Under The Hood – New Steam Machine Buyers Guide

There will be an ongoing Steam machine buyers guide located under the resources section of the top menu navigation of the site.  I will also place a small link in the featured workarounds article.  Over time I hope to keep this moving as hardware develops and changes.  The formatting is a bit rought right now, but I will tidy it up over time.

The Linux Cauldron Steam machine Buyer’s Guide

-mikeyd

Move Over Gas Guzzlers, Give Me Steam – A SteamOS Editorial

Over the past several months, and especially the past few weeks, my experiences in Steam on Linux have grown exponentially.  To cap this off, as well as give my opinion on Pros and Cons of the current Beta experience, I decided to write an editorial about my experiences thus far.  In no way am I an authoritative voice on the subject, but an avid Linux power user, as well as an I.T. Professional in my day to day work.  I hope you find this meaningful and insightful.  Once SteamOS moves out of Beta, a follow-up editorial will likely follow.

Video Reel – “Why XI3’s Piston Parted Ways With Valve”

An interesting perspective on what happend to the tiny Steam box that ran out of Gas

-mikeyd

Steam Arcade – “Dust: An Elysian Tail”

A shoddy review of “Dust: An Elysian Tale” 🙂

-mikeyd

Gallery: The 13 Steam Machines and all of their glorious variety | Ars Technica

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/01/gallery-the-13-steam-machines-and-all-of-their-glorious-variety/

Give AMD Some Love

I recently went through several methods to try out SteamOS.  When it came to video issues, some of my test hardware still exhibited the same issues. I found either AMD or Intel was quite acceptable for a CPU but Nvidia preferred  for the graphics card. Having recently acquired a low profile ATI 6670 (who would have thought those massive cards could shrink that small!), I decided to revisit my Steam gaming options apart my my more powerful desktop.

Linux Game Review: AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome

Yes, that is the real name of this game.  AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome, is literally one of the freshest games I have come across on Steam lately.  I was sceptical to hit the buy button, but with a current price of 4.49 USD for the Steam Holiday Sale, I couldn’t resist.  So, how did it stack up?  Read on for more

Featured – The SteamOS Beginners Guide

Gave Half Life 2 a try this morning on SteamOS, and wanted to give a quick nod to Valve for making HL2 playable with a gamepad (even if not recently with SteamOS).  But Mr. Gabe Newell!  Make The original games support it too!  Now, you can lambaste me all you want for “you should use a mouse and keyboard,” but I am getting quite used to sitting in the living room and gaming all “lounge like.”  Anyway…enough banter, here is what to expect when browsing for and installing games on SteamOS:

SteamOS – Turning On The FPS Counter For Metro Last Light

Here’s a quick tip for you playing Metro: Last Light under SteamOS, and you want to guage how many FPS you are getting by using these new fangled “video quality sliders.”  While I like the ease of adjusting the graphics, you won’t really get a feel for the effects under you can see the frames per second during gameplay.  Personally, even on an Nvidia GTX 560ti, I have moved the slider all the way up at times, and even with FPS as low as 17-24, have not noticed such horrible gameplay.  I think on SteamOS some of it can be subjective of course.  Anyway, if you are interested in seeing the FPS, there is a quick way to do this.  Read on for more.

SteamOS Troubleshooting – No Audio With HDMI or On Board

Thanks to a great fellow over at GitHub, I recently resolved some sound issues with SteamOS after I swapped graphics car.  Maybe these steps will help you as well.  This will be linked to the main SteamOS workarounds launch page.

Caution:  Please try this method at your own risk.  If you wish to be safe about this backup the pulse folders before removing them.  All steps below should be reversible.  If you remove the file configured below, restore the pulse folders.  and regenerate your initramfs, you should be back to the state you were in.  I have tested this for onboard Intel audio, as well as AMD/Nvidia HDMI output.  You may find the easiest method to be using Ye Olde SteamOSe, detailed at the bottom of this article.