OSX - Steam - AppleTV

[Fzero]

Looking for some advise from any iMAC/OSX gurus

I know it's not the ideal gaming solution, and I'm hoping to treat myself to a Steambox PC when they're available, they look nice [like the Dell/Alien one I seen] and obviously meet the required specs.

Anyway, for the meanwhile, I'm enjoying Steam on my telly using "Big Picture" mode, but I am running it from a nano PC which isn't the most powerful of boxes, I can play some games just fine, but others like F1 and Prototype are unplayable, running at around half speed only.

But, I do have a more powerful iMac [late 2012] sitting in the living room too, which I rarely use for gaming, other than some emulation on a Windows VM on it.

So I'm thinking, I could run Steam on the VM sitting on my iMac, and it would perform a lot better.

Thing is, I don't fancy sitting in the corner on my 'not-so-comfy-chair' where my Mac is, I'd much rather sit on my sofa in front of my big telly. [As I do currently with the nano PC, which is connected with HDMI to the telly]

Connecting HDMI from my Mac to the telly is not really an option, as they on other sides of the room.

So, how do I achieve this model? Running Steam on my Windows VM on my Mac, wirelessly to my telly, using gamepad and Big Picture mode [i have PS3 controller and another USB gamepad on my Mac already]

I'm thinking I will need 'Apple TV', though not sure if I need just that, or that and 'Airport' to do the wireless stream to the telly... and if indeed that does allow to stream the entire desktop, thus my Steam on VM, or if those things only can mirror certain apps like browser, itunes, YouTube... [thinking perhaps Apple might restrict things, I know mirroring an old iPhone to telly was a pain unless jailbroke?]

Any help welcome, thinking until I can get a decent spec PC to hook up, this might be a cheaper means of getting Steam on my telly with more power, so can enjoy some of the more resource hungry games I've bought

 

[NearTao]

Technically you can do this, but the amount of latency introduced is likely to be more than noticable

 

[Wally]

Unless you AirPlay over LAN (Yes if you ethernet it, it will work) you'll notice a fair bit of lag, I have done some video playback from this Retina MacBook Pro to my AppleTV and pressing pause will take 3 seconds on the TV itself.

Besides the point. Virtual Machines are definitely not good for gaming as they're using a rather generic driver specific to the VM hence not getting great graphics performance. From experience BootCamp would be the way to go. Providing you update the Graphics Driver everything should work pretty smoothly.

 

[Fzero]

OK thanks for the info.

Originally, I went with the VM option over BootCamp as it meant I could adjust the storage allocation on the fly, rather than commit a certain amount, which I believe is the case with BootCamp.

That said, I might just go with that option now, as I do still have plenty storage space, so shouldn't be a problem committing a fair amount of GB's to the BootCamp partition.

I think I'll put up with a long cable then, and just put it away when not player Steam.

My plan now is to;

-Setup BootCamp, run Windows on that, then install Steam client onto there.

-Buy a Mini Display Port adapter [http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mini-DisplayPort-Thunderbolt-to-HDMI-Cable-Adaptor-for-Apple-Mac-Macbook-Retina-/400339805709], so I can then run a long HDMI lead from that to my telly.

I guess that setup, seeing as would be using BootCamp and a physical connection [HDMI] would work fairy well, in terms of Steam Big Picture mode on the telly. Shouldn't experience too much lag, and will perform better than my little Nano PC

That adapter is only a fiver, and I have long HDMI leads already

 

[NearTao]

Using a physical HDMI cable out to get you the best performance. If you still seem to get lag with a bluetooth controller definitely try using a USB controller to see if that helps.

 

[Fzero]

Cheers.

I've got a USB controller controller too which I currently use on the Nano PC for Steam, so can use that if need to, the lead on it is long too