Tag: Steam Machine

Razer Announces Project Christine Concept, Looks To Make The PC Modular

On By AnjelIn Games, Games, News, Online, PC, Tech, VideosLeave a comment

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Have you ever wished that you could just go to the store and buy a new CPU, RAM, or GPU and then just go home and plug it in like a USB or something and not have to worry about opening up your PC, and getting all down and dirty inside it? Or maybe wish you could just do that and not have to call that techie friend to come help you put it all together? Well Razer has thought these same things, and has come up with this very interesting modular design concept.

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The Idea here is that you buy the “spine” and then you buy the components you want to add to your PC; such as CPU, RAM, GPU, and hard drives as modules. Then you take these modules home, plug them into the “Spine” and voilà you just built your PC. Later on when you realize that maybe you want some more RAM or a better GPU (or maybe a Second one), you go to the store, purchase the GPU module you want, take it home and plug it in, simple as that.

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Each module is sealed and completely self contained and features noise canceling, as well as active liquid cooling. They claim that by using this design it will be safe to overclock and not void any warranties.

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The thought here, is that by buying into the “spine” you can simply upgrade your system as needed, very easily, so easily in fact, anyone can do it by just plugging in a new module of their choosing. Thus negating the need to replace entire systems and not having to have to get down into the nitty gritty of the system, which for some people also means that they can do it themselves instead of calling that friend to come do it for them.

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For now, Razer’s Project Christine is a concept, but if Razer has shown us anything these last few years, it is that when they see an idea take off, they can make it happen.

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I think this is a very interesting idea and assuming the cost isn’t insane, I think this is a great idea, especially for friends/family that would love to game on a PC but are to concerned about upgrading and tinkering. For them this would be a great solution to that problem, as when they are no longer able to play new games, they can go in and swap whatever components they need to in order to be current again. I will definitely be keeping an eye on this concept in the future, and here is hoping we see them actually make it happen.

Via- Razer

By Dayne “Anjel” Cody
@DayneCody

Valve Announces the Steam Controller

On By AnjelIn Games, Games, News, Online, PC, PC, Steam, Tech, TechLeave a comment

SteamController

So today Valve finished off their Trilogy of announcements with the Steam Controller, a new Input device they have spent the last year working on.

They have designed it to be used with all current and future steam games, and in place of thumb stick they have added two, high resolution haptic trackpads, which are also click-able. This is definitely an interesting way of designing a controller, one in which Valve believes every game can be played on, even games like RTS games. They have essentially “tricked” the games into thinking you are playing with a mouse and keyboard and thus allows you to play any game on steam with this controller. They added a Diagram showing how this should work in Portal 2.

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As you can see from the Diagram above, the middle area of the controller is also a touchscreen, which is also click-able, not unlike the PS4 controller.

Steam controller_schematic

Valve is also claiming that they have designed the controller to be “hackable” and are interested in how the community will utilize this controller. They plan to release tools out to the public to allow this to happen at an unspecified later date.  This controller will be part of the same Beta as the Steam Machine, in allowing the public to voice opinions and help mold where it goes, from software, all the way to design.

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No word on when these will ship out to beta testers. For more information on the Steam Controller, and to see about getting into the beta, you can go here; Steam.

By Dayne “Anjel” Cody
@DayneCody

Valve Announces Steam Machines

On By AnjelIn Games, Games, News, Online, PC, PC, Steam, TechLeave a comment

Valve Steam Box concept

Valve, today, in the second announcement of three planned for this week, announced The Steam Box Machines. In an announcement where they really told us…. well not really anything. Other then to saying that they are working with partners to create various machines, and there will be a beta test, in which they are inviting 300 people from the public to test these machines, which if you are interested in doing so, you can go see the requirements for the “hardware beta test” Here.

We don’t have specs, we don’t have a drawing, we don’t get to see a prototype, really all they have told is “Entertainment is not a one-size-fits-all world. We want you to be able to choose the hardware that makes sense for you, so we are working with multiple partners to bring a variety of Steam gaming machines to market during 2014, all of them running SteamOS.” They have said that they would be shipping hardware in 2014, and that said hardware will be running SteamOS.

Oh and at the very bottom we get this little, possibly foreshadowing, morsel “Am I going to be using a mouse and a keyboard in the living-room? If you want. But Steam and SteamOS work well with gamepads, too. Stay tuned, though – we have some more to say very soon on the topic of input.”  Possibly tipping their hand at what Friday’s announcement will be? I guess we will have to wait till then and see.

They have stated that we will begin to see Steam Machines in early 2014.

You can check out the Steam Machines page Here.

By Dayne “Anjel” Cody
@DayneCody