Will the Steam Machine Age Like Fine Wine? Anti-Cheat, FSR 4, Driver Optimisation, Remote Play and More

I'm quite into competitive shooters like Counter-Strike, Battlefield 6 and Valorant, many of which demand kernel-level anti-cheat software, so I was curious to learn if Valve had made any progress on anti-cheat support for Linux since the last time I asked about it - when the Steam Machine was first announced.

Back then, Valve representatives told me that they thought that the Steam Machine was a "more natural fit" for competitive multiplayer than Steam Deck, so "the incentives for enabling anti-cheat are higher". They went on to say that they "hope the launch of Steam Machine will change the equation around anti-cheat support" on Linux.

So, have things changed? Pierre-Loup Griffais told us that "there is a lot of work happening behind the scenes there, and a lot of conversations with all the parties... developing their own anti-cheat system, as to how the best way to integrate that is. There's not anything that we're rolling out differently around the Steam Machine launch, so the situation is [currently] similar to what you would expect for the Steam Deck."

So, that's a no for now, then - but it got me thinking about how the Steam Machine might improve over time if it were finally fixed, and what other small changes I'd like to see. Certainly, feature updates like FSR 4 would go a long way to granting the Steam Machine that classic AMD FineWine moniker, but what else is missing that would improve the overall experience?

For me, one obvious answer is Remote Play, the feature that allows users to stream games running on their other PCs. This is a great option for running heavier games on Steam Machine, especially gamepad-based games that are less latency-sensitive, as it means that a more powerful PC can do the heavy lifting while the SM just has to show you a video feed and pass back your inputs. This opens the door to running Windows-exclusive games, of course, even though you wouldn't want to play something competitive like Valorant.

The most recent Steam client update has already made a big improvement here, offering a new 100Mbps streaming option for fast connections and an up-rated "Unlimited" option that tops out at 250Mbps. This goes some way to reducing the quality gap between Remote Play and community solutions like Moonlight, though I'd like to see Valve add a 120Hz option to really take advantage of this extra bandwidth.

Another area is driver optimisation. SteamOS already runs well on AMD hardware like that of the Steam Machine, but further optimisations over the course of the Steam Machine's lifetime could help get the most out of its fixed hardware - and developers may also be incentivised to target the hardware specifically if the SM sells well.

As well as graphics drivers, improvements to the Proton compatibility layer could also improve performance in a range of areas - though some games already run faster on Linux than they do natively on Windows. CPU scheduling is another area that could be optimised, which is something that Valve is already working on with its LAVD scheduler. This was originally written for Steam Deck, and I'd expect to see some small updates to better suit the Steam Machine over time.

One thing's for sure though - just like the Steam Deck has received years of updates to this point, we're likely to see a similar trajectory for Steam Machine, with Valve's Lawrence Yang telling Rock Paper Shotgun that they expect to work on both their "own list of features" and make changes based on community feedback once the Steam Machine is in the wild.

With that, I'll turn it over to you - what sorts of new features, improvements or changes do you want to see roll out for Steam Machine in its first year? And if you say "make it cheaper", then hey, I have just the article for you.