Yes, some games just let you select which controller is which, some of them you have to manually set it in the Steam Input settings before you launch the game.

The ONLY problem I have had with this, is the controller on the system itself defaults as controller 1, so SOME games it takes a little fiddling to use different controllers. But I have done this and it works great.

I’ve used a handful of different USB to HDMI docks, and I haven’t had any problems with any of them. I just use an anker dock that supports gigabit ethernet, 100W power passthrough, and HDMI, and it works just fine.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087QZVQJX/

You can use just about any controllers using Bluetooth, I really like the wireless XBox controllers (only supported over Bluetooth) for this. But I’ve also used the Switch controllers and they work fine.

It’s really just a slightly expensive setup for what it is, but it’s also very portable, so…

How do you set this up to forward properly? Do you use different domains for different services? like plex.example.com?

I currently have nginx set up to forward based on port, which is fine for me, but it could be a little better.

Saw a neat ESP32 IR blaster on sparkfun. Might try to set it up to control some LED string lights.

It somewhat depends on the game, and the order that you pair things in.

I’ve run my steam deck, docked on the TV, with 2 Nintendo Pro controllers, 1 XBox controller, 1 Stadia controller, all running over bluetooth, and a fifth PS3 controller plugged in via USB. From what I understand the limit is 8 controllers, but I think the built in controller counts as one.

You can go into the settings and tell it which controller is which, but in the end, the game can override things and make it not work as expected. The only way to really know is to check on a game-by-game basis.

They basically already have one. The steam deck with the dock (though you have to provide your own controller.)

They’d certainly gain some performance improvements by building a dedicated steam machine, but it would also split the market for the steam deck, which the article already talked about as being a negative of the first iteration.

Dunno, I probably wouldn’t get a stationary steam machine over a mobile steam deck. Though being able to use Thunderbolt 4 for an eGPU on a steam deck would be a welcome enhancement, but that’s a whole different discussion.

Would be nice, but the amount of dialogue updates would be daunting for a one person operation.

Stardew Valley — for the thousandth time (new patches = new farm)

That would be a great platform to start with.

Price in a backup solution too, you don’t want to have all your movies disappear because of one hard drive crash, or an accidental reformat gone wrong.

RAID is not a backup.

Feels like some of that stuff, like the SSD’s are a bit overkill for a media server. Most of them still use spinning disks to maximize size vs. cost.

Additionally, the CPU/GPU needs of a media server are pretty minor, unless you need to transcode on the fly, and even then, single streams aren’t very intensive either.

So unless you’re capping the outgoing bandwidth to multiple external sources, you’re most likely just streaming the video source as-is to the destination, which just needs a stable network stream. If you don’t need to transcode at all, you don’t really even need a GPU on the hardware.

Just keeping lunch warm.

Nah, a cable modem costs anywhere from $60-$300 depending on if you want one with a built in router/wifi. That’s a pretty good return on investment. Mine has been running just fine for over a decade, and I’ve replaced the wifi router behind it 3 times to get improvements in WiFI speed that I wouldn’t have gotten from my ISP. $11/mo would have cost me an extra $1,300+ of fees by now.

I have mediacom, and they’re pretty good about support in my area, even if they are pretty shitty about other things. They can and do send signals to be able to manage a self-owned cable modem, and they’ll send a tech to your house and diagnose issues, even if you roll your own network.

The US has some decent laws around protecting you from getting shafted by ISPs for this specific situation.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/router-and-modem-rental-fees-still-a-major-annoyance-despite-new-us-law/

Very interesting, I like the screenshots! Will definitely check this out.

This is a good list, but I didn’t see you mention SSL certificates. If you’ve gone through all your steps, you should be able to use LetsEncrypt to get free, automatically managed SSL certs for your environment.

https://letsencrypt.org/

I’m old, so I like playing nostalgic NES era games. Super Mario, Double Dragon, Final Fantasy 1, Tetris classic, etc.

I had a DS212j for about 10 years before I replaced it, and it was working just fine, so I sold it on ebay. It just couldn’t keep up with the transcoding plex that I was using it for. Heck, 7 of those years it was running on a shelf in my garage getting covered in dust, and spiderwebs.

I imagine a + model will last even longer than that.

Agreed, as long as they don’t go the BMW route and charge for heated seats, or the Toyota route and charge for remote start using the key fob.

Unless that “more” button is doing a lot of heavy lifting, this is basically paying for the Internet connection for your car to be able to connect to a phone app through Kia’s servers.