[HN Gopher] Why Steam Deck Is One of the Most Significant PC Gam...
___________________________________________________________________
Why Steam Deck Is One of the Most Significant PC Gaming Moments in
Years
Author : thunderbong
Score : 374 points
Date : 2023-02-08 13:39 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.techspot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.techspot.com)
| ojbyrne wrote:
| One minor but glaring thing for me is it's really challenging to
| connect to any Wi-Fi (hotel, airplane) that requires accessing a
| webpage to acknowledge T & Cs. This seems like a core use case.
| flatiron wrote:
| switch to desktop mode, connect to wifi, kde should either give
| you a pop-up or you can just agree to the T&C from a browser.
| you can even setup the browser to launch directly from game
| mode, i never did this though so can't walk you through.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| When I did that, KDE did not give me a popup, and also
| there's no browser installed. Had to install Firefox over a
| phone hotspot. Not a great experience.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I was in a situation where my WiFi hotspot died and I couldn't
| launch any new games because I didn't have internet. The
| offline mode button didn't work because... I didn't have
| internet.
|
| That's an inexcusable problem for a device supposedly designed
| to be used on the go. I can live with (and grumble at) not
| being able to get into hotel WiFi without switching to desktop
| mode (which in itself is an amazing feature on a console-like)
| but there are still bad problems that need fixing.
|
| Luckily, the Deck team is still pushing out patches, fixes, and
| features quite quickly so I have faith these problems will be
| resolved in the future. Competing manufacturers seem to slow
| down their update cycle significantly once a device has hit the
| market but Valve is doing well.
| bmer wrote:
| A lot of games I would want to play have UIs that I think would
| be extremely tiny on a 7 inch screen. Which makes me think: if
| they are "available on Steam Deck", they would be a pain to play?
|
| Put differently: unless the game is purpose built from the start
| as something that works on a 7 inch screen, I am not sure it
| would be a good idea to play it on a Steam Deck?
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| Some games are difficult. Depending on the ui elements though,
| you could work around them. If the problem is small text, there
| is little you can do, but with steam controls you can create
| custom uis for input, which makes some unplayable games very
| playable.
| traverseda wrote:
| TV scale large UI elements and tiny screen large UI elements
| are actually pretty similar. If your game supports being played
| on a tv at couch difference it probably will work on a small
| screen as well. Most games support TV scale UIs so it's not a
| problem.
|
| 99% of the time it's not a problem. When it is a problem you
| can bind a screen magnifier to a key. I still wouldn't want to
| play some games on it, games that require extensive typing
| (duskers is a game about piloting drones through a command
| line, wouldn't want to play that without a bluetooth keyboard),
| but for the most part it's fine. Most games, even text heavy
| ones, have big old fonts and large UI elements.
| [deleted]
| weard_beard wrote:
| I would disagree here. Elite Dangerous is a very UI and text
| menu heavy game. I fully expected to pop it open and nope out
| with it being unusable and not optimized for the steam deck
| experience.
|
| 300 hours of gameplay with the only frustration being I have to
| hit "Steam + X" to manually pop open the text editor from time
| to time says its possible to even play some decade old games.
| [deleted]
| baggsie wrote:
| I occasionally play elite on my phone (with GeForce now) with
| no problems.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The closeness of a handheld device makes up for screen size.
| Try holding up your phone and comparing it with your main
| Television. It's a lot closer than the raw dimensions would
| suggest.
| htag wrote:
| 1. It's possible to dock the Steam Deck and use a mouse and
| keyboard. The specs make a strong case for itself as a gaming
| PC at it's price point.
|
| 2. While not every game is suitable for the Steam Deck, almost
| every game that was designed to run well on a gaming console
| will control well on the steam deck, if it's compatible on a
| software level.
| mizzack wrote:
| A lot (most?) games work but will have Deck caveats labeled (on
| the Steam store product page in the right column there is a
| "Steam Deck Compatibility" area with details.
|
| Also, the input mapping is fantastic. It's a little cumbersome
| but the touchpads work for mouse input and the additional L/R 4
| and 5 buttons on the back help.
| thom wrote:
| It's possible for this to be an issue. I've been lucky that so
| far everything I've wanted has been legible, or even better
| configurable for different resolutions or scaling factors. In
| some cases I have found the touch screen to be useful over
| trying to hit tiny UI widgets.
|
| Honestly, every game that's not certified that I've tried to
| play, I have been able to craft a control system that feels
| very nice. The sheer number of buttons helps.
| izacus wrote:
| Steam has Steam Deck ratings for games that evaluates that. In
| general, games that a are fully verified have good fonts even
| on 7" screen [1].
|
| The games that don't, will show yellow "Playable" rating with a
| notice that fonts might be small and will need magnification.
| [2]
|
| [1]: https://www.steamdeck.com/en/verified
|
| [2]: https://i.redd.it/y7iramksmij81.jpg
| duffyjp wrote:
| I guess you could try running your games at 800p on your
| current system and see what it's like. I actually do a lot of
| gaming at 1280x800 on an old Macbook. I'm using Parsec to
| connect to an Optiplex with a 1050ti in the basement.
|
| Timberborn is a favorite of mine and even with tons going on
| it's a good experience at 800p. I think the Steamdeck is right
| around 1050/1050ti performance too and that's better than you'd
| think at 800p. I'm currently playing Doom 2016 at Ultra and the
| card can pump 110FPS+ (though I'm limited to 60 on the laptop).
| josefresco wrote:
| The new "Big Picture" mode has screwed with my Steam link. While
| I applaud and drool over the Deck, I wish they hadn't ditched
| support for Steam Link (hardware) and the Steam controllers. I
| don't need the Steam Deck UI, I just want my Steam Link to work
| like it has been for years.
| elpocko wrote:
| I purchased one recently. After one day of frustration trying to
| get at least one of my favorite games to work, I sent it back for
| a refund.
|
| It's a great piece of hardware that still needs a lot of work in
| the software department. It's not ready. Not even the on-screen
| keyboard works properly; the final straw for me was when I was
| locked into the fullscreen main menus of several games with no
| way out (no mouse, no keyboard, no game controller, nothing),
| other than holding down the power button.
|
| Look around the internet, you'll find many reviews that say the
| same things about the device. Don't buy this thing yet if you
| have a low frustration threshold. Don't listen to the fanbois.
| dicroce wrote:
| You have had the exact opposite experience of me. Everything I
| have wanted to work has worked.
| vlowrian wrote:
| As a reference point to others: I have a massive Steam library
| (>300 games) and every game marked as "Verified for Steam Deck"
| (~20%) worked out of the box. I also played many games marked
| as "Playable" (e.g. Fallout New Vegas) which also worked
| perfectly without any specific configuration.
|
| I also had no issues with stability and the Steam Button was a
| reliable way to get me out of the game whenever I misconfigured
| something or started a game with "unknown" ranking, which
| actually didn't work.
| neonsunset wrote:
| It is more than ready, but it assumes some baseline skills to
| get the most out of it. It has awesome controls and its on-
| screen keyboard is alright, it is a game console after all.
|
| In fact, Valve did an awesome job making it extremely usable
| and pushing so much performance out of such a platform.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Yeah it seems kind of janky overall.
| lenlorijn wrote:
| I've only had this experience with one game that was marked as
| not supported at all (Batman: Arkham Asylum). After first
| setting a different version of Proton for the game as per
| internet instructions I could not get past the startup menu at
| all. I tried all the buttons and got quite frustrated that I
| had to quit the game with the available shortcuts every time.
|
| Then I found out I could just click next on the touch screen
| :')
|
| I haven't had any issues with games since. Lost of games, even
| some marked as not playable, ended up working fine.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Valve wisely filters out unsupported games by default, at least
| today, because compatibility can definitely be a challenge.
|
| When you get stuck in a crashed game, you can use shortcuts to
| quit it (hold Steam + B). This likely won't work in desktop
| mode, but you can configure KDE to do whatever you want if you
| run into trouble.
|
| There are definitely UI issues to be fixed but if you stick to
| the normal, supported games and menus, the Deck itself is
| entirely on par with other consoles in my opinion.
|
| The miserable state in which game publishers release their
| games on PC is a whole different can of worms that proves that
| companies expect quite a bit of tolerance of PC gamers.
| goda90 wrote:
| What games were you trying? Valve is very open about what works
| out of the box, and it does work for those things. If you wish
| to push it beyond that, you can usually get it quite far, but
| sometimes it requires tinkering.
| blizdiddy wrote:
| That was my experience as well. I was sticking to "verified"
| games (Crypt of the Necrodancer) and controls worked in the
| game's menu but not the game... using the developers official
| steam deck controller configuration. I updated the deck,
| redownloaded the game, same thing. I was holding a nearly $700
| piece of hardware failing its first task and it was more
| tedious than gaming on my linux desktop because I had to
| troubleshoot with a controller instead of mouse and keyboard.
|
| I am sure it could have worked with more tinkering, but I
| wanted to play games, not tinker. Truth is, the fanboys like to
| tinker, they like to balance trade offs and do performance
| tweaks. I wasn't looking for that at all.
|
| Every time I've mentioned this I hear from fanboys how theirs
| just works, but the steam forums filled with people dropping
| into the terminal and editing files leaves me skeptical.
|
| Ended up getting a return and buying a Logitech G Cloud that I
| love dearly and play every day.
| elpocko wrote:
| I would have loved to tinker with my Steam Deck; it just
| wouldn't let me.
|
| Most of the time I was staring at some game menu, trying to
| figure out how to get out of there because none of the
| buttons/combos did anything. Skyrim wouldn't let me create a
| character - Steam+X(?) for the onscreen keyboard did not
| work. It also wouldn't let me quit while it waited for me to
| type a character name and required a power cycle.
| acomjean wrote:
| Sounds like you had some hardware issue.
|
| My first steamdeck had a bad battery (it wouldn't last more
| than like 15 minutes, really flaky).
|
| I spent some time troubleshooting (as per valve supports
| direction) and everything kind of always worked (when
| plugged in anyway). The buttons, going to "desktop mode",
| going back to the steam app. They had me install steamos
| again from a usb stick oddly. It didn't help.
|
| After trying a few things they sent me a new one, and its
| been great. There was some wierdness in selecting the
| controller, but that seems to have been resolved.
|
| It should have an hdmi port and a usbA port... instead of
| the solitary usb. This would have made the os reinstall so
| much easier.
| edude03 wrote:
| > Don't buy this thing yet if you have a low frustration
| threshold. Don't listen to the fanbois.
|
| I'm sorry to hear your first experience with the steamdeck was
| so poor (I don't work for valve, I'm just Canadian)
|
| While I believe you, I'm confused how you ended up in that
| state - valve has a list of games that work perfectly
| (according to them, I obviously haven't verified them) and then
| games that may work with some tinkering.
|
| I can only imagine you tried games that were marked as not
| working (requiring tinkering) and if you have a low frustration
| tolerance (totally fair) it doesn't make sense why you'd try
| those games then conclude the device isn't ready?
|
| I have a steamdeck, not a fanboy (in fact I want to sell it
| because I don't like how big it is) I also have a low
| frustration tolerance for gaming (I just want to play for a few
| minutes after work) and yet, I haven't managed to become
| frustrated with it yet. Where does our experiences differ?
| boring_twenties wrote:
| Anyone in the know about these devices care to suggest whether
| it's worth getting the top-end 512GB model, or is the 256GB one
| good enough? The SSD itself can be replaced, right? Anti-glare
| glass sounds nice but not sure it's worth the price difference.
| Anything else?
| gretch wrote:
| I got the cheapest option.
|
| It cost me $30 to add 256gb of storage in the form of a microSD
| card.
|
| I'm very happy with it and I think I got 95% of the
| satisfaction with minimal cost. There are some moments when I
| wish I had the better screen or the dock, but not really.
| distances wrote:
| A common recommendation is to buy the cheapest 64GB model + SD
| card. Testers conclude that it's just as fast for games as the
| top model with the best SSD. So that's what I ended up doing
| and it's been working very well.
|
| The Deck SD slot has UHS-I support so maximum read speed is 104
| MB/s even if your card is faster. So no need to get any top-
| class extreme card, as long as it's UHS-I it should be good to
| go.
| Cuuugi wrote:
| So, i unboxed a $2000 item on counterstrike, and because of
| their ecosystem, basically had to keep it in the "Steam
| Economy" so, i purchased the top end model.
|
| Its been great.
|
| I'm really happy with the antiglare screen. I can't always play
| in the dark.
|
| It is possible to replace the SSD although i am pretty sure it
| voids the warranty. Valve's recommendation is that you add an
| SD card, which is a lot more reasonable these days.
|
| Sorry my answer has been kinda rambling yet non descript. tl;dr
| i don't think storage is the biggest concern, but the anti-
| glare glass is great.
| amne wrote:
| I got the dock also and am running two 1440p@144hz monitors with
| the deck. Shutdown the PC .. do the same thing but using at least
| 2-300w less. In today's context it's a huge difference.
|
| I wasn't playing any AAA...A anyway so the deck is just what I
| needed.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I'm waiting patiently for them to officially release SteamOS 3
| for general consumption so I can try it out as an alternative to
| Fedora Kinoite. I have a feeling that if the Steam Deck and its
| clones become really popular then it is entirely possible SteamOS
| 3 will finally replace the rapidly declining Ubuntu as the
| default Desktop Linux Distro recommendation. Having that
| experience be immutable base OS + FlatPak + KDE would be huge
| improvement in my opinion.
| suby wrote:
| The immutable nature of it might hinder adoption. I'm sure
| after enough time and resources are invested into immutable
| desktop bases it'll be fine, I'm just skeptical that it's ready
| at the moment.
| some-guy wrote:
| I bought one with low expectations, but it has surpassed them
| tremendously. Proton is most of the way there. In fact, most of
| the issues I find with some games are the third-party launchers,
| not the games themselves.
|
| The EmuDeck project allows you to easily add pre-configured
| emulators with games as part of the UI. I've been catching up on
| many PS2, PS3, Wii U, and Switch games. It plays AAA games well
| since it only has to render at 800p at medium / low settings.
| Many modern games compared to the past scale well too, and their
| low settings tend to still be bearable.
|
| Steam Cloud works well in case I want to play a game on my
| beefier PC once in awhile. However, I also have a hidden USB-C
| charger/dock combo by my couch that has ethernet, and I can do
| steam link over ethernet with my gaming PC, and it works
| extremely well for that, and I can get a performance boost in
| some of the more demanding games.
|
| The main issues of course are battery life, and its docking
| capabilities. Battery life doesn't affect me too much because I'm
| usually not traveling or away from a compatible charger for more
| than a couple of hours. The docking to a TV / monitor is a joke
| with the standard UI...I have never gotten it to work well, so if
| I need to dock I have to go into desktop mode. Even there, if I
| play a controller-based game, you can't always disable the
| onboard controller for all games. So there's definitely work to
| be done on that front.
| atwebb wrote:
| >The docking to a TV / monitor is a joke with the standard
| UI...I have never gotten it to work well, so if I need to dock
| I have to go into desktop mode.
|
| Really? I'm just using an Anker USB-C dock and it works fine,
| everything runs great and it allows me to charge as well.
| distances wrote:
| I use my Steam Deck almost exclusively docked in to the Steam
| Dock, connected to my projector and beamed to a whole-wall 190"
| image. It works great so I'd be curious to hear about your
| obstacles.
| dataangel wrote:
| > The docking to a TV / monitor is a joke with the standard UI
|
| Have you tried recently? When Valve released their own dock
| they updated the software and it works out of the box for me
| now. I plug in the cable and it pops up on my TV right away.
| The only issue I still have is if I dock while in the middle of
| a game -- some games don't deal with resolution/gamepad change
| well.
| izacus wrote:
| I love the philosophy of steam deck: by default, it's an Switch-
| like device that hides all the non-fully compatible games in
| store, has good UI and makes sure everything "just works".
|
| But where it differs from pretty much any other modern software
| product is that it trusts you as a user - you can install games
| that aren't verified. It'll tell you why they're not verified
| (small text, no controller support) but it'll let you install
| them anyway. And then map touchpads and controllers to emulate
| keyboard and mouse if you want. You can install games that aren't
| from Steam store. You can go do desktop mode. It doesn't judge.
| It will give you good experience by default and then let YOU
| judge if you want to stray away from it.
|
| It's something that Apple fans always told us it's impossible to
| build - a device that is joy to use by default while still
| respecting your wishes as a user.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| Is that not exactly how MacOS works?
| balls187 wrote:
| Steam Deck's UI is personal preference.
|
| There is an annoying bug that if you play a game using a
| bluetooth controller, put the steamdeck to sleep, then resume
| later, controller support is dropped in-game. This basically
| makes the sleep feature useless.
|
| My wish as a user is that it behaves at least as well as last-
| gen consoles do. I had no problem putting my PS4 / Switch games
| to sleep and pick them back up later.
|
| The true magic (imho) is the compatibility layer allowing the
| hardware to run a large swath of PC/Windows games.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| >There is an annoying bug that if you play a game using a
| bluetooth controller, put the steamdeck to sleep, then resume
| later, controller support is dropped in-game. This basically
| makes the sleep feature useless.
|
| Does this happen when the game is launched thru Steam? Or
| when the game is launched outside of Steam? Because I assumed
| the Steam controller/gamepad translation layer could handle
| that.
| balls187 wrote:
| Through Steam, tested on three different verified for
| steamdeck games.
|
| When woken back up, steam will recognize the controller (so
| you can use it to navigate the UI), but the running game
| will revert back to keyboard and mouse.
|
| Using the controls on the steamdeck itself also does not
| work in game (only the touchpad that emulates the mouse).
|
| So you have to resort to quitting the game and re-launching
| it.
|
| It was pretty annoying finding this out in the middle of an
| epic Vampire Savior run.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| I see where you are coming from here; but aren't the stakes a
| bit different here?
|
| A games console is for games. Although there are probably some
| tiny fraction of people who have installed other apps on there,
| the overwhelmingly vast majority of people are just going to
| use it for games.
|
| A smartphone is likely to have address books, email, your
| photos, maybe sync with your e-health devices, banking
| applications ... from my point of view, it's an entirely
| different risk profile.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| There must be a way by now to stash this critical stuff away
| safely in one half of the phone, while the other half runs
| all the untrusted stuff. If there would be a will (by Apple)
| there would be a way.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Sure, you stick things into sandboxes and only allow
| specific permissions to access outside the sandbox. In
| which case, users habituate to allowing any permissions
| that anything they install requests (c.f. Android).
|
| So then maybe you say "no permissions are allowed for
| sideloaded applications", but then you're back here with
| people complaining that the platform owner is crippling the
| independent ecosystem because it doesn't allow access to
| the camera or the mic or the address book or whatever.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Or, you take the more extreme step, and obfuscate from
| the application whether or not permissions have been
| granted. The reason why people default to granting excess
| permissions is that many applications simply will refuse
| to run without them. If instead of "overtly deny
| permission" there existed the option to "covertly deny
| permission (by opting to feed plausible random data
| instead)" _and making that the easier to select "deny"_
| then you have the best of both worlds: well-behaved
| applications start asking for fewer unnecessary
| permissions, because the data they're gathering is being
| poisoned, poorly-behaved applications have their harm
| reduced, and users who want to build programs that
| actually need high-level permissions can do so.
| izacus wrote:
| A smartphone does nothing what a desktop computer (with
| ubiquitous root access) doesn't and apocalypse still hasn't
| happened.
|
| Your literal argument was used for game consoles as well (Oh
| egads, what will happen if we allow freedom to infest our DRM
| protected systems?!) until Valve proved everyone wrong.
|
| Maybe instead of spewing the same corporate profiteering
| arguments here, perhaps think on how we could design our
| software for freedom AND security and whether defending
| megacorp monopolies is worth the small improvement in
| security you're getting in return?
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| > _apocalypse still hasn 't happened._
|
| The anti-virus and anti-malware markets are each multi-
| billion dollar industries; end-point protection is a top-
| five information security concern for any enterprise; new
| and exciting ransomware incidents fill the news every week;
| millions of PCs contribute to botnets that deliver DDoS
| attacks for pay...
|
| It might not be the apocalypse but it's pretty goddamn
| terrible.
| izacus wrote:
| > It might not be the apocalypse but it's pretty goddamn
| terrible.
|
| In what way and why are you (well, actually a corporation
| with monetary interest) making a decision to lockout
| users because of those industries?
|
| (Also multi-billion? Strongly doubt that.)
| [deleted]
| bastardoperator wrote:
| What if I told you that I myself along with the vast
| majority of consumers just simply do not care about
| underlying access.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| >(Also multi-billion? Strongly doubt that.)
|
| Judging by a fair number of articles, you would be
| mistaken
|
| https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220104005794/en/
| Glo...
|
| > The global antivirus software market is expected to
| grow from $3.80 billion in 2020 to $3.92 billion in 2021
| mysterydip wrote:
| > (Also multi-billion? Strongly doubt that.)
|
| McAfee was taken private in 2021 for $14B
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/8/22769910/mcafee-
| private-i... And had quarterly revenue of $500M at the
| time: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/mcafee-corp.-mcfe-
| surpasses-...
|
| For one endpoint security example, unless I
| misunderstood.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Honestly I hate to say it but I think the Switch was actually
| the big advance. It does not run PC games but it does run a
| fairly standard OS ( I believe a flavor of android ) and the
| old Nvidia processor from the Shield.
|
| I guess what I am saying is it is sort of like the Steam Deck
| but based on a tablet instead - and can pretty easily be hacked
| into a tablet instead. The Steam Deck is much more locked down
| but they MUST have been hugely inspired by the success of the
| Switch when making the Steam Deck.
|
| Personally I think I am excited for when we might get something
| a bit more of a hybrid of the two - if ARM does indeed take off
| on Windows and Linux more then we may end up with a device that
| can sometimes take a full ARM stack with all of its power
| advantages and then also run standard older OS processes as
| well.
| [deleted]
| wbear wrote:
| This Steam Deck is much less locked down. It's an x86 PC.
| monocasa wrote:
| > It does not run PC games but it does run a fairly standard
| OS ( I believe a flavor of android )
|
| No, it's a totally custom OS. Custom kernel, custom user
| space. They run the BSD network stack off on the side, but so
| did Windows up until Vista.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Got it. But the hardware is still tablet hardware so its
| perfectly hackable into Android mode. Not the same as the
| Steam Deck at all but I think my point still sort of works
| ranger207 wrote:
| AIUI only old hardware where Nintendo forgot to burn some
| bootloader fuses are hackable. Newer ones are not
| piperswe wrote:
| Those are the only ones that are softmoddable, but there
| are modchips for newer ones.
| monocasa wrote:
| Following that, just about every game console of the past
| 25 years has been able to be hardware modded to run
| Linux. The switch isn't special here.
| jerf wrote:
| Yes. Nintendo _intended_ it to be 100% fully locked down.
| They made a trivial mistake in the early versions, since
| corrected. But they absolutely do not intend for you to
| run anything other than their exact stuff on it. It could
| not hardly be more closed down and proprietary.
| ok_dad wrote:
| > It's something that Apple fans always told us it's impossible
| to build - a device that is joy to use by default while still
| respecting your wishes as a user.
|
| I never knew I wanted a Valve phone and tablet, but now I do.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| God bless Valve for making a viable linux mobile OS that isn't
| Android. What's to stop them from making a phone at this point?
| One can dream.
| LeFantome wrote:
| I imagine the biggest obstacle is that it has nothing to do
| with their business. If they are well run, it seems unlikely.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| * deep, complex, and regulated market. by comparison, not a
| lot of FCC rules or local 911 rules related to a Steam
| Deck.
|
| * strong, like STRONG competition from global leaders a la
| Apple and Samsung
|
| * much deeper requirements for OEM builds, otherwise
| they're just white labelling hardware. makes sense for the
| Steam Deck since the offering is the Steam software and
| compatibility layer.
|
| * they're in the business of software and software support,
| and some light hardware support viz. the Valve Index and
| Steam Deck. but the average person looks at their phone 5+
| hours a day and defines many of their life functions are
| dictated by their phone -- e.g. alarm clock, fitness
| tracker, music, many forms of interpersonal communication.
| they will drastically need to up their QA, support, and
| compatibility -- and those have non-trivial costs.
|
| * OEM manufacturing has ruthless margins; they're a private
| org but still
|
| * non-trivial build and launch costs
| ramesh31 wrote:
| I'll just say that these are, point for point, the exact
| same arguments made 20 years ago against the iPhone
| coming to market.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >I imagine the biggest obstacle is that it has nothing to
| do with their business.
|
| Mobile is far and away the most profitable, highest revenue
| segment of the gaming market by a huge margin. I can't
| imagine they don't want a piece of that.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I can, because they really don't seem to. They aren't a
| publicly traded company beholden to corporate share
| holders who only value profit. They have a history of
| behavior which suggests they care about PC gaming and not
| a heck of a lot else. Arguably they don't even care about
| the money that much. Did you know you can sell Steam keys
| on other store fronts and Valve won't even take a cut?
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Not to mention the fact that they might be able to tap
| into a market that practically doesn't exist anymore:
| paid mobile games. Like, actual, "I pay you $5-40, you
| give me a complete game". People are in the habit of
| buying games on Steam. Half of the top-20 most played
| games on Steam right now cost money. SteamDeckPhone's
| sales would probably be disproportionately people who
| already use Steam on the PC and/or the Steam Deck, so it
| would be a significantly different audience than the
| broader mobile gaming market.
| [deleted]
| tl wrote:
| Want and ability are two different things.
|
| Valve released a phenomonal but imperfect update to the
| Nintendo Switch which has sold about 1% as well. If Sony
| released a PlayStation Phone tomorrow, and failed to
| update it for years despite massive interest, then you'd
| see a SteamPhone.
| dageshi wrote:
| The same reason that stopped everyone else that tried, the
| mobile os market is mature and not enough people want or care
| about another mobile os to make it worth the effort.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >The same reason that stopped everyone else that tried, the
| mobile os market is mature and not enough people want or
| care about another mobile os to make it worth the effort.
|
| The point is that they have one now. SteamOS is 10 years
| old at this point. They've undoubtedly dumped millions into
| it already, and done most of the wireless networking,
| battery performance, and UI work needed for Steam Deck.
| It's a pretty short leap for a company like Valve to add a
| 5G modem and miniaturize the form factor from there.
| dageshi wrote:
| I've no doubt they can make it technically speaking. It's
| just not enough people would buy it to make it worth
| their while.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Exactly. iOS and Android are good enough for most people.
| The number of people who'd buy a 'real' Linux-based
| smartphone simply on principle is tiny.
| jononor wrote:
| How many would buy a gaming-first phone (by Valve)? I
| don't quite know what such a product would mean in
| practice, or if there is a killer "app" (game) for phone.
| But it would have higher probabilities of success than "a
| real Linux phone".
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Gaming oriented phones exist for sure. One by Valve with
| SteamOS, yeah maybe.
|
| It's hard to get around the awkwardness of the physical
| button problem though: having buttons makes the phone
| awkward, not having them makes gaming awkward.
| j1elo wrote:
| > _it trusts you as a user - you can install games that aren 't
| verified._
|
| It goes _much_ further than that! It allows you to install
| arbitrary software so one can even set the Heroic launcher up
| [0] and play your games that happened to be bought in other
| platforms!
|
| [0]: https://heroicgameslauncher.com/
| Thev00d00 wrote:
| "it trusts you as a user" is really great way of putting it.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| I was with you right up until the end... I have a Steam Deck
| and it's absolutely incredible. Support, though, even for the
| verified games and with nothing modified, is hardly at the
| level that it is for Apple products and actually using it is
| nothing like using an Apple product.
|
| As soon as someone has an issue with something that's not
| officially supported by the OS, Steam/Valve is not going to
| help them. There's a reason why it's impossible to build
| something like this for Apple. They don't want _any_ devices
| that they can 't support until they're past their life cycle.
| autoexec wrote:
| It looks like a good device, but I wonder about how much data
| collection is going on.
|
| A look at their privacy policy by Mozilla was something of a
| mixed review. (https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincl
| uded/steam-d...). They said the policy didn't raise any huge
| privacy concerns, but that the policy was vague, Valve was
| unresponsive to questions ("We emailed Valve three times with
| our privacy and security questions and haven't heard back from
| them"), and that ultimately Valve reserves the right to collect
| and share (read sell) "anonymous" data, aggregated or not, with
| third parties.
|
| I expect them to track what games you play and when, but what
| about desktop mode? If you run applications or browse the web
| how much of that activity is collected by Valve? Anti-cheat
| software works with the steam deck and that too is often highly
| invasive recording files on your system or other running
| processes.
|
| The device also comes with two internal microphones, and I'd
| probably want to remove them (hopefully that's as easy as it is
| for PS5 controllers) and has bluetooth which is hopefully
| easily disabled while traveling.
| Jhsto wrote:
| Do notice that you can also install your own OS.
| autoexec wrote:
| That is a good sign! If it looks like I can disconnect the
| mics without too much trouble I'll likely be picking one
| up.
| jolmg wrote:
| The main concern raised by that review seems not to be from
| data collection by them:
|
| > Valve does say they can process anonymous data and they may
| share anonymous data, aggregated or not, with third parties.
| This is a fairly common practice and doesn't worry us too
| much.
|
| But rather that they don't make sure they're providing an
| ecosystem that, to their standards, protects the user from
| data collection by others:
|
| > Here's the bad news about the Steam Deck though. We can't
| confirm it meets our Minimum Security Standards because we
| can't confirm it uses encryption or if Valve has a way to
| manage security vulnerabilities.
|
| If that's a concern, it would likewise be on any computer, I
| would imagine. I mean isn't the Steam Deck basically a
| regular e.g. desktop computer turned handheld? It's not an
| issue specifically about the Steam Deck unless you compare it
| to more closed platforms like the Switch instead of other
| regular computers.
|
| And the user does have the option to harden the system, like
| they can any computer:
|
| > There is a lot written out there on the internet about how
| to set up encryption on the Linux-based SteamOS yourself.
| However, we don't think that users should have to go through
| that to protect their data.
|
| Like they say, it's a matter of lacking convenience to not
| have that level of hardening by default.
|
| But again, why is this an issue here, when most people using
| Steam from their desktop computers probably don't use
| encryption either.
| autoexec wrote:
| > But again, why is this an issue here, when most people
| using Steam from their desktop computers probably don't use
| encryption either.
|
| Encryption is important because of how portable the device
| is. I've never lost a gameboy/DS/switch, but I know plenty
| of people who have. It's bad enough to lose your games, but
| if you're doing non-gaming things on the device it's a
| problem. It took a while before Valve added a pin to
| protect your device too, but they have.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| Not to mention it's one of the few modern platforms that allows
| modding up to code injection, memory manipulation, and mod
| managers that'll gleefully pull code from the four corners of
| the internet. You know, the things that every other platform
| heavily locks down over the fears hackers will steal grandma's
| cookie recipe and not because it allows the selling of 14
| different microtransactions for something your average modder
| could put together in a day.
| ateng wrote:
| Despite the negative dismissal (which gets rightly
| downvoted), I think there's a good point here - your phone
| probably needs to have stronger security requirement than
| your gaming device?
| causi wrote:
| Why? Most modern PC games come with insanely privileged DRM
| and anti-cheat measures that lock down and cross-examine
| everything else your PC is doing. If Denuvo can secure
| games from being pirated over months of concerted effort,
| why can't something similar be used to secure my online
| banking app while still letting me do whatever I want when
| I'm not using banking?
| izacus wrote:
| I think that when we walk about security (and privacy!) the
| question that needs to be asked together is "against who?".
|
| Yes, phones have stronger security requirements, but why
| are they being secured against people using them? :)
| kaba0 wrote:
| Phones are the only popular end user device that has any
| sort of protection worth its salt. Against who? Against
| easily downloadable malware that can trivially execute as
| the user, effectively doing anything beside installing a
| video card driver. Can trivially log key presses, read
| any screen, download/upload to the internet, read your
| .ssh folder, browser cache, or encrypt your family photos
| without a second thought.
|
| Mac is a bit ahead of the other two, but gnu/linux (as
| opposed to "android linux") is just insanely unsecure.
| claytongulick wrote:
| Because sometimes the people using them are thieves that
| have stolen the phone, or blackhats that are actively
| trying to gain access to your bank account.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| I agree with the sentiment here, but it's worth pointing
| out that most AAA games now come with an incredibly
| invasive anti-cheat suite that violates your computer's
| security and thoroughly violates your privacy. That's
| precisely because they're allowed to by the OS
|
| If phones were more open, we'd be free to mod our own
| games and back up our own save files, but we'd have to
| live with every random crap app we download being able to
| take over the whole machine permanently any time.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > If phones were more open, we'd be free to mod our own
| games and back up our own save files, but we'd have to
| live with every random crap app we download being able to
| take over the whole machine permanently any time.
|
| It's possible to give the user full control and the
| _ability_ to give apps more permissions, while still
| sandboxing apps by default. Consider, for example,
| flatpak, which can make the host filesystem totally
| invisible to apps but also allows the user to pass in
| files via the file picker or to totally expose paths by
| overriding its filesystem context.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Yeah, that's true
|
| To be fair, even Android apps are reasonably locked down
| while still making it possible to install a proscribed
| emulator or Firefox or whatever
| jamespo wrote:
| How does that work re: the Steamdeck which is running
| Linux or other game consoles?
| izacus wrote:
| Many games with those invasive rootkit DRMs simply don't
| work.
|
| Some publishers actually did remove the DRM just for the
| Deck version proving that DRM maybe isn't all that
| necessary when there's a will and manufacturer that
| doesn't bow down to ridiculous requirements :)
| smileybarry wrote:
| Anticheat-protected games just don't work on Steam Deck
| (usually just refusing to connect).
|
| A _few_ anticheat engines support _specifically_ Steam
| Deck after working with Valve, but even then each
| individual game developer has to opt into it. (For
| example: Destiny 2 uses EasyAntiCheat which is Deck-
| compatible but Bungie still refuse to whitelist it on
| Deck /Steam OS, and warn you may get banned if you try to
| sidestep the block)
|
| Modern DRMs like Denuvo actually do tend to work in
| Proton/Wine (aka Steam OS's compatibility layer) because
| they're a wrapper around the game instead of a
| driver/debugger+game setup.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| >why are they being secured against people using them?
|
| They're not. They're being secured against malicious
| actors who can convince grandma to install a rootkit or
| bitcoin miner on her PC.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Because when you sell to a billion people it turns out
| that some of them need to be secured against the people
| using them. It only matters that this fraction is non-
| negligible, not some significant level to be a problem.
| And, you can't bless the other set with special
| privileges because those very pathways will be used
| against the set that needs protection against themselves.
| [deleted]
| j-bos wrote:
| > Protection against themselves
|
| Are these not adults? If not, is it the responsibilty of
| manufacturers to limit them, or the responsibility of
| their caretakers?
| 8note wrote:
| My phone secured against whoever picks it up when I lose
| it or it gets stolen.
|
| Unfortunately, that makes it less convenient and powerful
| for me to use, but I mostly don't need the power
| noam_compsci wrote:
| Damn this is so true. Might get one just to experience it.
| acer589 wrote:
| To be fair, this is not an Apple level device. 2.5 hr battery
| life is hilariously bad.
| ww-picard-do wrote:
| What is the battery life of Apple's gaming device?
| nostromo wrote:
| I get what you're saying, but the iPhone is one of the
| world's most popular and most profitable gaming device by a
| long shot.
| kibwen wrote:
| Definitely not the most popular; there are many multiples
| more people gaming on Android devices than on Apple
| devices.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| My iPhone definitely does not last more than 2.5 hours
| when doing an intensive game.
| scns wrote:
| How many Windows games can you run on it?
| striking wrote:
| That's for newer AAA games. Games with simpler or more
| optimized graphics, especially those running in emulators,
| tend to do really really well.
|
| I ended up buying one of those Anker laptop USB PD chargers,
| and they can recharge the Deck twice over, so I could
| actually spend nearly 8 hours fully utilizing the Deck's
| power without being tethered at all.
| TeddyDD wrote:
| From 1.5h to ~6h depending on the game. I'd love to see a
| bigger battery in the next version, though.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Just attaching any off-the-shelf USB-C powerbank is
| perfectly viable right now.
|
| It's not like you do your 2 hour gaming sessions while
| moving around all the time. If you're sitting down, a thin
| wire to a decent size power bank isn't going to interrupt
| your gaming.
| smrq wrote:
| What does battery life have to do with Apple's walled garden?
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| How long does the iPhone battery last when playing games with
| high level 3D graphics?
|
| Good mobile battery life with 'intense' graphics is an
| unsolved problem, Apple is not immune here.
| five82 wrote:
| At least you have plenty of options to conserve battery.
| capping framerate at 30 or 40 fps, FSR, configurable TDP
| limits, underclocking the GPU.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| The desktop/Steam OS split was particularly smart. You can have
| a wonderful, catered, safe experience and never leave Steam OS.
| Or you can go into the desktop and open up a world of emulators
| and more.
| worble wrote:
| 100% agree, it's so refreshing to finally get a device that
| does it's best to be both a great out of the box experience but
| also respectful the user, reminds me of the olden days of
| computing, despite what gnome and apple proclaiming such a goal
| is impossible.
|
| It's also kind of sad this only really exists because Valve are
| wholly independent and have "fuck you" levels of money.
| moojacob wrote:
| > despite what gnome and apple proclaiming such a goal is
| impossible.
|
| GNOME? The great out the box experience... that also allows
| power users to deeply customize it? It is dishonest to lap
| GNOME (extremely popular free software) in with Apple (king
| of proprietary software).
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Apple is that stoic palace guard at Buckingham palace who
| says nothing and doesn't move or smile but won't let you
| leave the appointed tourist areas and bother the queen
| while GNOME is your obnoxious aunt who is always judging
| you.
|
| You know its wrong to want to theme your distros desktop
| don't you? It is such a bother that you always ask your
| file manager to wear green. You know he doesn't like that
| can't you see how uncomfortable you're making him?
|
| Prominent developers have variously spoken out against
| various user and distro customization suggesting that all
| theming and extensions be removed and even in one notable
| instance attempting to bully an app that supports many
| desktops to disable traditional tray icon functionality on
| other desktops using the dystopian phrasing something on
| the order of you should decide if you are a gnome app or a
| XFCE app. Another suggested that it would improve brand
| awareness if distros couldn't theme their version of gnome.
| Phrasing only a soulless marketing manager could possibly
| love.
|
| There can be little doubt that IBM/Red Hat is about as
| hostile to diversity of options on the Linux Desktop as
| Apple and not without cause. There are legitimate arguable
| benefits to a homogeneous ecosystem. They just aren't in
| quite the same position to dictate options. For instance
| killing the extension/themeing ecosystem would have
| empowered forks and as few people would be running gnome as
| run Fedora.
| skeletal88 wrote:
| Gnome and customise? The DE that hates giving users any
| options to change stuff because they (Gnome) knows best?
| 2III7 wrote:
| That is why there is the Gnome Tweak tool and Gnome
| extensions. You get a great out-of-the-box experience for
| regular users and good customizability for advanced
| users. If you want extreme customizability just don't use
| Gnome. IMO Gnome gets way too much unwarranted critique
| here.
| peoplearepeople wrote:
| Gnome removed most buttons and menus that allow
| customization. You may be thinking of kde plasma instead
| jseutter wrote:
| It's going back a few years now but the gnome 3 debacle is
| a reasonable example of not respecting users
| https://felipec.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/the-problem-with-
| gn... . I think in subsequent years the devs have been worn
| down and the community solved the missing features in other
| ways, but some people have long memories. gnome 3 is the
| primary reason Ubuntu got its own desktop system, it was
| that divisive.
|
| The Steam Deck is uniquely positioned to allow people to do
| potentially hazardous things like install software from
| unknown sources, and that is because it's primarily a
| gaming device. People aren't doing banking and work stuff
| on it, so what is the damage if it gets rooted? Valve could
| have easily screwed it up by building a walled garden
| anyways, just to satisfy corporate greed in the name of
| "maximizing ROI". Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all have
| their walled gardens for gaming. The fact Valve hasn't
| (yet) is refreshing.
| guhidalg wrote:
| Another view point: if you want to compete in the big
| leagues, you need to have "fuck you" levels of money. You can
| be happy building indie games for desktops as a career, but
| if you want to compete with Nintendo, Sony, and Meta then you
| need to take out your checkbook and write lots of zeros. So
| stop trying to compete with them if you don't have the
| capital! Build great games that aren't AAA-style FPS, BR,
| Minecraft/CoD/Halo clones.
| sublinear wrote:
| Yup. I'm pretty sure the indie games we all know about made
| good money. Enough to have continued growing a business
| without copying any AAA games and avoiding getting bought
| out or aped.
|
| The dev(s) just chose not to go that route. It makes a lot
| of sense why not. They don't want to betray their audience
| and they want to keep having fun making games. Success is
| not necessarily "competing" with the big companies. There's
| always room for more types of games.
| dmonitor wrote:
| This is about hardware, not games
| scns wrote:
| Since being a pessimst turned optimist (by years of working)
| i'd replace "sad this only really" with "great this". Sorry
| for being obnoxiously posive.
| anaganisk wrote:
| Apple fans, if Im being honest, apple fans do know that Android
| exists. No one who understands tech claims it's impossible. Its
| just not what they want. They dont want to deal with the
| baggage it comes with. Saying this as an Apple user in the past
| now switched to Android for more flexibility, but feeling not
| worth it and going back to Apple after USB-C integration.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Nah, Apple fans aren't explicitly against sideloading, by and
| large, they just accept its lack because they care more about
| the positive features Apple devices have.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| > trusts you as a user
|
| Better - it treats you like an owner (which you are).
| moralestapia wrote:
| >It's something that Apple fans always told us it's impossible
| to build ...
|
| Yes, but we all know that's a 320B dollar (so far) lie.
| nailer wrote:
| > I love the philosophy of steam deck: by default, it's an
| Switch-like device that hides all the non-fully compatible
| games in store
|
| As a former Steam Controller user: thank fucking god. The Steam
| Controller was never supported properly by Valve - games would
| be featured on the Steam store without compatibility with the
| Steam Controller, and after 20 minutes of trying different
| community configs for a new game, you'd get something good but
| the on-screen prompts would always be wrong.
|
| > PRESS X NOW
|
| When you need to press right shoulder or whatever. Yes Steam
| Controller was revolutionary, but it took the simplicity of
| console gamepads and added the fun of debugging a broken
| windows install.
| canadianfella wrote:
| [dead]
| hugocbp wrote:
| I have one and I got to say: I'm blown away.
|
| After I got one, I 100% one game (Vampire Survivors), am close to
| another one (Hades) and have been playing here and there almost
| every day.
|
| I bought both a PS5 and an Xbox Series X after 2021 but, despite
| having them for over 1 year each, I think I already played my
| Deck in 2 months way more hours.
|
| The way that it instantly boots up in your game, ready to go, is
| amazing. If I'm frustrated with some programming task at work,
| for example, I pick it up, fire Hades, play for 1 or 2 stages for
| 5 minutes and my brain is reset.
|
| It is not perfect, obviously. It is bigger in person than it
| looks on pictures or videos, specially with the case (it takes
| 30% of a backpack, for example).The battery lasts very little on
| demanding games. When putting on a TV or monitor, the lower
| resolution will show. When plugging it in, you don't really get
| any boosts.
|
| However, it is such a great experience overall. I was playing
| very little because I never wanted to go to the sofa, turn the
| console on, stay seated, wait for it to power, etc... With the
| Steam Deck, I'm in and out in literal seconds, anywhere.
|
| I bought one truly expecting to barely play it like I was playing
| my consoles, but the opposite happened.
|
| I truly thing that the Steam Deck is the start of a new era. I
| can't wait for the Deck 2, the "Linux" console likes and such.
| I'm sold.
| jcpham2 wrote:
| Yup always sneaking my kids and docking it. So far it works with
| an HP Elite and a Dell WD15 dock - just saying. 4k TV resolution
| pretty snappy too.
| markatto wrote:
| I have found that even 2D games (eg Hades) aren't reasonable to
| run at 4K, but basic gui desktop with a terminal emulator works
| fine.
| bluescrn wrote:
| 1280x800 = About a million pixels
|
| 3840x2160 = About _eight_ million pixels
|
| People underestimate the performance cost of 4K. The step
| from 720p to 1080p was a mere doubling of pixel count, but
| going to 4K was another 4x increase.
|
| The choice of a relatively low screen resolution is one of
| the main reasons that the deck can run modern games so well.
| jcpham2 wrote:
| Agreement with you about games I was speaking mostly of the
| linux desktop environment - I find it useful for work.
| theropost wrote:
| Steam Deck is pretty nice, so much better than my Nintendo
| Switch. It's pretty great to see the iGPU getting love these
| days, more compact consoles would be great. The AMD 780M
| hopefully gets a chance at this as well.
| dcow wrote:
| It's more powerful than a Switch for sure, but they're
| different hardware classes. For a handheld, the Switch is far
| more portable and has a much better screen and battery life.
|
| That said, I don't get why Nintendo doesn't do a $500 Switch. I
| get that they're about the gameplay and graphics come as an
| afterthought, but seriously their own launch title could not
| hit a consistent 30fps which is simply unacceptable. They cant
| keep using the gameplay excuse for being wildly out of touch
| with hardware reality.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| > They cant keep using the gameplay excuse for being wildly
| out of touch with hardware reality.
|
| They can and they will because it works.
|
| They've been printing money since adopting this philosophy
| with the Wii because they are right.
| dcow wrote:
| It's been longer than the Wii. I agree with the philosophy
| and that it works at a product level. That's not what I'm
| criticizing. I am a fan of Nintendo's exclusive titles.
|
| But I don't agree that you can continue a trend of shipping
| hardware that fails to run even your experience centric
| resource limited titles and remain relevant. I'm saying
| there's a middle ground between barely 720p @ 30fps and 4k
| @ 120fps with ray tracing and ultra settings. The Switch
| was marketed as a handheld console hybrid. Not a fancy
| gameboy. I'm not asking for Nintendo to ship a PS5. But I
| would like to be able to pay a little more (pass the cost
| entirely on to me and keep a lower tier for all I care) for
| a hardware device from Nintendo that can run on my 4k TV in
| docked mode without looking like pixel art. Nintendo needs
| to deliver a device that can run low to medium quality
| graphics at 1080-1440p @ 60fps. That's a completely
| reasonable request and still confines Nintendo focused
| studios to the product centric resource constrained
| environment they want. It's sad to see all the interest
| from devs in porting titles to the Switch but then actually
| trying them and encountering unplayable garbage. Like
| Skyrim, what a joke.
| maxsilver wrote:
| > Nintendo needs to deliver a device that can run low to
| medium quality graphics at 1080-1440p @ 60fps.
|
| You say this like they didn't spend the last decade
| selling 75 million devices that _barely_ pushed ~360p,
| and making a small fortune from it. I get wanting
| Nintendo to bump the hardware (I 'd love a beefier Switch
| too), but they've proven over and over again that they
| don't _need_ to do anything.
|
| If anything, I kind of like that Nintendo has chosen to
| cede the market of "indie/port" titles, their decision to
| mostly ignore that market is a big part of what's
| allowing Steam Deck to flourish right now. And the Steam
| Deck might be the healthiest new development the industry
| has seen in 20 years.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| Why spend the money on R&D and retooling the production line
| when people will buy your Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games
| that aren't on any other platform? Most people aren't looking
| for occasional framedrops - they're there to play a game and
| have fun.
| dcow wrote:
| They don't need to retool, they just need hardware that can
| run the games they make with their existing tooling.
| falcolas wrote:
| I will say that it's remarkably heavy for a portable system,
| and the OLED switch screen is far superior.
|
| But they both have a place, side by side, below my TV.
| Miraste wrote:
| The software is better than the Switch, and the CPU/GPU is more
| capable. I'd say the design of the Switch is much better,
| though. My biggest frustration with the Deck is how huge it is,
| and second place goes to how poor the screen is vs OLED. Third
| goes to battery life :/
| weard_beard wrote:
| My one big complaint is battery life. 2hrs for most games. Its
| a great at home device... but on the go and car trips are a
| hassle. There are battery extenders but they make an already
| chonky handheld into a 15lb brick.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I wish I had over 2 hours of uninterrupted play time :D
| mizzack wrote:
| Part of the fun is tuning both in-game and Deck performance
| settings to squeeze out as much as possible. It's an art of
| tradeoffs.
|
| Many less demanding games can run with a ~7w TDP limit at
| 60fps without a hitch at full detail. This yields massive
| battery life improvements.
|
| For modern AAA games you'll probably have to frame cap
| 30-40fps and lower detail settings in-game.
| weard_beard wrote:
| Good advice. I haven't really dug into the settings as much
| as I should.
| rmckayfleming wrote:
| Yea, I was playing Wolfenstein New Order on it and was
| shocked at how well it ran. Easily made 60fps with battery
| life projected at well over 3hrs.
|
| Setting the refresh rate to 40hz helps a lot too.
| Miraste wrote:
| It'd be cool if Valve had a shareable "common power
| settings" similar to how the Deck works with Steam Input.
| Keyframe wrote:
| The other is weight and screen isn't as nice.
| bratsche wrote:
| This sounds really cool. I had never heard of this device before.
| spmurrayzzz wrote:
| I discounted just how much I'd use the remote play feature while
| I'm at home for the extra battery life / performance benefits.
| Really impressed by the decode speed the AMD APU can spit out.
| Virtually no discernible input lag at all when I put the deck
| display next to my monitor to test.
|
| It turns out that a big chunk of my steam library is ideal to
| play entirely handheld on the couch.
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| Personally, I've loved the SteamDeck since I got it. Over this
| past Christmas holiday, I took my SD to my parents place and
| tried to run Windows 11 on it to play the latest "Call of Duty"
| with my eager nephews. I was blown away at how I could buy an
| external SSD (USB3.2 2x2), install windows on it, and install and
| run a Triple A title with relatively little fuss.
|
| Of course I had to run the game at "potato" settings to get a
| good frame rate, but I was able to hold my own with my nephews
| for a week.
| AdeptusAquinas wrote:
| I play PC games because I like having a comfortable gaming chair,
| a keyboard and a mouse in front of a large screen. I've never
| understood the point of the Steam Deck - if I want to play
| 'mobile friendly games' I'll use my switch, but the games are
| definitely not the sort of games I'd play on the PC.
| hugocbp wrote:
| I already spend 8 to 12 hours a day in that "keyboard and
| mouse" position for work... I ended up never playing any PC
| games (other than a few Civ games here and there) because of
| that.
|
| The Steam Deck is great because you can play anywhere. On the
| couch, a net, in bed.
|
| And the Switch is only comparable to the Deck in form factors.
| The Deck has way more gaming options and freedom. I bough one
| in place of the Switch, but I can imagine that if like just the
| Switch games, it doesn't really make sense to have both.
| AdeptusAquinas wrote:
| Sure, each to their own. I'd just argue that comments like
| the one that concludes the article, 'Could the 2020s become
| the decade when mainstream PC gaming turns handheld?' sound
| about as credible as the hype around how the iPad was going
| to replace the desktop.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| My greatest wish is that Apple would put a fraction of their
| billions into porting Proton to Metal and by extension the
| M-series CPUs.
|
| That would instantly make the M1-series machines the greatest
| gaming machines in the world. All that power with an emulation
| layer in between, allowing every macOS user to play any game made
| only for Windows.
|
| People have literally stopped developing their Linux-native game
| versions because the Proton-Windows -emulation is so much better.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> That would instantly make the M1-series machines the
| greatest gaming machines in the world._
|
| This is a bit of an exaggeration. A laptop running a binary
| through two separate emulation layers is not going to provide a
| better experience than any dedicated gaming PC.
| ericpauley wrote:
| Proton (WINE) Is Not an Emulator. And Rosetta is a semi-
| dynamic translation layer. Both have pretty impressive
| performance on their own, with many Rosetta-translated
| programs running faster than a high-spec Intel machine. So
| there's no reason this combination couldn't exist or provide
| a good experience.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Rosetta is built into the hardware of the M-series chips
| somehow, they're specifically made to be really good at
| emulating Intel commands, which makes them crazy fast.
| ericpauley wrote:
| The Apple-specific instructions in M-series have been
| generally shown to have less impact on overall
| performance than initially expected: https://twitter.com/
| never_released/status/153412764108259328...
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Bang for buck it just might.
|
| Not if you're comparing it to a fully tricked out gaming PC.
| nouveaux wrote:
| The steam deck has allowed me to play so much more of my steam
| library. The sleep feature and portability opens up so many more
| games. I can now play big, open world games 15-30 min at a time
| instead of watching a random youtube video or show.
| netcraft wrote:
| I feel the same way - what open world games have you been
| enjoying?
| evo_9 wrote:
| I've been blown away by my Steam Deck. It arrived about 5 days
| before my long sought after PS5 and basically the PS5 has sat
| collecting dust. I pre-ordered the Deck thinking I'd sell or
| trade it for the PS5, that was basically my interest in the
| device.
|
| But after a few days it was clear this was something special.
| Why? For me it's my 'forever console'. Access to my full Steam
| Library was one thing, but having basically every retro console
| at my disposal is unreal. Just last night I played a game of
| M.U.L.E. and StarRaiders on my Atari800 emulator. That was after
| a couple of rounds of MarioKart on SNES, then Pilot Wings on 64
| and then some Resident Evil 4 on GameCube.
|
| I also love that so many older PC games just work on it. I
| recently replayed the entire Mass Effect Trilogy on it
| (absolutely the best experience playing that game, something
| about the controls, the screen and it on my lap was just too
| fun). Ditto on Dark Souls 1 and 2 which I also just replayed (and
| yes Eldin Ring runs unreal on it, somehow).
|
| The only real surprise is that Dead Space doesn't run on it, I
| have a hutch they'll get it sorted out (sorta like they did
| working with FromSoftware on Eldin Ring).
|
| Lastly, the other major advantage for me is the ability to return
| games. This is an unheralded Steam feature that's a really great.
| I buy games I wouldn't even consider on PS-whatever/Xbox because
| you're screwed if you don't like it. Hell my 2 year old son
| managed to buy the new COD on PS5 by mashing the controller
| unsupervised for a few minutes and there is no way to return it,
| at least not easily; I tried for about 20 minutes before giving
| up.
|
| Long/short - SteamDeck is something special, it plays a ton of
| modern games flawlessly including Eldin Ring, and is a retro-
| gaming dream-machine, plus Steam has a great library and the
| ability to return games after trying them is the final cherry on-
| top.
|
| PS: Anyone want to buy a PS5?
| addisonl wrote:
| Agree with your comment, but this is not accurate:
|
| > Lastly, the other major advantage for me is the ability to
| return games. This is an unheralded Steam feature that's a
| really great. I buy games I wouldn't even consider on PS-
| whatever/Xbox because you're screwed if you don't like it
|
| You can return games on Xbox, had better outcomes with Xbox
| returns than with Steam returns.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| This is exactly it. As someone who also has a PS5, I've just
| stopped playing it. Now that Sony is doing their games on PC
| too, I'm totally fine waiting for their release so I can play
| on the Deck and on my PC too. I also get to catch up on all the
| old Steam games that I bought and could never properly get into
| because of the logistics of being at a PC. On top of that, when
| the new PS6 comes out eventually, I won't have to be pissed
| off, yet again, that my old games don't work on it and I have
| to re-buy them.
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| I don't own a Steam Deck. I sold my PS4 and I own a Switch.
|
| The one thing that makes me want to get a PS5 is I really do
| like the PS exclusives[1] like Uncharted, The Last of Us (part
| 1 now coming to windows though), Horizon Zero Dawn, Shadow of
| the Colossus, The Last Guardian, etc etc.. And it gets enough
| of the cross-platform AAA games as well that I feel like I have
| enough of a selection to make it worth it.
|
| I am super interested in the Steam Deck as well though. I know
| you can hook it up to a TV and play with a controller, I wonder
| if anyone here uses it that way. While I like the ability to
| hold and play anywhere, my ultimate preference is sitting on a
| couch and playing on a TV (most comfortable) and I would most
| likely try to use it that way
|
| 1. https://store.playstation.com/en-
| us/category/5bb9a9b4-f9f4-4...
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Uncharted is on Steam and Deck verified: https://store.steamp
| owered.com/app/1659420/UNCHARTED_Legacy_...
|
| HZD is on Steam and Deck Verified: https://store.steampowered
| .com/app/1151640/Horizon_Zero_Dawn...
|
| You can emulate Shadow of the Colossus on it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFxnGZ3suV0
|
| It really is the ultimate gaming machine :D
| Derbasti wrote:
| Same here. My gaming PC has not seen any use whatsoever (for
| gaming) since I got the Deck.
|
| The form factor is actually perfect for pre-HD games that were
| built for small CRT TVs.
|
| I am now rediscovering kid-friendly platformers with my little
| daughter. It's truly wonderful! (And we were even able to
| extricate our Stardew Valley save game from the Switch, to
| continue our journey on the Deck).
|
| It is a wonderful little device!
| rpigab wrote:
| My opinion is the same as yours, plus recently I've installed
| some Flash games becasue I'm nostalgic, one way to do it and
| play games in deck mode is this link [1], but you can also just
| run "flashplayer.exe --some-options game.swf" with Proton and
| it'll work too. I love good flash games like Sonny 2 and I know
| Flash has security issues and had to be killed, but I'll never
| let it go, I'll always have to run it somewhere for
| retrogaming.
|
| [1]
| https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/ytgisk/guide_fla...
| becquerel wrote:
| Just so you know, there's a Linux-native Flash emulator named
| Ruffle you might want to try. It's worked pretty well with
| the things I've tried so far, and it's one less layer of
| emulation.
|
| https://ruffle.rs/#downloads
| mjevans wrote:
| Ruffle is legit, but there are some later era flash games
| that don't play because they claim to / actually use later
| versions of the Adobe 'action script'; I'm hopeful that
| they'll eventually be supported and the archived versions
| of flashplayer (standalone) will not be necessary for
| anyone.
| andrepd wrote:
| Flashpoint is a preservation project for Flash games (and
| many more: Java, Silverlight, etc). It's honestly mind-
| blowing: https://unstable.life/flashpoint-database/search/
| izacus wrote:
| > The only real surprise is that Dead Space doesn't run on it,
| I have a hutch they'll get it sorted out (sorta like they did
| working with FromSoftware on Eldin Ring).
|
| And you're right because the 31st Jan Proton update fixed Dead
| Space and now it runs on Deck as Verified :)
| baq wrote:
| One word: Bayonetta
| robotnikman wrote:
| Same! Just finished Bayonetta recently as well
| grogenaut wrote:
| What about it? That you can play it on there via emulator or
| that you can't because it's not officially available?
| [deleted]
| balls187 wrote:
| Bayonetta 1 is available for the PC, and is steamdeck
| verified.
|
| Bayo 2 and 3 require an emulator. 2 runs well. 3 runs like
| ass.
| baq wrote:
| I've played it recently for the first time on the deck and
| have been blown away! That's pretty much it ;)
| darkxanthos wrote:
| My friend has been playing Dead Space on it for the last few
| days and has been quite happy. I think they released a patch
| recently. Give it another go if you're interested!
| evo_9 wrote:
| Oh nice! And thank you, I actually meant to take a look every
| week at the Steam page, and you're right, they have added the
| Steam Deck compatible box, and it's been tested / verified
| now. Amazing.
| DanCarvajal wrote:
| My PS5 is now just a Blu-ray player since I got my SteamDeck.
| keb_ wrote:
| > PS: Anyone want to buy a PS5?
|
| I might actually! E-mail me.
| torginus wrote:
| Maybe this is an off-topic question - but has there been a
| device/vendor that has successfully shipped the traditional
| desktop Linux stack (Wayland/Pipewire/dbus/Qt etc.) on a
| comparably large scale before? Car infotainment, kiosks, etc.
| absolutely count.
|
| If not, then the Steam deck is a historic achievement.
| vr46 wrote:
| My PSP-1000, Vita, DS and GameBoy Advance are relics, but the
| Steam Deck's openness is amazing and gives me power and control.
|
| Perhaps general-purpose computing has been handed a lifeline
| because playfulness is its essence?
| agentwiggles wrote:
| Ah, the PSP was so much fun back in its day. I only had a few
| actual PSP games, I was much more interested in that thing for
| all the homebrew and emulation stuff I could do on it.
|
| I recently got an Anbernic RG351V, which is nowhere near as
| capable as the Steam Deck but is a fantastic platform for
| playing emulated games. The AmberElec custom firmware I'm using
| just runs a RetroArch installation with some nice theming, and
| the experience of hacking on it reminds me a lot of the good
| ol' PSP homebrew days.
| vr46 wrote:
| oo how is the Anbernic RG351V for ZX Spectrum games? I might
| be persuaded.
| cptcobalt wrote:
| I'm a happy Steam Deck owner strongly wishing for a Steam Deck 2
| / Steam Deck Pro. I'm playing way more games than I used to; it
| just eliminates friction from sitting down and playing anywhere.
|
| The form factor is outstanding--the biggest thing it really needs
| is a higher resolution OLED display. Performance is great (pretty
| steady 40fps at medium settings) when I play locally, but it's
| even better when I stream from my gaming PC with a 3090. I don't
| even _use_ my gaming PC for anything other than streaming to the
| deck now.
|
| That said, I really hope Valve do the version bump with a
| synchronous release of a new Valve Index (VR) and Steam Deck,
| using the same APU. (That'd be a rare sign of organizational
| maturity from Valve, though.)
| stevehawk wrote:
| i dont get the impression that Valve will release an updated
| model for several more years
| have_faith wrote:
| I had the Steam Deck for a few months and then sold it. The
| hardware is great and what it's capable of is very impressive.
| What really let it down was for me personally was:
|
| Software. Buggier than desktop Steam in many ways, frustrating
| touch/scrolling experience. I expected it to match the feel of
| perhaps an iPad 2nd generation but it's just janky. I don't have
| a lot of faith that they'll polish this that much but hopefully
| they do.
|
| Portability. I just wasn't taking it with me when travelling as
| it's extremely chunky when packed with cables etc. I'm very much
| looking forward to a V2/3 that's more slimmed down.
| pathartl wrote:
| I've been on an extended getaway trying to escape Wisconsin
| winters, so I brought my Steam Deck. I installed a 1TB SSD and
| created a 300GB Windows partition. At the end of the work day I
| can unplug my corporate laptop and plug in my Steam Deck. I'll do
| some .NET programming for a bit on a side project, and then jump
| on Valheim with friends. At the end of the day when I just want
| to sit on the couch or lay in bed I can undock and reboot into
| SteamOS.
|
| It's not a perfect experience. Some of the Windows drivers could
| use some work. I would rather be running Visual Studio on my
| desktop at home. Performance in games like Valheim is maybe
| around 40FPS average... but I would seriously ask the question
| what other $400 device with a $150 SSD upgrade could product the
| same results.
| nivenkos wrote:
| Valheim runs natively on Linux btw.
| seanhunter wrote:
| Can confirm. Discovering out how well Valheim runs on steam
| deck basically killed my productivity entirely when the
| Mistlands update came out.
| pathartl wrote:
| Yes, but you can't join crossplay-enabled servers with the
| Linux binary.
| nivenkos wrote:
| With consoles?
|
| That sucks, we hosted it on AWS and it was fine but it was
| just Windows and Linux clients.
| pathartl wrote:
| Consoles/PC gamepass. It doesn't really matter either
| way, once you run it in Proton with Vulkan there's almost
| no performance hit.
| weatherlight wrote:
| I've paired my Steam Deck with nreal light AR glasses and its
| been an absolute joy to play games on.
|
| I might be in the minority here but I just stopped using my
| switch and my gaming PC entirely. I'm sure there will be a time
| when a certain triple A game comes out and I'll go back to using
| a dedicated gaming PC, but i just get so much utility out of the
| SteamDeck. I have VSCode running on it, Netflix, Steam, GoG, etc.
|
| I'm ready for what ever Steam puts out next.
| freewizard wrote:
| You are not alone. I've been on Deck as desktop for over 6
| months, no complains.
|
| I won't streaming much tho as most 4K DRM is limited to Mac and
| Windows at the moment.
| nfriedly wrote:
| I was happy to see the callout of the GPD win series - these days
| there are a lot of options for handheld gaming PCs, but for a
| long time, GPD was the only game in town.
|
| I don't have a Steam Deck yet, but I've probably done more gaming
| on my various GPD devices than on my beefy desktop computer or
| any other device, with the possible exception of the Gameboys I
| had when I was a kid.
| maineldc wrote:
| I really wanted to buy one of these. I created a steam account to
| buy one, made the purchase, but then I got stuck in their fraud
| loop. They required me to send a picture of my drivers license
| and I wasn't comfortable with that. Such a bummer because this is
| my ideal device! I want this more than any gaming device I have
| ever encountered.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| The Deck seems pretty great, but I'm probably going to wait until
| rev 2 or 3 which will likely use newer hardware to achieve the
| same performance as the original, which should make it cooler,
| quieter, and potentially less chunky. Valve has also expressed
| that they intend to swap out it screen panel to something nicer
| which to me is also worth waiting for.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| It's not that chunky when you actually hold it. After using the
| Deck for a few hours the Nintendo Switch feels like a flimsy
| child's toy.
|
| And OLED display might be a decent upgrade, but I'm not holding
| my breath for a Steam Deck 2. Plus I'm like 95% sure if an
| upgrade comes, you can just swap the new display yourself, like
| you can do with every single part in the Deck right now.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I'd prefer a high-grade IPS panel over an OLED panel unless
| Samsung starts manufacturing QD-OLED panels this small,
| mainly for longevity reasons with how static UI is on-screen
| for long periods of time with most games.
|
| Heat and noise reduction is mainly what I'm after though. I
| really, really don't like it when portable devices get hot or
| make significant amounts of fan noise.
| coder543 wrote:
| In case you haven't seen, the Switch OLED screen took about
| six months[0] of showing a static _screenshot_ (zero
| motion!) at full brightness for any burn in to occur
| whatsoever, and it was _barely_ there. If you 're doing
| literally anything else, the OLED pixels will get exercise
| and this burn in would not have even happened.
|
| Longevity is really not a concern with the types of OLED
| panels we're talking about. (It's more of a concern for the
| technology LG puts into their TV W-OLED panels, but those
| do not exist in handheld sizes.)
|
| I have not seen a single report of anyone experiencing
| burn-in on the Switch OLED outside of this extreme,
| unrealistic test. I also haven't seen anyone who owns a
| smartphone report that their smartphone had burn-in since
| many, many years ago, even though there are plenty of
| static elements on a smartphone screen, including the
| wireless signal indicators. QD-OLED would be nice, but it
| is absolutely unnecessary for longevity based on the
| available data.
|
| Switch OLED is also incredibly nicer to look at than even
| decent IPS panels, let alone the Steam Deck's current awful
| screen.
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaC5RbGAeVo
| atwebb wrote:
| for the price of the base model ($400), I can't imagine you'll
| lose too much selling it when v2 comes out (and likely fully
| sells out). If you have a decent stream library, it is really
| pretty wild how awesome it is.
| ryzvonusef wrote:
| What does HN think about competitors like GPD or AyaNeo?
| freedomben wrote:
| AyaNeo looks interesting but too expensive for me, and . I also
| adore SteamOS and it's Arch underpinnings, so Windows would be
| a downgrade for me as well.
| haunter wrote:
| What made me buy one that I can use it as a desktop computer.
| Dock it and you have ethernet, USB ports, HDMI. It's really
| really good.
| pdimitar wrote:
| How are the noise levels while gaming? I'm very put off by jet
| engines, hope it doesn't sound like one.
| falcolas wrote:
| Echoing what other folks have said. It's quiet enough that
| I've never really noticed it above the game sound.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| I picked up one in mid January. By default the fans don't
| come on at all, you will smell plastic burning before you
| hear a fan. You can turn on the old fan profile which is much
| more aggressive about turning the fans on. The fans are
| quieter than my laptop, but noticeable.
| RDaneel0livaw wrote:
| Not bad at all even when on full - if you have sound up or
| headphones on you won't even notice. The one thing that does
| bother me though about the fans is that sometimes they
| repeatedly go on/off in rapid succession over and over and
| over. I think whatever game is running must just be RIGHT at
| the thermal threshold so it keeps going under/over and
| triggering the fan to turn on and then shut off. I wish in
| these cases it would just switch on for good and stay on low
| rpms instead of all the on/off.
| sebular wrote:
| Try using the thermal limiting feature in the right-hand
| battery menu. Any game I'm playing, I bring it down as far
| as I can without unacceptable impact to performance. Often
| I find that I can set it to 7-9 and the fan goes nearly
| silent without any major performance impact.
| noidesto wrote:
| Surprisingly good. It's noticeable with some graphics
| intensive games, but I've never found it distracting.
| stolenmerch wrote:
| Early models were loud, but they've released software updates
| to make it quieter and started switching out fans in later
| models I believe. I've had mine since July 2022 and don't
| notice the fans at all for mid to low power games. It kicks
| on for more processor intensive games but I personally don't
| find it distracting.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Oh, there are multiple models now?
| e63f67dd-065b wrote:
| They switched suppliers for the fan, apparently their
| previous one was much worse and the fans were much louder
| and annoying.
| markatto wrote:
| There's still basically one with a couple storage options
| - they have shipped with different fans though. My
| (fairly recent) unit has very reasonable fan noise.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The only major difference is that the very first ones had
| a Delta fan that had some issues with noise and with
| magnets (the dbrand case's magnetic stand made the fan
| rev out of control).
| dtech wrote:
| There's variants with slight differences in hardware like
| fan and SSD. It's common for consoles too.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Ah yep, I'd definitely go for the highest end model. But
| I'd love it if I get the latest batch with better fans
| and such.
| pibechorro wrote:
| Not bad. Also if you use headphones you wont even know they
| are on.
| weard_beard wrote:
| Exactly. Its a 500$ gaming computer in the form factor of a
| chonky nintendo switch.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Are there any performance tests for a Steam Deck plugged into
| a hi res external monitor?
| trynewideas wrote:
| Digital Foundry:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZKBSf3aLf4
|
| Generally, 7th-gen console era games and earlier can often
| play at 1080p60, 4k30, or 4k60 depending on the demands.
| Newer games make compromises. FSR and TSR (upscaling from
| lower internal resolutions) effectiveness depends on the
| game.
| giobox wrote:
| I only use it docked when I want to do some work in the
| desktop mode with a keyboard and mouse. I think of the dock
| more for using it in Desktop mode than something comparable
| to the Switch running connected to a TV. The one exception
| is Steam's game streaming functions - a docked Deck
| connected to a TV works great with controllers or
| keyboard/mouse connected streaming gameplay from your
| desktop in many games. Its a perfectly adequate little
| desktop PC in this configuration for a lot of tasks. The
| official dock even supports a dual monitor desktop config
| which is nice.
|
| Gaming wise, the onboard GPU is pretty adequate for 720p
| (or the 800p of the native display), resolutions beyond
| this like the 1080p or greater found in most monitors are
| going to make a lot more games struggle.
| neogodless wrote:
| 720p is 921,600 pixels
|
| 1080p is 2,073,600 pixels (2.25x 720p)
|
| 1440p is 3,686,400 pixels (4x 720p)
|
| If performance scaling was linear, and given that the Steam
| Deck targets 30fps (up to 60), any game running at 30fps is
| going to be dropping to roughly 13fps at 1080p at the same
| settings.
| goosedragons wrote:
| What do you mean? For gaming it won't perform well at high
| resolutions in recent games. For just using as a desktop
| it's better than most laptops with Intel integrated
| graphics and can do multiple displays with MST.
| nicolaslem wrote:
| Gaming computer is a bit of a stretch, the Steam Deck packs
| as much punch as an ultralight laptop.
| falcolas wrote:
| It doesn't take a ton of compute or GPU power to play games
| from 5+ years ago, especially if they offered a good
| variety of settings. And when you include emulated games,
| that makes for a huge catalog.
| noidesto wrote:
| Why is this a stretch? A vast majority are using this
| ultralight laptop for gaming.
| arbitrage wrote:
| I think the implication of the post is that calling it
| 'just' a gaming laptop is under-selling it.
| nicolaslem wrote:
| The implication was that laptop-class hardware and
| "gaming computer" are at odds with each other. Sure
| ultrabooks can play games, but they are not referred to
| as "gaming computers".
| weard_beard wrote:
| Am I a bad dad if my son doesn't know the difference?
| Because he's not chained to a desk he uses it for the
| same purpose as his high end custom built PC.
|
| I meant it in the sense of, "it takes the place of and
| serves almost all the same purposes in usages as..."
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| You aren't a bad dad, but if you're going around the
| internet telling everyone the Steam Deck is "a gaming
| computer" you're going to mislead less technical people
| into thinking it's on par with a huge RTX 3070 laptop for
| performance, since that's what "gaming computer" usually
| means
| caconym_ wrote:
| It literally is a gaming computer. Its design prioritizes
| gaming applications at every turn, from the form factor to
| the unusually low-resolution display to the gaming-oriented
| features of the (default) operating system. It's optimized
| to provide the best portable PC gaming experience at its
| price point, and due to the fundamental power/heat
| constraints of the "deck" form factor it's pretty close to
| the point of diminishing returns regardless of how much you
| want to spend.
|
| Ultralight laptops can match or exceed it in [burst]
| performance, but that's table stakes. They aren't designed
| for gaming, and if you try to play games on one you will
| understand that very quickly.
| nivenkos wrote:
| It has a strong GPU but relatively weak CPU by comparison.
|
| So it really depends what you play.
|
| FWIW in my case, it is much better than my laptop from only
| a year prior.
| willcipriano wrote:
| I'm not aware of any ultralight laptops that can play
| Cyberpunk 2077, do you have a example of one?
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| Considering you can run it on a 2200g
| (https://youtu.be/qho3CtKqpjY), it'll run on any
| Ultrabook with a modern integrated GPU.
| mastax wrote:
| If you run it at steam deck resolution (1280 x 800), you
| can play it on a whole bunch of non-gaming computers.
| wnevets wrote:
| At the resolution steam deck runs at I wouldn't be
| surprised if a lot of them can.
| giobox wrote:
| > Its a 500$ gaming computer in the form factor of a chonky
| nintendo switch.
|
| Even better, its only $399! I think its a great deal at only
| 50 bucks more than the OLED switch model personally.
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck
|
| By all accounts, the entry level model with a large microSD
| card performs just as well in games as installing on a more
| expensive model with a larger built in SSD. The only other
| feature you miss out on really is the most expensive config
| has an additional antiglare coating. The CPU/GPU
| configuration is exactly the same on all models.
|
| I actually ordered the most expensive config, but with what I
| know now and having tried a friend's entry model, if I
| ordered again tomorrow I would just buy the 399 one with a
| cheap microSD card. Some folks even prefer the extra contrast
| of the display without the anti-glare coating.
|
| The microSD cards are hot swappable too - you can carry a
| bunch with different games installed if you wanted, the Deck
| OS instantly repopulates your game library with the contents
| of whatever card you just inserted.
| anaganisk wrote:
| I bought the 399 deck and upgraded the ssd to 1TB save
| couple 100. Dont even have to need an SD card.
| distances wrote:
| And I just bought the cheapest model and a 512G SD card
| just like GP recommended, as all testimonials said it's
| basically equally fast in games as an SSD is.
| mrpotato wrote:
| > Even better, its only $399! I think its a great deal at
| only 50 bucks more than the OLED switch model personally.
|
| OP was probably talking about CAD. Base model is C$ 499.00
| and the switch is C$ 299.99.
|
| *Edit: OLED switch is C$ 349.99
| gardenhedge wrote:
| Can you code on it?
| sand500 wrote:
| Just like you can on any other Linux computer and it even has
| a full desktop mode.
| haunter wrote:
| Yes. You exit the Steam mode and then you have the full
| access to the distro (Arch based) with KDE Plasma
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxLB5khCmGo
|
| But you can of course install your own distro or whatever you
| want. Windows is officially supported by driver, people also
| confirmed OpenBSD works too. It's pretty much a real computer
| not just a console.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| Awesome. When my MacBook Pro 2015 eventually dies I'll
| probably move to a Steam Deck then. I don't require much
| intense computing.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| Man all of the top level comments scream "marketing bots".
|
| Like, I'm rooting for Linux gaming and have put my money where my
| mouth is before -- but this thread feels non-credible.
| the_cramer wrote:
| Why? Because HN people actually like it?
| cosmicghostridr wrote:
| [dead]
| x4m wrote:
| FWIW Steam Deck runs 8k transactions per second if you build
| Postgres there. A nice place to work on open source development,
| actually. https://twitter.com/x4mmmmmm/status/1620984546216017921
| ducharmdev wrote:
| Nice, now I can write off a Steam Deck as a business expense!
| aarpmcgee wrote:
| I liked the Steam Deck well enough; I bought one and tinkered for
| several weeks before returning it. The potential is clear, even
| if the current iteration is pretty rough in terms of software
| usability and performance.
|
| What seems less clear to me is if they will ever address the
| abysmal battery repairability[1], until which I will not be
| purchasing.
|
| [1]
| https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+Battery+Replacement/...
| coder543 wrote:
| For me, the Steam Deck was just too large, and the screen was
| truly terrible. It made games that I'm familiar with look
| visibly _wrong_ with how poor the color gamut coverage was. I
| ended up selling it. The Steam Deck was also a bad experience
| for launchers outside of Steam, and I didn 't want to get
| banned from Overwatch or Fortnite for trying to play them on an
| unsupported operating system, if they were even compatible.
|
| I currently have a Nintendo Switch OLED which is fantastic in
| many ways, and I also have an AYANEO Air, which has a beautiful
| OLED screen too. The Air is also an equally good (or arguably
| even fuller, given Windows 11 + WSL) "desktop" experience
| compared to the Steam Deck, which so many people around here
| are touting as a feature. It also uses hall effect triggers and
| joysticks, so drift should never be a problem, ever. The Air is
| also the size of a Switch Lite, so even smaller than my Switch
| OLED, but the Air has a full x86-64 processor and 16GB of RAM
| running Windows smoothly, which is just crazy to behold.
|
| Whenever I can use the Switch OLED for a game, that is the best
| available portable experience: whisper quiet, long battery
| life, never gets hot, the kickstand is incredibly good, and I
| can always take the controllers off when I want to put the
| Switch on a table. The only exception is a few titles that had
| truly terrible ports, but those aren't common in my experience
| at all. HD Rumble is also a really good implementation of
| controller rumble. With the Switch, it is also possible to buy
| physical versions of many games, and sell those when you're
| done, which really isn't possible on the Steam Deck or the
| AYANEO Air.
|
| The AYANEO Air is great for using Steam In-Home Streaming or
| playing some of the titles that I can't play on the Switch
| (like Horizon Zero Dawn or the various Halo titles), but the
| battery life isn't as good, the controllers aren't detachable,
| there's no kickstand, and (like the Steam Deck) it is a much
| hotter and louder device.
|
| Either the Switch or the AYANEO are small enough to throw in a
| carry-on bag (important because I don't think I've checked
| luggage a single time in the past decade), whereas the Steam
| Deck is like trying to bring a second, chunkier laptop (4x the
| thickness of my M2 MacBook Air, for reference), which just does
| not work with the size restrictions on a carry-on bag when
| you're _also_ bringing a real laptop, clothes, chargers, and
| everything else needed to travel.
|
| My wish list for Steam Deck 2.0 is basically: it would be
| physically smaller (but shrinking the bezels would allow the
| screen to not shrink as much as the device), the screen would
| be OLED like my other handhelds (and implicitly more color
| accurate), perfect driver support for Windows 11, hall effect
| controls, and the screen would support Variable Refresh Rate,
| which seems like a killer feature that no handheld has bothered
| to implement.
|
| It's also completely _baffling_ to me that the AYANEO Air has a
| full 2280 NVMe SSD in a chassis the size of a Nintendo Switch
| _Lite_ , but the Steam Deck only manages to fit a 2230 in a
| chassis that's probably twice the physical volume. Given how
| much more I use my Switch than my Air, I've considered selling
| the Air, but it does still offer some unique capabilities.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| The Air sounds like an interesting piece of hardware. How
| hard is it to run your own homebrew Win32 apps on it?
| coder543 wrote:
| It's just a standard Windows 11 computer, so it is entirely
| trivial.
|
| They have a fullscreen console-like interface you can
| choose to launch, but it's completely unnecessary apart
| from controlling the TDP of the device. So, I just use the
| normal Windows desktop, and launch games just as if it were
| any other Windows computer. You could also use the Steam
| Deck's game launcher interface on Windows, which is now
| available on any Windows computer as an alternative to the
| traditional Steam Big Picture Mode.
| tstrimple wrote:
| I appreciate the size. I've got bigger hands and they tend to
| cramp after a short while holding small devices. Even the
| PlayStation controller feels tiny, but Xbox was manageable.
| coder543 wrote:
| It's always possible to make a device physically larger
| after you get it, but it is obviously _much_ harder to make
| it smaller.
|
| The Switch has a large variety of comfort grips available
| for people who want a larger device, which also lets the
| user choose _how_ it is larger, instead of forcing a one-
| size-fits-some approach. Here 's one chosen at random that
| appears to have great reviews:
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085VHHLGK
| TheFreim wrote:
| > current iteration is pretty rough in terms of software
| usability and performance
|
| I am interested in the Steam Deck, could you give a specific
| example or two? I've heard mostly positive things so I would be
| interested in some specific pain points.
| aarpmcgee wrote:
| Sure, I was referring to the UI of the OS itself. I had the
| device about 3-4 months ago so perhaps it has been improved,
| but it was pretty janky in my experience at the time. It
| would often outright freeze on me for 10-20 seconds at a
| time.
|
| Press a button, wait several seconds for something simple to
| happen on screen.
|
| Felt like it was all held together with duct tape.
| shagie wrote:
| One of the interesting things with the steam deck, as a frequent
| Mac gammer, is that you can stream from it to the Mac.
|
| This opens up "Ok, I can play Steam deck games" on the Mac and
| the forgotten games that haven't followed with the updates needed
| for Catalina.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Love the Steam Deck but I wish we had been able to get an Nvidia
| GPU in there. For desktop it does not matter much but Nvidia
| mobile GPU's are killing it compared to AMD (as far as I know).
|
| Then again I totally get that AMD may have not gone with that
| setup (since they want to sell their GPU's) but I feel like we
| would have a much more power efficient Steam Deck with that
| setup.
|
| Endgame with all of this I think is a device with ARM that can
| (hopefully eventually) run full ARM on Linux and Windows on ARM
| and whatnot and uses an Nvidia GPU
| ranger207 wrote:
| I think the Deck's AMD GPU is part of an APU, so CPU and GPU on
| one chip. That probably helps thermals a bunch. Also, I wonder
| how much the decision to use AMD was influenced by terrible
| Nvidia drivers on Linux
| freedomben wrote:
| I would wager the terrible Nvidia drivers were a big factor.
| I personally won't buy another Nvidia card unless they make
| sweeping changes (like open sourcing it completely. Their
| open source announcement earlier is a good step but not far
| enough to win me back). I do wish the AMD pro driver were
| open source though.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I believe the "APU" is mostly marketing - unfortunate but
| true.
| distances wrote:
| What do you mean?
| hakunin wrote:
| The key to its success I think is controls. I could never feel
| comfortable with portable gaming because controls always felt
| clunky for games I like. This thing treats controls as the
| centerpiece, allowing seamless sharing of layouts between
| players: just pick the most popular layout for any game. You can
| play freaking real time strategies on this thing fairly
| comfortably.
| goosedragons wrote:
| I want a standalone controller with the full Steam Deck layout
| so bad. I'm amazed nobody has put out anything like it yet
| besides maybe the old discontinued Steam controller.
| yesco wrote:
| The Steam Deck is an upgrade to the Steam Controller in my
| eyes; I own both but just never really liked using the Steam
| Controller the same way I do the Steam Deck for some reason.
| I guess the Steam Deck just feels more comfortable?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The steam controller suffers immensely because valve was
| trying to push the dumb touchpads replacing sticks
| mentality at the time. The touch pads are a horrible
| replacement for sticks because they lack the physicality
| and feedback. The original vive was similarly hampered by
| controllers that had no sticks because valve got weird for
| a bit.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| To be fair, I think the touchpads are pretty crucial on
| the deck.
|
| I play a bunch of games where I just really want a mouse
| and the touchpads make that feel relatively natural in a
| way that joysticks just don't.
|
| I do agree, though - the focus on the touchpads on the
| original steam controller was perhaps over the top, and
| the absence of a second stick was limiting. I think the
| deck gets it right: You have two of each, one for each
| hand.
|
| I can play games designed for controllers, and I can play
| games designed for mice, and everything just works.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The touchpads were the greatest thing since sliced bread
| after you got used to them.
|
| You could get mouse-level accuracy with a gamepad with a
| bit of practice.
| sylens wrote:
| Seconded. I hope they're working on one.
| gpderetta wrote:
| The two games I have played the most on my SD are Stellaris and
| Oxygen Not Included, which is kind of absurd!
| goda90 wrote:
| I did an entire Civ 6 game on Epic speed on my SD. I did find
| the touchpad uncomfortable to use with my large hands, so I
| 3D printed one of these[0] in PLA and it lets me more
| comfortably rest my thumb on the pad.
|
| [0]https://www.printables.com/model/259733-steam-deck-grip-
| exte...
| the_cramer wrote:
| How do you play these? I tried ONI on steamdeck and it felt
| clunky compared to KBM...
| singularity2001 wrote:
| are there any cases which turn ipads into steam decks, control
| wise?
| giantg2 wrote:
| I must be getting old. Most new games just don't excite me any
| more.
| atwebb wrote:
| That's the neat part, you get the entire steam library (not all
| of the old things do run or run well) but as an example of a
| good older game, Halo is awesome and all of them are around $15
| on sale (total). And the graphics are somewhat improved.
| freedomben wrote:
| Plus great emulator support so you can play all the retro
| ROMs you can get your hands on. I do that more than I I play
| newer games!
| giantg2 wrote:
| True, but I have my old systems to play on. Even more
| nostalgia playing Halo on a Duke controller.
| atwebb wrote:
| I just don't have the time or willingness to have 1
| location to play. Playing Halo anywhere and on the go or
| quickly hooking it to a usbc->HDMI port and Xbox controller
| for big screen is very, very nice.
| newobj wrote:
| The Steam Deck is my favorite electronic purchase in like 10
| years
| freedomben wrote:
| Me too, and I was not expecting that. I've ended up spending
| hundreds on games through Valve's store that I wasn't expecting
| too, and I regret nothing.
| birracerveza wrote:
| Best money I spent on any device, hands down
| frostiness wrote:
| I don't even own a Steam Deck and I've been seeing the benefits
| just from its existence. Now, almost every game on Steam has a
| quick accessible rating that lets me know if it works fine on
| Linux. This has led to me being able to buy games confidently
| that I never would have otherwise. In addition, the effectiveness
| of Proton for running Windows games is baffling, and something I
| never could have expected when I first switched to Linux back in
| 2015.
|
| Back when Steam Machines first came out, the expectation was that
| there would be a new push to get games working on Linux, which
| unfortunately didn't end up happening as strongly as expected.
| However, with how much of a success the Steam Deck was, it seems
| that the rush to get games ported to Linux actually is happening.
| I'm excited for the future.
| baq wrote:
| Winapi is the stable Linux ABI we've been waiting for the whole
| time. Windows binaries are more cross-distribution-portable
| than native builds.
|
| The irony.
| deelowe wrote:
| I think this is the more likely end state. Instead of builds
| targeting certain platforms, some amalgamation of windows
| APIs and perhaps vulcan or other special things sprinkled in
| will become a sort of standard. From there, Linux
| compatibility will be brought up to the same level as Windows
| and perhaps other platforms will follow suit. We've seen this
| pattern time and time again in software.
| deckard1 wrote:
| > almost every game on Steam has a quick accessible rating that
| lets me know if it works fine on Linux
|
| Sure, it's more convenient that Valve runs Steam and can put
| the rating right there. But let's give WineHQ a bit of credit
| here. They have a database going back more than a decade now,
| telling you how games run on Linux.
|
| The effects of Valve getting into Linux gaming are definitely
| noticeable. But the Wine team deserves a boatload of praise
| too. I was playing World of Warcraft back in 2007 and it was a
| flawless experience.
|
| > rush to get games ported to Linux actually is happening
|
| I'm not really sure about this. By having Proton/Wine at such a
| high quality, most devs are just going to target Windows.
| Because why bother? They will probably ensure their games run
| good under Wine and that's where it ends. Nowadays I'm totally
| okay with that. Lutris is great, Wine is actually easy to use.
| It's the best time to be a Linux gamer.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| > But the Wine team deserves a boatload of praise too
|
| About 2/3 of Wine commits are from CodeWeavers, so praising
| the Steam team (CodeWeavers) is praising the Wine team.
| pr0zac wrote:
| CodeWeavers isn't part of Steam is it? I thought they just
| collaborated with developers at Steam on Proton?
| badsectoracula wrote:
| > let's give WineHQ a bit of credit here [..] But the Wine
| team deserves a boatload of praise too.
|
| The Wine team deserves a ton of praise that IMO is often
| directed to Proton _BUT_ WineHQ has always been a useless
| experience for me. It needs a massive cleanup since it
| contains data from ancient versions of Wine, there is barely
| enough information to figure out what is going on and the
| whole "bronze, silver, gold, etc" rating is completely
| subjective with people rating something "bronze" because a
| pixel is off in some application and something "gold" despite
| being unable to use some major functionality.
|
| Sadly ProtonDB seems to be going the same way, the main
| saving grace right now is that it doesn't have all the
| baggage accumulated over decades (and it is focused on games
| - Wine still has to get all Win32 APIs for UIs, etc working
| for regular applications that Proton doesn't have to care
| beyond whatever little functionality is used for launchers)
| but still has the whole subjective thing (a favorite case of
| mine is Rage[0] which has lots of comment about broken
| textures etc with others saying that the game works fine -
| and it takes some searching to figure out that the people who
| are fine have Nvidia GPUs while the people with issues have
| AMD GPUs - while in a few cases, people recommend the game
| _while at the same time_ mentioning the textures are
| broken!).
|
| [0] https://www.protondb.com/app/9200
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Huge pet peeve of mine on WineHQ + ProtonDB - number of
| people who say, "Works for me, I just had to use the
| BingoBangoPatch_v3". No indication at all of what
| BingoBangoPatch is, where I could get it, how to set it,
| etc. Too much shorthand allowed without providing real
| configuration guidance.
| freewizard wrote:
| That's the value of Valve's official SD rating I assume.
| Basically a reliable but conservative Valve official
| rating plus an adventurous ProtonDB rating, you as a user
| have the freedom to choose your own risk level and time
| investing to tinker. To me this is best compromise one
| can hope for.
| frostiness wrote:
| If you look at the list of top sellers, new arrivals,
| upcoming games, and games on sale, most if not all of them
| have native Linux support, which is something you absolutely
| could not have said just a few years ago. In my experience,
| at this point bad Linux ports are more of an issue than a
| lack of them.
|
| I agree though honestly, if Proton works fine and the game
| runs under it, I'd much rather have that than a bad native
| Linux port. Plus, I have a lot more trust in Proton to keep
| things compatible than Windows.
| dataangel wrote:
| > But let's give WineHQ a bit of credit here. They have a
| database going back more than a decade now, telling you how
| games run on Linux.
|
| But it so often was wrong :P I tried to use wine a lot
| between 2007 and 2010 and constantly ran into apps that were
| supposed to work no longer working, because regressions
| happened a lot. When you play a game on steam deck and exit
| it periodically asks you, "This game is marked Steam Deck
| Verified. Is that consistent with your experience?" and they
| really keep tabs on it.
| kaba0 wrote:
| > I'm not really sure about this. By having Proton/Wine at
| such a high quality, most devs are just going to target
| Windows
|
| _insert win32 is the only stable linux API blogpost_
| 12345hn6789 wrote:
| Proton was around for years before the steam deck was
| announced. Linux gaming was already thriving
| delusional wrote:
| Wine was also quite capable before proton came about. Valve
| obviously did a lot for the linux gamers, that much is clear,
| but we must not forget the volunteers (and codeweavers) that
| worked tirelessly for years to get wine to that point. Wine
| is a tremendous achievement.
| DanHulton wrote:
| Windows 10 hits EOL in 2025. I'm really hoping I can just
| completely convert my gaming PC to a Linux machine by that
| time, because Windows 11 started out rough and has become less
| appealing over time.
|
| The Steam Deck is absolutely building that future, and I, too,
| am excited.
| MisterTea wrote:
| I just decommissioned my 2011 Windows 7 machine where I did
| most of my dev work and all of my casual computing such as
| web stuff and gaming. It ran all of the software I needed
| plus the Steam games I enjoyed. I had no technical reason to
| "upgrade" in all that time. In its place now is a kooky Linux
| machine.
|
| The replacement started off as a toy turned experiment: a 12
| core Gen 1 Threadripper with 64GB ECC and a Radeon Pro W5700.
| I wound up installed Void Linux Musl with XFCE mostly to see
| how useful a system-d/glibc free Linux machine can be. Turns
| out very useful if you install bloated Windows-style
| "applications" like Steam, Discord, Chrome, LibreOffice, etc
| using Flatpak. You can also setup a glibc chroot if need be
| but I have not ran into this need yet.
|
| I can watch Hulu and other streaming services just fine in
| Chrome (haven't tried FF). I can play older AAA games you
| would never imagine running on Linux such as GTA5 and Skyrim
| with ZERO configuration other than checking "run this game
| using proton". However I have yet to get Crysis running :-(
| Anything I can't get running with Wine I can toss into a VM.
| And I can run lots of VM's :-)
|
| And if you really miss Windows or want some familiarity back
| - XFCE + Chicago95 ;-)
| brian_herman wrote:
| I've tried upgrading my gaming computer to windows 11 with a
| fresh install and upgrade both of them fail and I don't know
| why.
| eloisant wrote:
| It seems like Windows is alternating "shit" and "decent"
| versions.
|
| - Vista: shit
|
| - 7: decent
|
| - 8: shit
|
| - 10: decent
| tsgagnon wrote:
| While this sentiment is common, I've honestly never had
| this experience. Every Windows experience I've had post-Me
| has been a slow but steady improvement in stability.
|
| I have Windows 10 for work and Windows 11 at home and I
| honestly forget that they are different OSes most of the
| time. I just do what I need to do on my machines and the OS
| stays out of the way.
|
| Sure, I could say the right-click menu out-of-the-box is
| slightly more annoying now, and I've sure I could come up
| with a list of things like that for most releases at this
| point. UAC was a major shift, but I needed one.
|
| But overall, there just aren't very memorable differences
| between the different OSes. Aside from the fact that BSOD
| occurrences have steadily decreased up until Windows 10 at
| which point they almost stopped entirely.
| delecti wrote:
| Agreed. I actually found Vista to be a massive
| improvement in stability. It changed how drivers were run
| in the kernel, so that a driver crashing often wouldn't
| result in a bluescreen. I had a ton of graphics card
| bluescreens on XP, and then virtually none with the same
| hardware after upgrading to Vista.
| dualboot wrote:
| Vista had some launch bugs that were horrendous.
|
| Beyond that it was a solid operating system and one of the
| better Windows releases.
|
| Most people just had shit computers, combined with "group
| think" regarding it's quality.
|
| Vista64 on a moderately good system with a proper amount of
| RAM was fantastic for it's time.
| 98codes wrote:
| Skipping v9 broke the old "Even number releases bad, odd
| number releases good" rule of thumb, but the tick-tock
| (tick-clunk?) rhythm still seems to apply.
| AnonymousPlanet wrote:
| It's now like Star Trek movies.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| 3.1 great
|
| 95 ok
|
| 98se great
|
| ME... Can't even describe how awful it was
|
| XP great
|
| Then your selection :-)
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Windows 11 really isn't that bad, mostly because it's not
| really a significant change from Windows 10. The default
| menu layouts changed a little bit, but not in any way you
| couldn't recreate in Windows 10, nor did they really remove
| anything such that you can't make Windows 11 feel like
| Windows 10.
|
| I suspect the driving reason for the version number
| increase was to make a clear indicator of the OS's support
| for scheduling the new wave of hybrid core CPUs, and they
| simply took the opportunity to clean up some miscellaneous
| small things that wouldn't have been appropriate to include
| in a minor version release, but wouldn't have warranted a
| major version release in of themselves, such as changes to
| adding things to the file-right-click menu.
| acomjean wrote:
| I have a steam deck and twice after playing a game its asked me
| how well it worked on the deck. So its great they're collecting
| that data.
|
| When I used my linux laptop for gaming there is a good online
| database of compatibility:
|
| https://www.protondb.com/
| mmis1000 wrote:
| Even better, you can get the decky-loader and proton-badges
| plugin. It can show the protondb rating directly on the game
| mode ui. Allows you to know will a game(or a program) even
| run even it is not rated as steamdeck compatible yet.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| > I don't even own a Steam Deck and I've been seeing the
| benefits just from its existence. Now, almost every game on
| Steam has a quick accessible rating that lets me know if it
| works fine on Linux.
|
| WineDB did this for years, as does ProtonDB now. And both
| usually have tweaks and how-tos. But I'll concede its nice to
| see it in Steam itself.
| quectophoton wrote:
| I got one Steam Deck and it really has brought back motivation to
| learn GUI programming (SDL2). It is already a very nice,
| portable(-ish), easily hackable device (normal linux programs!),
| with nice physical controls and a screen[1].
|
| Last time I was this motivated was when I learned you could
| program for a PSP with just C code (only to learn that PSP have
| been discontinued by then, and quickly losing motivation shortly
| after).
|
| It is a good device as it is, but for me the cherry on top would
| be a NanoSIM slot; I would pay extra for one with a NanoSIM slot,
| just to be able to connect to internet without requiring an
| existing wifi network.
|
| But I understand it's kinda out-of-scope for a gaming device.
|
| [1] I mention screen here because, for my use case, now I don't
| have to buy a screen for my RPI, and can instead mess around with
| the Steam Deck.
| birracerveza wrote:
| Just use your smartphone as a hotspot. It's trivial with
| Android.
| rimunroe wrote:
| And on iOS as well!
| tunnuz wrote:
| I got myself one recently. I haven't been able to play games for
| years due to time commitments, unwillingness to look after a
| gaming PC, etc. I fell in love with The Long Dark during a bout
| of COVID, and the Steam Deck allows me to play it (and many other
| games I since then enjoyed) when I'm in bed at the end of a long
| day. It also allows me to work through a vast library of games
| that I purchased discounted on various occasions and never had
| the time to play.
|
| Pros: great hardware, games run seamlessly, allows me to play in
| places I couldn't play before, Desktop Mode gives you effectively
| a beefy Linux desktop computer. Cons: I wish SteamOS hadn't been
| modified in such a way that I can't create multiple desktop users
| out of the box, which limits my use cases. I would love to do
| some personal projects on it when in Desktop Mode, but I want to
| have a user that I can trust to be private (and preferably
| encrypted).
| gabythenerd wrote:
| I hope they start distributing it to more countries at some
| point, I really want to get my hands on one.
|
| For people with big steam libraries it's a no brainer, lately
| most games come with controller support out of the box, and for
| everything else the community patches it in.
| colinmegill wrote:
| Valve nailed it
| blakesterz wrote:
| The Verge has follow up review that says it's pretty good too:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/23513517/steam-deck-long-term-test-...
| Valve has spent nearly a year and over 100 updates showing that
| an early access game console can actually be worth money. Valve
| has finally succeeded in proving doubters wrong about Linux,
| creating a gadget that's spent 35 weeks atop the Steam bestseller
| list and attracted support from Sony, Microsoft and more.
| a13o wrote:
| Has anyone messed around with building their own Steam Machine
| with the OS yet? It's easy to build a SFF PC with state of the
| art graphics card and still be smaller than a PS5. (But not
| cheaper.) I've been thinking of building another one to run the
| Steam OS and leave it hooked up to the TV. Then I'll never need
| to own a video game console again.
| hddherman wrote:
| I gave it a go [0], but there are also other people out there
| who have installed HoloISO (Steam OS 3 but not official) on
| various hardware, like ETA PRIME on YouTube [1].
|
| [0] https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2022/12/01/holoiso-steam-deck-
| exper...
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/rvNS4M3o85o
| mariusor wrote:
| I have[1], but this was during the time of the official Steam
| machines (ie, 4-5 years ago). I never had the heart to leave
| just Steam OS on it, most of the time it functioned as a dev
| machine as it was quite a bit beefier than my laptop.
|
| [1]
| https://media.metalhead.club/media_attachments/files/106/589...
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I feel like Steam Deck is very successful; the next big
| milestone, which may be a doozy, is migrating off of x86-64 to
| ARM64. I understand why Steam Deck 1.0 is x86-64 since something
| akin to Rosetta or WOW64 is likely as much work again as it was
| to get the initial Steam Deck off the ground.
|
| However, battery life for a mobile console cannot be ignored. The
| Steam Deck can last as little as under 2 hrs depending on
| workload. A switch to ARM64 (e.g. ARMv9.0) would likely over
| double the battery life at the bottom and top end.
|
| As a side benefit, because high-end ARM64 SoCs are so common in
| phones, Chromebooks, tablets, steaming boxes, et al., they may be
| able to bring the prices down, further increasing their
| competitiveness.
|
| PS - No doubt I'll get a bunch of replies with "But use this One
| Simple Trick(tm) to get longer battery life" which, while true,
| also applies to ARM64.
| messe wrote:
| > A switch to ARM64 (e.g. ARMv9.0) would likely over double the
| battery life at the bottom and top end.
|
| Only if the games are compiled for ARM64, and even then the
| performance improvements over x86 are not guaranteed compared
| to just switching to a better process node. A big attraction of
| the Steam Deck is the massive back catalog of already existing
| games on Steam, all of which are compiled for x86. If your ARM
| CPU is spending its time emulating x86, you're not going to get
| much of an improvement in battery life.
|
| A Steam Deck v2, still running on an AMD CPU, but on TSMC 5 or
| 3nm, is more likely than one with an ARM64 processor.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| We've seen with the M range of SoCs that even with the
| emulation overhead, you can gain battery life even accounting
| for that. Plus the OS itself would be natively compiled, so
| that's always an efficiency gain.
| messe wrote:
| But how much of that is because they were ARM vs being the
| first desktop-class CPUs on a 5nm process?
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Because ARM64 is significantly more R&D dollars spent on
| it than x86-64. That's a trend that is going to continue.
|
| So the question is do you keep clinging to a slowly dying
| platform that is falling further and further behind, or
| do you go to the commodity platform that is going from
| strength to strength?
|
| The Steam Deck will wind up on ARM64 eventually, it is a
| matter of "when?" not "if?"
| eloisant wrote:
| This will only happen if Microsoft also pushes game developers
| towards ARM64.
|
| You're talking about Rosetta but Rosetta is a transition
| period. If the Steam Deck is the only device to run on ARM64,
| and game developers keep providing only x86 builds, the
| drawbacks of ARM will outweight the benefits.
| nivenkos wrote:
| The issue is the trade-off with performance though, that'd make
| it even more of a niche device.
|
| And almost all games are x86 only so either you need to do that
| opcode level conversion too (on top of the Windows / DirectX
| APIs), or limit yourself to only ARM games (realistically
| mostly FOSS games). Apple has done it well for M1/2 to be fair,
| but it's far from easy.
|
| So you could get much better battery life but it'd be very
| niche.
| Scaevolus wrote:
| Why do you think ARM64 would improve battery life so much? The
| Steam Deck can draw up to 20W, most of that due to the GPU.
| Apple's M1 laptops have a higher TDP, larger battery, and a
| similar 2-4 hour battery life on the most intense games.
|
| If you want more battery life, Steam Deck has a bunch of
| controls to throttle CPU/GPU performance, including limiting
| the framerate.
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