Valve paves the way to turn your PC into a Steam Machine

The Steam Machine is the hot commodity in the gaming right now, with Valve opening up reservations this week. If you were turned off by that steep starting price of $1,049 or simply didn’t want to go through the reservation process, there’s now some good news coming from Valve.

Valve has just confirmed to The Verge that, beginning with SteamOS 3.8, which landed last week, gamers will be able to build their own version of the Steam Machine “using whatever PC parts” they want.

This is huge news for the gaming community as it paves the way for a future in which SteamOS can run seamlessly on existing desktop hardware.

Additionally, Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais told The Verge in an interview that a “growing team” is working to bring NVIDIA driver support to SteamOS, and that they’re “collaborating with NVIDIA very closely.” However, Griffais clarified that support may not land this year.

Installing SteamOS on non-AMD hardware is technically possible, but way more complex than it needs to be. The good news is that Valve is working on changing that in the future, potentially making SteamOS hardware-agnostic.

Focusing on the present, Griffais recommends SteamOS for console-type hardware where the PC is paired to a TV and runs on a single-boot hard drive. This setup, Griffais claims, would be “very similar to a Steam Deck docked or a Steam Machine,” albeit with a few hardware-related caveats.

If you have PC hardware that meets these criteria, then SteamOS may be worth trying, especially if you don’t want to splurge on the Steam Machine. It’s no secret that building your own powerful gaming PC isn’t ideal for many owing to the unrelenting RAM shortage, though that may well change in the future.

Installing SteamOS on your PC currently requires the Steam Deck recovery image. That may not be the case forever, though, as Griffais also teases the possibility of a future SteamOS installer to make things less complicated. But if you have compatible hardware and want to install it right now, it is recommended to generate a full backup of your data beforehand, as the drive will need to be wiped before the process.

It’s clear from Griffais’s words that Valve is putting in the work to make SteamOS a viable alternative to existing operating systems, including Windows.