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

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Jesussssss. After breaking my balls on windows, it’s the deck turn.
I used the program to nuke the shader cache, don’t know if it’s the culprit, and now Persona 4 crashes on me after the logos.

edit. Now I don’t have videos
Will uninstall reinstall…
 
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Alexandros

Every game should be turn based
Nov 4, 2018
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Using third-party programs does carry a small amount of risk of something becoming botched, thankfully a full system wipe is an easy process.
 

ExistentialThought

Coffee Lover ♥☕
Feb 29, 2020
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Steam Deck Dock arrived, that was super quick! Cannot use it much right now, I am hanging out with my family.





Only complaint is I wish the cord to the Steam Deck was removable and replaceable. I would hate to see that cord become a point of failure and result in the entire dock becoming useless if the cord breaks.
 

FunnyJay

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Played around with TDP a bit yesterday. Impressive how you can limit that a bit, increase battery life quite a bit and almost not get any graphical drawbacks.
 
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Li Kao

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Jan 28, 2019
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The Dock should be arriving today, but thinking about it a little would it be a bad idea to leave the Deck plugged on it when I don't use it ?
I mean that's how you use a Switch and part of the appeal of a dock, but maybe it would be making the battery a disservice ? I know Valve put some measure of protection against battery deterioration by limiting the charge, but still...

What say you ?
 
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Mivey

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The Dock should be arriving today, but thinking about it a little would it be a bad idea to leave the Deck plugged on it when I don't use it ?
I mean that's how you use a Switch and part of the appeal of a dock, but maybe it would be making the battery a disservice ? I know Valve put some measure of protection against battery deterioration by limiting the charge, but still...

What say you ?
It should be ok. From what I gather, the Steam Deck is set up to only charge once when you plug it in, and then slowly discharge from there. This is good, since you want to minimise the number of charge cycles (a cycle being the battery draining, then getting charged again and thus starting a new cycle).

So if it sits on the Dock very, very long, you might just have 90% battery or so left on it. No idea if the device is set to charge again if it drops below a certain point, but as long as it's not set to aggressively, it shouldn't really matter. At that point you want it to charge again anyway.
 
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
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Ok, after obviously hours of encountering every possible issue, I have my Deck in my Dock on my Desk :grimacing-face:
Question thought, for those that have a Dock:
In Linux mode, can I set up the Deck as to obviously display on the Deck when unplugged and only display on the external display when in Dock ?

Right now I think it's in extended display, so I only have a big blank wallpapered area on the monitor, like I imagine you get when you dual monitor.
I saw an option the disable the deck display in Linux picture setup, but I know my luck, I prefer asking first.

I hope I'm clear, shit is complicated to explain.
 
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MomoVideo

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I believe there is an option in display settings. IIRC you can click on the deck display and uncheck "enable this device" or something like that. It's been a few months since the last time I used Deck on the monitor so I don't remember everything clearly, but I'm pretty sure you can disable Deck display when it's connected to an external display.
 
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Jesus, I already set the Deck external signal to 1080p60 but I... should try 720p60 ?
I wanted to celebrate by buying some dollar bundle on Fanatical and Firefox slows to a crawl sometimes. With fans audible.
 

MomoVideo

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Jesus, I already set the Deck external signal to 1080p60 but I... should try 720p60 ?
I wanted to celebrate by buying some dollar bundle on Fanatical and Firefox slows to a crawl sometimes. With fans audible.
I did 1440p 120 Hz and it worked perfectly fine. It was also mostly silent.
 
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Li Kao

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Ok, now I’m worried for my launch Deck.
Will have to put 1440p120 back.
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
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I posted this on ERA. Globally what I already said here but with more details.

-

I suppose there is no official or even unofficial diagnostic tool to check if everything works as it should on Deck ?
Just plugged my Deck to the official Dock for the first time yesterday and it was… not ideal.
The thing is globally slow. I went ahead and bought two dollar bundle from fanatical and Firefox slowed to a crawl, adding the items to cart took some non negligible time.
Then I noticed some very long boot times that I can’t comment upon because I discovered my monitor doesn’t detect display input, but in two occasions the little steam jingle went garbled at its end.
And I had also a couple of validating installation progress bar upon boot.

It’s over 2 hours of playing around, and it could very well be SteamOS growing pains, but I’m a little worried for my launch Deck. Isn’t this thing meant to be as speedy as my 2600x ? It doesn’tfeel so.
 
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MomoVideo

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There are many things you can check. For example:
  • Do slowdowns happen if you open the browser in Game Mode while still being plugged into an external display? ( We should pinpoint if this issue occurs in both Desktop and Game Mode, or only in Desktop mode)
  • Do the slowdowns happen in Desktop mode if you are unplugged from any accessories ( nothing connected to Deck)?
  • While being plugged into an external display and in desktop mode, you can check the device performance stats. Maybe something is killing the CPU?
  • On what release branch are you? If you're on stable then try beta or preview. If you're on beta/preview, try stable. You can change the release branch whenever you want.
 
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C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
Dec 23, 2018
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I noticed yesterday that it seems like there's a new batch of games being labeled as Steam Deck playable.

Among the games I noticed were at least State of Decay 2 and Project Wingman!
New games get marked as Verified or Playable nearly every weekday.

I’ve got my library linked to CheckMyDeck and use the Telegram bot to inform me when the Deck status of a game changes. I get a notification most days.
 

Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
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I got a second Deck yesterday. Basically, Valve sent out new units for devs who previously got a pre-production Deck, since the latter won't be compatible with future system updates.

The new one is a 256 GB model, so I had a chance to check out the differences between the 512/256 GB model screens, and also the differences between the pre-production model and the retail model.

The most important part first: the B button seems much better on the new one, and never got stuck. As I wrote way back, that was (and is) a pretty significant problem on the dev unit. The sticks also feel a bit smoother. Also, the button labelling on what I still call start/select is different, but I already knew that. Finally, at least in terms of input, I feel like the haptic feedback (e.g. on clicks) on the touchpads is slightly weaker.

Outside of those input differences, the only significant difference is obviously the screen. It has a few advantages, but overall I prefer the anti-glare version. The tradeoffs are really the same as always with glare vs. matte screens.
 

Arc

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Sep 19, 2020
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I still haven't bought a dock yet even though I told myself I'd use my Deck as a Super Switch. I'm sort of interested in one of those mini PCs that runs SteamOS to use as my "Steam console". I'll probably wait until SteamOS is in a better state though.
 

C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
Dec 23, 2018
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I think switching to SteamOS is a distinct possibility for me on my main PC, Nvidia drivers willing.

From a UX perspective it is infinitely better than Windows for comfy couch gaming. I just don’t want to lose ray tracing and other performance things that are on Windows.

I definitely feel Steam Deck and Proton has demystified Linux for me, though.
 

undu

Junior Member
Mar 17, 2019
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Ray tracing works on Linux, it's a Matter of performance now, especially on AMD side.
Not sure what's up with Intel cards, though
 
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Arc

MetaMember
Sep 19, 2020
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Buying games on Steam Deck is scarily easy. I saw Little Nightmares 2 was $10 and was downloading it after a few button presses. I should probably complete the original first.

I wish I still had all my GBA and DS games.
 
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FunnyJay

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Has anyone here played any Uplay-through-Steam games on the Deck? Does it work well?

I'm thinking that Steep might be a chill Deck game...
 

Mivey

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Sep 20, 2018
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Has anyone here played any Uplay-through-Steam games on the Deck? Does it work well?

I'm thinking that Steep might be a chill Deck game...
I tried Rayman Legends, which runs Uplay when you launch it from Steam. It worked rather well, but I haven't tested it in all conditions, such as offline mode. I wouldn't be surprised if Uplay requires an online check before it lets you run the game. But as long as you're connected, it works pretty well, which is to say, you don't notice it's there.
 
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Cacher

Romantic Storm
Jun 3, 2020
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I... uh... went to research on ways to dump cartridges for my deck (downloading rom is illegal in Japan) after seeing this, and I found this Open Source Cartridge Reader. Supports many systems and there are extra adaptors for some niche consoles. A store in Akiba is selling it. Supply is limited so I went there and grabbed one despite the high price.


Shit is difficult. When playing on console, insert the cartridge and play. That's it. Someone may blow onto the contacts if it doesn't read correctly. Well, when it comes to dumping, the contacts have to be cleaned thoroughly by a q-tip soaked with alcohol. Used 5-6 q-tips for each because there's zero tolerance on dirt. However, despite all these efforts, only one game out of four was successfully dumped. I checked the github of the project and people are discussing how to check solders or rewire and shit is just too overwhelming for a newbie like me.

Just when I was sad, I accidentally touched a cartridge when the device is on. Well, SD card was instantly killed. I cannot format the SD card even with software. Now I am sitting here, thinking my life choices and appreciating the birth of disc and digital media. At least the SD card was included with the device. Maybe I will grab a new SD card a few days later and try again. Now? I will just play some games on the deck to ease my disappointment.
 
OP
prudis

prudis

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The Kingdom of Beer and Porn
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I wouldn't be surprised if Uplay requires an online check before it lets you run the game.
most of the Ubi (and EA) games since 2016 have Denuvo , so you always have to run it first online at least once to get the "Denuvo licence file" for offline play , but after that it should work fine offline

Beware of changing proton versions though , each proton version acts like new computer and requires new denuvo licence ( banned myself from playing Triangle Strategy yesterday because of that bullcrap #fuckDenuvo)
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
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Hmmm... Just had another thought... Voxelgram would probably be a perfect Deck game...
It's pretty great, yeah. Last time I played you needed to force the use of Proton to avoid some nasty bug, but other than that, smooth sailing.

 
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Cacher

Romantic Storm
Jun 3, 2020
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I restarted my adventure on dumping games after getting a new SD card. Starting to grasp how the level of cleanliness affects the process. 4/5 successful dumps today including Super Mario RPG on the SNES. :dualbladesblob: Being able to play my favorite SNES game on my favorite handheld feels amazing. I also start to feel that dumping games is part of the fun. The satisfaction is great.
 

FunnyJay

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I had a weird bug on the Deck yesterday. Booted up a game, and suddenly there was a block of black across the screen.
Bringing up the Steam side menu removed the black block, but it returned after I closed the Steam menu.
Quit out of the game to Steam, and suddenly the black blocks where there too!

I quickly rebooted the Deck, and the graphical bug disappeared.
Not gonna lie, was a bit sweaty.
EDIT:
It was this!


But I don't have the dock. Apparently it's because of the performance overlay.
 
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MomoVideo

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This appeared to me a few times. The dock doesn't have anything to do with it, pure coincidence. Reenabling and then disabling the performance overlay again fixes the bug.
 
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C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
Dec 23, 2018
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Yeah, I’ve found using the performance overlay sometimes causes this bug.
 
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