|OT| Valve's Steam Deck - OLED refresh shipping to folks
- Thread starter prudis
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Nice ! If tracking is true, mine is still in the Netherlands, and I just checked and GLS doesn't do deliveries on Saturday. So I don't want to jinx it, but I'm not too hopeful.
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I thought we were Thursday, fuuuu...
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So I’ve had a play about.
- The system is definitely lighter.
- The OLED display is god-tier beautiful.
- Cracking open the case is easier if you have the right screw bit.
- Replacing the SSD is significantly more difficult. They’ve glued a ribbon cable to the shroud covering the motherboard, so it’s much trickier to get underneath.
Back in the day when I ordered my Steam Link, GLS lost my package and when a second one was sent, they somehow missed my address four times
I've played with my OLED a bit. The screen is definitely a lot prettier - I appreciate the changes they made to LCD coloring with that big update but it's just never gonna match obviously. The lighter weight was instantly noticeable and while it won't affect me much, is nice for people. I sort of dislike how they changed the hz / fps slider but maybe I'm overthinking it (I don't want 40fps at 80 hz, I want 40 fps at 40 hz right? Isn't that better for power?)
I haven't really noticed much difference with buttons but the touch pads are nicer, I hated the texture of the original ones and had to put a skin on them, no need with these new ones, and they feel somehow better to use to boot.
Battery life seems better but I actually have played much of the same games I was playing on the original - got into Coral Island and that's been my go-to so far. Haven't tested HDR yet either but planning to.
Barely related but I downloaded like 20 user made startup movies and put it on shuffle and have managed to forget that and surprise myself multiple times so far.
Overall, on paper it was literally what I wanted for an improved Deck, and in hand it's even better with the other subtle refinements. It's great! No regret on going for the glossy screen either so far but winter is here so maybe come summer I'll be annoyed.
It also makes me really hope they announce the Index 2 soon, I need a new VR rig and I don't wanna shell out for Index 1 when they clearly have figured out how to improve stuff significantly with small tweaks.
I haven't really noticed much difference with buttons but the touch pads are nicer, I hated the texture of the original ones and had to put a skin on them, no need with these new ones, and they feel somehow better to use to boot.
Battery life seems better but I actually have played much of the same games I was playing on the original - got into Coral Island and that's been my go-to so far. Haven't tested HDR yet either but planning to.
Barely related but I downloaded like 20 user made startup movies and put it on shuffle and have managed to forget that and surprise myself multiple times so far.
Overall, on paper it was literally what I wanted for an improved Deck, and in hand it's even better with the other subtle refinements. It's great! No regret on going for the glossy screen either so far but winter is here so maybe come summer I'll be annoyed.
It also makes me really hope they announce the Index 2 soon, I need a new VR rig and I don't wanna shell out for Index 1 when they clearly have figured out how to improve stuff significantly with small tweaks.
Maybe it is very slightly better but 40 fps at 80 Hz is much better for latency and smoothness. Games will look smoother to the eye and feel smoother to play so it is well worth it.
GLS just send an Email that my delivery planned for today is delayed. No new date, just 1-3 work days.
Sigh....
Sigh....
Mine actually arrived today (just now -- I didn't expect it at this point).
First impression: it really is lighter.
On the spec sheet the difference seems so insubstantial (and objectively it really is), so I never expected this to be the first thing I notice when taking it out of the box.
Probably because I really used the LCD unit a lot and so I subconsciously have a definite and rather precise expectation of the weight something shaped like this should have.
First impression: it really is lighter.
On the spec sheet the difference seems so insubstantial (and objectively it really is), so I never expected this to be the first thing I notice when taking it out of the box.
Probably because I really used the LCD unit a lot and so I subconsciously have a definite and rather precise expectation of the weight something shaped like this should have.
That was basically my reaction. Now the LCD Deck feels the wrong side of heavy.
I've been playing on the LE OLED for the past few days and weight difference is HUGE. The LCD Deck feels like a brick in comparison. That and the much better battery life solve my 2 biggest gripes with the original Deck.
Got my unit finally 
GLS.
The screen is really beautiful, I haven't noticed any dead pixels, don't get that buzzing noise on headphones, fans don't rattle, and all controls seem to work at a first glance, so so far so good.
But I've played some Picross on it and sadly, the DPad right gets dropped inputs randomly (you can hear it hitting, but sound is different, almost like it'd be touching plastic and not membrane below). Nudging the DPad fixes it for a while, but it comes back sooner or later.
Kinda torn whether to RMA over that. Will not be an issue with VNs, might be an issue with retro titles I plan on playing on Deck, but maybe the left stick could be finangled as a replacement for them?
From browsing reddit, seems to be fairly common issue, but way less severe than the other horror stories I read there...
GLS.The screen is really beautiful, I haven't noticed any dead pixels, don't get that buzzing noise on headphones, fans don't rattle, and all controls seem to work at a first glance, so so far so good.
But I've played some Picross on it and sadly, the DPad right gets dropped inputs randomly (you can hear it hitting, but sound is different, almost like it'd be touching plastic and not membrane below). Nudging the DPad fixes it for a while, but it comes back sooner or later.
Kinda torn whether to RMA over that. Will not be an issue with VNs, might be an issue with retro titles I plan on playing on Deck, but maybe the left stick could be finangled as a replacement for them?
From browsing reddit, seems to be fairly common issue, but way less severe than the other horror stories I read there...
Can anyone else with OLEDeck check and see if their DPad behaves like mine (whenever Google can be arsed to process the video)?
Here's a download link
If it's on the leftmost position, all cardinal directions work, if it slides during usage to rightmosts, DPad Right starts randomly not being read.
Wondering whether it's enough for a valid RMA, or is this how it's supposed to behave.
Here's a download link
If it's on the leftmost position, all cardinal directions work, if it slides during usage to rightmosts, DPad Right starts randomly not being read.
Wondering whether it's enough for a valid RMA, or is this how it's supposed to behave.
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Pretty amazing how google fails to process a 2 MB video.
Anyway, I just tried, and when I move mine right or left like you did it bounces back a bit towards the center. Not all the way, but noticeably. All directions work in all positions that it can end up in.
For LE, dead pixels
Other models have had some issues with buttons or dpads sticking or crunching weird. Test all inputs and make sure nothing feels off, and everything is registering.
There is also some usual software jank that needs patched, but it affects all users differently.
I keep installing games on my Steam Deck and not actually playing anything. The full terabyte of internal storage might be a curse in disguise, as nice as it is to actually use the SSD for the kind of games that benefit from it. (aka Big Ones)
My OLED arrived today. No obvious defects so I'm relieved not having to deal with GLS again.
I wanted to try out Ori as everyone mentioned this as a good HDR test. Installed it, but no HDR settings... ofc I only own the first Ori and everyone meant the second Ori when talking about HDR. I played the second one back when MS introduced PC Gamepass. Really made me think how these subscription services mess with ownership. Maybe gonna pick Ori 2 up during the Winter Sale...
Played a bit of Sea of Stars (really need to get back to this, such great music), beat Half-Life Uplink and started up Trails of Nayuta.
The new hardware is amazing, but Steam OS 3.5 still needs much work - kinda a repeat of the OG Deck launch.
I wanted to try out Ori as everyone mentioned this as a good HDR test. Installed it, but no HDR settings... ofc I only own the first Ori and everyone meant the second Ori when talking about HDR. I played the second one back when MS introduced PC Gamepass. Really made me think how these subscription services mess with ownership. Maybe gonna pick Ori 2 up during the Winter Sale...
Played a bit of Sea of Stars (really need to get back to this, such great music), beat Half-Life Uplink and started up Trails of Nayuta.
The new hardware is amazing, but Steam OS 3.5 still needs much work - kinda a repeat of the OG Deck launch.
What issues is everyone having with 3.5? I haven't noticed anything so far, but to be fair I've also only really been playing one game on it (Atelier Lulua) since I got the OLED Deck.
That said, I was on the 3.5 preview for a while before that and also didn't really encounter substantial problems there.
That said, I was on the 3.5 preview for a while before that and also didn't really encounter substantial problems there.
The biggest thing I've noticed is that the sliders for the GPU clock and TDP limit don't work reliably. Like, I change the GPU clock to something low like 400MHz but then it snaps back up to 1500 after a sec.
Valve still hasn't deemed it worthy to have a Japanese locale installed, so you get mojibake in a bunch of games.
The only issue I saw was some strange behaviour with the new default clocks, when playing Nier Replicant √1.5. The GPU clocks oscillate constantly between 200hz - 1000hz - 1.6khz and the CPU is constantly at 3.5Ghz. I believe the GPU thing is intended, and it's possible the CPU clock is just the game doing crazy things. I forced the GPU clock to 500 Hz, and set TDP to 7W and the game runs still at a locked 40 FPS (in the places I tested) and with vastly lower energy consumption. Down to around 13W from 19W default, more than 30% reduction for the same performance.
Now, it's a sample of one, but it shows that either due to SteamOSs default clock behaviour or the game doing bad things to keep CPUs at max clocks, there is a lot of perf/watt that's to gain by manually tweaking things. The draw back of manual adjustments is that it only works if the game doesn't feature any more demanding areas as you continue playing, which it likely will at some point So having better automatic behaviour would be good, but I understand that this isn't exactly a simple thing to solve well for all games.
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I'd love for Valve to allow for disabling CPU turbo. It just eats Watts for almost no percivable performance gain.
(Can be done with Decky PowerTools plugin, but having a built-in solution would be preferable)
I'll tweet plagman about it, it's a good feature. I have actually disabled the turbo on my laptop because it makes it sound like a jet engine for very little benefit.
Can anyone test Eternights on 3.5? I paused my play through a few weeks ago on my LCD Deck, wanted to resume last night on my OLED Deck but the game just won't start up (hangs on the Steam icon). Does not matter which Proton version. Same problem on my (now patched to 3.5) LCD Deck. Sadly it appears noone owns this game as I seem to be the only person around with this problem (checked Reddit and Steam Community).
I've noticed something a bit odd with the oled deck. Sometimes I'll see instances where the colors are real crazy and the screen really pops, like browsing the tiles in my library, but when I play a game it never seems to pop like that. I was playing dreamlight valley last night and for whatever reason the loading screen it has is insanely vivid, almost like HDR was turned on for it, but when it goes to gameplay it never seems to look like that. It doesn't look awful or anything it's just missing that pop that I sometimes see with other things. I've only played a couple other games on oled deck so far and it's kind of the same with them, colors during gameplay seem to be a bit more on the subdued side. Still better than the LCD but visibly missing that crazy vivid pop.
I didn't play it but tested it just now and it launched but it took a while. After the steam logo it went to a black screen for like 20-30 seconds and then the main menu appeared. I was almost about to close the game and report failure and then it popped up lol
I assume the HDR just generally works for every device, it's just that the devs used the Steam Deck OLED as the target platform for HDR. Nice to see developers already using it as a reference screen for well tuned HDR implementations
Sounds like the screen is doing a good job of accurate color representation in-game then. Most games aren't meant to be eye searingly bright and colorful and "vivid" modes in most consumer devices, like phones or TVs, just widely distort the image to achieve that look.
Maybe the gaming mode is optimised for HDR content, so you get a massive increase in contrast.. It probably helps that the updated look (shipped around the same time OLED dropped) has the background purely black when looking at the library, so the game banners by default stand out more.
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I feel like if I can save the money this will be my next PC. My old gaming PC has crapped out so I've been stuck on PS5/GeForceNow but everything Ive seen about the OLED steam deck looks amazing.
Had a scare on my oled earlier. I've been playing dreamlight valley a lot on it in the last 10 days and when I was transitioning from the castle to the village I noticed what looked like the stamina bar burnt in to the corner of my screen. It was very faint but definitely there. However when I shut the game down and then shut my deck off I looked while the steam logo was in the middle of the screen and I couldn't see anything in the corner anymore. I guess maybe it's a quirk of the game to leave some of the UI barely there as you switch areas?
I don't have an OLED deck (yet), but I've had an OLED tv for a long time. It's not unusual to have image retention like this that disappears fairly quickly, especially after a bright color has been displayed, like something bright yellow or red. It's not the same thing as burn in. So as long as it went away, I wouldn't worry.
Yeah so far it seems to be temporary. I don't see it appear until I go to the expansion area then it'll be on any black loading screens I see until I quit the game. Then it disappears until I go back to that area. So hopefully it doesn't get worse than that.
Would be nice to get a follow-up for the OLED chip, to actually confirm that it dropped this subsystem that is likely intended only for AR stuff.
I got the steam deck today
This is the first time I've seen or held the deck so all my thoughts and observations (and eventually, questions) will be things you guys sorted out 2 years ago. First impression is that this thing is quite large. I knew it would be bigger than the Switch but it's substantially bigger. I've used the Switch exclusively in handheld mode for the last 5-6 years and I've always felt that it was slightly bigger than what I'd consider comfortable for handheld gaming. I still think the Vita was the perfect weight and size, and while you do get used to the Switch, it's a bit heavy for long sessions. I'm really curious how I'll get along with a device that's even bigger. Second thought is that it's much lighter than you'd think just by looking at it. It feels like the weight is on the edges and the central part below the screen is quite light. I found it surprising that it required a mandatory firmware update before you can even start the device. I do not think hardware should ship like that.
I'm wondering what I'm going to play on it. Over the last few years there have been a set of games that have accumulated that I'd really like to get to but never did because there was just never enough time and I was busy with something else. But mostly the reason has been that they're really, really long games that would require several weeks if not months to get through. I still do want to play them though... games like Persona 5 (of which I've bought 6 copies), the Trails series of games (but let's just start with Trails in the Sky) and quite a few visuals novels. For some reason I have it in my head that I'll be able to get through at least some of those games on the deck now that I have it. I don't know why I'm fooling myself like this because it's not like buying the deck gives me extra hours in the day or anything. So we'll have to put that theory to the test and see if I can finally play some of those things on this machine.
I do hope I end up using the device more than I do my other consoles. Last year I played one game on the PS5 and zero on the Switch. It's not that there weren't games there to play... I'm just too much of a PC gamer I guess. Let's see if I can get more value from the new PC pretending to be a console.
You guys got any advice for a newbie who has only used it for 20 minutes so far?
I live in a country Valve doesn't deem worthy enough to sell hardware in so I had to get it through a grey/black market importer/reseller in New Delhi. Ended up paying $800 for the $650 (+tax) device. Getting it about 6 weeks after it's global launch isn't too bad for the circumstances. Could have been a couple of weeks earlier if things had gone a bit differently.
This is the first time I've seen or held the deck so all my thoughts and observations (and eventually, questions) will be things you guys sorted out 2 years ago. First impression is that this thing is quite large. I knew it would be bigger than the Switch but it's substantially bigger. I've used the Switch exclusively in handheld mode for the last 5-6 years and I've always felt that it was slightly bigger than what I'd consider comfortable for handheld gaming. I still think the Vita was the perfect weight and size, and while you do get used to the Switch, it's a bit heavy for long sessions. I'm really curious how I'll get along with a device that's even bigger. Second thought is that it's much lighter than you'd think just by looking at it. It feels like the weight is on the edges and the central part below the screen is quite light. I found it surprising that it required a mandatory firmware update before you can even start the device. I do not think hardware should ship like that.
I'm wondering what I'm going to play on it. Over the last few years there have been a set of games that have accumulated that I'd really like to get to but never did because there was just never enough time and I was busy with something else. But mostly the reason has been that they're really, really long games that would require several weeks if not months to get through. I still do want to play them though... games like Persona 5 (of which I've bought 6 copies), the Trails series of games (but let's just start with Trails in the Sky) and quite a few visuals novels. For some reason I have it in my head that I'll be able to get through at least some of those games on the deck now that I have it. I don't know why I'm fooling myself like this because it's not like buying the deck gives me extra hours in the day or anything
. So we'll have to put that theory to the test and see if I can finally play some of those things on this machine.I do hope I end up using the device more than I do my other consoles. Last year I played one game on the PS5 and zero on the Switch. It's not that there weren't games there to play... I'm just too much of a PC gamer I guess. Let's see if I can get more value from the new PC pretending to be a console.
You guys got any advice for a newbie who has only used it for 20 minutes so far?
You'd be surprised just how much of new gaming time you can find with something portable (and with a working suspend).For some reason I have it in my head that I'll be able to get through at least some of those games on the deck now that I have it. I don't know why I'm fooling myself like this because it's not like buying the deck gives me extra hours in the day or anything
Decky for enhanced features
EmuDeck for emulation
ProtonDB for checking whether a game actually works under Proton or not (Valve's system is terrible)
Far less important than ProtonDB but I recently discovered ShareDeck, where people seem to share their game settings.
Why not.
Why not.
Use CheckMyDeck to see a total tally of your library's Deck status. And it also shows you the status of all games on your wishlist.
And it can message you on Telegram when a game changes status.
And it can message you on Telegram when a game changes status.
I would just like to point out that Mad Max runs like a dream on the Deck. A really cool game to have in a portable format.
Probably fake. The time line is fine, but I doubt any hardware is locked right now. Maybe they have infos about a prototype, but then it's doubtful that this will materialise in this exact form.
Yeah, that's so vague that it might well be correct, but at the same time has nothing to support it.
One thing I'm curious to see when there actually is a new Steam Deck is whether it will use heterogeneous cores. The ZenXc designs seem like they could make sense for the use case.
One thing I'm curious to see when there actually is a new Steam Deck is whether it will use heterogeneous cores. The ZenXc designs seem like they could make sense for the use case.