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[dark10x]

So I hear that Big Picture Mode won't work on XP. I'm glad i'm on W7.

This makes perfect sense to me.

The GUI in Windows 7 (and Vista) is hardware accelerated while XP is not. This difference has a dramatic impact of video performance within the Windows environment and would likely be enough to prevent BPM from functioning smoothly in XP.

I would assume that it has something to do with that as the interface seems very polished and smooth.

 

[fluffydelusions]

Nobody should be on XP anymore anyways.

++ but I think a recent poll said something 20% give or take were still using it...don't have a link to that so maybe mistaken.

 

[cyberheater]

XP is not supported by Steam anymore at all. Only SP2? Did XP have 2 service packs? Don't remember. But when you look at the Steam stats XP is barely used at all anymore.

Yes. I see that stats state around 12%. I'm surprised it's a low as that.

 

[kinggroin]

What are you trying to say here?

XP is not supported by Steam anymore at all. Only SP2? Did XP have 2 service packs? Don't remember. But when you look at the Steam stats XP is barely used at all anymore.

3 I believe

 

[CambriaRising]

XP is not supported by Steam anymore at all. Only SP2? Did XP have 2 service packs? Don't remember. But when you look at the Steam stats XP is barely used at all anymore.

Xp had 3 Service packs.

Edit: Beaten

 

[Deadstar]

I know this has been answered, but to expand on it. My friends and I all use our normal 360 headsets and they work great. We all use Mumble though, because in Steam there is no way to tell it to send only voices to the headset and sound to the speakers like on the 360. You can do this with Mumble so people don't hear themselves coming out of your speakers. After big picture mode, this is pretty much the only thing left I wish they would add to Steam.

I'll have to test it but can't you just go to your sound settings, right click the headset and say "Use as my default communication device"? I tested steam chat with the headset and it's working now (voice coming out of headset) but I didn't run a game to see how it behaved.

 

[The Dutch Slayer]

Just got the PR:

Steam Big Picture Beta Available Today

New mode of Steam designed for display on televisions; works with game controllers

September 10th, 2012 -- Valve announces a major update to the Steam gaming platform called Big Picture.

Steam's new Big Picture mode lets gamers access all of their favorite Steam games on a television. With the press of a button, Steam displays a new full-screen user interface optimized for readability and interaction on TV. Big Picture has been designed to be used with a traditional game controller, while also fully supporting keyboard and mouse input.

Steam gamers can experience Big Picture by connecting their PC or Mac to a TV, typically with a single HDMI cable. Access to the complete Steam store is included, as is the Steam Community. In addition to their complete library of Steam games, each user's cloud files, Steam Workshop content, account information and preferences will be accessible automatically in the new mode.

"Sega's roots are in living-room gaming." said John Clark, Vice President of Digital Distribution at Sega. "For the first time since the advent of PC games decades ago, gamers are finally going to have access to the kind of entertainment experience we've always wished they could have with our PC titles - one that's incredibly social, comfortable, and accessible. We're excited about the opportunity, and Big Picture has inspired us to bring even more of our titles to Steam in the future."

"There is nothing more satisfying than slaying thousands of orcs on your big screen. And many of the most die-hard players of Orcs Must Die 2 have always preferred playing with a game controller. Steam's Big Picture mode finally marries these two and delivers a true living room entertainment experience to players."

"We're pleased that gamers on Steam will now be able to immerse themselves in our entertainment experiences in the comfort of their living room on large screen TVs," said Steve Glickstein of Take-Two Interactive Software. "From action and adventure to sports and sims, our titles deliver big fun on big screens."

"PC gaming continues to be the leading edge of entertainment, whether it's social gaming, MMOs, graphics hardware, free-to-play, or competitive gaming," said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. "With Big Picture for Steam, we are trying to do our part to give customers and developers what they want - their games, everywhere, optimized for the environment in which they are playing."

Big Picture also includes a new web browser designed for televisions and game controllers. It is accessible from anywhere within the Big Picture UI, and even while playing Steam games on a TV. It supports Big Picture's new method of typing with a game controller, which is useful for entering URLs, filling out forms, chatting, and other functions.

For more information, including how to participate in the beta, please visit http://www.steampowered.com/bigpicture/

 

[Dorfdad]

I HATE VALVE TIME BEEN HERE SINCE 7AM YES IM A LOSER!! Hurry UP GABE!!!!

 

[Type2]

Does anybody currently have a dedicated gaming/ multimedia PC in the living room?
Ive been thinking about building something new and just taking my current PC's graphics card out into the living room so I can enjoy the likes of Saints Row The Third sitting on the couch with the roommates.

I did want to ask a bit of help from the Gaf community, would anyone recommend a good wireless card or maybe usb dongle thingy?(which ive had zero success with in the past for some reason running windows 7 64)

As for big picture mode the lotus keyboard looks fantastic! I feel like all the console apps have been making worse controller keyboards than qwerty lately. In fact if I recall correctly youtube has one straight line with no space button dedicated on the controller. Just awful.

 

[CambriaRising]

At this point I'm more pissed at Sony and Microsoft for not being proactive enough to preserve splitscreen on consoles, to the point where they had no problem releasing several games that didn't support local multiplayer at all. Consoles are where local multiplayer is most famous for, I think they're the ones to blame for the general industry not caring about local multiplayer at all.

At least with Valve they've always been PC developers, and the PC was never famous for splitscreen multiplayer.

Or, you know, you could blame the developers and publishers for taking out splitscreen instead of the console makers.

 

[HoosTrax]

This drives me nuts, along with people who don't use push to talk, and you constantly hear speaker feedback/weird vibrating noises/dogs barking/cars driving past/heavy machinery in the background. =P

I'll add to this those people who have effed up mic equalizer settings that whenever they're talking, they cause everyone else's game sound volume to cut out.

 

[xemumanic]

I'm going to add XBMC to the app list on Steam. I'll be able to play games. Browse and watch movies all from my gamepad. It's going to awesome.

Having support for the Media Center remote would be ideal for me. The core directional + Enter buttons should work fine, but the back and transport buttons would be nice to have as well. Especially if later down the road, music playback was added. Then it would have more on par with the Xbox 360 in terms of custom BGM.

 

[cyberheater]

And another thing. Hopefully it will push more devs to include decent joypad support in their games. Do you hear me 2K Games.

 

[MrBig]

Anyone know if there's going to be a way for it to force which screen Big Picture and games load up on? I'm sure most people don't have a dedicated HTPC, and reassigning primary monitors for gaming is a pain that messes stuff up currently. I have my TV hooked up to my pc but never use it for games for that reason.

 

[alr1ght]

I think a great feature would be built in Joy2Key-like functionality. It can't be too terribly difficult to implement.

 

[JustinBB7]

Just got the PR:

Just push the button Gabe..

 

[Dorfdad]

Anyone know if there's going to be a way for it to force which screen Big Picture and games load up on? I'm sure most people don't have a dedicated HTPC, and reassigning primary monitors for gaming is a pain that messes stuff up currently. I have my TV hooked up to my pc but never use it for games for that reason.

MR. Big I have made a windows 7 script to do this exact thing. It's pretty ghetto as it's a batch file but it works for me currently. Will need to tweak one or two things when they release it to finalize. Maybe some GAFFERS can help refine it if there is a want for it?

I have 1 Monitor and 1 TV.. when you run it it current swaps main displays sets screen resolution to 1080p: 32bit launches steam. When your done you just press the button and it turns off/disbales second screen as the primary and re-enables the main display for computer use.

 

[cyberheater]

Anyone know if there's going to be a way for it to force which screen Big Picture and games load up on? I'm sure most people don't have a dedicated HTPC, and reassigning primary monitors for gaming is a pain that messes stuff up currently. I have my TV hooked up to my pc but never use it for games for that reason.

I'm lucky. I've got a dedicated HTPC. I'm going it boot straight into Big Steam Mode.

 

[SappYoda]

Steambox?

http://www.asrock.com/nettop/Intel/VisionX Series/

 

[Haunted]

I think a great feature would be built in Joy2Key-like functionality. It can't be too terribly difficult to implement.

I have no idea why this never occurred to me before this thread.

It's such a genius idea.

 

[mrklaw]

can't wait. Ideal for my laptop - can just drop it next to my receiver, front HDMI input and away I go

 

[Dorfdad]

Just push the button Gabe..

GABE DROP THE HOAGIE DAMINT AND PUSH THE BUTTON!

 

[mrklaw]

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=32765007#post32765007

do I have to select 'steam beta update' under settings, or will it come up as something else? currently I'm not opted into anything.

 

[char0n]

Awesome, it's basically "Media Center" mode for Steam. I already have my gaming PC hooked up to my "Comfy Couch" setup but this is going to make it a whole lot cleaner/easier to deal with from a distance/without having to break out the lapdesk.

 

[Shambles]

At this point I'm more pissed at Sony and Microsoft for not being proactive enough to preserve splitscreen on consoles, to the point where they had no problem releasing several games that didn't support local multiplayer at all. Consoles are where local multiplayer is most famous for, I think they're the ones to blame for the general industry not caring about local multiplayer at all.

At least with Valve they've always been PC developers, and the PC was never famous for splitscreen multiplayer.

I think this has played a large role in why my PS3 just sits in the corner collecting dust. Although it's the developers that are responsible for their games the platform owners have a central role in directing industry trends. The implementation of both the playstation and XBOX platforms have pushed everyone away from any sort of offline gaming, let alone offline multiplayer. This was almost unheard of in the era of the N64 and PS2. The primary function of a dedicating living room box is to enable the ability to play games from within an audience of people. Now you can still watch people play video games on the TV you probably don't care to unless you can play the game yourself. Because of this consoles have made themselves obsolete and have opened the door wide to be spanked by other platforms such as Steam and iOS/android.

While Steam is a lot more open to developers which allows me to be able to find offline multiplayer games I'm still not terribly happy with spending more than $5/game for a 'pay to lease' model. I just hope that big picture mode serves more to pushing developers to enable offline multiplayer since more people on steam will be in the living room, than it does to push developers away from creating offline multiplayer since the creation of online multi-account splitscreen.

 

[Haunted]

About the Joy2key/XPadder replacement question:

We aren't solving this in the initial launch. We may do something with keyboard/mouse emulation via gamepad and the in-game overlay in the future. There is some other software that tries to do this already, but it doesn't always work well.

I assume jmccaskey is a Valve employee.

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

About the Joy2key/XPadder replacement question:



I assume jmccaskey is a Valve employee.

He is.

 

[Razek]

Steambox?

http://www.asrock.com/nettop/Intel/VisionX Series/

Let me reintroduce you two:
TV, meet PC.
PC, meet TV!

 

[Backfoggen]

Cmon Gabe. Let's go

 

[The Elite]

Steambox?

http://www.asrock.com/nettop/Intel/VisionX Series/

That's the first pic of Steambox indeed.

Quick, someone call Kotaku.

 

[xJavonta]

Nope...got it from bestbuy...it was like $70. It was like the the signal would always be out of range and the alignments had to be just right between dongle and controller. Was weird. I remember trying to play SFIV with it and if I was like 10ft away on the couch it would disconnect.

Are you using a powered USB port?

 

[BenjiZombie]

The downside is that you're limited to the native resolution of your HDTV, 1920x1080, whereas on my PC monitor I play at 1600x1200.

 

[cyberheater]

Honestly. This is just about the most exciting development in PC gaming in recent years. I really hope it works well.

 

[cyberheater]

The downside is that you're limited to the native resolution of your HDTV, 1920x1080, whereas on my PC monitor I play at 1600x1200.

I can set my resolution to 1280x720 on my nVidia card and it will upscale to 1920x1080 without issue. Can yours not do that same?

 

[MrBig]

MR. Big I have made a windows 7 script to do this exact thing. It's pretty ghetto as it's a batch file but it works for me currently. Will need to tweak one or two things when they release it to finalize. Maybe some GAFFERS can help refine it if there is a want for it?

I have 1 Monitor and 1 TV.. when you run it it current swaps main displays sets screen resolution to 1080p: 32bit launches steam. When your done you just press the button and it turns off/disbales second screen as the primary and re-enables the main display for computer use.

Interesting. Please post about it again when you can try it with big picture. I enable the TV every night to watch some things, this sounds like it could work for that as well.

The downside is that you're limited to the native resolution of your HDTV, 1920x1080, whereas on my PC monitor I play at 1600x1200.

What?

 

[BenjiZombie]

I can set my resolution to 1280x720 on my nVidia card and it will upscale to 1920x1080 without issue. Can yours not do that same?

Yes. I was simply implying that you can't get higher resolution than 1080p atm

 

[Shambles]

The downside is that you're limited to the native resolution of your HDTV, 1920x1080, whereas on my PC monitor I play at 1600x1200.

What, you don't have $25,000 laying around?

 

[maniacripper]

I'm trying to find the name/picture of a pc input device that I saw over 12 years ago on campus at UCF. It was a keyboard replacement that had 2 discs/orbs, one for the right hand one for the left hand. You would slide the left orb/disc one of 8 directions then slide the right one in one of 8 directions and it would input a keystroke.

You know, to settle all these petty arguments of patents and stuff, but for the life of me I can't remember the name of the damn thing.

Nevermind found it, maybe it was less than 12 years ago, can someone find the patent on this piece of shit?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfI5T-1ZguE

 

[RoadHazard]

The downside is that you're limited to the native resolution of your HDTV, 1920x1080, whereas on my PC monitor I play at 1600x1200.

Yes. I was simply implying that you can't get higher resolution that 1080p atm

1920x1080 = 2,073,600 pixels
1600x1200 = 1,920,000 pixels

One is higher than the other. But maybe we're only counting vertical resolution? In that case my phone has a higher resolution than your monitor, since its resolution is 720x1280.

 

[Jon of the Wired]

Yes. I was simply implying that you can't get higher resolution that 1080p atm

Technically, 1920*1080 = 2073600 > 1920000 = 1600*1200, so 1600 x 1200 is a lower resolution.

Edit: Ack, beaten.

 

[Branson]

Yes. I was simply implying that you can't get higher resolution than 1080p atm

Ive been stuck with a 720p tv for a couple of years now. It's fine. I'm looking to upgrade to a 1080p tv in the next few months.

 

[paperspace]

⁣

 

[BenjiZombie]

Ive been stuck with a 720p tv for a couple of years now. It's fine. I'm looking to upgrade to a 1080p tv in the next few months.

I guess you're right, especially if you're sitting 10ft away from the TV.

 

[cyberheater]

Yes. I was simply implying that you can't get higher resolution than 1080p atm

Fair enough.

 

[Ingueferroque]

If they have brains this will also be available for people on regular monitors. I am desperate for a better Steam interface.

 

[therealminime]

If they have brains this will also be available for people on regular monitors. I am desperate for a better Steam interface.

It is available for monitors. You can launch it whenever you have Steam open, regardless of display.

 

[gdt]

I imagine I have to disable any skins I have on?

Pixelvision

 

[Jzero]

I imagine I have to disable any skins I have on?

Pixelvision

He'll probably update the skin. Nothing has stopped him yet.

 

[Romir]

I can't find my hdmi coupler to connect to my graphic card's short mini-hdmi cable. This is killing me! I hope I didn't lose it during the move.

 

[Exuro]

If they have brains this will also be available for people on regular monitors. I am desperate for a better Steam interface.

You should try actually reading the info.You can choose to use BPM with a keyboard and mouse if you so wish. There's nothing differentiating a small monitor with a large tv for BPM.