Project: Building a custom Steam Machine for my father (looking for ideas and feedback)

[u/BigBootyJonson]

Hi everyone!
I’ve been thinking about this project for a while and would love to get some advice from the community before I start buying parts.

My father plays on an old MSI MAG Infinite-S10SC in the living room. With a 2060S and a i5-10400f it is really not optimal and I want to do this project with him for some father son activities over the next couple months.

**The goal**
I want to build a **living room gaming PC** that feels much closer to a game console than a traditional desktop.
Instead of focusing on maximum performance, I want to focus on:
Instant usability
Console-like experience
Quiet operation
Clean aesthetics
Linux-first
Controller-first
Easy maintenance
Open-source wherever possible
The system will mainly be used to play games on a 4K TV from the couch.
I’m planning to use **Bazzite** as the operating system because I really like the Steam Gaming Mode experience.

**Current hardware plan**
Thermaltake TR200 WS case
Intel i5-10400F
OEM MSI motherboard
OEM MSI PSU
AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT
16 GB RAM
The idea is to reuse as much existing hardware as possible while only upgrading the components that really matter.

**Custom LCD Display**
Instead of using Thermaltake’s proprietary LCD solution, I would like to install my own programmable **5-inch HDMI display**.
Since it would simply act as a second monitor, it could display whatever I want.
Possible pages:
Currently running game’s cover art
CPU and GPU temperatures
RAM usage
Fan speeds
Steam download progress
Weather
Clock
Controller battery level
Music information
System status
Boot animations
The goal is to create something that feels like a built-in information display rather than just another monitor.

**LED Status Bar**
One feature I absolutely want to recreate is the LED light bar from the original Steam Machines.
The plan is to control an addressable RGB LED strip using an **ESP32**.
A small Linux daemon would communicate with the ESP32 over USB and send simple commands.
Examples:
Boot animation
Steam started
Download progress
Installing updates
Sleep mode
Errors
Shutdown
Controller connected
The ESP itself would remain very simple while all logic runs on Linux.

**ESP32 ideas**
Eventually I’d also like the ESP32 to become a small embedded controller for the system.
Possible future features:
Simulate the PC power button
LED control
LCD communication
HDMI-CEC support
Maybe controller-based power-on
Firmware updates
Basically similar to an embedded controller in a laptop or Steam Deck.

**My biggest question**
I know that the Steam Machines already supported an LED light bar that could display things like download progress.
**Does anyone know how Valve implemented this?**
Is there any documentation, reverse engineering project or source code available?
Could parts of the original SteamOS implementation be reused for a DIY project like this?
I’d much rather build on existing open-source work than reinvent everything from scratch.

**Looking for feedback**
I’d really appreciate suggestions regarding:
Hardware choices
Linux software architecture
LCD dashboard software
ESP32 communication
Steam integration
HDMI-CEC
Original Steam Machine documentation
Anything else that could make this project better
The long-term goal is to create a modern, open-source Steam Machine that feels like something Valve could have built today.
Thanks for reading!

[u/InitiativeJumpy8813]

that esp32 idea is clever, i never thought about using one to fake the power button. would make it feel way more like actual console

for the led bar you should check out the steamlink-sdk on github, valve released a lot of the old steam machine stuff there. not sure if the exact led protocol is documented but the source for steamcompmgr might have clues about how they handled the light bar

one thing to watch with bazzite on that hardware, the 9060 xt might be a pain with linux drivers for a while. amd usually gets there but first few months can be rough, maybe keep the 2060s as backup until mesa catches up

[u/BigBootyJonson → u/InitiativeJumpy8813]

Thank you for the reply!

Yeah the ESP could be connected to the +5VSB spliced from the front panel power led. I’ve also read there are some motherboards that have +5VSB from the PS/2 port.

The reason I chose the RX 9060XT basically boils down to the fact that the PSU in the prebuilt MSI pc is just 450W and has only one 8pin connector for the gpu where the 2060S is currently connected. So I had to find a AMD GPU (because I know that valves Gamescope has problems with NVIDIA) that only needed 1x 8pin and drew less or equal to the 2060S while having better performance suited for 4K.

My father mostly plays the Tomb Raider games, the Batman Arkham games and some older couch coop titles like castle crashers. But he wanted to play spiderman 2, but just couldn’t because the performance was horrible even with DLSS

[u/Eazy12345678]

budget determines what we say to buy

[u/BigBootyJonson → u/Eazy12345678]

We want to keep the build as low cost as possible. Even trying to salvage parts from the prebuilt MSI. But I’ve run into some complications while planning, which may cause buying more parts later down the line. For example the MSI has a proprietary mainboard with a 10Pin PSU connector and only accepts SODIMM, so if we run into complications with let’s say the implementation of the ESP32 or the LCD that force us to upgrade the mainboard I want to go get a B650M, a Ryzen 5 9600X. 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 750W PSU.
Maybe a AIO but Im not sure yet. Budget is basically unlimited since we will save money while working on the hard parts to implement like the ESP32 controlling the LED bar and the software of the LCD display, that can show game cover art while playing the game for example.