The All New Gabriel Newell's Digital Wonder Emporium, aka, The Steam Update Thread

They said they were going to do applications on steam on the 5th. I don't think anyone takes a date valve mentions as anything more than a vague suggestion.

Man, that ad was so Apple inspired but pretty awesome. I wish I had a separate HTPC to actually do this.

I like the text input tool (Daisywheel. bwah?) I saw. Use the analog stick to select something on the radial wheel and each of the 4 face buttons equal something different for each of those selections. I wonder how well that'll work in practice.

So this requires a second PC connected to your TV through HDMI, correct?
This second PC would need to be powerful enough to play the games you want on your TV? No "streaming" from your original PC?

I'll have to see if getting a second PC, or moving my current rig out of my man-cave makes sense.

Scratched wrote:

http://steampowered.com/bigpicture/ (currently 404)

Not 404'ing now. I'm guessing a new client update out today?

"A web browser for the TV that doesn't suck" did make me s{racist slur}

As the setup page specifically calls out the Logitech F710 and XBox 360 Wireless controllers, I'm wondering if the UI is driving by XInput instead of DirectInput. That might be a problem for me :\

DanB wrote:

"A web browser for the TV that doesn't suck" did make me s{racist slur}

They also did a great job of mimicing the XBox dashboard without all the ads.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

I like the text input tool (Daisywheel. bwah?) I saw. Use the analog stick to select something on the radial wheel and each of the 4 face buttons equal something different for each of those selections. I wonder how well that'll work in practice.

Yeah, that seems like a really good way to do controller text input.

Hobbes2099 wrote:

So this requires a second PC connected to your TV through HDMI, correct?
This second PC would need to be powerful enough to play the games you want on your TV? No "streaming" from your original PC?

I'll have to see if getting a second PC, or moving my current rig out of my man-cave makes sense.

Like the guys on the CC mentioned a month or 2 ago, Monoprice has some great long cables (with extenders) for cheap. I think I could get HDMI, ethernet, and usb to my tv for less than $100 including stuff like wall plates.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:

I like the text input tool (Daisywheel. bwah?) I saw. Use the analog stick to select something on the radial wheel and each of the 4 face buttons equal something different for each of those selections. I wonder how well that'll work in practice.

Yeah, that seems like a really good way to do controller text input.

Truth. The PS3 text input is THE WORST.

My laptop isn't too beefy, so I'm going to have to seriously think about getting a long HDMI cable for this. I could probably make a 50 ft cable work. I already have a wireless 360 controller.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

My laptop isn't too beefy, so I'm going to have to seriously think about getting a long HDMI cable for this. I could probably make a 50 ft cable work. I already have a wireless 360 controller.

CheapyD was saying how great his wireless HDMI setup was working, I was thinking about trying that out

I already have an extended HDMI cable across the living room for when I want to watch ESPN3 UofL games on my TV. This will be an interesting, especially for those games (console ports?) that seem to control better with a gamepad.

Maybe I'll just get NBA 2k13 on Steam and save $$ over the console version.

Something from the system requirements, it requires Vista or later, the 11 year old xp is not supported for big picture.

Preview at Kotaku.

Look at the controller-keyboard typing interface. Seems nifty.

And future feature list:

in the distant future, some way to support cooperative split-screen mode, so multiple people can sit down in the same living room and simultaneously use their individual Steam accounts.

Wow, I never know Xbox 360 had adverts. That plus a monthly fee for XBox live? Ugh...

Steam TV may sway me into finally buying a flat screen. The only tv we have is a 24" CRT that we use to watch PBS and football via an over-the-air antenna. Ugh...

All other shows/movies are watched on the computer machine.

I really wish Microsoft would release a DirectX PC driver for the Xbox controller mini-keyboard. Thumb typing kicks joystick input's ass any day of the week.

Kamakazi010654 wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

My laptop isn't too beefy, so I'm going to have to seriously think about getting a long HDMI cable for this. I could probably make a 50 ft cable work. I already have a wireless 360 controller.

CheapyD was saying how great his wireless HDMI setup was working, I was thinking about trying that out

I can't imagine that not adding some significant latency. Whether you notice it or not probably depends on the user and the games they play.

It's out, and quite slick.

Scratched wrote:

It's out, and quite slick.

Can you let me know how the browser is? I have some friends with HTPCs who don't use steam that much but may be interested if it indeed doesn't suck.

I would tell you what it's like on a pad, but it looks like my wireless dongle has bailed out. It's decent on a mouse/keyboard though.

It looks like it's all customisable too, so some people are going to rearrange things and play around with it.

Browser seems to work really well.

The whole thing is indeed quite slick, and I'll probably use it every so often. Now can I please have an update to the actual client?

Scratched wrote:

I would tell you what it's like on a pad, but it looks like my wireless dongle has bailed out.

They like to do that after awhile. There's a little fuse that blows on the MS dongles. I soldered mine off and bridged the connection over a year ago to fix mine.

I dunno where they came up with the theme of 'dangling stuff on strings' for the ad, but it was pretty cute. Is there some hidden message I'm supposed to absorb, or is it just a cool effect?

That text input method looks like it could be quite fast, once you get used to it. Would take awhile to get it into muscle memory, though.

Seems pretty damn nice. I left a bunch of feedback on their discussion forum.

Scratched wrote:

It's out, and quite slick.

Is it only for Steam beta tonight or fully out?

Not seeing anything yet.

EDIT: Opted-in to beta and there it is. Holy crap it is so cool.

Jumped in to try it on my monitor and launched Dirt 3 (Steam activated). Steam disappeared. Stopped running without even a sign it crashed. Played Dirt 3 for an hour that way.

Otherwise pretty nice. Have some issues navigating back to things sometimes, but that's about it.

I stand corrected. They did a good job making the change invisible.

The normal steam browser is IE customized. Is BP also using IE or did they jump to another UA?