|OT| Valve's Steam Deck - OLED refresh shipping to folks

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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subsequent updates can break verified games anyway, also sometimes after a long play sessions or after multiple suspend and resume games act wonky
If a game is verified it should be verified with a particular version of Proton and that version should be used when running the game, unless you manually override the Proton version.
I think I read that's how it works, so new Proton version releases should have no effect on already verified titles.
Unless you mean game updates, then yeah, I suppose those could break Verified status.
 

derFeef

Cthulhu dreams.
Apr 17, 2019
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So HRS is nice but it would be neat to have some kind of feedback if it's working or not. So far I couldn't notice a difference other than Mass Effect Andromeda having weird double-pixel effect which makes the UI unreadable.

I'm not sure how Valve tests games on the Steam Deck, but I've encountered several problems with "Verified" games: video's not playing, crashes, audio stuttering etc. I wish there was a better way to report this than a simple yes/no question on the Deck after playing.
You can go to the option of the game and then give feedback again. They also have a dedicated thread on their forums for that,
But yes, I encountered several games now, really weird.

Deathloop being the weirdest here - Verified since day one and it still has terrible performance on the lowest possible setting. Not playable even.
 
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derFeef

Cthulhu dreams.
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There were reports of more silent fans after that update. Mine was still loud so I applied the Beta update on top and now the fan is spinning a lot slower for real. Running Dead Island (capped at 11W) and I almost can not hear it, only occasionally spinning a bit up.
If I uncap it will get louder again.
 

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
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It plays perfectly on linux, I just tested it out using GE version 7-9, videos and everyhing. The perf is pretty bad on my laptop with its puny Intel integrated graphics card, but it runs the way I'd expect it on Windows

I really think the problem on the Deck might be due to the game starting in Windowed mode. I posted a suggested fix a bit earlier in an edited post, might help you get it running.
I assume it was fixed by todays update or Proton-GE 7.14 has a fix for that included.
What's not fine is performance though, getting FPS in the low 40s regardless of settings (not that there are many...).
It doesn't even come close to remotely pushing the hardware though, like the fans barely even turn up...
Seems to be mainly "bottle-necked" by CPU, so maybe there's something you can do with changing the amounts of cores/threads/priorities/dunno. I would try around with that if I knew how, but I don't.
Don't think it's the Deck's fault though, it's likely just a bad port. Not that that makes it better,
 

Mivey

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I assume it was fixed by todays update or Proton-GE 7.14 has a fix for that included.
What's not fine is performance though, getting FPS in the low 40s regardless of settings (not that there are many...).
It doesn't even come close to remotely pushing the hardware though, like the fans barely even turn up...
Seems to be mainly "bottle-necked" by CPU, so maybe there's something you can do with changing the amounts of cores/threads/priorities/dunno. I would try around with that if I knew how, but I don't.
Don't think it's the Deck's fault though, it's likely just a bad port. Not that that makes it better,
That's too bad to hear. For what it's worth, I think this is a fine game to play at 30 FPS.

As for the CPU, you could try to look at this new "plugin" that allows you to enable or disable SMT (which allows the CPU to act like it has more cores than it actually does, potentially allowing for better utilisation) . Here are the links for those plugins in a post on the Era thread: Steam Deck |OT| Your Games are Going Places Valve - Tech - OT
 
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Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
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That's too bad to hear. For what it's worth, I think this is a fine game to play at 30 FPS.

As for the CPU, you could try to look at this new "plugin" that allows you to enable or disable SMT (which allows the CPU to act like it has more cores than it actually does, potentially allowing for better utilisation) . Here are the links for those plugins in a post on the Era thread: Steam Deck |OT| Your Games are Going Places Valve - Tech - OT
This is cool, but unfortunately changes nothing.
Performance gets neither better nor worse unless you scale back everything to the max (only 1 thread and 1.7 GHz gets you slightly worse fps). It's just a trash port.
Hopefully someone comes up with a solution, but meh.
Disappointed.
 

Mivey

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This is cool, but unfortunately changes nothing.
Performance gets neither better nor worse unless you scale back everything to the max (only 1 thread and 1.7 GHz gets you slightly worse fps). It's just a trash port.
Hopefully someone comes up with a solution, but meh.
Disappointed.
Hmm, that is very interesting. If there's next to no change despite increasing or decreasing the available parallel CPU performance, it suggests that either the port isn't limited by CPU at all, but instead limited by GPU, or the game is pretty much just single threaded. If it is a case of the game literally just using one thread, then there isn't all that much you can do. Or anyone can do, realistically.
 

Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
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If a game is verified it should be verified with a particular version of Proton and that version should be used when running the game, unless you manually override the Proton version.
I think I read that's how it works, so new Proton version releases should have no effect on already verified titles.
Unless you mean game updates, then yeah, I suppose those could break Verified status.
This is how it should work, I believe.

(It's also the only practical way to do this, IMHO. You can't really regression test thousands of games that might only break after hours of playing)
 

MomoVideo

ķ͕͕̍̅͋ḭ̼͂̕lļ͓̞̙̀͗͆̊ ͉͛m͕̲̮̆̒̐̍͢e ͠
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What possibly wound they gain from this? And why is this even possible?
 

Mivey

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What possibly wound they gain from this? And why is this even possible?
It seems that setting 0 for the config of a certain platform was always an option for developers, this seems more like a creative use of Steam's configuration files.
Now why a developer thinks this is a good idea I don't know. I really wonder how Valve will react here. Logically they'd shut this nonsense down, but they also seem to really love their laissez faire approach to everything, so it will be interesting whether Valve's economical self interest or their ideology wins out here.
 
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C-Dub

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Dec 23, 2018
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They probably think there should be a separate "Steam Deck version" of the game that they have a god-given right to sell separately for another £40.

They clearly don't know what a PC is, and that Steam Deck is one of those.
 
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Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
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I switched to beta OS branch for a while to check out the new fan curves...
...
OMG, guys, it's a night and day difference. Almost Switch levels of noise with the unit getting maybe 5C hotter.
I really hope this isn't a bug/Valve's misconfig and they are aiming for at least allowing these fan curves optionally, because... Dayum!
 

Amzin

No one beats me 17 times in a row!
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I posted this on Twitter too but there are vaguely legitimate / helpful reasons to disable a game for Steam Deck - Destiny 2 comes to mind, to prevent people from getting themselves banned. Of course it's their fault in the first place running it on the Deck will get you banned so I don't know that they'll bother to disable it.
 
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Knurek

OG old coot
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BTW, I was this years old when I learnt that Deck behaves like PSVita or 3DS when uninstalling games.
If your game doesn't have a cloud save configured (and we all know some don't) or you god forbid are offline, say goodbye to your savegames.
 

LEANIJA

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BTW, I was this years old when I learnt that Deck behaves like PSVita or 3DS when uninstalling games.
If your game doesn't have a cloud save configured (and we all know some don't) or you god forbid are offline, say goodbye to your savegames.
isnt that true for any PC? although Im not sure if Proton keeps save data in the Wine prefix. or not.
 

LEANIJA

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Not on Windows, unless you format format your main drive.

hmmm yeah I just checked, uninstalled The Secret of Monkey Island, and upon deinstallation the Proton files - and with it local save data - went away as well. thats something Valve should look into, thats not cool.
 
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Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
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Hmm, that is very interesting. If there's next to no change despite increasing or decreasing the available parallel CPU performance, it suggests that either the port isn't limited by CPU at all, but instead limited by GPU, or the game is pretty much just single threaded. If it is a case of the game literally just using one thread, then there isn't all that much you can do. Or anyone can do, realistically.
The GPU usage seems fairly low and the performance overlay shows the CPU workload is more or less spread equally over all threads, maxing out at ~20% per thread with 8 threads (so basically using each core at 40% load).
That would suggest there's a lot of headroom, the game just isn't tapping into it for whatever reason (or the overlay is inaccurate).

The GPU frequently goes to 100% for a split second though, so maybe that is what's limiting the entire thing, I dunno.


BTW, I was this years old when I learnt that Deck behaves like PSVita or 3DS when uninstalling games.
If your game doesn't have a cloud save configured (and we all know some don't) or you god forbid are offline, say goodbye to your savegames.
Seems obvious in hindsight considering how each game gets their own virtual Windows folder structure to work with, but that's not cool.
They should have started mandating cloud saves years ago, there's literally no reason not to have them.
Hopefully this coming more into the forefront with the Deck leads to a solution for that going forward...
 
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Amzin

No one beats me 17 times in a row!
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Seems obvious in hindsight considering how each game gets their own virtual Windows folder structure to work with, but that's not cool.
They should have started mandating cloud saves years ago, there's literally no reason not to have them.
Hopefully this coming more into the forefront with the Deck leads to a solution for that going forward...
Steam cloud is great but is has some legitimate issues. No built in user friendly version control, and not always noticing when local saves and cloud saves are different somehow. Stuff like that can screw over people that play on multiple machines AND only one machine. On top of, people with limited data caps (which is a lot) might get caught off guard by some games with larger saves (which I think often do not enable cloud saves).

Valve needs to add some basic version control (at minimum 2 versions, to prevent the most common problems), and needs to make settings for Steam cloud use a bit more customizable other than on/off for users. I mean I don't think publishers are not enabling it because of those problems very often, if at all, but they are legitimate issues that come up enough to be off putting, and are solvable but not fixed yet.
 

fokkusu

Burn baby burn🔥🎵
Dec 9, 2018
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Yes I would suggest to update that beta. Fan was zigzagging in the stable build.
 

Paul

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13 days since my Deck arrived at Valve Netherlands, still no word, contacted support 4 days ago about what is the status, still no word

Having read the ways to lessen the whine and seeing it improved (apparently?) with an update is starting to make me regret sending it back.
 

ZKenir

❀ Child of Raikou ❀
May 10, 2019
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If a game is verified it should be verified with a particular version of Proton and that version should be used when running the game, unless you manually override the Proton version.
I think I read that's how it works, so new Proton version releases should have no effect on already verified titles.
Unless you mean game updates, then yeah, I suppose those could break Verified status.
I mean game updates, at some point apex which is verified was unplayable because of an update
 

CommodoreKong

Mercenary in the Badlands
Jun 15, 2019
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My US 512 preorder was at 21 minutes and 54 seconds, I'm hoping for another "big" day of 512s so we hopefully get to my preorder time next week.
 

Mivey

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My only "complaint" a few minute in is that I keep confusing this with the Switch and confusing B and A. Is there a way to tell Steam to use the Nintendo layout?

Noise wise, I find the sound of the exhaust to be really inoffensive. But then I again, I do work with a laptop docked in front of me all the time, so maybe I'm just too used to that kind of sound.

My US 512 preorder was at 21 minutes and 54 seconds, I'm hoping for another "big" day of 512s so we hopefully get to my preorder time next week.
I think I was almost 2 hours late, due to issues with payment. Kinda crazy I already got it, when people in the US who are maybe a 20 minutes late are getting it now. Valve must have really overestimated demand in Europe or at least underestimated the demand in the US. Which is weird since you think Valve would have literally all the data about the number of customers in each region.
 
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Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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I've tried the 40Hz mode with Cyber Sleuth and yeah it's fantastic.
Shame that whatever bottleneck the game seems to have exists because it should easily run at 60, but I'll also be honest: having it tried now I'm firmly in camp "40fps is good enough" and I might have played it at that anyway - it's 5+ hours of runtime for Cyber Sleuth @40Hz.

It feels a lot better than 30fps, which is blowing my mind because quite frankly previously to this I have never even considered this option.

Also the fan is now completely silent. Haven't tested anything demanding or long-time yet, but first impressions are night and day compared to how it was before,
 

meschio94

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Aug 21, 2021
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My only "complaint" a few minute in is that I keep confusing this with the Switch and confusing B and A. Is there a way to tell Steam to use the Nintendo layout?
Do you mean the GUI in yuzu ?

you can't swap the buttons layout, like cemu with mod for now unfrtunatly (for example the dozens of mod for BOTW)

But in steam input you can invert the A <-> B and X <-> Y.

In most games work flawless because this weirdo japaneese confirm with the (B) button, which is in our (A) xbox controller layout position, and swap the button in steam layout make almost no difference

In some games, like CTR you can't swap or the in game prompt will be fucked up
 

Mivey

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Do you mean the GUI in yuzu ?

you can't swap the buttons layout, like cemu with mod for now unfrtunatly (for example the dozens of mod for BOTW)

But in steam input you can invert the A <-> B and X <-> Y.

In most games work flawless because this weirdo japaneese confirm with the (B) button, which is in our (A) xbox controller layout position, and swap the button in steam layout make almost no difference

In some games, like CTR you can't swap or the in game prompt will be fucked up
I mean exactly that, but to have that setting globally, so it's always sending the Xinput signal for A when you press B and vice versa. But it's fine, I'll probably get used to it, just need to relearn the muscle memory.
 

meschio94

Junior Member
Aug 21, 2021
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I mean exactly that, but to have that setting globally, so it's always sending the Xinput signal for A when you press B and vice versa. But it's fine, I'll probably get used to it, just need to relearn the muscle memory.
you can set that per game basis, if you have the game in your steam libraly, via emudeck for example, select the controller icon at the right of the display.

Then click on "change style", and then on the left of the display you have a menu with the first row with the name "buttons"

You will view the A, B, X, Y buttons

click on the box and you will prompt with a gampad layout, and select the button to change the behaviour
 

Mivey

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you can set that per game basis, if you have the game in your steam libraly, via emudeck for example, select the controller icon at the right of the display.

Then click on "change style", and then on the left of the display you have a menu with the first row with the name "buttons"

You will view the A, B, X, Y buttons

click on the box and you will prompt with a gampad layout, and select the button to change the behaviour
I know about the per game basis of course, but that's too annoying to do over and over again, at that point it's easier to just adapt. Maybe Valve will actually enable this global feature like that at some point for the Deck, I remember the old Big Picture had this option for controllers.
 

meschio94

Junior Member
Aug 21, 2021
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I know about the per game basis of course, but that's too annoying to do over and over again, at that point it's easier to just adapt. Maybe Valve will actually enable this global feature like that at some point for the Deck, I remember the old Big Picture had this option for controllers.
Maybe the fast way for now, is to create a layout for switch games, and select it for the game when you encounter the problem