigpicture/" target="_blank">http://store.steampowered.com/bigpicture/</a>
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Comments
Uh, yeah, you could always play Steam games on your TV, this is just a new UI to help you launch your games (and do everything else) with a controller.
...yes? You can play every Steam game through Steam. That is what Steam does.
You mean xbox controller emulators? The one I know of doesn't work, though since the gamepad they advertise on the bpm page is a logitech one, it's obviously just a matter of compatibility issues as opposed to them actively blocking it. The 360 controller is probably the intended controller though seeing as that's what most people use anyway and the guide button being used in conjunction with bringing up the overlay now.
Nothing's inherently broken with the resolution set up, they allow you to chose between 720 and 1080 and autodetects it fine to begin with. There is no monitor selection (though this only affects people with multi monitor setups anyway) options but people have already made batch files to auto set it up.
<!--quoteo(post=1975748:date=Sep 11 2012, 09:06 AM:name=ellnic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ellnic @ Sep 11 2012, 09:06 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1975748"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I ment like small indie games like the popcap games. Not like NS2 or CS:GO<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's literally just an alternate interface for Steam, functionally it's identical to just using Steam normally.
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I welcome this, maybe my score will stay consistently higher because an increased number will try game pads with PC games. That's some great thinking there Valve.
The only way I see this being fun is in single player or coop games.
Oh I thought your first post was being sarcastic. Sorry for the confusion
I welcome this, maybe my score will stay consistently higher because an increased number will try game pads with PC games. That's some great thinking there Valve.
The only way I see this being fun is in single player or coop games.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, with their attempting to get Linux into being a truly possible platform as far as gaming (native clients, native Source games) I'd say this is more of the second step. They're just perfecting the UI for a cheap, small 'console' made from off the shelf PC parts, running Linux and booting directly into the Steam interface. They've wanted to make the Steambox a reality for quite a while.
They seem super expensive. I saw a HDMI converter that uses an ethernet cable, but it's not compatible with DVI and I think the output from a modern graphics card is DVI?
But that's in the far future unfortunately.
But that's in the far future unfortunately.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is something I do want to see!!!
<a href="http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10231&cs_id=1023102&p_id=2753&seq=1&format=2" target="_blank">http://www.monoprice.com/products/product....=1&format=2</a>
It's under $30
Also, DVI->HDMI is sub-optimal as it doesn't allow you to set the HDMI-out as the audio destination, to get the signal to the TV or home theater setup. Looking at closer to $50 for a 30-foot HDMI cable, which are more expensive. I've been puzzling over this one myself for a little while.
I too thought that DVI -> HDMI didn't include sound but when I lived at my parents house I had a TV in my bedroom and a DVI -> HDMI cable made the TV output sound. I googled it and it seems modern day graphics card have onboard sound processors and DVI is almost identical to HDMI, so it can carry sound it just isn't officially supported. The HDMI port in my graphics card is a mini one, so I might look at a mini HDMI -> HDMI adapter and a 15m HDMI cable.
As for the controller, the Microsoft website says their wireless 360 controller for Windows gives range of up to 30m, and as my bedroom to living room is <i>almost</i> line of sight, I'm very tempted to try this out...
If I was personally going that route, I'd just get a powered Cat5e bridging link instead. It'd likely be cheaper than the super-long HDMI cable alone. And the X360 controller (or a PS3 controller with a bluetooth dongle and MotionJoy) will very likely work over the distances involved. (Want to test? Take your 360 controller across the house, and see if you can still turn on your xbox at what kind of range.)
Degredation in a digital signal?
--Scythe--
Yes, signal degradation affects digital transport as well. I didn't say /image/ degradation. Though any internal deblocking and applying streaming compressed video to a frozen image can screw the image quality pretty severely; people with cable likely have seen at least one incident of a frozen picture of the screen being manipulated after a scene change, so you can see someone's face talking, but 'skinned' with the last frame of the commercial that was just on. That's because a packet or ten were dropped between your cable box and the concentrator (or your dish missed some of the data stream), so it never received the next 'sync' frame (though that's through the coaxial network and not an HDMI cable, only listed as an example of digital signal degradation that many are likely familiar with). It clears itself up when the next sync frame comes through.
Longer cables also increase the chance of intermittent RF interference with the signal, causing faster degradation if the cable isn't shielded properly or has a break in the shielding along its length.
Short version; long HDMI cables = tend toward flaky and bad, even though they do make them, and charge through the nose. Get a signal amp at least, or just use a signal bridge. It's what they were designed for.