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A low end SteamOS

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  • SteamOS
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July 9, 2014 9:43:52 PM

I'm getting ready to build a new PC this week and I'm left with my old PC with no real purpose for it. It's pretty low end, but I give it props for playing a heavily modded Skyrim with only minor lagging.

So here's my thoughts. (Sorry if this is the wrong forum to post in) I want to gut the old case, try to cram it into a smaller one for the living room, install SteamOS and have a lower end build for small games. Can anyone tell me if this is a possibilty, or if I should buy (not a big budget. I've just spent way too much on the new rig.)

It's a i7 860 duel 2.80 processor
Whatever mobo came with the dell PC
a radeon 6850 gpu
and a 550w corsair psu (not modular)
16 gb memory.
1tb hdd

Anyone have any thoughts or tips for the smallest case I coult work with?

More about : low end steamos

July 9, 2014 11:06:39 PM

AFAIK steamos beta doesn't support amd gpus yet. You could just keep windows on it for now. Without knowing the dell model, I can only guess it maybe micro atx. We need more info.
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July 14, 2014 2:00:46 AM

k1114 said:
AFAIK steamos beta doesn't support amd gpus yet. You could just keep windows on it for now. Without knowing the dell model, I can only guess it maybe micro atx. We need more info.


http://www.tomshardware.com/news/steam-box-machines-amd...
is been quite some time.

but because steam os is still in beta i would recomend waiting until the roll out a proper release.if you are not familiar with linux i would advise you not to install stam os.i can recomend a other distro like ubuntu which works fine on dells most of the time without any issue.but you will still need to install proprietary drvers for the gpu in order to be able to run linux games and open gl.you can install steam and donload games from there that are capable on running on linux.
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July 15, 2014 7:21:41 AM

I've been running SteamOS on my rig since January, and you shouldn't have any problems with what you're trying to do. SteamOS has had HD 6000 series support for a while now:
http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/latest-l...

SteamOS will automatically install the required hardware and graphics driver. You won't have to install any proprietary drivers manually. Valve also added BIOS support some time ago to the official install thanks to directhex's mods, so your system should be fully supported:
http://directhex.github.io/steamos-installer/

Directhex goes pretty in depth with the different installation methods, but there's an automated install option that's as streamlined as any OS X or Windows system I've installed. The only caveat is it wipes your entire HDD during the process. Directhex also has walk through videos of more complicated installs if you wanted to look into it (dual booting, partitioning part of the HDD for SteamOS, etc.).

SteamOS is still in beta because Valve hasn't added all the planned features yet (e.g. streaming services). The current OS is stable on my setup since it's based on the Debian Linux distro, which is already stable. Pretty much all the features currently in big picture mode on Windows are available on SteamOS. It even has native support for wired 360 controllers.

As for cases, it really depends on how big your motherboard is, but lifehacker has an ok article on small form factor cases:
http://lifehacker.com/5994570/five-best-small-form-fact...

I just keep my tower next to my TV. I don't mind the size too much.
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