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NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2024 16:49:06 +0000
From: Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: Hey, my SteamLink still works
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2024 11:49:05 -0500
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On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 11:25:50 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

>On 22/11/2024 20:41, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> 
>> Do you remember Steam Link? Odds are, probably not. It was a
>> brief-lived hardware device released by Valve in the mid 2010s; a sort
>> of cheaper alternative to the even shorter-lived 'Steam Machine' PCs
>> that ran an early version of SteamOS. The latter devices weren't made
>> by Valve directly; they were a partner program between Valve and
>> various PC OEMs (Alienware, Falcon Northwest, etc). in an attempt to
>> jump-start gaming on Linux.
>> 
>> 
>>     [The whole escapade itself was a direct reaction to
>>      Microsoft releasing an app store on Windows 8, which
>>      threatened Steam's hegemony. Steam Machines were Valve
>>      saying, 'try to encroach on PC gaming, Microsoft, and
>>      we'll pull the whole market over to Linux, you just see
>>      if we don't.' When the Microsoft App store proved such
>>      a dismal flop, Valve felt safe in backing away.]
>> 
>> 
>> The SteamLink devices, though, were much simpler machines. With a slow
>> 1GHz ARM processor, it was intended as a full-fledged computer but as
>> a set-top box that would stream games from a PC in another room to the
>> big screen TV in the living room. All it really let you do was run
>> Steam and games, and it required you to have a fairly hefty gaming PC
>> somewhere else nearby. It's main advantage was it's cost; it sold for
>> $50. Assuming you already did own a solid gaming rig, it was an
>> inexpensive way to get your games to the living room without having to
>> move your whole PC (with all the associated wiring and noise) out of
>> the study.
>> 
>> Steam Link --and indeed, the whole Steam Machines concept-- never
>> really caught on amongst gamers. The Steam Machines themselves were
>> too expensive and too underpowered to justify themselves, and
>> SteamLink never really found a market. I guess people who owned PCs
>> beefy enough to run games and stream it over the local network either
>> weren't interested in playing on the couch, or had the dosh to just
>> buy a second dedicated computer for that purpose. Steam Machines
>> disappeared from the Steam storefront in 2018, and SteamLink was
>> discontinued shortly afterwards.
>> 
>> Not before I got my hands on one, though. In the trailing days of the
>> device, they could be picked up for $5 USD, and I grabbed one at that
>> price. I never really _did_ anything with it though; I had no need. My
>> PC was already hooked up to a big-screen TV. But it was just too good
>> a deal to not take advantage of.
>> 
>> I was impressed with the hardware --and the packaging!-- but after a
>> few months of it hanging off the back of the living room computer, I
>> packed it away and there it say, all but forgotten in the back of the
>> Closet Of Old Hardware. Until today when, on a whim, I got it back
>> out.
>> 
>> I honestly didn't expect it to work. It's been seven years since I
>> touched the thing, and I assumed that either the hardware would have
>> failed, or the back-end software (e.g., Steam) would no longer be
>> compatible. But no; I plugged the thing in and it cheerfully came to
>> life. A few updates later (the latest released just a few weeks ago!),
>> and it was ready to go.
>> 
>> I paired the device with one of my older PCs (an old i5 with a GeForce
>> 770 that I mainly keep around because it has hot-swappable drive bays
>> that makes it really useful for wiping/formatting old hard-drives) and
>> fired up "Alien Isolation". It ran a treat; except for the briefest
>> flash of the server's desktop when it first started, there was no
>> evidence that the game wasn't running in the same room. No compression
>> artifacts, no latency that I could tell. The little SteamLink device
>> didn't even get warm from the effort.
>> 
>> Which is to say, I'm _still_ impressed with the hardware. It's an
>> eminently capable little device.
>> 
>> With that said though, it became pretty obvious that -by the end of
>> the day- the thing was likely to end up back in its box in the closet
>> again. I just don't NEED it for what it does. If I ever really want to
>> play PC games regularly in the living room, I have the spare hardware
>> to just attach a proper PC. The fact that I'd have to keep a separate
>> PC running -probably all the time, on the off chance I'd want to
>> suddenly want to play- in the backroom doesn't endear me to the
>> SteamLink either. As much as I love the little device, it's an answer
>> to a problem I just don't have.
>> 
>> Still, props to Valve for still supporting the SteamLink six years
>> after they stopped selling it. I have to admit, I was surprised to see
>> it still working, and that simple joy made the effort of dusting off
>> the device worth it.
>> 
>
>I did think about getting one but found it hard to justify the price for 
>it and a Steam Controller. Saying that I did end up get the controller 
>when they were being flogged on the cheap to get rid of remaining stock. 
>I have used it a bit but then again it was only about £12 including p&p 
>so hard to complain.

Yeah, if I'd had to buy the thing at its release price --$50USD-- I'd
never have touched the thing. But $5 was too good a price for me NOT
to get it. And, honestly, I think I got my money's worth; sure, it
doesnt' get everyday use, but the experience of tinkering around with
it gave me a few hours of fun. Maybe one day I'll even have actual use
for it too! Or, barring that, I could just sell it (they're going for
$50 to $100 USD on Ebay for in-box models today; just think how much
I'll get for one in twenty years ;-)

I grabbed a Steam Controller too some years back (also at a fire-sale
price). I'm less sanguine about that one; I didn't care for the
touchpad feature, and generally don't like using gamepads anyway. It's
shoved away in an even darker corner of the closet. Anyway, most of
the time I use a gamepad it's for playing PS2 games on the emulator,
so I prefer to use a gamepad that has the appropriate symbols (X,O,
square, triangle) on the buttons