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I have a BC-250 and it is so far in the opposite direction of what the Steam Machine is offering. It's weird to me they're being compared...
It's a fun DIY hobby project, but if I ever get the chance at a SM, I'll buy it because plug and play is valuable to me and this is the exact opposite of that.
I looked into this when the SM price tag was shown because it seemed like a much cheaper alternative for essentially the same power, but the effort to build one and the quirks it'll always have (like sleep mode) pushed me away from it.
Super cool to see as a hobby project, but they're wildly different things.
Yeah... having done similar research (and it was less the price and more the waitlist), there really isn't much that's comparable, despite what YouTube dudes and commenters will tell you. Their view of "the market" is months old. I put together multiple builds on NewEgg and even using an NVME I already have, I could really only match the price, and there was always at least one additional compromise.
Frankly, the whole exercise with the BC-250 and pricing out ITX builds has only convinced me that the SM is actually the product I want, and a much better "value proposition" than we'd all like to admit. I do enjoy the BC-250 and it's allowing me to play games I didn't want to or couldn't play on Steam Deck, but the downsides are real and effect every play session (waiting 90 seconds for boot-up, can't play my emulator because I followed some sketchy ass vibe-coded instructions from a YouTube video and broke something, noisy fan on moderately demanding titles, playing at desk vs. living room, etc.) I haven't turned it on in a week for many of these reasons.
i’d love to hear you elaborate on that! i have a SM and i’m about to put together a BC-250 build.
First thing is the power envelope and cooling requirements. The stock cooler is just so customized for server rack there aren't really any good no-compromise quiet and cool solutions.
Second is just a lot of software tweaking. While the community has done a lot of really impressive things... they're also vibe coding a lot of this stuff. It changes often and it's hard to tell what the code is doing.
Finally is the sleep mode: there is none. You either leave it on all the time (I've dealt with Bazzite crashing in this case), or you boot and shutdown every time. Also no power control via controller or HDMI-CEC. (Without serious hacking)
Don't get me wrong, it's been a fun side project while I languish on the infinite waitlist. If you have a 3D printer, it's a good opportunity to utilize that. But the end result, even if you go full AIO cooling + soldering ESP32 power control boards, you won't have that plug-and-play, set and forget SteamOS experience.
honestly you’re talking me into it.
right now the SM has an issue with sleep that randomly nerfs the performance very hard, so you’re best off just restarting every time. it’s also hard capped at 60fps as long as you’re in “game mode”.
like as a package it DOES just work, i can't deny that. it makes a great living room pc. but i’d be a lot more confident actually knowing and controlling specifically what my hardware is doing, even if that means it’s sloppy for now :/
Also, no video encoder/decoder which was what killed it for me.
I've read that, but haven't come across any issues with gaming ... is that strictly an issue if you want to also use it for media?
Yes, only a real issue if you want to watch or encode videos.
Definitely a valid use for a living room PC!
I really hope there will be an easy way to do the same with real PS5 in the future.
My friend has one. Way more capable than what i thought it would be. Basically just a normal pc.
I am aware, but the current restrictions make it not really feasible to use.
Has anybody done this with a PS4 and have results to share? I know it's possible, but I'm curious how feasible the PS4 is for a normal server workload. It seems like that could be a good way to repurpose last-gen gaming hardware that people will eventually be getting rid of in bulk.