Valve promises updates, free games for Mac owners unable to use Steam Link or Controller
Valve will be providing updates and free games for the Steam Link and Steam Controller, in light of both products lacking expected Mac support, according to an email sent out to early buyers.
The Steam Link isn't working at all with Macs, Valve acknowledged in the email, obtained on Monday by Eurogamer. The Steam Controller doesn't currently support gamepad emulation on Macs, though people running the Steam Beta client should be able to use keyboard/mouse emulation.
Valve blamed "temporary software issues" for the situation, and promised that the Controller's Mac gamepad emulation should be functional "within a few weeks." As for the Steam Link, the company said simply that it's working on an update that will provide full support. Gamers are encouraged to use the Steam Beta to get updates as soon as possible.
In compensation the company is gifting the Valve Complete Pack, which normally costs $100 and includes all of Valve's games, even unreleased titles. People who choose to return the hardware have 60 days instead of the usual 30, and can still keep the Complete Pack.
The Steam Link is intended to stream games from any computer running Steam to a remote TV, where people can also hook up gamepads for a console-like experience. Although it supports third-party gamepads from companies like Microsoft and Logitech, people are ideally expected to use the Steam Controller, which features trackpads for more mouse-like precision.
The Steam Link isn't working at all with Macs, Valve acknowledged in the email, obtained on Monday by Eurogamer. The Steam Controller doesn't currently support gamepad emulation on Macs, though people running the Steam Beta client should be able to use keyboard/mouse emulation.
Valve blamed "temporary software issues" for the situation, and promised that the Controller's Mac gamepad emulation should be functional "within a few weeks." As for the Steam Link, the company said simply that it's working on an update that will provide full support. Gamers are encouraged to use the Steam Beta to get updates as soon as possible.
In compensation the company is gifting the Valve Complete Pack, which normally costs $100 and includes all of Valve's games, even unreleased titles. People who choose to return the hardware have 60 days instead of the usual 30, and can still keep the Complete Pack.
The Steam Link is intended to stream games from any computer running Steam to a remote TV, where people can also hook up gamepads for a console-like experience. Although it supports third-party gamepads from companies like Microsoft and Logitech, people are ideally expected to use the Steam Controller, which features trackpads for more mouse-like precision.
Comments
None of the Macs sold can handle 4K gaming. The only ones with enough VRAM are the FirePro cards in the nMP and those aren't gaming cards. So why bother with a feature that's worthless for Mac owners?
The only ones who could use it would be 2010-2012 Mac Pro owners that upgraded to nearly new GPU's; and the number of gamers who own one of those is likely about five people.
Good for them. My only concern is the 1080p (aka 2k in 4k lingo) resolution mentioned in an earlier article. That is very low for most mac screens, OK for a TV I guess for now at least, but everyone should be aiming for 4K in this day and age.
Aiming for the highest common denominator out of the box would be the death of the gaming industry. It's best to start from the lowest powered systems and work your way up. Not everyone has a machine that can handle 4k gaming. As a matter of fact, it can be quite expensive.
I agree everyone should shoot for improving technology. I also agree that everyone should aim for 4k. But that is a daunting task in the gaming world. The fact is there are very few video cards that can effectively handle 4k gaming. It is not the same as steaming 4k video. We are a little ways off from experiencing 4k consistently for PC gaming. It takes a $1,000 video card right now to accomplish this and the frame rates are not acceptable by any means. As for a Mac it is funny to suggest that any of them can even play a 4K game as they cannot. At least not effectively.
I hope Apple impacts the gaming industry. I would love to see true 64 bit games that use streamlined technologies to drive the best performance out of CPU, Memory, Video Card etc...Apple has done a lot with developing the core technologies. We just need to get hardware and then software all on the same page. A tall order but it would be an amazing result.
Honestly it seems like a pretty decent gesture by Valve both in the free games and the longer return window.
But I can't help but find the humor in this whole thing.
"This food tastes terrible! I can't possibly eat this!"
"Our sincerest apologies, we are changing the way our food tastes within a few weeks. In the mean time here is some free food that you can't eat."
This hardware is just a link from the Mac to the TV, the free games can still be played directly on the Mac.
You have to consider bandwidth and processing requirements. Video boxes that are 4K are playing offline compressed video streams. This has to do on-the-fly compression/decompression within a single frame (<0.04 seconds). 4K is 4x the bandwidth requirement of 1080p.
When you hit a button on the controller, the Mac not only has to render the new frame at 4K but then compress it down enough to stream over 802.11ac or 100Mbps ethernet in real-time and 60 frames every second. The iPhone manages to record 4K at 30fps so the Mac should be able to do 60fps ok but it would be rendering the game at 4K at the same time, which saturates the GPU and there's a much lower limit to how many frames you can compress together when it's real-time.
Hardware should be aiming for 4K in general but when it's a ~$50 box, buying another one in future when there's more support on TVs and Macs isn't so bad. The latest Apple TV box is only 1080p too. Plus, although Macs have Retina displays, typically content outputs at the workspace resolution. A 5K iMac for example has a 1440p workspace, it just renders at a higher resolution first and scales it down. Games can be set to 5K but the in-game UI often goes very small, which would be hard to see on a TV.
I didn't say they could, but they sure have a higher resolution that 1080p. Many games can go to 1440 x 2560 and GTA V is rumored to be 4K capable. I guess I am one of the 5 by the way.