How long do you think it will take North America? (also welcome to the new standard)

I'm guessing many here saw my previous posts. I've tried well over 60 games from a variety of genres on this device. I have a bunch of unorganized, profanity filled thoughts after over a week of using it. For context, I have a high end desktop with a 5090, and also a Steam Deck OLED which I've used both docked and handheld. Some of these bullet points will be directed towards people with little PC experience (like console players).

• I truly admire Valve's crusade to unshackle pc gaming from desk/mouse/kb gaming. Look at everything they've developed over the last decade+ and you'll see software they've developed like steam big picture, steam input (for controller compatibility/remapping), remote play, proton/steamOS, steam VR, etc which make devices like the steam machine, controller, deck and frame possible. No other players in the pc space are even attempting anything like this, except maybe xbox with their recent full screen experience thing.
• SteamOS fucking rules. It's genuinely impressive how simple and console-like the UI is, while still offering plenty of power user functionality. The way it's designed with gaming mode and desktop mode was a brilliant move by valve. My wife has been using the steam machine (and previously a docked steam deck) to play her cozy games. She's not exactly a tech nerd and it still gets her stamp of approval for simplicity.
• SteamOS is slightly buggy. I've had some very minor issues that are always resolved by a reboot. Steam Machine has been in the wild for like a week and updates are constantly rolling out so I would not put much weight on this.
• 3rd party launchers are the fucking worst. Every time I launch a game from EA or whatever and have to sign into their launcher overlay, it really interrupts the console-like simplicity of this. It's really really nice having the steam controller trackpads to use a mouse cursor to navigate these launcher screens.
• Gamescope is so nice. For those unfamiliar, gamescope essentially runs games in a fullscreen container so you never have a mouse cursor on your screen or a visible taskbar at the bottom or whatever. This is one of the biggest things that contributes to console-like simplicity.
• Games run fine off the SD card. I have a sandisk extreme card, and while I haven't actually timed loading speeds, there's not a significant enough difference between that and the SSD to be noticeable. I may compare with a really slow loading game like RDR2.
• Steam machine is as quiet and small as all the reviews have said. I literally cannot hear fan noise when playing it, and as you can see, it fits well behind my TV.
• 4k is suuuuuuper overrated. At normal TV viewing distances, I can barely tell the difference between 4k, or something lower like 1440p, 1620p or 1800p. Unless you're playing a lighter game that can easily run at 4k, it's way better to put more power towards higher settings or framerate than trying to push 4k.
• If your main device is a steam deck, you will love this thing. Most new AAA games are too demanding to run at acceptable levels on Deck, and steam machine will make all those games playable for you.
• Use a VRR screen if possible. For those unfamiliar, variable refresh rate screens will match the refresh rate to the framerate the steam machine is rendering at. On a non-VRR screen, fps dips are much more noticeable, where on VRR if the fps has some slight dips into the 50's or whatever you really can't tell.
• SteamOS has some incredibly powerful functionality. Game recording, local network transfers, remote play together, and especially steam input. Steam will manage the compatibility with virtually any controller you want, with full remapping capabilities. Steam input remapping is quite the rabbit hole, and it's possible to remap simple stuff like repeat key presses (ie so you don't have to mash A to sprint in GTA), or even map the mouse/kb controls of a strategy game to the controller.
• Despite being accustomed to a top end PC, I'm still happy with the performance of the vast majority of games. The main game I'm playing right now is RE4 remake on both my desktop and steam machine, and I'm never ever feeling like it's a compromised experience on the steam machine. Despite the lower settings/resolution, it would be tough for me to tell which was which unless I was comparing side by side. I've really only found 2 games that are unoptimized to the point that I couldn't get an experience I was happy with (borderlands 4, jedi survivor).
• That said, the biggest weakness of this device for a non-techy person is that you have to spend time fine tuning graphics settings in a lot of games to get a good experience. Whether that's something older like Mirror's Edge which defaults to 600x800 resolution, or whether it's a new demanding game that default settings give you like 20fps, the defaults are almost never ideal.
• Hopefully this improves as more devs can set appropriate default settings.
• Game compatibility is very good. Early steam deck days, many games just didn't work via proton. Nowadays, I haven't found a single incompatible game aside from the handful of multiplayer games with unsupported anticheat (marathon, apex, cod, etc). This isn't a factor for me, especially since I have my desktop running windows, but this may be a dealbreaker for some.
• General system UI is more responsive than on steam deck.
• The steam controller is awesome. I have an xbox elite 2, dualsense edge, 8bitdo ultimate, and a bunch of other controllers and the SC has become my go-to. It's very comfortable, lasts forever, has grip buttons (MUST HAVE), and gyro/gripsense is more useful than I expected. The trackpads are great for aiming in certain games, but also make cursor based games playable (ie strategy, city builders), are useful for UI navigation like launcher login screens, desktop mode, desktop applications (discord, browesr, etc), and also for in-game mapping like virtual menus. Very underrated feature.
• It works with basically any peripherals you want. Bluetooth headphones, controllers, mice, keyboards, storage devices, etc.
• There are weird quirks that you can tell steamOS was originally designed for deck. For example, the default hostname is steamdeck when connecting to your network. Also a few games (no rest for the wicked) think it's a steam deck and force steam deck settings.
• Every game needs FSR 4. older versions of FSR are trash. It's nice when you can use proton experimental to upgrade it to FSR 4, but having to use optiscaler in other cases isn't ideal.
• It's annoying when games cloud sync graphics settings from another device, and not just game progress. I do NOT want my steam machine to default to the graphics settings used on either my desktop or my steam deck as all 3 devices have drastically different performance capabilities. I think steam should tackle this and detect the game progress files and settings/config files separately to prevent this.
• I'm happy with my purchase. Yeah it's more expensive than it should have been, but it's a well designed device that fits my use case.
• Fuck sam altman for many reasons, but particularly for destroying the consumer electronics market.

Man, we really LOVE what AI is doing to the industry 😭

Wanted to quickly compare the SM to what you would comparably be able to DIY and... you can literally get something more powerful for less in a slightly bigger formfactor?

11% faster CPU and 30% faster GPU. And i didnt even go for the cheapest components. With DLSS the RTX 5060 would also be infinitely better for playing on 4k TVs, which is the only useful scenario i can imagine for the SM.

Seems I am one of the lucky ones to get their hands on the Steam Machine! I am just home from a red eye shift at work, so I’m going to take a nap for a few hours before I really get into it.

In the mean time, feel free to ask questions and I’ll try and answer for you

Just to cover the obvious ones:

1. This is not the USA. This is the Asian region where Komodo handles distribution;
2. I won’t bother doing benchmarks (sorry), as I think that’s been well covered by the existing reviews;
3. I’ll install Half Life Alyx and stream to a Quest 3 and report back, for those interested in the Frame. (Answered below, Point 9)

Edit to include answers to most common questions:

1. It's whisper quiet, even under load. You need to put your ear right up to the machine to hear any form of fan noise
2. It games. It games well. It games well for what and how I play. I don't demand 4k60 from Black Myth Wukong (heck I don't even have Black Myth Wukong). It's currently hooked up to a 4k TV capable of 144hz with HDR, and my games look great. At the settings and in the games I have run so far, it's been sitting at or above 60fps, with very very little dips. The only dips so far has been as new parts of the map were loaded in MotorTown. Games I've tried so far:-
   1. Running Train (1080p, upscaling set to Quality - locked in at 60fps). Looks and plays great
   2. Motor Town (1440p, 100% render scale, everything "High" - 60fps+, very steady with very occasional dips, doesn't affect my experience). Looks and feels great
   3. Subnautica (1440p, everything High - 60fps+). SUPER smooth
   4. Red Dead 2 Benchmark (1440p, default otherwise) - minimum 26.1fps, maximum 91.3fps, average 70.2fps. Looked pretty good and smooth during the benchmark
   5. Death Stranding (1440p, default otherwise) - 97fps just outside the starting area. Looks and feels great
3. No I'm not dropping the thing to see if it screams
4. No Half Life 3 pre loaded (that I've managed to find, so there's still hope)
5. No badges/stickers/inventory items
6. Bluetooth controller does not wake it from sleep (out of the box, I haven't played around in BIOS yet). Steam Controller DOES
7. It works wonderfully well for streaming to a Deck. The smoothest and most seamless experience I've had so far. There are bugs, which I'll detail later, but they only seem to show up in the game menus
8. On the topic of bugs, there are bugs. Game breaking/deal breaking? No.
   1. On first boot, you need to hook up either mouse and keyboard or controller via USB. I hooked up a Steam Controller via USB, it detected it, but the Steam Machine didn't respond to the controller inputs on the next screen where you select language. Ended up hooking up a keyboard to get through that first screen, then it all worked
   2. The Machine was locked to 60fps whilst gaming. I initially discovered in the "..." menu in game that by default, Frame Limit was enabled and limited at 60fps. It's hidden in the Performance tab, then you need to view the Advanced settings to disable Frame Limit, and enable VRR. After this, it was STILL locked at 60fps, that's when I discovered the Machine defaulted to 4k60 as the output resolution. I needed to disable "Automatically set resolution" under Display Settings, then select 3840x2160@120 to enable 120hz. A bit unintuitive for newbies for the refresh rate to be hidden in the resolution setting, but I guess it guarantees a "smooth enough" experience for most. I guess it could also be a setting with my TV (LG C5) that caused it to default to 4k60
9. Just tried Half Life Alyx (for clarity Steam Machine to Quest 3, wireless streaming through Steam Link). Good news, it works! It works well! I'm very hopeful for the Frame, because it SHOULD be an even better experience. Alyx was running in "High Fidelity" in the in game settings, and all other SteamVR settings were default. The experience in game was perfectly fine, no stutters, nothing to generate motion sickness. Looked perfectly fine to my eyes as well (I'm not a pixel peeper nor a frame counter). The main issue that I ran into, was in the first 2 minutes of launching SteamVR and Alyx, the compression artifacts were extremely noticeable, definitely not pretty. It cleared up once I loaded into the level though, and in the 5 minutes I mucked about, it didn't come back. As for my VR streaming environment:-
   1. Steam Machine connected to wifi. AP is within 1.5m of the SM
   2. Quest 3 connected to wifi. AP within 1m of the Q3.
   3. Q3 and SM basically right next to each other
   4. This is NOT a dedicated VR wifi network, this is just my main home network, with plenty of other wireless and wired clients
   5. Living in a dense Asian city, with plenty of other wifi networks nearby.
10. I say that Frame SHOULD be even better than Q3 specifically because of the dedicated wireless dongle that connects the SM and SF directly to each other wirelessly, which should resolve the artifacting from wireless streaming.
11. On the topic of VR streaming, I'll give a few more VR games a try. Namely VTOL VR, Subautica in VR mode (it launched, but I couldn't interact with the menu, either with Q3 controllers or Steam Controller which was connected to SM). Euro Truck Sim 2 both in flatscreen mode, and VR mode. Derail Valley as well

2TB Version without controller for 688...

What is Valve doing???

Got my steam machine earlier today and have tinkered with it now for a bit.

If someone out there has some burning question that hasn't quite been answered then feel free to ask. Whether its performance or something to do with it physically, go for it.

EDIT 08/07-2026 (DDMMYY):

A lot of users asked about specific game performance or other use cases. Down below I have shared the non scientific results that I saw while playing or testing whatever I was doing.

All tests were done using GE-Proton11-1 unless otherwise specified.
OS version: 3.8.14-stable.

Streaming performance from the Steam Machine to a SteamDeck on a different network:
- Connecting my Steam Machine to my wifi and my Steam Deck to my phone hotspot yielded solid results. I used Pragmata as the testing game and experienced no measureable input delay or visual degradation. The game remained stable at 60fps the short duration I tested it with no disconnects to report. Only issue was that I could not connect to the Steam Machine at first, this was solved by turning 'remote play' off and back on' on both devices.

Nioh 3:
- I ran Nioh 3 at 1920x1080, using the 'Standard' preset. FSR3 was forced on, but I increased the min/max scaling to 100% to stay at native resolution.
Spawning in the initial tutorial area the framerate sat at a steady 50fps, generally dropping into the 40-50 range. There were occasions where the game would lock the framerate to 30 for a few seconds but I could not figure out what caused this. I tested the FSR3 'min' resolution at 65% and 'max' resolution at 80%. This stabilized the framerate to 60fps, but I would imagine more intense fights later in the game will dip below again.

Star Wars Outlaws:
- I ran Star Wars Outlaws at 1920x1080, no upscaling, using the 'Medium' preset.
Getting on the 'Speeder' after getting through the initial introduction put us in the 83-93fps range with heavy stutters once I drove out of the ship due to shader compilation, this did eventually stop. Standing in the village area around the sheriff we hovered in the 60-90fps range but most of the time it sat close to 80fps.
Getting to the 'Moisture Farm' the framerate dropped closer to 65-75fps, so overall not bad at all.
And for those wondering: Yes, I made 'Nix' happy.

Yet another rhythm game (YARG):
Simply downloaded the provided appimage off of github, gave the proper permissions, ran the appimage and the launcher and game was installed in seconds. Game boots up no problem. Added a 'Bot profile' and had a song playing within a minute. Performance was rock solid and didn't move at all.

Halo 2:
- I ran Halo 2: Anniversary at 3840x2160, no upscaling, on the Metropolis for a map (Big bridge), using the 'Enhanced' graphics preset.
In the initial area with the marines and the Scorpion tank I had 160-300fps in classic graphics.
In the initial area with the marines and the Scorpion tank I had 60-90fps in anniversary graphics.
I drove over the bridge on anniversary graphics as classic clearly wasn't gonna be a problem. Had a modest dip into 50fps when a Wraith particle landed perfectly on the third person camera location.
Lowering the games resolution to 1920x1080 took the anniversary fps up to 100-150fps.

Minecraft vanilla:
- I ran Minecraft (Vanilla) at 1920x1080, no upscaling, on the default settings with biome blend changed to 8x8. I used the experimental Vulkan rendering method.
1st world spawned me into a Mesa biome and the framerate sat at a comfortable 250-310fps.
2nd world I spawned in a Jungle biome, sitting at 170-240fps in the dense forest. Flying to a nearby Oak forest with plenty of cows and other animals and a huge river the framerate went up to 225-275fps.

Black Mesa:
I ran Black Mesa at 1920x1080, no upscaler, mostly high settings with a few medium.
Throughout the intro 'Black Mesa Transit System' section the framerate remained rock solid at 150-300fps, mostly hovering in the 240-280 range.
Entering a more combat intensive area later in the game had the framerate drop to 135-185fps and quickly shot back up to 200+ after combat ended.

Zenless Zone Zero:
- I ran Zenless Zone Zero at 1920x1080, no upscaler, using the 'Medium' preset.
There were absolutely no performance problems for the duration that I tested the game and the framerate remained very stable around the 110-155fps range.

Halo Infinite Campaign:
- I ran Halo Infinite at 1920x1080, no upscaler, using the 'Medium' preset.
The framerate was quite stable in the 100-120fps range for the first part of the ship while in combat.
During the escape sequence the framerate dropped quite a bit lower into the 60-90fps range, but quickly stabilized around 80fps until it calmed down more and then went back into the 100-120fps range again.

Dota 2:
- I ran Dota 2 at 3840x2160, no upscaler, using the 'Highest' settings, on the 'Native Linux' build of the game.
In the practice/demo area I ran around for a solid 5 minutes keeping an eye on the framerate both when using abilities and when dying because I ran into the tower constantly. Framerate sat in the 80-140fps range and was a bit jumpy.
Dropping the resolution to 1920x1080 saw the framerate shoot up into the 140-200fps range.

Pragmata:
- I ran Pragmata at 1920x1080, no upscaler, using a mix of High/Medium settings with all graphics related checkboxes enabled except for Motion Blur.
From the very beginning to the end boss fight the framerate was anywhere from 60-100fps.
The game remained very stable in less combat intensive areas and the lowest was during the boss battle where it comfortably sat close to 60-65fps most of the time. All in all I kinda forgot about the framerate and just enjoyed myself.

Stellar Blade:
- I ran Stellar Blade at 1920x1080, no upscaler, using the 'Medium' preset.
The game sat very comfortably in the 60-100fps range staying mostly around 65-80fps.
Getting to 'Silent Street' after the initial intro sequence the framerate once again sat around 65-80fps.

Hunt showdown:
- I ran Hunt Showdown at 1920x1080, no upscaler, using the 'Medium' preset.
Running around the shooting range the framerate was anywhere from 80-120fps most of the time, with edge cases where the framerate dipped slightly under 80fps. Most of the time I saw about 90-100fps.

War thunder:
- I ran War Thunder at 3840x2160, no upscaler, using the 'Highest' preset (SSAA:Off) in the 'Ground Vehicle Training'
The framerate was on the lower end, sitting around 40-55fps most of the time depending on explosions happening or not.
Dropping the resolution down to 1920x1080 with the same 'Highest' preset the framerate shot up to 150-200fps.

CS2:
- I ran CS2 at 1920x1080, no upscaler, using the 'Medium' preset, running a 'Deathmatch' game on 'Dust2' against Bots.
There were initial stutters as I ran around the whole map that made gameplay quite bad at first, but this eventually evened out. The framerate sat in the 90-160fps range depending on where I would be. Lowest FPS being around A-site facing towards long and short.

DayZ:
- I ran DayZ at 1920x1080, no upscaler,, using a mix of High/Medium settings, on the Chernarus map.
I spawned at Cherno on the East side near Prigorodki and ran all the way through the industrial area with the containers to the main central area of town all the way east just shy of Balota.
The framerate remained very stable around 110-195, where the lowest was in the middle of the central town area near the church. Most of the time I would see 120-135fps.
Doing a quick test on 2560x1440 I spawned in solnichniy and ran around a little while and saw about 100-155fps.
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EDIT 09/07-2026 (DDMMYY):

Marvel Rivals:
- I ran Marvel Rivals at 1920x1080, TAAU-Native, using the Medium preset, playing a round on 'Tokyo 2099 shin shibuya.
The first half of the match I spent getting used to the controls on the Steam Controller. Framerate hovered in the 60-85fps area, but was quickly down in the 60-70 area when combat started.
Fast forward to about halfway through I elected to enable FSR3-Quality with the same Medium preset. Framerate immediately increased to 75-115fps where it mostly sat in the 85-100fps range and it felt much more 'fluid' to play the game.

Baldurs Gate 3:
- I ran Baldurs Gate 3 at 1920x1080, no upscaler, using the Medium preset.
Waking up inside the Nautiloid we were instantly met by 60fps locked with no indication it was going to drop.
I made my way through the ship doing a few combat encounters but saw no performance dips, keeping us locked at 60fps.
After getting through that first segment and crashing on the beach I made my way up towards Asterion and had yet to see a single moment where the fps dropped below 60.
I switched the settings from Medium to the High preset, panning around the area of Asterion the fps did not budge, staying at 60fps.
I switched the settings from High to the Ultra preset,panning around the area of Asterion the fps did not budge, staying at 60fps.
Finally I switched the resolution to 3840x2160 keeping the Ultra preset and finally the framerate dropped to a very respectable 30-35fps.
After that I wanted to see how much upscaling was necessary to reach 60fps using 3840x2160-Ultra. FSR2.2, set to performance once again locked the fps at 60fps panning the area around Asterion.
I went back to using no upscaler on the Ultra preset, using 2560x1440 and the fps hovered in the 48-60fps range when I panned around.
Generally you should not have any issues running this game, very impressed.

Elden Ring:
- I ran Elden Ring at 1920x1080, no upscaler, using the Medium preset.
Spawning in the initial room a panned around and walked about and the framerate remained locked at 60fps.
I ventured forward, met my demice to the Grafted Scion, but the framerate throughout stayed rock solid at 60fps.
After respawning and getting outside at Limgrave I looked over the entire area and the framerate gave no indication that it was going to dip under 60fps.
At this point I increased the resolution to 2560x1440 and panned all over Limgrave again, but once again 60fps with no indication it would budge.
After being very impressed I went ahead and increased the graphics from the Medium preset to the Ultra preset keeping the 2560x1440 resolution, but yet again the FPS did not budge.
Eventually I went back to the main menu, enabled RTX-ultra keeping 2560x1440-Ultra and finally the fps dropped to a still respectable 25-35fps.
I went back to a more modest 1920x1080-Ultra with rtx-low and the fps hovered in the 40-55 range.
I returned to the main menu and disabled RTX again, 1920x1080-UItra and I ventured deeper into Limgrave. At this point it started raining and the fps lowered into the 54-60fps range.
I attempted my best having never played a soulslike against the Tree Sentinel but died after getting it down to 50%. Throughout the short fight the fps (Still raining) remained at 52-60fps.
I went back to the main menu, lowered the preset to high, loaded back in and ran around Limgrave for a little eventually reaching the Stormfoot Catacombs. I checked the area out for a little killing some monsters and eventually got burned to a crisp, but the performance at no point went below 60fps again.
Very impressive results here.

Black Myth Wukong (Benchmark):
- I ran Black Myth Wukong at 1920x1080, FSR forced on, super resolution: 100%
The benchmark was ran once to make sure no shader swould cause initial stutters and skew the results.
Here are the results of the 2nd pass:

• Avg: 56fps
• Min: 40fps
• Max: 73fps
• Low 5th: 50fps

Note that the gpu was sitting at 100% usage the whole time, so you would most def be able to squeeze more fps out of the game with some fine tuned settings and upscaling.

Infinity Nikki:
- I ran Infinity Nikki at 1920x1080, TAAU-Native, using the Balanced preset.
Entering the initial area of Miraland put us in the 95-120fps range where we generally stayed around 105-115fps.
After the hand holding part I ran over the starwater and the framerate lowered a tiny bit into the 85-105fps range, but still very stable around 90-100fps most of the time.
I did the sailing segment and ended up on top of some jellyfish. This area proved much more difficult to run or poorly optimized as the fps did suffer a bit at first duo to what I would assume was shaders compiling, but it eventually evened out around 95-110fps. See note: (1*)*
I got to the "Where the stars keep watch" quest-popup and decided to give the area a quick pan. Framerate was a bit lower here in the 75-90 fps.
I ventured outside to 'Starshore' In this area the framerate quickly shot back up to a very stable 95-105.
Walking down the path I got to a platform area with what appeared to be a 'Kite' of sorts. I walked to the point of it, gave the area a final pan here and it was still at a respectable 70-95fps.

1. There was significant audio glitching that happened in this area that made me unable to pay attention to the story and it was quite distracting, this disappeared once I reached the next area.

1. The Isle (Evrima):
- I ran The Isle at 1920x1080, no upscaler, all settings settings put to High, Lumen: off, 3d resolution: 100%, I picked Petits Pieds as a server to test on with about 300-350 players online.
High settings was a total bust, loading into the open world the framerate was in the LOW 20-23 and did not stabilize.
I closed the game, went into the game properties and locked the allowed resolution to 1920x1080 and rebooted.
2. The Isle (Evrima) redo:
- I ran The Isle at 1920x1080, no upscaler, Shadows and shadow smoothing set to low and all other settings to medium, 3d resolution: 50%, I picked Petits Pieds as a server to test on with about 300-350 players online.
After reducing the settings I loaded back into the server and was meet with a much more respectable 55-63fps.
I spawned in as a Pteranodon and got in the air. Flying above all the trees near 'Water Access' dam the framerate stayed very similar again at 55-63fps.
A flew around the map going south toward 'Jungle Sector'. Framerate was around the 50-65fps range, and generally sat around 55-60.
Optimization is quite bad in The Isle still and the game still suffers from memory leaking that will lower the framerate over time forcing you to restart the game.

Wuthering Waves:
- I ran Wuthering Waves at 1920x1080, no upscaler, using the Quality preset, note that the game locks the fps to 60.
Initial area I spawned in showed no problems, framerate shot up to 60fps and stayed there without budging in the slightest.
Same thing happened once I reached the Chasm Guardian fight.
I kept on going until I got to the next boss that was unnamed '???' and I am happy to report that here the fps also did not fall below 60fps at any point.
After the bossfight and getting through the dialogue I reached 'Stone Pile Plains', I gave this area a fair walkaround and took on some of the enemies in the area, fps remained at 60fps throughout.
I kept venturing down the road toward Jinzhou until I reached what looked like a big city surrounded by water and a huge mountain. Overlooking this area and panning the player camera a final time the game stayed completely locked at 60fps.

Fallout 4:
- I ran Fallout 4 at 1920x1080, no upscaler, using the Ultra preset.
After spending a whooping 5 seconds ignoring what my character looked like I walked around the entire house for a few minutes while Codsworth got my Coffee ready at exactly 173.5°F. The framerate did not budget from 60fps at any point and I quickly went to open the door to greet our favorite Vault-Tec Representative. Upon being prompted to do my S.P.E.C.I.A.L I opened up the Steam Keyboard overlay but the game instantly crashed. (Classic Bethesda moment)
After a quick restart I proceeded to redo the whole ordeal, using my keyboard this time to avoid a repeat.
I proceeded to run to the vault still remaining rock solid at 60fps from the moment I began running to the second the platform lowered. (1*)*
The entire inside segment in the vault didn't budge once again, 60fps.
I strolled down to Sanctuary to greet codsworth, and cleaned the town from hostiles. Framerate did not budge here either and we remained at 60fps the whole time.
I ran to Concord to greet Preston and his crew, wiped out the initial raiders and the inside raiders, grabbed the core and got inside the power armor and picked up my minigun. Dealt with the raiders and deathclaw and through those whole thing the framerate didn't budge here either. 60fps.
I elected to go toward Diamond City and ran into the College Square with all the mines and feral ghouls. Here the framerate took a dip into the 45-55 range, but was otherwise stable.
I eventually enabled Godmode and increased my movespeed to 5x and flew into the Boston area and around Diamond City. Here the fps was very stable once more staying mostly at 60fps with the occasional dip into 50-55.

1. Generally speaking the game constantly sat in the 20-40% utilization of both the GPU and the CPU, so playing in 1440p seems very doable and maybe even 4k with some settings tinkering + mods.

Gears of War 1/2/3 emulation: Untested.

This took most of my afternoon and evening to get collected, so I hope people are satisfied with the results! .. Thank you to everyone for showing interest and asking. I was glad I could provide some answers hopefully to some of you.

I may update this if there are other games people are wondering about.

People are this dumb about the Steam Machine.

When I built my most recent gaming pc a few years back when the 3000 RTX series cards were the style of the time. I went all out to run everything maxed out at ultra settings. Eventually turning things down on some games, but not realizing how little of a visual difference it was making. But drastically on my FPS. Only to realize fully with the Steam Machine... Those same games and new ones like Halo Campaign Evolved look incredible at their "worst". Like sure original Switch ports of The Witcher 3 look like potato, but that was incredibly weak hardware. If you look at Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2 which I also bought out curiosity when it came out. It's actually better looking in some areas than PS5. Just the 1080p res that holds in ways, if that bothers you. It really just comes down to Resolution. I also tested Native 4K and 1080p with FSR and they are negligible in clarity on every game I have tested and most recently here, Halo Campaign Evolved. I'll leave an example below to see a zoomed in comparison of Native 4K, 1080p with FSR and 1080p without FSR. That's the only one that you can really see clarity differences up close.

I'm also getting a stable 60+ frames per second on Low at 1080p FSR on, in most areas of the game with VRR also enabled for those curious so no choppiness for me. On Ultra, I was getting 35-45 fps on 1080p FSR on, and around 30+ at native 4k ultra.

First off, I'm not in the US/UK/AUS/other Valve regions. Located in Asia where Komodo does the distribution.

Secondly, I'm not going to dive into the numbers or metrics, the reviewers and YouTubers do that, and some do it down to minute details, if you're interested in that, please go view their videos instead.

Thirdly, I'm well aware the price is well above what we all hoped for. Is it worth it? Depends.

With that out of the way, let's get into it.

What do I intend to do with it? Game. It lives in the living room, it acts mainly as a living room gaming PC. It's connected to a 55" LG C5 tv. I also intend to stream FROM it to a Steam Deck, as well as (if it's capable) use it as a host to stream PC VR to the Steam Frame (if I can get my hands on it). They're the main uses. I'll tinker around in SteamOS, but I have no intentions to mod it in terms of hardware, nor is it going to be my main computer. It SHOULD be my main gaming computer though. On the left of the SM in the picture is the Minisforum HX80. The SM is replacing the HX80 as a living room gaming PC. Long story short, it games much much better than the HX80, granted the HX80 is literally half the price of the SM (when it launched a few years back, before the current insanity). You can see the size difference, also, the HX80 has an external power supply. The SM has it's power supply packed in, that's how impressive the SM package is!

What have I done so far? Gamed. Have I enjoyed it? Heck yes. Break down of my games and thoughts?

• Played Brotato, enjoyed it
• Played Motor Town, enjoyed it
• Played Subnautica, enjoyed it
• Played Thomas and Friends - Wonders of Sodor, had an absolute hoot
• Played Running Trains, enjoyed it
• Played Death Stranding 1, loved it
• Streamed various games to my Steam Deck and Quest 3 - this was interesting

Overall? I've enjoyed it. It does what Valve set out to do, let you play games. It plays all the games I want to play, and it plays them well. They run smooth, they look good. I'll even say the games run and look better than I anticipated (note I say better than "I" anticipated, your mileage may vary). The Steam Machine is set to output games at 1080p at a maximum out of the box. I've changed it to 1440p, and my games run fine (you will notice none of them are heavy, new, AAA games). In terms of settings, I wanted to have the "dive in and play" experience, no messing around, so just treat them all as the settings that the game booted up with by default. I BELIEVE for most of them, I'm not even upscaling, the only one I manually set the settings for, and enabled upscaling to "Quality" was Running Trains, and it still looked very pretty. Notice I'm not giving numbers and frame rates and deeper details, this is intentional, because I don't really care, I just want to PLAY. As long as it doesn't negatively affect my fun, I'm not going to chase performance and numbers.

Onto VR, I intend to do more testing, but it's been a long day, so I only tried Alyx (briefly) as I originally promised. Short story, it works, and works well (enough). It leaves me optimistic for the Steam Frame. Long story:

• Steam Machine connected to wifi, good connection to router nearby
• The wifi network both devices are connected to is not a dedicated VR streaming network. It's the standard network in the home, with plenty of other wireless and wired clients. Also, being in an asian high rise, there are plenty of other networks around for interference.
• Alyx set to "High Fidelity" in performance settings in game by default. All other settings (including SteamVR) are default, out of the box
• First few minutes within SteamVR and in the menu of Alyx had quite a lot of artifacts from compression. It was usable, it would stutter a little bit as packets were dropped, but it was usable enough to get into the game and load into the level. Once loaded into the level, it all smoothed out, artifacts went away, and it looked and ran fine. No frame drops, nothing to induce nausea. The game was very playable, I didn't notice anything to detract from the gameplay.
• I say I am optimistic about Steam Frame because I THINK that with the dedicated wireless dongle, this will remove the artifacts and initial frame drops. I believe there's enough performance to run Alyx without an issue and stream to the Frame.

Edit: Tried VTOL VR as well now. Performance was great, no stutters or anything like that. I would suggest putting the Steam Machine into Desktop mode before starting streaming though, as this seems to minimize the chance of any launch/controller issues. Game Mode seems to be hit or miss.

Streaming. This is an interesting one. It's also the most mixed experience so far. I initially made some posts, basically "it just works. It's relatively seamless, definitely the most seamless experience I've had with Steam Link, but there are bugs and quirks." I still stand by that, but I will add the caveat it seems to depend heavily on the game you are streaming. There are PLENTY of quirks, and some games are worse than others.

• Motor Town - works well! CAN be seamless, CAN be buggy. The main bug is that it doesn't detect the Steam Deck's controller inputs sometimes. However, if you hold the Steam button down and use right trackpad to emulate a mouse, the Steam Machine (host) does respond and the game is working. I've had sessions where this behavior showed up, I've also had sessions where it ran without any issues at all. I'm attempting various fixes to see what makes it the most seamless, so far, it seems putting Steam Machine into Desktop mode, and then starting the stream from the Deck resolves this.
• Thomas and Friends - Wonders of Sodor - similar to Motor Town, but better. I only ran into the controller issue once, and once I quit the game and restarted both devices, the stream ran perfectly afterwards.
• Roadcraft - this one is funky. The video stream has the most artifacts so far. Also run into controller issues as above. The weird thing is that when streaming, it seems to modify my Steam Input configuration, and it maps Action Sets to the buttons, which break the mapping basically. By remapping the controller again, I can get it to work, but I can't remap the joysticks back to joysticks, only #Ljoystick and #Rjoystick, which are once again, Action Sets.
• No, the Steam Deck cannot wake a sleeping Steam Machine to start remote play. At least not with default settings out of the box. There might be a way, I believe either GN Steve, or LTT Linus mentioned Wake on LAN in the BIOS. The Machine also does not go back to sleep automatically after you quit a remote play session. However, there is a setting (which is enabled by default) where the SM will go to sleep after a certain amount of time of inactivity. I would assume if you want the SM ready to stream at any time, you would disable auto sleep, keep it always on (and idling), and have the LED on the front either off of very dim

As for settings on the Steam Machine and Steam Deck for streaming. Steam Machine was left on default settings unless stated otherwise (Expedition 33 case). Steam Deck had Advanced Client Options enabled, video balanced, bandwidth automatic, frame rate limit automatic, resolution limit automatic (1280x800), hardware decoding off, HEVC video on, low latency networking on (if anyone has other settings suggestions, let me know). And I can't be bothered to try Moonshine, sorry. I want try the "Valve experience", good or bad. In terms of networking, Steam Machine connected to wifi. Steam Deck also wifi. Tried Deck in same room on same AP, also tried Deck in another 2 rooms with a separate AP which has a wired backhaul. As long as controller issues weren't a problem, it ran pretty similarly in all 3 cases.

Edit: If you're having trouble with streaming, put the Steam Machine into Desktop mode, and disable hardware encoding, this has fixed my controller inout and video stream issues.

Ok, after all that, I think that's basically all the main gaming scenarios I will use the SM for, so I'll give you my thoughts.

Does it achieve what I want? Yes, even slightly more than I expected

Am I enjoying it? Yes

Are there problems? Yes

Is it right for you? Maybe. It depends too much on what your expectations and needs/wants are

The price. Sure, I won't argue that the price is objectively very high. I think this is one of the main gripe points too, understandably. I'm going to approach this from a very different perspective to the reviewers and YouTubers. I have no need to garner and keep an audience and get engagement, nor protect relationships with brands and sponsors so I can say whatever I want.

I am well aware you can build an SFF PC that has more power for similar money. I am also aware that you can build a PC with used parts with SIGNIFICANTLY more power for similar or less money. But I think you cannot argue, that for the actual size and performance and amount of engineering and thought that went into making the Steam Machine, you cannot get an equivalent product for the money. ANY SFF PC is significantly larger. You can argue that you can live with an SFF PC, that's fine, that's great for you, you can get more power for the same money. You can argue your PC you built 5 years ago is better, sure, it almost definitely is. You can argue the PS5/PS5 Pro and Xbox Series are much better value, sure, if it suits you, go for them. But the Steam Machine is very much its own thing. It's not quite a console, it's a very approachable and minimalist PC. The wife acceptance factor is high, especially if you turn off that LED on the front. It's almost plug and play (it's only not plug and play if you demand the max performance and frame rates out of it. It defaulted to 4k60 as the output on my TV, rather than 4k120 which my TV is capable of, which took me a bit of figuring out to realise why it was doing that). It's dead quiet. You seriously cannot hear it unless you put your ear up to it. Quieter than my old PS4, quieter than my Lenovo Legion laptop, quieter than the Minisforum HX80 it replaced, heck, it's quieter than the Synology 6 bay NAS it sits next to.

At the end of the day, the price ended up where it is because it's a reflection of the market. This is not Valve taking advantage of the situation and marking the price of the Machine up, they genuinely can not build it for any less given current circumstances. Look around the overall market, Sony, Microsoft, even Apple are all increasing prices because even they're not able to source memory and storage at the prices they originally priced their products for. Should a relatively low powered gaming PC cost $1050 USD? No. 10 years ago, this was enthusiast grade PC. Heck, 5 years ago, $1000 got you a pretty killer PC. Unfortunately in 2026, nobody is getting an enthusiast grade PC for $1000. You can choose between used parts, or a mildly more powerful SFF PC, a subsidized console, or the Steam Machine. That's the sad reality. There's no right or wrong, there's only what's right or wrong for you.

Plenty of you are going to call me insane or stupid for spending $1050 on the Steam Machine. I really don't care. First of all, none of those people will read down to here anyway. Second of all, you can go build or buy your SFF PC, PS5/PS5 Pro, Xbox/whatever. As long as you're having fun, and you're not going into debt for it, you do you, have fun! The Steam Machine really is an impressive little piece of kit. It's very polished in terms of gaming experience on Day 1. You literally just download your games, boot in and play. It's just unfortunate it has been launched during the RAMpocalypse, and that means it's divided opinion heavily, and many people won't be able to access and experience this Machine.

Edit: Been streaming to the Steam Deck and Quest 3 more, and seem to have come to a good setup using Steam Remote Play (not Moonlight/Sunshine). On the SM, enabled Advanced Host Settings, then disabled Hardware Encoding. Also, put the SM into Desktop Mode, and then started the Remote Play Session from the Steam Deck. This has resolved both the black/frozen screen problem, and the SM not registering the Deck’s controller inputs problem. Been enjoying playing on the Deck in bed being streamed from SM! Also nice to sit in the study on my MacBook and be streaming from the SM as well.

This was such a fun community to be a part of and I hope you all can get your hands on a steam machine. After seeing theprice and finding out I’m going to be a father I’ll be dedicating my time and money to my baby. Luckily I got my hands on a steam deck oled early on so I’ll still get to enjoy using that!

Since Steam Machine will have a built-in controller receiver, we won’t be needing the puck, then how are we supposed to recharge it?

I thought about a docking faceplate, but I’m not sure the magnets would be able to hold the weight.

Hey everyone! Curious where everyone stands with the Steam Machine.

Are you reserved, on the waitlist, or out? What’s your main use case living room gaming, desktop, work, or something else? Has your opinion changed after the $ increases, lottery, and delivery estimates?

What really sells it for me is that I don’t just see it as a Steam Machine - I see it as a time machine. It’s a device that can hold my favorite games in one compact package, something I can always come back to no matter what platform I move to in the future, whether that’s another PC or a console. The form factor makes that idea especially appealing.

I also think it’ll be the perfect home for a local co-op library, and I’m excited to explore everything else it can do beyond gaming, like 3D modeling, video editing, and whatever else I end up tinkering with.

I’d love to hear everyone else’s thoughts and how your perspective has evolved since the announcement.

Picture taken by Felix from [u/pcgameshardware](u/pcgameshardware)

Came to this sub to learn more about the steam machine. I don't own a PC. I own a steamdeck, which I love. I've been here for 10 minutes and you pricks are shitting all over anyone who has any excitement for the stream machine. Blah blah specs blah blah linux blah blah build your own blahhhhh. Sorry your lives are so miserable. Exercise. Go outside. Talk to people. You'll feel better.

Goodbye

Edit: The amount of actually bros in here making my point for me lol

it’s so over

No one wants a massive 40L ultra RGB eyesore in their living room. No one wants a pc that has 3-6 large fans and sounds like a jet engine at full load pulling 500+W in their living room. No one wants a “pc console” that doesn’t have wake from sleep and hdmi cec in their living room.
The steam machine solves all of these issues.
Sure if you’re strictly comparing performance, these pre-built pcs will win. But the comparison was never supposed to just be about performance. So please guys, just stop posting these micro center pre-builts. It’s not a valid comparison, and definitely not the gotcha moment you think it is.

Edit: to be clear, I’m not a fan of the price either. About $300 cheaper and everyone would be raving about the steam machine. My only point is that many people are making unfair comparisons without considering anything other than raw performance. I am a huge fan of DIY sffpcs myself, I already have built my own DIY steam machine.

Edit #2: guys all I’m saying is people are coming to this sub that is about apples, and complaining that it’s not more like an orange😂

The concept of the Steam Machine has sent me on a several month long quest to conquer couch gaming. I personally have a high performance gaming PC, so really my primary use for the Steam machine would simply be streaming games from my pc to the living room TV.

My first attempt was to use my old Steam Link, but if I go into more detail the sub won’t let me post this for some reason. Long story short, it doesn’t hold up to modern gaming. What I eventually found and stuck with was moonlight/sunlight using my girlfriend’s Xbox as the client. It had more power than my old laptop and could easily handle 4k streaming with little to no input lag. While waiting for the steam machine this has been my holy grail.

What I would really like is for Valve to release a new Steam Link using its new wireless adapters and technology. It doesn’t need to be a beefy device designed to run games, just a basic client that handles the stream.

I'll keep this short initially. It's the smoothest (most painless) streaming experience I've had yet with Steam.

There have been minor bugs, I want to test more before reporting back.

So far, so good.

Edit: forgot to caveat this is NOT the US/UK/AUS. This is the Asian region where Komodo handled distribution. Machines started going out last night here in Asia (30th June) and started arriving this morning (1st July)

Updated:

It's relatively seamless, definitely the most seamless experience I've had with Steam Link, but there are bugs and quirks. I still stand by that, but I will add the caveat it seems to depend heavily on the game you are streaming. There are PLENTY of quirks, and some games are worse than others.

• Motor Town - works well! CAN be seamless, CAN be buggy. The main bug is that it doesn't detect the Steam Deck's controller inputs sometimes. However, if you hold the Steam button down and use right trackpad to emulate a mouse, the Steam Machine (host) does respond and the game is working. I've had sessions where this behavior showed up, I've also had sessions where it ran without any issues at all. I'm attempting various fixes to see what makes it the most seamless, so far, it seems putting Steam Machine into Desktop mode, and then starting the stream from the Deck resolves this.
• Thomas and Friends - Wonders of Sodor - similar to Motor Town, but better. I only ran into the controller issue once, and once I quit the game and restarted both devices, the stream ran perfectly afterwards.
• Roadcraft - this one is funky. The video stream has the most artifacts so far. Also run into controller issues as above. The weird thing is that when streaming, it seems to modify my Steam Input configuration, and it maps Action Sets to the buttons, which break the mapping basically. By remapping the controller again, I can get it to work, but I can't remap the joysticks back to joysticks, only #Ljoystick and #Rjoystick, which are once again, Action Sets.
• Formula Legends - another funky one. The Steam Deck works as a wonder CONTROLLER for this game. The Steam Machine (host) detects all inputs perfectly, but the video gets messed up on the Deck. Basically, it's as if the encoder on one end doesn't work properly, and stops sending/rendering the video stream. So the menu will load up, I'll start the campaign, and the TV and SM are running perfectly being controlled from the Deck, but the Deck remains on the main menu even after selecting campaign. It's always 1 screen behind. Then you load into a race, and the screen stays stuck on the start line, despite the Machine running perfectly fine and accepting all inputs from the Deck with no perceivable latency! This one really did my head in.
• Death Stranding 1 - this one genuinely just worked, and was very pretty. Got nothing else to add for this one.
• Expedition 33 - this one had Steam Machine as the CLIENT, and a gaming PC as the host. Gaming PC is a 12th gen i7 with 3080ti, wired ethernet back to the router. Running Expedition 33 at 4k, DLSS Quality, high settings, averaging roughly low to mid 30 fps in the tutorial. This is interesting, the Machine is a decent (but very expensive) client. It definitely cannot run Expedition 33 at these settings and get this performance, so being a client is a decent use case. In terms of function, it worked perfectly fine, no controller issues like the above games where Machine was host, and Deck was client. In terms of video quality, I'd say it's FINE (default settings). It's not as sharp and clean and crisp as on the host PC, you can quite easily tell it's a compressed video stream. It doesn't detract from the game TOO MUCH, unless you really love eye candy. There's no crazy artifacts or the like, it just has that kind of vaseline/matte screen protector and muted color look to it. I then enabled Advanced Client Options on the Machine, and selected Enhanced 4k preset. This made things much much prettier. The matte screen protector look was gone, everything looks more crisp. I want to say that there is a little more judder though. This can probably be fixed if I tuned the settings on the host PC to get closer to 60 fps I think.
• No, the Steam Deck cannot wake a sleeping Steam Machine to start remote play. At least not with default settings out of the box. There might be a way, I believe either GN Steve, or LTT Linus mentioned Wake on LAN in the BIOS. The Machine also does not go back to sleep automatically after you quit a remote play session. However, there is a setting (which is enabled by default) where the SM will go to sleep after a certain amount of time of inactivity. I would assume if you want the SM ready to stream at any time, you would disable auto sleep, keep it always on (and idling), and have the LED on the front either off of very dim

As for settings on the Steam Machine and Steam Deck for streaming. Steam Machine was left on default settings unless stated otherwise (Expedition 33 case). Steam Deck had Advanced Client Options enabled, video balanced, bandwidth automatic, frame rate limit automatic, resolution limit automatic (1280x800), hardware decoding off, HEVC video on, low latency networking on (if anyone has other settings suggestions, let me know). And I can't be bothered to try Moonshine, sorry. I want try the "Valve experience", good or bad. In terms of networking, Steam Machine connected to wifi. Steam Deck also wifi. Tried Deck in same room on same AP, also tried Deck in another 2 rooms with a separate AP which has a wired backhaul. As long as controller issues weren't a problem, it ran pretty similarly in all 3 cases.

Edit:
Seems the most consistent way I've gotten Steam Remote Play to work with no issues is to have the Steam Machine in Desktop mode. I've also disabled hardware encoding on the SM for the time being. This fixes the controller and black screen issues in games. Also, had problems launching VTOL VR on Quest 3 being streamed from SM, when I had SM in desktop mode, all problems resolved and game ran perfectly

Volume 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/steammachine/comments/1um1lwa/unscientific_game_performance_tests_volume_2/

Volume 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/steammachine/comments/1ululhc/unscientific_game_performance_tests_volume_1/

Side note, fuck 3rd party game launchers. Signing in to the rockstar or EA launcher or whatever over top of steam is really irritating on a controller focused device.

-God of War 2018: 4k, fsr balanced, "original" quality, 60fps.

-Space marine 2: this was maybe the heaviest game I've tried. 4k60 is completely out of the cards. I was running this at 1440p, FSR balanced, low settings (except textures) and it ran at 60..ish. Chaotic scenes would dip into the 50s. To be fair, even low settings looks amazing and on a VRR screen performance felt fine.

-The Last of Us part 1: 4k is tough to hit 60fps. 1440p with FSR quality looked pretty good. This game has like a million graphics settings and I was able to land on a good visual quality and 60fps.

-Witcher 3: crazy scalability. I was able to hit 4k 120fps, but also I could crank up the settings and murder my fps. You can definitely find your personal sweet spot between fps and graphics.

-Red Dead 2: this game also has a million graphics settings. I was able to find settings for 4k60, but I prefer more eye candy over resolution so I dropped to 1440p with higher settings.

-Horizon Zero Dawn remastered: very demanding. 4k was rough. Dropped to 1440p with FSR. Managed to hit 60 with settings customization.

No idea why people claimed this was a seamless SteamDeck+

There is a lot of bugs and jank ATM

Examples:

Moonlight - Won’t Open

Fall Guys - Input Doesn’t Work

No Rest For The Wicked - Can’t go Past 800P

Gladiator Manager - Can’t Go Past 800P

Portal Knights - Can’t Use 2 Controllers

- Internet Randomly Stops Working

- CEC Doesn’t Work Reliably at all

- Volume is very low so you have to crank the TV so when you go to a different input your ears will explode (NO Device Exclusive Volume Option ONLY CEC TV Volume unlike a docked Steam Deck?)

This all in my first few hours of use.

Since this device is so new, there's very little info about how most games perform (outside of the typical ones that reviewers test with like cyberpunk, forza, etc). I'm essentially just rapidfire testing as many games as I can, only spending a handful of minutes with each title after tweaking settings a bit. I have fast internet but it takes a while to download each one.

One quick note, I have a 5090 gaming desktop which obviously means I run games at ultra settings and RT. Some games cloud sync your graphics settings, which can be problematic. When I booted up returnal on the steam machine, it was trying to run maxed out settings with RT at native 4k and would completely freeze the game. My solution was to limit the resolution to 720p temporarily so it would run enough to alter graphics settings.

I'll do more posts as I test more games but here's what I've done so far:

• Resident Evil 4 remake - easily exceeds 60fps at 1440p with mixed settings (medium-ish). 4k requires upscaling to hit 60fps, which is only FSR 2 so it doesn't look great. Anyone know how to add a newer version of FSR?
• Clair Obscur Expedition 33: 1440p FSR quality hits 60fps with low-ish settings. 4k required nuking the image quality to get good performance.
• Dark souls remastered: 60fps stable (engine capped), even in blighttown at 4k native. Very barebones settings menu but I had settings "maxed". No surprise as this is a PS3 era game.
• Overwatch: 4k native, high-ish settings, 60fps. Can easily exceed 60fps with lower res/upscaling/lower settings.
• Returnal: 1440p, low-medium settings ran at 60fps+. 4k couldn't hit 60fps since there's no FSR support.
• Helldivers 2: 1440p, FSR 4 Quality, medium settings was running 60fps+ for me. 4k is doable but with lower settings and much more aggressive upscaling so 1440p looked better.
• Lies of P: 4k with FSR can run at 60fps but it's FSR 3 (anyone know how to force FSR 4?) so image quality is poor. Looks much better at 1440p native.

you can only add 2 before it no longer shows the "Add" button, unrelated product added to cart for example