Steamboy - A PC portable gaming device

GeorgeHillier

GeorgeHillier

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steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
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Cant view the video but the write up does make it sound good! An actual proper portable gaming machine as opposed to some thing that is really only designed to stream games. Interesting stuff!

Although there are a few games which won't fit on it if its only got 32Gb storage ;)
 
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Wozza63

Biblical Poster
steaky360 said:
Cant view the video but the write up does make it sound good! An actual proper portable gaming machine as opposed to some thing that is really only designed to stream games. Interesting stuff!

Although there are a few games which won't fit on it if its only got 32Gb storage ;)
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Yeh the storage is a big problem, it would be a bigger problem than if it had GTX810M or something. Hopefully it would at least have a memory card slot and USB slots.

Although this would be designed more for indie games, which tend to take less than 1GB
 
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Wozza63

Biblical Poster
GeorgeHillier said:
I can't imagine a quad core cpu in such a small case.

But it sounds pretty cool :D
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Well they can get them into phones so why not this? The intel CPUs are getting better and better in terms of heat output so its possible.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that there will also be Steam's streaming software which works anywhere as long as your PC is on.
 
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GeorgeHillier

GeorgeHillier

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Wozza365 said:
Well they can get them into phones so why not this? The intel CPUs are getting better and better in terms of heat output so its possible.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that there will also be Steam's streaming software which works anywhere as long as your PC is on.
Click to expand...

Phone processors are different though, to run steam OS they'd need a mainstream laptop/desktop CPU like intel or AMD, An ARM or snapdragon chip won't work with windows or steam OS (at least I think that's correct).

Also, they could just use an msata SSD instead, surely? If it has a USB 3.0 slot then that would be good as you could put games on there instead :)
 
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Wozza63

Biblical Poster
GeorgeHillier said:
Phone processors are different though, to run steam OS they'd need a mainstream laptop/desktop CPU like intel or AMD, An ARM or snapdragon chip won't work with windows or steam OS (at least I think that's correct).

Also, they could just use an msata SSD instead, surely? If it has a USB 3.0 slot then that would be good as you could put games on there instead :)
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I know they are different but the latest intel CPUs especially the ultrabook ones are on par in terms of performance per watt and only use 1-2W like the ARM processors despite its x86 architecture

It probably will use a mSATA SSD and it may well be removable, if parts are removable and upgradeable that would make this even better!

Problem with USB storage is that it would be sticking out so it would be easy to snap off. A regular SD card may be better you can get them in 128GB atm and UHS-1 is able to use 2TB in SD cards (and MicroSD). As long as its a class 10 it should be ok, for example there is a sandisk one that can read at 90MB/s (that is benchmark not company quote) and for comparison a Scorpio black is 97MB/s read
 
GeorgeHillier

GeorgeHillier

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Wozza365 said:
I know they are different but the latest intel CPUs especially the ultrabook ones are on par in terms of performance per watt and only use 1-2W like the ARM processors despite its x86 architecture

It probably will use a mSATA SSD and it may well be removable, if parts are removable and upgradeable that would make this even better!

Problem with USB storage is that it would be sticking out so it would be easy to snap off. A regular SD card may be better you can get them in 128GB atm and UHS-1 is able to use 2TB in SD cards (and MicroSD). As long as its a class 10 it should be ok, for example there is a sandisk one that can read at 90MB/s (that is benchmark not company quote) and for comparison a Scorpio black is 97MB/s read
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Yeah, I guess they could incorporate something like apple and their charging on the mac books, where it's magnetic and pops out if it gets tugged on...

Or maybe have a USB port that goes into the casing slightly, so you can put in a memory stick without it poking out, if that makes sense?
 
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Wozza63

Biblical Poster
GeorgeHillier said:
Yeah, I guess they could incorporate something like apple and their charging on the mac books, where it's magnetic and pops out if it gets tugged on...

Or maybe have a USB port that goes into the casing slightly, so you can put in a memory stick without it poking out, if that makes sense?
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Maybe, but why bother with that when the benchmarks on SD cards show them to be on par with mobile HDDs? Although more expensive.

This 128GB SD card is £34.00 on Amazon and hits 80MB/s
http://www.storagereview.com/komputerbay_128gb_sdxc_600x_uhsi_review

In terms of charging I think wireless charging would be a nice addition. Looking at the video the centre part is thicker than the handles so could include a wireless charging coil on the bottom. QI wireless chargers can be had for less than £20.

It would be stupid to not have USB and possibly HDMI with this kind of device, it is technically a PC and many would want the ability to connect kb/mouse and their own files (pictures, videos, music etc)
 
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GeorgeHillier

GeorgeHillier

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Wozza365 said:
Maybe, but why bother with that when the benchmarks on SD cards show them to be on par with mobile HDDs? Although more expensive.

This 128GB SD card is £34.00 on Amazon and hits 80MB/s
http://www.storagereview.com/komputerbay_128gb_sdxc_600x_uhsi_review

In terms of charging I think wireless charging would be a nice addition. Looking at the video the centre part is thicker than the handles so could include a wireless charging coil on the bottom. QI wireless chargers can be had for less than £20.

It would be stupid to not have USB and possibly HDMI with this kind of device, it is technically a PC and many would want the ability to connect kb/mouse and their own files (pictures, videos, music etc)
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Why get a 128gb SD card when you can get a 1tb memory stick with 240MB/s read and 180MB/s write times :p http://www.amazon.co.uk/HyperX-Data...&keywords=usb+3.0+kingston+1tb#productDetails
 
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Wozza63

Biblical Poster
Price per GB:

USB: 700/1000 = 70p per GB
SD: 34/128 = 27p per GB

This is hardly the device where you are going to want top speeds. It's a device where you would just be happy to play your steam games on the go (currently no other way to do this other than streaming and not including laptop or large tablet)

and something like that is going to stick out the back of the device and at that point you might as well get an external HDD. SD card is completely hidden inside the device.
 
GeorgeHillier

GeorgeHillier

Prolific Poster
Wozza365 said:
Price per GB:

USB: 700/1000 = 70p per GB
SD: 34/128 = 27p per GB

This is hardly the device where you are going to want top speeds. It's a device where you would just be happy to play your steam games on the go (currently no other way to do this other than streaming and not including laptop or large tablet)

and something like that is going to stick out the back of the device and at that point you might as well get an external HDD. SD card is completely hidden inside the device.
Click to expand...

But it looks so good :p But to be honest I wouldn't want one, imagine if you lost than USB stick, it's worth as much as my laptop...
 
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Wozza63

Biblical Poster
GeorgeHillier said:
But it looks so good :p But to be honest I wouldn't want one, imagine if you lost than USB stick, it's worth as much as my laptop...
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Exactly, it would be worth as much as the device and would just hang off the side of the device, could be easily stolen or broken. SD card would be a much better idea. It could even offer 2 SD card slots so you can have 256GB + Internal, which is plenty for a decent library of games. My steam library is currently 926GB but most of those currently aren't compatible with Linux/SteamOS and most probably wouldn't run great on this device although that depends completely on the GPU used

EDIT: Also its linux! So performance is better as seen on this video

[video=youtube;2pdEftFFG_I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pdEftFFG_I[/video]
 
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