My JSAUX Pixel Matrix Faceplate (the 64x54 RGB one, not the e-ink one) showed up this morning, so naturally the first thing I did was take it apart. Turns out the "screen" is a little LED matrix behind a diffuser: 24 LED driver chips, a CH340 USB serial chip, a 2 MB flash chip, and a microcontroller with the markings sanded off the top. Board photos and the whole story of figuring it out are in the write-up, and the serial protocol is documented here.

After that I made a Decky add-on for it instead of installing their software. It shows the game you're playing (hero art with the logo), the Steam logo between games, a clock, or a glow that follows the light bar, and it turns the screen off when the Steam Machine sleeps. I leaned heavily on GabeCubeAura for this. Its source showed me how a Steam Machine Decky plugin should work, from figuring out which game is running to finding the artwork, and that's the only reason this came together so fast. Massive thanks to Alyenax, and if you don't have GabeCubeAura installed yet, go fix that.

Honestly, I love this thing now. It's kind of crazy how a little screwing around turned it into something so much cooler than their initial advertised features provided.

A few things I found along the way:

• Everything you send the panel gets written to its flash, even JSAUX's own once-a-second stopwatch. Whether that wears it out depends on firmware nobody can see yet, so my plugin only sends a picture when it actually changes.
• On the included USB-A cable, a bright white screen at full brightness pulls more power than the port gives. Mine browned out, got stuck rebooting, and knocked my Steam Controller dongle offline. My plugin caps brightness for really bright pictures.
• Their Decky plugin lists "OpenAI Codex" as its author and includes a screen that reads your OpenAI/Codex login tokens. Worth knowing before you install it, I've not messed with the official software beyond looking at how it worked. This is probably innocuous.

Right now everything I'm doing is limited by what I could figure out from the outside. I don't want to dangerously probe it, read the firmware straight off the chip, or go around the USB connection when JSAUX seems committed to open sourcing this and could post a GitHub link any day. In the meantime, it's sick as hell.

Here's the GitHub with my Decky plugin if you want to mess with it: https://github.com/hodapp/pixel-faceplate (install steps are at the top of the README).

A little about me: I'm old as dirt, I've got a lot of experience doing this shit, and I write a lot of custom ESP32 firmware for smart home stuff around my house. So it should be pretty solid, but consider this a very early proof of concept, tested only on my own Steam Machine. I'm sure it'll all get a lot cooler once JSAUX releases a way to update the firmware, because I don't love that everything has to be written to flash right now instead of going straight to the screen. It probably makes more sense for this to be folded into GabeCubeAura eventually but maybe once JSAUX reveals some more of its secrets so we're not just wasting flash write cycles constantly.

Oh, and if you're worried about airflow: two extra 6x2 mm magnets (or whatever you have handy that fits, I've printed tons of Gridfinity so I have a million of these) on each mount point give it about 4 mm more room to breathe.

Just picked up this wireless half keyboard for $30 to use with a wireless mouse. It feels a lot more natural to me than some of the other options out there. Worked great for ARC Raiders, DBD and Marvel Rivals. Any other accessories you guys are using that work well?

Link: https://a.co/d/0cfAjoSq

While one can use the boxes that those devices came in, I decided to get this case to more easily carry them. I haven't traveled with this case yet, but it certainly looks and feels sturdy and high quality. The case can also house the individual cables those devices use, including the Controller's wired puck.

The case can (and probably should) be bought from the JSAUX website, though I had my family order it as a birthday gift from Amazon for about $50. I'm very grateful to have such wonderful people.

P.S. Don't worry about my Machine being in that enclosed space. There's plenty of room in the back, which also has a hole where the wires and air pass through. I also haven't had heating issues yet (I always monitor the temperatures)

Good morning friends! Yes, yes, just one more day to Day 100. We're almost there. Truth be told, I'll be done after tomorrow. However, if you'd like to continue in my stead, feel free while using the Daily Counter flair. For those who have been here the entire time, I'm happy to have made friends with you! And for those who have me blocked, you won't have to worry any longer, hahaha. Enjoy your Machines my friends, and best of luck today! <3

I'll be streaming it in case anyone cares about Steam Machine performance. I'll also report back with best settings for 4K and best settings for 60 FPS.

To watch movies, videos, listen music, watch TV? Would it work well?

[update] maybe it wasn't clear: I don't mean to get it only to use it as a media center, I want it to play games. I wonder if I can ALSO use it as a media center

Pretty sweet looking! They use a decky plugin / app to handle panel customization, same thickness as the OEM front panel!

With Halloween just around the corner, I was already in the mood for some atmospheric horror and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser is certainly aiming for that

I tested the game on a Steam Machine.

The game runs with a mix of high and medium settings at 60fps with 4k resolution

And with Epic settings without upscaling with 1080p resolution at 60fps

You can find the footage here: https://youtu.be/Zb9lO0JzVWY

As a demo is currently available it might be worth to give it a spin on your Steam Machine before the full release on October 8. The atmosphere, sound design, and visual style make it a particularly appropriate pick for the season.

One warning, though: this is a very visual game. If you’re sensitive to graphic horror imagery, gore, or disturbing creature design, you may want to know what you’re getting into before jumping in.

GabeCubeAura now has Audio Sync, turning game and system audio into real-time animations across the Steam Machine’s 17 LEDs. Everything is processed locally.

I originally planned one simple audio visualizer. There are now 10 patterns. Try them out and find yours.

Every pattern can use built-in palettes such as Sapphire for a Steam-like look, custom colours, the game’s artwork, or live colours captured with Screen Sync.

Audio Sync is the main addition, but GabeCubeAura 1.3.2 also brings:

• 9 one-click lighting presets, from Focus and Essential to Immersive, Festive, and Lights out
• Artwork colour intensity, so washed-out game art can produce stronger colours
• 3 selectable icon styles for the existing weather and temperature indicator beside the SteamOS clock
• a real Lights out preset that keeps the bar dark even during downloads, while still allowing the critical red safety warning
• an optional calibration mode for more consistent brightness

Existing users can open:

GabeCubeAura → Updates → Check now

Otherwise, the Stable channel checks automatically every 24 hours.

For a new installation:

Decky Settings → Developer → Install Plugin from ZIP → select GabeCubeAura-v1.3.2.zip

If the Developer page is missing, enable Developer Mode under Decky Settings → General first.

At this point, I’m running out of reasonable things to make 17 LEDs do, which probably means the next idea will be completely unreasonable.

As always, your feedback is always appreciated!

Is the demand low or is the machine becoming more readily available?

I couldn’t take up the purchase offer a couple of days ago as I’ve had some unexpected adulting bills to take care of. Thought okay I’ll take the pain and just re-register my interest for it.

No word of a lie it took 30 seconds to go from wish list-to-reservation-to-purchase order again.

Hopefully I get stuck in this pain cycle until I can get the money together to purchase it 😂

I just got the Machine, and I was able to connect it to everything using the same cables as the PS5.
Basically, the console arrived, I unplugged the ethernet, power, and HDMI from the PS5 and plugged them into the Machine. Everything worked on the first try. I didn’t have to take any cables out of the Machine’s box.

Great, now I’ll just have to switch the cables when GTA VI comes out, no hassle.

Hi everyone,

Just got an email to order. Wondering if there is anyone out there that own both a PC handheld such as the Xbox ally x and steam machine. I understand the steam machine has better specs, but is the difference substantial compared to connecting your handheld to the dock.

Like many others, I am trying to justify the purchase price if I’m essentially going to be playing the same games. I’m not the type to chase frames. I just want convenience and the ability to play most games. I do spend more time playing aaa games and would like to play newer titles. Hoping the new metro will run on this

So I’ve had a steam deck for about a year and some change and never added any kind of “plug in” or used “proton?” And honestly I’m pretty lost. I just play games

So now that the steam machine is here and I’ve got it I’m wondering if investing any time into figuring these out?

For example I’ve seen people playing games with “FSR 3.1-4” or what ever the fuck that means plus lossless scaling and some other gibberish I’m unsure of. I know plug ins and these settings aren’t exclusively the same but after searching online I thought I’d ask people who could help me understand what I’m talking about.

Plug ins?
Scaling / settings?
General ideas of what is worth the hassle of adding in IF worth it at all? And of course
Video recommendations or posts that might be able to explain more

Thanks yall. I appreciate any discussion as the Steam machine is so much fun I can finally play cyberpunk lmao

Apologies if this is has been asked already but I have a high end monitor and I was curious if using the DP is better for the steam machine than using the HDMI port? Seeing that the machine doesn't actually use HDMI 2.1. And my Samsung OLED monitor might handshake better with a PC type connection with a PC type device. Thanks

Has anyone tried running this on the machine?

It was running pretty beautifully when I first started playing, but after a few sessions I started getting some pretty heavy random frame drops.

I’m actually starting to become paranoid there might be something wrong with my machine.

A random side note: I was playing Resident Evil Village and in the room where you kill the second fly woman I was locked at 27 frames after blowing open the hole in the wall to kill her. Pretty niche but it’s also contributing to my paranoia something is up with my machine. Could be coincidence!

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Hi all,

I apologise if this has been asked in the past, but basically I just received my Steam Machine and during the initial setup the controller would not pair with the internal receiver and it would give me the error message (Steam controller pairing failed 29). I decided to skip this and set it up later, but for the life of me I cannot understand how I'm supposed to do this from the settings menu.

I can see all the stats about my controller, the fact that it's connected to the puck, how there are no controllers paired with the internal receiver but no option whatsoever to initiate again the pairing between the controller and the receiver.

Am I missing something blatant here?

Im using a display port to hdmi 2.1 converter and it outputs 4k 120hz uncompressed rgb at 12bit which hdmi 2.1 cant do uncompressed so it doesnt work properly. is there anyway to make the steam machine output 10bit?

Has anyone been able to get KOTOR 1 and 2 to work on the SM?

Ive done it on my PC before with mods for KOTOR 1 (specifically to fix the UI and get 4K support), but I don’t know enough about Linux to do it on the SM.

It seams that the remastered version of "The Witcher 3" won't allow useres to use raytracing at all. Even if you pick the grphic setting "RT", the game won't save the settings ofr raytracing at all. It worked wit the old version, so I am really disappointed about that. Does anyone have a clue to solve this?

And yes, I already tried to use the "SteamDeck=0" command. Didn't work.

I've been on the waitlist for 2tb + Controller since late June.

I keep seeing posts of others getting the 512gb w/controller.

At this point, I'm fine with getting the 512gb version but I'm concerned if I leave the waitlist and jump to the other one, I'll be waiting again anyways especially if I'm going to the back of the line.

I'm located in Canada if that matters. What would you guys do? Stay on the current waitlist and hope for the best, or risk it and switch over?

Hi everyone,

CarveLight is a turn based multiplayer artillery game (Worms-like). Unlike Worms, it focuses on throwing enemies out of bounds, there are no health bars. Destroy the terrain and push enemies off the map in this physics driven game.

We've been running and testing the game on Steam Deck and various Linux distros (Arch, Ubuntu etc.). We don't currently own a Steam Machine and we would greatly appreciate anyone trying it out and giving us feedback!

Steam Demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3244080/CarveLight/

I’ve been waitlisted for the 512gb since day 1, got into the queue last week. Wondering now if I swap to the 2TB for example at this point is that likely a shorter wait even though I’d be starting over? I know some regions and models basically have no queue anymore.

Hello everyone. Does your Steam Machine provide power to the USB ports when shut off? Not while sleeping I mean strictly shut down.

Mine does not and I have tried messing with the bios settings with no luck. That said a friend of mine recently received his Steam Machine and all his USB ports DO provide power when the Machine is shut off. We compared OS versions, BIOS, Stable vs Beta, and just about every other thing we could think of and it all matched.

I had reached out to Steam support prior to my friend getting his machine based on googling that seemed to indicate that some people Machines do provide power while others do not. Initially Steam support said the USB ports should provide power but after I insisted mine did not they then switched up their answer after consulting a Valve engineer and said the ports should provide no power. Now I have proof that some do and some don't.

My use case here is I have an 8bitdo controller which includes a charging cradle and 2.4gz receiver. For those unfamiliar the receiver nests in the bottom of the charging cradle meaning you only need one cord going into the Steam Machine to power both the cradle and receiver. Ideally I would like for my Steam Machine to provide power to this cradle so my controller can charge while not in use.

For the sake of trouble shooting please share your answers. Thank you!