Looking for hardware recommendations for Steam gaming on my TV
Latest update here. Thanks to everyone who helped me out!
I have an Nvidia Shield hooked up to my TV, and it's great for Android games and emulation. I'm looking for similar hardware that will allow me to play my Steam library on the TV.1 It doesn't have to be as small as the Shield TV, but I'm not interested in having a giant tower hooked up in my living room. Basically, I want what those old Steam Machines promised before fizzling out.
What I'm looking for:
- Pre-configured
- Able to support wireless controllers through Bluetooth
- Able to play smaller, less demanding games flawlessly
- Would be nice if it could play more demanding titles, but this is not a must
- Has decent cooling (I'm worried that boxes not designed for gaming will get way too hot)
- Price point: undetermined so far -- I'm willing to pay what I need to, but I want to see what's out there before committing to anything
- Would like to be able to set it up to basically be a seamless "console" if possible, where I can boot right into Steam (or easily get there with a controller) and not have to use a keyboard and mouse (I do have a Steam controller but I would rather use an 8BitDo SN30 Pro+ as my primary input method)
Searching around, here's what I've found so far:
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The System 76 Meerkat is a mini PC that looks great (and I'm partial to the company), but I don't know how it would perform with gaming. Also, I haven't decided if I want the (small) amounts of friction that come with gaming on Linux on my TV or not.
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Intel NUCs seems to be popular, and they have some gaming-focused models at higher price points.
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The MSI Trident 3 is explicitly gaming-focused and has a dedicated cooling system. Might be overkill for what I need though?
Here are my main questions:
- What other hardware options are out there that I don't know about?
- What hardware profile and price point should I be targeting for my needs? How little is too little, and how much is too much?
- Are there any pitfalls to this kind of setup that I'm not aware of?
I'm open to any and all suggestions, as this kind of stuff is all a bit over my head so it's hard for me to even know what I'm looking for. I haven't even decided that this is definitely something I'm going to do yet, since there's such a wide range in price and performance. Instead what I'm trying to do is figure out what my needs are and then which models (if any) would fit them best.
1: I do have a Steam Link and have tried the app, but the quality for me has been spotty enough that I would rather have native hardware playing them than trying to stream it from my laptop.
Assuming a Steam Link hardware box/Raspberry Pi is right out, you would probably want a mini PC or a NUC for local processing, either with Windows that booted directly into Steam, which boots directly into Big Picture. Or rolling your own SteamOS installation on your own hardware. I recommend looking at LowSpecGamer for hardware recommendations since he's got an insight on MiniPCs that many PC YouTubers wouldn't have.
Edit: If you don't want me to completely punt, Ryzen is pretty good for the amount of money that you're paying and the integrated graphics are serviceable if you rather go with that than a dedicated GPU, especially on a secondary machine.
Logical Increments also has a "How to Build the Best Living Room Gaming PC" guide that covers both hardware and software, is constantly being updated, and probably well worth checking out too.
And I would definitely recommend building your own PC for this, @kfwyre. It's genuinely much easier than you probably assume it will be, especially these days thanks to port/slot standardization no longer allowing you to accidentally plug things into the wrong places. And building your own system will also cost you significantly less to get far more horsepower than you would get from any prebuilt HTPC/TV-gaming system, while also allowing you to upgrade later should you need to, which most prebuilts don't support.
Thanks for the guide! I will say that I have actually built a living room PC in the past for my husband (which he still uses!). We had a friend who understood things pick out the components for us, and I assembled them, and I hated every minute of it! The case was so small that there were no margins on anything. I remember having difficulty getting things where they needed to go because I couldn't even fit my fingers in between the sides of components and the case. At one point I thought I flat out broke a connector because I was having to awkwardly force it at a sort of bend to make room for my fingers. I dread the day something goes wrong with any of it, because I have no interest in trying to replace anything in there!
I totally understand the cost savings of building your own (I also built myself a budget PC that lasted me almost a decade!), but at this point I'd rather pay the extra fee for the convenience of a pre-built one.
Maybe a dumb question, but if your husband already has a decent living room PC... why not just use that to game on your TV?
p.s. "I dread the day something goes wrong with any of it, because I have no interest in trying to replace anything in there"... yeah, I have a Mini-ITX build, so know what you mean. It can be a bit of a PITA to tinker with things inside it... However, at least if/when something goes wrong I do have the option to replace things and fix it. If something goes wrong inside a prebuilt custom form-factor box and it's out of warranty you're pretty much just screwed and now have yourself a potentially very expensive doorstop.
Lol, great question! It's not in the living room anymore! :D
It's actually his primary machine, so he uses it for work and light gaming (it's old and modest enough that it can't run much past Civ V and FTL). I want something that I could use on the TV even while he's working/gaming in the office.
P.S. Nice build and battlestation! And I'm okay with the risk of having a doorstop down the road.
Oof, ouch. Yeah, that makes sense why you wouldn't want to use that. :P And if building it yourself is not something you have any desire to do, there are plenty of custom mini-PC and NUC system builders out there, so which you go with will probably mostly come down to your budget at that point.
LowSpecGamer is a great resource, thank you! I've been through a couple of his videos and am getting a much better feel for the level I might be targeting. He also let me know that Intel's Gaming NUCs have been discontinued, so those are definitely out.
Honestly, the best solution is probably to use that big box setup and stream to your existing Shield. Doubly so if you're already have one laying around that you can upgrade accordingly.
If you must have a small PC, keep in mind that you pay for compactness. For things like NUCs and prebuilt systems, the real costs come from the lack of upgradibility.
If you insist on having it prebuilt, there are tons of places that will do a system to your specs, but I will always recommend building your own. Actually, I built one for you just for fun. I've basically got you a combination that cuts out a lot of the expense (the only thing I splurged on was the Mobo since it will be upwards compatible with new CPUs if you want and it also comes with WiFi and Bluetooth integrated), but is still able to play a lot of the latest AAA titles at great quality. It should also be good enough for VR.
Wow! That's above and beyond. Thank you, Akir! This is definitely something I'll consider.
Given that you're clearly very knowledgeable about this: how much sacrifice should I expect if I went with something like a lower-end NUC? I understand some of my stuff won't work on it (and I have my gaming laptop for those games), but on the whole my gaming habits are much more of the Stardew Valley and Rogue Legacy vein, rather than, say, The Witcher 3 and Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Would games like that work fine even on significantly weaker hardware?
Oh my, what I was giving you was significant overkill. You could not only play The Witcher 3, you could do it with ultra settings in 4K with acceptable framerates.
You could probably make due with a NUC, but I am not a fan of them. They are moderately expensive and with the CPU, GPU, and motherboard all in one unit, upgrading is very expensive. Beyond that, Intel has some very confusing naming schemes so you have to do a lot of research to get an idea of the performance you will be getting. I would only recommend if it is extremely important for you, personally, to get the smallest computer.
For comparison, this is the cheapest NUC I would recommend you, and here is another PC I put together for you. Sure, the NUC is smaller, preinstalled, and comes with a windows license, but the homemade PC costs less, comes with a full SSD instead of a cache, has a more efficient power supply, and is extremely upgradable in many ways.
Thanks for these thoughtful builds! I appreciate you bringing your time and expertise to the table for me. I'm now torn between seeking out the minimum viable build that will let me do what I want most cheaply and efficiently, and letting my expensive tastes take over and go with a more powerhouse build that can play anything. The second sounds better in terms of opportunity, but if I splurge for that and then just play mostly less demanding 2D indie games on it anyway, why waste all that money and power?
I don't have any decisions yet, but I appreciate you giving me things to think about, as well as helping anchor my expectations with regard to hardware power. It's tough for me to look at builds or parts and know how they would perform.
Welcome to the club. You're likely not going to regret overpowering your machine if you plan to keep it a while, but if you are getting a new build, you can more likely than not find a way to play what you want on it. It's all how you want to stretch how long you can use it vs how much performance you can get out of your Budget.
What controller do you want to use? Bluetooth on a PC is a total crapshoot. Controllers don't consistently stay synced, connections randomly lag or drop, and range is usually pathetic. I've probably tried 5 different recommended bluetooth adapters at this point.
I've found that my Xbox One controller works better with the proprietary wireless adapter than it or my DualShock 4 ever do over bluetooth. Sometimes I have to re-pair the controller if I haven't used it in a long time, but when it's connected the performance is rock solid. The range is good enough that I can leave the dongle plugged in to my PC in the basement and use the controller in the room above, streaming the game to my Apple TV.
I was hoping to use an 8BitDo SN30 Pro+. I've been using it with my laptop via Bluetooth and it's been flawless for me, but it sounds like I might just be lucky with that?
I have several 8bitdo controllers that I love, but I've never used them over bluetooth with my PC. They work great on my Switch, and my older consoles I bought the 8bitdo bluetooth adapters for (SNES, NES).
It's mainly DualShock 4s, BT-capable Xbox One controllers, and Switch Pro controllers I've had issues with on bluetooth. Often times they will work just fine, especially if I'm just sitting right at my desk with line of site to the adapter. But 20% of the time I would go to use one I would have issues. So I've just stuck to using USB or the official Xbox wireless dongle (which is great in Linux now thanks to xow).
Maybe I just have garbage luck with these bluetooth dongles.
Thanks to everyone who helped me out in this thread! After weighing a lot of different options and watching a lot of different reviews, I ended up going with the MSI Trident 3. There are several different models of it out and I didn't need a top of the line powerhouse, so I got an older, weaker, cheaper model.
Nevertheless, it's definitely a more powerful device than I was originally intending to get, but this way I won't have to compromise, as it will pretty much do everything I need it to and play everything that I own. Shipping was lightning fast, so I actually got the device last night and spent this morning getting it updated and configured to basically be a Steam machine on my TV. Instead of going with a wireless controller, I instead plugged in my beloved Duke, which feels wonderful to use again (I couldn't get it working on my Linux box, so it's been out of commission for a while).
I've spent the day enjoying Ori and the Will of the Wisps on my TV, and it's working flawlessly. The device also fits perfectly in the console bay of my TV stand. The only issue I can see with it is that it's definitely going to give me the itch to upgrade my ~10-year-old TV now...