My partner and I both signed up for a Steam Machine, and I for a Steam Frame. We got waitlisted for all 3, and in the last 24 hours we got into the queue for all of them. Time to decide which machine (2TB vs 512) to get, and if we actually want a Frame!
Don’t do that. Don’t give me hope.
In case this saves anyone else the trouble, I got my purchase email for the Frame (256G) yesterday too. I went through the purchase process a bit too excitedly, and after completing it, I realized I never selected any accessories. I assumed I missed this step on one of the pages I didn’t scroll down on.
Stupidly, I never checked the Internet to learn the accessories are sold out, which apparently has been news for about a week now. Even more stupidly, I looked at Steam Support options for the purchase, and made the closest selection I could make to what I wanted, a refund request with a comment about actually wanting the purchase just with accessories.
It turns out the request was either automatically approved or approved by someone who didn’t bother with my comment. I had to make another Steam Support ticket to which they told me to get on the wait list again after which they would make a one-time exception and send me the purchase email again, which I’m currently waiting for.
So, not a big setback overall and definitely in the territory of first world problems, but I am getting the Frame at least a couple days later than I otherwise would have. Don’t rush through purchases, kids.
Edit: Repurchase complete.
Wouldn’t that be famine to feast?
Yeah, it absolutely is. Crap.
So far I have been very happy with both the Steam Machine and the Frame (the software is still early days, especially on the Frame but personally I really enjoy that).
I have found myself playing a surprising amount of simpler/older flat screen games on the Frame entirely standalone (recently Hades and the original Minecraft Dungeons). That process has been really fun even though battery life leaves something to be desired. Along with having standalone Beat Saber and not being a Meta headset is awesome.
Just FYI the Frame and Machine don’t work together very well yet, that is something Valve is planning but they haven’t gotten it implemented yet.
the software is still early days, especially on the Frame but personally I really enjoy that
I predicted that the Steam Frame release delays would mean that Valve had spent that time perfecting the software experience. But I am surprised by how many little bugs there are that I would have expected Valve would have fixed.
I think they were managing the other releases. Also I think they put in the time to post Alyx to Frame, when it was first announced that was a soft maybe, but with all the extra time they got it working before launch.
Just FYI the Frame and Machine don’t work together very well yet
This is the most concerning thing for me. I only use linux, so I have to imagine that if it isn’t working with my steam machine yet, it absolutely is not going to work with my desktop yet. I would much rather that be sorted out before I put out this much money.
Current status is that it works in desktop mode. Normal Linux needs at least Kernel 7.2 and there’s a script you can run to help with troubleshooting.
I’m still on the wait list :(
My steam frame just arrived today. Just need to get through this stupid “work” thing.
I had a TB NVMe lying around so I bought the 512 Machine. The swap is easy. I would have done the same if I had a 1 TB microSD.
Point is, I would weigh the cost of adding your own storage, at todays prices the 2TB might actually be somewhat resonable.
I also happen to have 32 GB of RAM lying around and want to swap it out for the 16. But that is not as easy. Shame, I wish valve had designed it better for the ram swap.
Edit: I wanted to add that I have been in my remote office for the past several months and this device is awesome. Traveling with it was easy (international flights), and It is on my desk running silently 8 hours a day as my primary work device. At night I get some games in and it performs like a champ for that too.
Yeah, originally the idea was to insta upgrade it but I don’t have any RAM or SSD lying around. The costs of a good SSD or a good microSD aren’t that much lower than upgrading from valve, so I’ll definitely consider that.
That’s so exciting to hear! It’s gonna be a do everything machine for my partner so glad it is quiet and can game
Absolutely silent. My desktop at home makes more noise.
There are a few small quirks to having a immutable distro and only using flatpak. Your home is preserved though, so no issues there.
Most people probably wont even notice.
BUT: if you do find something that is not in flatpak, or doesn’t play nice, it is really easy to use KDE Kontainer and add a distro of your choice in a container. Anything you put here is never touched by SteamOS updates, interacts fully with your own user, and icons can simply be added to the menu to launch without having to touch or manually launch the container again. There are several guides and it is fairly painless.
Again, you may never need to. I just am adding that info here if anyone finds it useful.
I did not get waitlisted and I’m still waiting to purchase mine :(
Since reserving doesn’t cost anything, I assume lots of people just put themselves on the list just to see. Since they don’t actually want them, I guess after 72 hours there’s a lot of slots opening up.
Yeah that makes sense for the frame. Funny that two machine reservations came up at the same time as the frame and as each other. Just a weird coincidence? Or perhaps they loaded in on hardware
Lucky, I’m still waiting to hear back about my Steam Machine
I’m jelly.
Hi jelly, I’m dad.
