{"id":101776,"date":"2016-08-25T15:04:51","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T13:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=101776"},"modified":"2016-08-25T15:05:50","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T13:05:50","slug":"how-to-build-your-own-powerful-steam-machine-console","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/pc\/101776-how-to-build-your-own-powerful-steam-machine-console","title":{"rendered":"How to build your own powerful Steam Machine console"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The next iteration of Sony and Microsoft&#8217;s gaming consoles are coming soon, and that means that some gamers will once again\u00a0have to make a choice between PC or console gaming.<\/p>\n<p>Windows has always been a hefty additional expense for dedicated gaming PCs, but luckily, Steam has provided gamers with a free operating system built specifically for gaming.<\/p>\n<p>SteamOS features full Steam integration and provides a user interface similar to that of the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re setting up a dedicated gaming machine and want to install SteamOS, there are a few things you need to know.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\"><strong>Requirements<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Firstly, you&#8217;ll need to build a gaming computer according to the supported system components\u00a0of the operating system.<\/p>\n<p>Although SteamOS is Linux-based, it does have certain hardware requirements.<\/p>\n<p>Below are the supported system components for SteamOS:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Processor:<\/strong> Intel or AMD 64-bit capable processor.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Memory<\/strong>: 4GB or more RAM.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hard Drive<\/strong>: 200GB or larger disk<\/li>\n<li><strong>Video Card:\u00a0<\/strong>NVIDIA graphics card,\u00a0AMD graphics card (Radeon 8500 and later), or Intel graphics.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Additional<\/strong>:\u00a0<span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">USB port for installation and\u00a0<\/span>UEFI Firmware (recommended).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If your PC build fulfills all these requirements, you should be ready to install SteamOS on your system.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\"><strong>Build<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>A Steam Machine is simply a gaming PC that runs on the SteamOS operating system, meaning that gamers can include a variety of hardware as long as it is supported by the OS.<\/p>\n<p>This means that gamers will be able to build their Steam Machine systems according to their specific needs, such as a <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/pc\/100868-how-to-build-a-custom-pc-gaming-console-for-under-r7500.html\" target=\"_blank\">cheap casual gaming PC<\/a><\/strong> or a 4K monster build.<\/p>\n<p>While the official Steam Machine partner consoles feature a small form factor, PC gamers can easily turn their high-end rigs into Steam Machines.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\"><strong>Games<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Because SteamOS is a Linux-based operating system, it is only able to run games that have Linux support.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, there are around <a href=\"https:\/\/steamdb.info\/linux\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>2,000 Steam games with Linux support<\/strong><\/a>, meaning that Steam Machine gamers will have access to a wide variety of games from the start.<\/p>\n<p>A large number\u00a0of popular games feature Linux support and the SteamOS operating system is specifically engineered for Linux gaming, making the Steam Machine a reasonable Windows replacement\u00a0for either casual\u00a0or high-end PC gaming.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\"><strong>Installation<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Before installing SteamOS, it is important to note that doing so will remove all data from the target PC.<\/p>\n<p>In order to install the operating system, you will need to <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/steamos\/download\/?ver=custom\" target=\"_blank\">download the installation files<\/a><\/strong> and\u00a0unzip the SteamOS.zip file to a blank, <strong>FAT32-formatted USB stick<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Follow the steps below to complete your SteamOS <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/steamos\/buildyourown\" target=\"_blank\">installation<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Put the USB stick in your machine. Boot your machine and tell the BIOS to boot off the stick.<\/li>\n<li>Make sure you select the UEFI entry, it may look something like &#8220;<strong>UEFI: Patriot Memory PMAP<\/strong>&#8220;. If there is no UEFI entry, you may need to enable UEFI support in your BIOS setup.<\/li>\n<li>Selected &#8220;Automated install&#8221; or &#8220;Expert Install&#8221; \u00a0from the menu.<\/li>\n<li>The rest of the installation is unattended and will repartition the drive and install SteamOS.<\/li>\n<li>After installation is complete, the system will reboot and automatically log on and install Steam. At this point an internet connection is required and Steam will automatically install itself.<\/li>\n<li>After Steam finishes installing, your system will automatically create a backup of the system partition.<\/li>\n<li>When the backup completes, select &#8220;reboot&#8221; to boot into your freshly installed SteamOS.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More gaming news<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to This is how much money gamers really spend on microtransactions\" href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/pc\/101214-this-is-how-much-money-gamers-really-spend-on-microtransactions.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">This is how much money gamers really spend on microtransactions<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to The craziest gaming PC cases you can buy in South Africa\" href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/hardware\/101570-the-craziest-gaming-pc-cases-you-can-buy-in-south-africa.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">The craziest gaming PC cases you can buy in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Free-to-play city builder launches on PlayStation 4\" href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/playstation\/101770-free-to-play-city-builder-launches-on-playstation-4.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">Free-to-play city builder launches on PlayStation 4<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Setting up a dedicated Steam Machine gaming console has never been easier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":101778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8585,7,3],"tags":[155,1966,2664,7010,18097,2065,21122,85,17480],"class_list":["post-101776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gadgets","category-hardware","category-pc","tag-console","tag-games","tag-gaming","tag-guide","tag-install","tag-linux","tag-machine","tag-steam","tag-support"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}