Deck is at the same time the best and the worst way to play PC games.
|OT| Valve's Steam Deck (OLED)- coming to Straya in Nov 2024
- Thread starter prudis
- Start date
I don't know if you are sarcastic or throwing shade at poor me but... yeah, I can get behind that. It's incredible, until one of the downsides rears its head and I'm all 'oh no, ffs, this is not good enough'. Then time passes, the downside is memory and I'm all 'so good, so incredible'.
Basically it's a machine of concessions and I keep struggling to know if I'm ok with those concessions.
My current pet peeve with the UI would be the incredible lag I experience regularly. No big deal, will surely be patched and I'm not even sure it's a widespread thing.
My real issue would be the fucking fans, the little thing heats up too much, then it's world war 3. And as far as I can say I have the good fans.
I think I lucked out in the fan lottery as they don’t bother me at all.
A bit wasted on me actually, as I use headphones 99% of the time.
A bit wasted on me actually, as I use headphones 99% of the time.
I blame your avatar ! It's really easy to imagine sarcasm with this portrait
Hmm, sure, it's a totally fine solution. Unfortunately I'm not really a headphone user in the case of handheld products.
First, I don't have good headphones, so there is that. Then comes the cable... I'm not anti cable at all, I don't care about it, but as a mobile machine I will have the AC plugged in most of the time, and two cables is when I begin to feel a little overwhelmed with shit. I guess that leaves us with BT headphones but if the recent convo is to be believed it's not great for latency, and there will be another shit I will have to charge daily. Seriously, I'm so tired of charging so much shit on the regular.
But that's obviously my neurotic POV, I guess it's an option I will have to consider seriously.
On a related note, and please are we in agreement that I'm not a deck hater here, I sometimes wonder if instead of trying to be free of the desktop I shouldn't simply invest in a comfy chair
Last edited:
Knurek Li Kao I have been following your posts and it seems to me that deep down you are both not satisfied with your purchase and you are trying to convince yourselves otherwise, My recommendation would be to sell your devices and wait for a new model or one of the competing devices from AYA, AYN or GPD. It's perfectly fine, if it doesn't work for you it doesn't work for you.
Oh, I'm satisfied with my Deck (well, will be when it gets back from RMA).
It's just that it's this close to being a perfect thing, it's infuriating.
(And really, why can't I state my gripes with it?)
I found the weirdest issue that might be game related but I'm not knowledgeable enough to figure it out.
Played through Vambrace without any graphical or sound issues that I noticed. Finished yesterday and before uninstalling I was checking some tabs and noticed I didn't unlock a single achievement. Tried running the game on my desktop to see if I could fool the system with my cloud save to unlock all achievements I should've gotten but lo and behold the game doesn't have cloud saves but I found out that just by starting the game you get one achievement, so they definitely work on the desktop/windows but for some reason they aren't being triggered on the deck/linux.
Played through Vambrace without any graphical or sound issues that I noticed. Finished yesterday and before uninstalling I was checking some tabs and noticed I didn't unlock a single achievement. Tried running the game on my desktop to see if I could fool the system with my cloud save to unlock all achievements I should've gotten but lo and behold the game doesn't have cloud saves but I found out that just by starting the game you get one achievement, so they definitely work on the desktop/windows but for some reason they aren't being triggered on the deck/linux.
I had an achievement bug as well. I completed Tales of Arise recently, 99% of my playtime was on Deck and I noticed that I did not unlock one of the story related achievements which is super annoying because I can't be bothered to replay the game just to get a single achievement. I also noticed that when I am offline, I don't get the achievements but they pop up later when I connect to wifi. I don't know if it's only ToA issue or if this is the case for all the games. If it's the latter then I think Valve needs to rethink the implementation of achievements on Steam so that they also work offline.
It's all about properly managed expectations. There are some who are disappointed, who maybe had unrealistic expectations of what would be possible.
However, I, myself, view the Deck as a stepping stone to something much greater in the future. Basically Valve needed a product out there to really kick it all off. And it will mature and continually get better as time goes on.
Is this the mass market product meant for everyone? No, not currently... but they're working towards that. And ANYONE with a Deck, can easily see the potential of this product in the future. A Steam Deck 2.0 with vastly improved processing capabilities, harnessing all the improvements and features that will come from the original Deck... will bear fruit to a simply undeniable product with an unmatched library of games, and an unmatched level of flexibility.
I view it very much as a work in progress, and I'm happy to contribute to it.
However, I, myself, view the Deck as a stepping stone to something much greater in the future. Basically Valve needed a product out there to really kick it all off. And it will mature and continually get better as time goes on.
Is this the mass market product meant for everyone? No, not currently... but they're working towards that. And ANYONE with a Deck, can easily see the potential of this product in the future. A Steam Deck 2.0 with vastly improved processing capabilities, harnessing all the improvements and features that will come from the original Deck... will bear fruit to a simply undeniable product with an unmatched library of games, and an unmatched level of flexibility.
I view it very much as a work in progress, and I'm happy to contribute to it.
I’ve said this before but I volunteer to take care of all unwanted decks. I’m just that kind of guy, all unselfish and caring.
Your post is great, just disagreeing with the first sentence. I had my expectations in check. I am unfortunately taken by surprise by the jet engine bundled in the deck. Obviously, in retrospect hindsight is 100%, the deck is powerful so it gets hot so solid fans are needed.
But show me anyone who had expected that noise before release.
Power can be underwhelming but it’s no big deal. Compatibility is rocky but it will get better. UI is obviously made on cocaine but at the end of the day, the same. But the noise, I’m not sure we can expect big changes on that front.
I was under the impression that the new fan curve largely solved that issue. What games are causing it to spin up?
It's interesting how experiences with the fan can still vary so wildly.
Personally I'm super happy with it since the fan curve update. Yes, if you hammer the Deck fully it will still go full blast but now you have way more room to maneuver before it reaches that point.
I'm playing Monster Hunter Rise on it now and I have the settings on High but with only 100% resolution scaling and no AA (because I don't find it necessary on the Deck's small screen) with Refresh Rate capped at 45Hz and it looks great, plays great and the fans are completely silent 90% of the time and slightly audible 10% of the time. (And I even get more battery life as a bonus).
And I'm pretty sure I even have the "bad" fan.
Personally I'm super happy with it since the fan curve update. Yes, if you hammer the Deck fully it will still go full blast but now you have way more room to maneuver before it reaches that point.
I'm playing Monster Hunter Rise on it now and I have the settings on High but with only 100% resolution scaling and no AA (because I don't find it necessary on the Deck's small screen) with Refresh Rate capped at 45Hz and it looks great, plays great and the fans are completely silent 90% of the time and slightly audible 10% of the time. (And I even get more battery life as a bonus).
And I'm pretty sure I even have the "bad" fan.
It does so only in the low power usage scenarios, drive the system enough and it still runs at max speed (as it should really, to not have Deck thermal shut down).
Last edited:
Ah, I see. That doesn't seem like a problem, more like intended behaviour. You have a powerful chip and nit much space for cooling, noise is to be expected in such situations.
The laws of thermodynamics being what they are, these chips obviously need to be actively cooled at higher wattage.
About the only thing Valve can do to mitigate the issue is put quieter fans in their systems, and even that has its limits as to how quiet they can be.
About the only thing Valve can do to mitigate the issue is put quieter fans in their systems, and even that has its limits as to how quiet they can be.
Didn't Noctua say they were looking into it?I wouldn't mind paying extra for a 120mm Noctua fan version.
I think if the Steam Deck continues to sell more, or if there are a lot of these handheld PCs being sold by many manufacturers that all use the same or similar types of 120mm fans, it may actually be worth Noctua's while to do it.
At this point I think it'd be an aftermarket mod, however.
The problem is that the final price has to stay at reasonable levels because all of the individually small features that people are asking for will quickly add up. For me the number one priority has to be the affordable price because only Valve can offer it due to Steam subsidizing the cost. The market will soon be full of devices with better specs, quieter fans, OLED screens or smaller size, In my opinion, people who want all those things and are willing to pay for them should turn to Steam Deck's competitors instead of asking Valve to make a more expensive device.I wouldn't mind paying extra for a 120mm Noctua fan version.
A mass market-friendly price is absolutely crucial for the expansion of the SteamOS/Linux ecosystem and I am worried that Valve will draw the wrong conclusion from early adopters gravitating towards the more expensive version. At 600 € and up, Steam Deck will always be a niche device.
The higher end purchasing is entirely down to storage. I don’t think we’ll see a “Pro” Deck with all around better specs anytime soon.
I think the SSD should’ve been more easily replaceable. People are gravitating to 512gb because games are huge these days. 64gb is plain not enough. 256gb will do in a pinch but you’re pretty much going to be constantly rotating games on and off of it.
I think if the Deck had a more easily accessible 2280 NVMe we’d see the 64gb model selling gangbusters instead of the 512gb. But a lot of users are scared to open their Decks (thanks to Valve’s warnings at announcement) and put off with the 2230 NVMe and their exorbitant prices.
As for the storage situation we have now, I think if Valve keeps the current models but adds a 1tb option that will solve it for most. Anyone with more exotic storage needs will just have to buy their own SSD and a 64gb model.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #2,974
its super fascinating tbh .... some of the folks always complain about the "jet engine upon simplest task" and i have been plaing on it for over a month almost dail and never heard anythinh that could be descriped like that .... msotly the usual "hum" ... i evel lent it to my gf , who often suffers from severe tinnitus in louder environment (quite intricate problem with current heatwave ) and she had zero issues with it aswell
The opposite is also true. I almost went deaf sitting close to a friend's "whisper-quiet" (according to him) PS4 console.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #2,976
like yes i am pretty sure i have quite different perception of what "loud" is than most .... i did lived durring my college days near directly above the train stations after all .... and i am pretty sure i lucked out on the fan lottery .... but i still found super weird that what i perceive as "barely audible hum" in actual gameplay can sound as jet engine to others. .... (once again i would maybe discribe my rtx3060 laptops full power as jet engine :-D )
similarly the "it gets too hot" thing ... i never really perceived it warm enough to be that annoying beyond like touching directl above the exhaust ... like my phone gets much much hotter in just nornal outdoor use
similarly the "it gets too hot" thing ... i never really perceived it warm enough to be that annoying beyond like touching directl above the exhaust ... like my phone gets much much hotter in just nornal outdoor use
You know, when you guys moan about Steam Deck, at least you’re not Jeremy Parish moaning about Steam Deck.
“My ISP is shitting the bed. Why would Valve do this? Steam sucks.”
I’ve got a lot of respect for the work he does, especially on game preservation, but sometimes I see his takes (in particular about Steam) and it’s pretty obvious he’s just looking for excuses to shit on Valve. I have no idea what they did to piss him off but it’s kinda pathetic.
“My ISP is shitting the bed. Why would Valve do this? Steam sucks.”
I’ve got a lot of respect for the work he does, especially on game preservation, but sometimes I see his takes (in particular about Steam) and it’s pretty obvious he’s just looking for excuses to shit on Valve. I have no idea what they did to piss him off but it’s kinda pathetic.
I poured 10 liters of water on my PC and Steam stopped working, why would Gaben do this?
Just got Moguri mod for FFIX working on Deck. The launcher was being a little finnicky, because Steam tries to open the on screen keyboard constantly when you are entering the file path. I was having the launcher fail before installing, but it turns out that's because there wasn't enough space on my internal SSD. After that was taken care of it was smooth sailing. You just have launch the game in desktop mode once, then you are good to play in SteamOS from then on. It looks wonderful, everything is so crisp compared to the Switch version.
I gotta say the fan noise on my Deck is really a non-issue for me. I guess I really lucked out with the quieter fan. Even at full blast it's barely bothering me, and with the new fan curve it's pretty much completely quiet.
I am also crazy impressed how pretty much all games I want play perfectly on the Deck. Is it a perfect device? Nah, an OLED screen would be nice, I still think it's a bit on the heavy side and I think 3 hours minimum on the battery even at full blast power draw would be nice. But I don't need those things to love this thing already. Those are just some goals for future revisions to hit and would instantly buy a Deck 2 if it addressed any one of those points.
I am also crazy impressed how pretty much all games I want play perfectly on the Deck. Is it a perfect device? Nah, an OLED screen would be nice, I still think it's a bit on the heavy side and I think 3 hours minimum on the battery even at full blast power draw would be nice. But I don't need those things to love this thing already. Those are just some goals for future revisions to hit and would instantly buy a Deck 2 if it addressed any one of those points.
Final Fantasy IX is a game that I love but have never finished. Every time I tried to beat it I just gave up because I could not stand the 13 seconds load time when transitioning into battle. I've read that Moguri Mod partially remedies that so I bought it recently to play it on Deck. I'm happy to hear that Moguri works on Deck.
This is the guide I used for Moguri on Deck
It's pretty straight forward, just a few additional steps if you have FFIX installed on SD instead of internal storage.
The easiest way (since the install process unpacks 8+ GB 7z archive which murders Deck's battery) is just to install on desktop and copy the files to Deck.
Funny you talk about FF, I may finally replay FF7. Just played the French version on release, and let me tell you, it was translated from the US version, not the JP one. Undecipherable localization ensues.
But I'm really not sure how. The plan was on Deck, but the plan was with retranslation patch and CRT filter. As the patch looks to be a little of a pain to install on linux and I have no idea how to inject scanlines, I'm... not too sure what to do.
But those character models without shaders ? Jeez, is it even safe ?
Kvik is the retranslation really that good ?
But I'm really not sure how. The plan was on Deck, but the plan was with retranslation patch and CRT filter. As the patch looks to be a little of a pain to install on linux and I have no idea how to inject scanlines, I'm... not too sure what to do.
But those character models without shaders ? Jeez, is it even safe ?
Kvik is the retranslation really that good ?
The most nice, gentle, and flirty nurse and now a quieter deck. I can only get so erect today.
I was watching that Linus video and was curious about the fan RPMs on my Steam Deck, and I noticed something bizzare.
I loaded up Cyberpunk, beginning of the Nomad path in that hillbily town. With disabled frame limiter (both ingame and in Steam UI), the framerate was around 40, RPMs around 5400 and temperature around 80.
Then I enabled frame limiter via Steam UI to 30 - so you would expect temperature to drop as well as RPMs, right?
Except temperature shot up to max 95 or so and RPMs went to 7000! Same with the ingame 30fps limiter !
Once I disabled the limiter, temperature and RPMs went down again.
WTF?
I loaded up Cyberpunk, beginning of the Nomad path in that hillbily town. With disabled frame limiter (both ingame and in Steam UI), the framerate was around 40, RPMs around 5400 and temperature around 80.
Then I enabled frame limiter via Steam UI to 30 - so you would expect temperature to drop as well as RPMs, right?
Except temperature shot up to max 95 or so and RPMs went to 7000! Same with the ingame 30fps limiter !
Once I disabled the limiter, temperature and RPMs went down again.
WTF?
OP
A few things bears mentioning in regards of the Beacause mod.
- The aim of the mod is not to "fix" the English localisation, but rather to localise the JP script into English proper from the bottom up, which means certain localisation choices were made and this can possibly upset some people (as silly as it sounds).
- To satisfy some concerns, there is option to keep canon terms rather than the original (e.g. Cure/Cura/Curaga instead of Cure/Cure2/Cure3). You can also have a choice between US English and UK English.
- When modifying game terms/names, the rationale is properly recorded in their database for posterity, and the decision was made in accordance to the official JP sources whenever possible (also noted in the database).
- Definitely stay away from anti-localisation dregs on reddit, kiwifarms or that one other pedo forum if they said anything negative about this mod since their opinion (if you can call it that) is worth next to nothing.
Personally, I've replayed the game twice with Beacause mod, and found the experience improved each time. The confrontation between Sepiroth and Cloud during the events in the Temple of the Ancients especially makes a lot of sense now when compared with the original.
I asked this in discord earlier but I'd like to get as many opinions as possible. Is it normal for the deck to lose battery despite being shut down completely (not in sleep mode)? In about 2-3 days of non use I turned it on last night and it had lost 8% battery which felt rather significant for something that was supposed to be totally off.
I have not paid enough attention to how fast the battery dissipates when completely off. Was the battery fully charged when you shut it off or was it already drained a fair amount? Do you store it anywhere where temps or sunlight could be a problem?
I feel like there have been some reports of folks having inaccurate battery readings in some way, shape, form or fashion.
Yeah it was at 100% when I last used it, down to 92 when I turned it on. I keep it in the case in my game drawer alongside my controllers so there's no light exposure or abnormally hot temps. Someone said it could be an inaccurate battery and it should correct itself in a few cycles. I'm hoping it's just that.
So far, my only complaints about the Deck are mostly been UI related and could extend to Steam as a whole. The further you venture out of the Steam Deck tailored pages/menus, the more and more jank appears. I think taking another pass at cleaning up and unifying all of the pages/menus/submenus/etc. would go a long way to making the entire experience feel polished. Though really not a deal breaker, especially since every console/launcher/etc. that I have ever used has something that was/is clunky. The only thing that I have consistently found annoying is whenever the window I am viewing switches, there is some weird screen/window flickering until the new window takes over (usually within a fraction of a second). Also, for all Steam users, please give us a means to add to cart without navigating to cart, I can assure you this would lead to higher sales
My only other complaint is the uncertainty that comes with buying or looking forward to play games on the Steam Deck that are unknown, new, or unreleased. Granted, I am consistently surprised by how many things just work on this device. Yet there are definitely a lot of little issues that can be less than obvious early on, for example, AI: The Somnium Files, which is untested, has extremely minor annoyances with a config launcher, but then works seemingly flawlessly until you get to flashbacks and there can be small parts of the screen that only show test screens (thanks Windows Media Foundation ) and had I not played on Switch too, I might have not even realized something was incorrectly missing given the story's themes. Granted, these are easily fixed by using things like Proton GE,. Though take its upcoming sequel, the uncertainty of knowing if it will run 100% out of the box is typically something I do not have to think about on other devices. Again, not a deal breaker as so far many, many things work. I am fast approaching 50% of my library being verified/playable with a decent % of my untested likely being at least playable (and if I use something like Proton GE, a fair % more). Valve has seemingly been working on verifying popular new releases within days of release.
A few nice to haves would be a better screen (though I actually think the screen is decent enough) and more confidence in the device's longevity. With the latter concern, I always have a fear new devices will have issues appear down the road and/or become unsupported. I think as long as Valve continues to show support for the Steam Deck, and make successor devices, this will go a long way to making me feel more confident. Time will tell though.
My only other complaint is the uncertainty that comes with buying or looking forward to play games on the Steam Deck that are unknown, new, or unreleased. Granted, I am consistently surprised by how many things just work on this device. Yet there are definitely a lot of little issues that can be less than obvious early on, for example, AI: The Somnium Files, which is untested, has extremely minor annoyances with a config launcher, but then works seemingly flawlessly until you get to flashbacks and there can be small parts of the screen that only show test screens (thanks Windows Media Foundation
) and had I not played on Switch too, I might have not even realized something was incorrectly missing given the story's themes. Granted, these are easily fixed by using things like Proton GE,. Though take its upcoming sequel, the uncertainty of knowing if it will run 100% out of the box is typically something I do not have to think about on other devices. Again, not a deal breaker as so far many, many things work. I am fast approaching 50% of my library being verified/playable with a decent % of my untested likely being at least playable (and if I use something like Proton GE, a fair % more). Valve has seemingly been working on verifying popular new releases within days of release.A few nice to haves would be a better screen (though I actually think the screen is decent enough) and more confidence in the device's longevity. With the latter concern, I always have a fear new devices will have issues appear down the road and/or become unsupported. I think as long as Valve continues to show support for the Steam Deck, and make successor devices, this will go a long way to making me feel more confident. Time will tell though.
Valve needs to a much better job with the Verified program, it needs to be rock solid. Over at Era a user with no prior experience in PC gaming bought a Steam Deck and tried to play Alan Wake but it wouldn't run even though it is labeled as Verified. That's just a lousy first impression to make.
OP