Technically, the Steam Machine supports HDMI 2.1. However, Valve and AMD are not allowed to offer an open-source driver for it.

The HDMI Forum, responsible for the HDMI specification, continues to stonewall open source. Valve’s Steam Machine theoretically supports HDMI 2.1, but the mini-PC is software-limited to HDMI 2.0. As a result, more than 60 frames per second at 4K resolution are only possible with limitations.

    • pivot_root@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      18 hours ago

      That was something they could actually market to the consumer as a necessary upgrade, though.

      • “Sure, you need a new cable, but component video has cleaner edges and less color bleeding.”
      • “Sure, you need a new cable, but HDMI has better resolution and no fuzziness.”

      Going from HDMI 2.1 to DisplayPort 2.1a doesn’t offer anything other than higher bandwidth, and not even high-end PCs are capable of pushing resolutions at high enough framerates for that bandwidth to have been the limiting factor for games.

      Because of that lack of perceptible benefit to them, the optics of replacing HDMI on consumer devices that are meant to be connected to TVs isn’t going to be good. Even if it’s an objectively better standard from a technical perspective, it will just come across to consumers as an unnecessary change meant to push their TVs towards planned obsolescence.

      They’re going to complain about it, the media will pick up on the story and try to turn it into a scandal, and then legislators and regulators will step in and make decisions based on limited understanding of the technical reasons. By that point, one of the console manufacturers will have been pressured into backing down and promise to keep HDMI in their next-gen console, and the other ones will have followed suit because they don’t want to lose sales over it.

      The only way console manufacturers are going to stay united in kicking HDMI to the curb is if the organization behind HDMI pulls a Unity move and starts charging royalties to the manufacturers for every time a consumer plugs the console into a TV.

      • eRac@lemmings.worldEnglish
        8·
        20 hours ago

        It bothers me. There are too many things that are either not standards-complient or support different parts of the USB feature set that compatibility is a wildcard.

        I carry a large backup battery when I travel for work. It can keep my laptop going under load all day, allowing me to not care at all about proximity to outlets when working. It also allows me to painlessly recharge phones by just handing it to someone.

        Last week, I was running something from someone else’s laptop (enterprise HP, like mine, but different model). It got low, so I pulled out my battery. Plug it in… No power. I could see the voltage fluctuations of it negotiating, but nothing after that.

      • Bilb!@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        12 hours ago

        I have actually been looking at modding an NES with HDMI (and other goodies) as a small project. There are various kits out there.