The TL;DR is that the organization that controls the HDMI standard won’t allow any open source implementation of HDMI 2.1.
So the hardware is fully capable of it, but they’ll get in trouble if them officially implement it.
Instead it’s officially HDMI 2 (which maxes out at 4k @ 60Hz), but through a technique called chroma sub-sampling they’ve been able to raise that up to 4k @ 120Hz.
However there are some minor reductions in picture quality because of this, and the whole thing would be much easier if the HDMI forum would be more consumer friendly.
In the meantime, the Steam Machine also has display port as a completely issue free display option.
I’m honestly surprised TV OEMs haven’t bothered to at least try throwing in DisplayPort, especially during the period of time it far exceeded the highest possible quality on HDMI.
HDMI is just the last hardware standard created from the ashes of the format wars that has no practical place anymore. It only exists to collect hostage licensing fees.
Tv oems are the ones that set up the hdmi club. They want the content encrypted with drm, from transit, to your pc, to your cable, to your screen. Look up the analog hole. This battle has been going on for 20 years. Share this with interested people.
Because TV OEMs are the ones in the HDMI consortium.
governments should start cracking down on codecs. tf are dipshits allowed to hold standards hostage?
Fuck HDMI! All my homies use DisplayPort.
Unfortunately my TV is not one of your homies.
The main feature of Hdmi has always been DRM.
As a bazzite user, with it connected to my living room TV that only has HDMI ports, yeah this was obviously why Valve said 2.1 isn’t supported at the steam machine reveal.
Hey, it’s what ruined Blu-Ray making a comeback! Way to go, dipshit consortiums.
why not just use DisplyPort?
Cause device targets couch gaming with TV. TVs don’t have DP, they have HDMI.
oh… to be honest i don’t have a tv, i thought they would just have a plethora of connections to match what ever hardware you use like pc’s i don’t see why not when display port is open sourced
Wow, no HDMI 2.1 is a deal breaker for me. This is fucking sad.
Blame the HDMI consortium. Bastards.
That said, I’m not sure why it’d be a deal-breaker. In 2026 this will be a low-end PC. It’s using a 2 year old laptop GPU that Valve has dumped more power into.
Chroma subsampling is because they don’t have the bandwidth for 4k120@RGB, not because HDMI won’t allow it. The two things aren’t related.
The HDMI version is what determines how much bandwidth you have available.
HDMI 2.0 has a max of 18GB/s bandwidth, which is why the Steam Machine has to do chroma subsampling to go above 4k@60Hz. HDMI 2.1 ups that bandwidth to 48GB/s, allowing higher resolution/refresh rate.
The physical hardware is HDMI 2.1 capable and can do that if the device is running windows, so this is entirely the HDMI Forum limiting the capabilities of the device because it’s an open source device.
Right, but they have to use chroma subsampling on hdmi2.0 because HDMI won’t allow an open source driver for HDMI 2.1
