Steam streaming build

[Tylerrouse]

With the news of Steam streaming going live today it made me want to look into building a client system for the living room. Being able to stream games from Windows to a Mac in the living room sounds awesome. I wanted to get some recommendations for a living room Mac. From what I've read about the client system the most important requirement is h.264 decoding and since streaming is done over the network, a fast connection. Ethernet cable to the living room isn't a possibility. I'd like to update my network to 802.11 AC, but haven't seen any OOB recommendations on cards. I have my main hackintosh rig in the office, but don't mind borrowing parts since I plan to upgrade the processor and graphic card soon. It's got a 4770k and GTX 760. Should I go for a NUC build or get a small ITX build going? Doesn't need to be super powerful so I'm shooting for ease of installation, OOB parts, and easy maintenance when it comes to updating OSX. Thanks for your input guys!

 

[vision33r]

Imo, I would just build a low powered Steam box running Linux and call it a day. The concept of the Steam box is small form factor and low power while keeping a high end gaming PC to handle the game rendering.

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

With the news of Steam streaming going live today it made me want to look into building a client system for the living room. Being able to stream games from Windows to a Mac in the living room sounds awesome. I wanted to get some recommendations for a living room Mac. From what I've read about the client system the most important requirement is h.264 decoding and since streaming is done over the network, a fast connection. Ethernet cable to the living room isn't a possibility. I'd like to update my network to 802.11 AC, but haven't seen any OOB recommendations on cards. I have my main hackintosh rig in the office, but don't mind borrowing parts since I plan to upgrade the processor and graphic card soon. It's got a 4770k and GTX 760. Should I go for a NUC build or get a small ITX build going? Doesn't need to be super powerful so I'm shooting for ease of installation, OOB parts, and easy maintenance when it comes to updating OSX. Thanks for your input guys!

The NUC is a great little box that Ive been using some time now. But remember the gpu is HD5000 and therfore not that powerful. It takes a half height wifi card but you can get those in ac variants Im sure. Theres a brand new install guide Ive just published for getting OSX on it too, it runs very smooth now.

Have a look at post no 644 of this thread, part of the old guide, and the new guide just published here.

Theres also a steambox build here, but obviously not as small.

 

[Graestone45]

If I were you, I would just get a mac mini. Super small form factor, almost no set up, and not too expensive.

 

[Tylerrouse]

The NUC or mini PC seems like the way to go for a HTPC and Steam streaming box. There's an interesting testing thread on Steams discussion page where a beta tester seems to get 1080p@60fps on a NUC for most titles. They can handle the decoding no problem, only thing that holds back from a total glitch free experience is your network speeds. I may try out the Asus 802.11 AC card (PCE-AC68) for my office rig, find a powerful AC router, and tinker with the NUC. If all else fails I can just load SteamOS onto it.