|OT| Valve's Steam Deck - Our decks are going places

[Durante]

It's marked as unsupported because save import from Zero doesn't work out of the box on Deck, due to the individual WINE prefixes it uses.
Everything else works perfectly.

I don't really agree with this decision, but it's not a huge deal since we have a (incredibly hacky) workaround in the next patch to enable native save import on the Deck.

 

[prudis]

fantomena maybe try to mail to Gabe , he occasionally replies to people

 

[Mor]

It's marked as unsupported because save import from Zero doesn't work out of the box on Deck, due to the individual WINE prefixes it uses.
Everything else works perfectly.

I don't really agree with this decision, but it's not a huge deal since we have a (incredibly hacky) workaround in the next patch to enable native save import on the Deck.

Ah got it! thanks for the answer ^^

 

[Ascheroth]

It's marked as unsupported because save import from Zero doesn't work out of the box on Deck, due to the individual WINE prefixes it uses.
Everything else works perfectly.

I don't really agree with this decision, but it's not a huge deal since we have a (incredibly hacky) workaround in the next patch to enable native save import on the Deck.

Huh. I guess I understand why this could keep it from being Verified, but one would think that since the rest is ace, it could have been Playable with a note regarding the save import.

 

[Knurek]

It's marked as unsupported because save import from Zero doesn't work out of the box on Deck, due to the individual WINE prefixes it uses.
Everything else works perfectly.

That's a moronic decision, truth be told.

 

[FunnyJay]

PSA:

The legendarily wonky PC port of Saints Row 2 actually works quite OK on the Steam Deck.

Played the first mission with Proton Experimental and the game seemed to run at the correct speed, and was a lot less wonky than I've experienced before from the PC port.

I tried it vanilla, without the Gentlemen of the Row mod that everyone always recommends.

Seemed to work best when locked to 30 FPS through gamescope.

 

[LEANIJA]

 

[sprinkles]

Valve's lack of care for Norway is becoming a big annoyance for people here.

Norway is not a big country, but it's a rich country and despite that more and more people starts to struggle economical, people still have money left for entertainment.

Norway is big with PC gaming, Steam very popular and known here, everyone I know, even those who don't play video games at all knows about Steam.

But for whatever reason, Valve don't care. No Steam cards at retailers, no Valve Index, no Steam Decks, nothing.

I have friends who would buy an Index and a Deck in a heartbeat even if Valve increases the price just for Norway in order to sell it.

People just want Valve hardware, but nothing happens here.

I have students at my school that are actually getting kinda pissed at Valve for not saying anything about Norway. "Hi, fantomena (well, my actual name), heard anything about the Steam Deck yet"? Is something I actually here from some people here. They know I play PC games, so they ask me at times.

Cmon Valve, give us a sign.

Just join the EU.

 

[MomoVideo]

The latest big stable update to Steam Deck broke suspending and resuming for a lot of people. Did Valve address this? I still did not update my Deck because I can't imagine playing Persona 5 without suspending the Deck.

 

[Alexandros]

Valve's lack of care for Norway is becoming a big annoyance for people here.

Norway is not a big country, but it's a rich country and despite that more and more people starts to struggle economical, people still have money left for entertainment.

Norway is big with PC gaming, Steam very popular and known here, everyone I know, even those who don't play video games at all knows about Steam.

But for whatever reason, Valve don't care. No Steam cards at retailers, no Valve Index, no Steam Decks, nothing.

I have friends who would buy an Index and a Deck in a heartbeat even if Valve increases the price just for Norway in order to sell it.

People just want Valve hardware, but nothing happens here.

I have students at my school that are actually getting kinda pissed at Valve for not saying anything about Norway. "Hi, fantomena (well, my actual name), heard anything about the Steam Deck yet"? Is something I actually here from some people here. They know I play PC games, so they ask me at times.

Cmon Valve, give us a sign.

I understand that Valve doesn't have the sort of infrastructure to distribute and support a device worldwide but they should really, really work on it. As successful as Steam Deck already is, it could have maybe sold twice as many units if it was available on more territories. Hopefully they'll be able to set up a better distribution network by the time Steam Deck 2 comes out.

 

[fantomena]

Just join the EU.

I'd rarther not have some people in another country decide certain things for us.

 

[Gamall Wednesday Ida]

As successful as Steam Deck already is, it could have maybe sold twice as many units if it was available on more territories.

But did they have the production capacity to manufacture twice as many units?

I was under the impression that the bottleneck was (and remains?) how many they can make, not how many they can sell.

 

[Alexandros]

But did they have the production capacity to manufacture twice as many units?

I was under the impression that the bottleneck was (and remains?) how many they can make, not how many they can sell.

It was the bottleneck up until a few months ago but I don't think it is anymore. As far as I know there are no queues so production now is more than enough to meet demand.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

I'd rarther not have some people in another country decide certain things for us.

Speaking selfishly as a Brit for a moment, Christ I bloody do right about now

 

[Knurek]

I'd rarther not have some people in another country decide certain things for us.

So instead you're going for some Valve people in another country deciding certain things (like, to not carry Deck there) for you?

 

[fantomena]

Speaking selfishly as a Brit for a moment, Christ I bloody do right about now

Well the fact that we've never been part of the EU is different with Norway.

The EU skepticals, which are mostly on the left, is against EU due to fish, oil and climate politics to be super short.

They don't trust the EU with good climate politics. They also view the EU as a centric, neoliberal system with anti-progressive views.

Here is the youth organization "Norwegian youth against EU" website. As people can see, they have a big focus on racism and LGBTQ rights too.

umeu

Ungdom mot EU er en partipolitisk uavhengig ungdomsorganisasjon som organiserer ungdom og studenter til kamp mot norsk EU-medlemskap og mot EØS og Schengen.

umeu-no.translate.goog

 

[Jav]

Well the fact that we've never been part of the EU is different with Norway.

The EU skepticals, which are mostly on the left, is against EU due to fish, oil and climate politics to be super short.

They don't trust the EU with good climate politics. They also view the EU as a centric, neoliberal system with anti-progressive views.

Here is the youth organization "Norwegian youth against EU" website. As people can see, they have a big focus on racism and LGBTQ rights too.

umeu

Ungdom mot EU er en partipolitisk uavhengig ungdomsorganisasjon som organiserer ungdom og studenter til kamp mot norsk EU-medlemskap og mot EØS og Schengen.

umeu-no.translate.goog

Norway is Europe's largest oil producer (only behind Russia) and the impact of this industry on emissions and overall climate change is very serious, so much so that Norway has had to improve its 2030 emission reduction targets to match those of the EU.

Let's not fool ourselves, the arguments for not joining, as in the case of Iceland, have been purely economic, fishing and oil are the goose that lays the golden eggs for the country and big companies and they have no will to share it or to reduce the pace. That decision is neither good nor bad, but neither should we make propaganda because for example there are many right-wing parties that are also against the union.

Anyway I am not going to extend more on the subject because it is the Deck thread and I do not want to contribute more to divert it but the explanation has been either extremely naive or has deliberately left out data.

 

[Phantom Thief]

Finally ordered one for myself but Valve says it’s backlogged for Canadian orders and won’t give me an ETA

any fellow Canadians who might be able to tell me how long of a wait I should expect?

 

[sanhora]

 

[Phantom Thief]

Finally ordered one for myself but Valve says it’s backlogged for Canadian orders and won’t give me an ETA

any fellow Canadians who might be able to tell me how long of a wait I should expect?

Happy to announce it's been shipped and is getting here Monday!

 

[lashman]

Happy to announce it's been shipped and is getting here Monday!

niiiice, enjoy! can't wait to hear what you think about it

 

[itsamiracle]

Done with Return To Monkey Island, my favorite experience on the device so far. I think my vanilla experience honey period is over and I'll start tweaking around. If only Valve included firewalld, I could setup network zones and make ssh management a lot less clunkier.

 

[C-Dub]

Happy to announce it's been shipped and is getting here Monday!

Persona 5 Royal on Deck is magical. Hope you enjoy playing lots of awesome games on yours.

 

[Derrick01]

Ever since I put a new start up movie from the points shop on my deck it boots up with my screen being darker than it should be even though the brightness slider is still where I had it and adaptive brightness is still off. I have to move the slider one notch and then back to get it to pop back to the level it should be at.

 

[Phantom Thief]

Persona 5 Royal on Deck is magical. Hope you enjoy playing lots of awesome games on yours.

I already own it on literally every other system it's available on, might as well buy it here too...

 

[Durante]

Ever since I put a new start up movie from the points shop on my deck it boots up with my screen being darker than it should be even though the brightness slider is still where I had it and adaptive brightness is still off. I have to move the slider one notch and then back to get it to pop back to the level it should be at.

While this is obviously a bug that should be fixed, I want to note in this context that you can adjust brightness with "..." button + left stick up/down, for those who didn't know. I find that to be one of my most frequently used system shortcuts on the Deck.

 

[Knurek]

While this is obviously a bug that should be fixed, I want to note in this context that you can adjust brightness with "..." button + left stick up/down, for those who didn't know. I find that to be one of my most frequently used system shortcuts on the Deck.

You know what would be a good system shortcut to have on Deck?
OSD visibility toggle.

 

[Phantom Thief]

Okay, after spending a couple hours with it, I really like it. Some quick impressions:

• Initial setup was more fiddly and involved than either the PS5 or the Switch, and it took a bit to have everything set up
  • I ran into some trouble with the downloads where the Deck kept dropping the internet connection. It took a bunch of restarts and power cycles, but it's good now, and blisteringly fast (seriously, I am impressed at how quickly it downloads things)
• After it is set up, it is frankly astonishing how easy it is. Yakuza 0 is pick up and play; MGSV, in spite of the warnings it threw in my face, also is. Apparently Age 2 is as well, I have it downloaded but I have not yet played it, so I can't attest for that myself, but I am excited to see how it pls (especially excited to see how they got the control scheme over)
• The UI is great, the sleep mode is convenient. I am impressed at how well they streamlined the PC gaming experience here so that even someone like me who is traditionally averse to any form of micromanagement of my computing devices its finding the whole thing super easy
  • I will say, it lacks the immediacy and quickness of the Switch (>3 sec to get back into my game), and the UI is definitely more, uh, "janky" than PS5 or Switch (my preferred systems at the moment), but it is, surprisingly, better than the Xbox UI
  • Some complaints I have pertain to things such as the inability to download things in sleep mode (I understand why this is, but it's a huge omission for my specific use case, and I hope they manage to patch it in somehow, albeit I am not sure if these AMD chips even support that; I know Intel dropped the functionality from their x86-64 chips a few years ago). Another one is the lack of built in video recording! Happy the screenshot tool is built in though.
• On the whole, I can already tell this will be as transformative to my habits as the Switch was; while I don't think this will displace the Switch for my usage (since I prefer portability over everything else, and the Switch is a better, quicker portable than the Deck is), I can see it completely subsuming my use of the Xbox Series and at least partially subsuming my use of the PS5; given a chance, I think I will always choose to play a game on the Deck over those consoles.

On the whole, just a few hours in, I think it's a good purchase! I can't wait to see how I continue to get along with it.

 

[C-Dub]

Glad you like it.

To be honest, with how open the Steam Deck is, it's actually a very good complimentary device to Xbox Series X|S and PS5. There are remote play apps for both consoles that allow you to stream your games via WiFi to your Deck, which means even if you still rock AAAs on console and go to Steam Deck for less demanding games, it can be a transformative experience for your traditional consoles.

One of my work colleagues has a Series S and a Steam Deck. He's new to PC gaming and still plays AAA games on his Xbox. But he downloads PC exclusives, the odd Sony exclusive and smaller games on Steam. He can stream his Series S to Deck for handheld games, and when he docks his Steam Deck to his TV he can double-tap the pairing button on his Xbox controller and it connects to his Deck via Bluetooth.

So he's basically got one controller, two systems, hooked up to a 1080p TV and has a great time with it! I kind of admire the simplicity of his setup, but I've got a 4K TV now so no chance of me going solo with my Deck. Maybe if a hypothetical Deck 2 supports eGPU over Thunderbolt/USB 4.0 or something...

And while we all have our preferences, Steam Deck has pretty much obliterated nearly every use-case I have for the Switch. Since I'm primarily a HTPC gamer, Deck has done what my Switch could never: one purchase, play on handheld at 40-60fps (where Switch is 30) or TV at 4K (where Switch is sometimes 1080p, mostly 900p). Heck, some of my games play at 4K 60fps on the Steam Deck, so I don't even need my PC powered on to play them at all!

I still have a Switch for the odd Nintendo game (the last one I played was the 3D Kirby game which was, admittedly, awesome) but it's been so good to just play my games on my PC.

 

[Phantom Thief]

Glad you like it.

To be honest, with how open the Steam Deck is, it's actually a very good complimentary device to Xbox Series X|S and PS5. There are remote play apps for both consoles that allow you to stream your games via WiFi to your Deck, which means even if you still rock AAAs on console and go to Steam Deck for less demanding games, it can be a transformative experience for your traditional consoles.

One of my work colleagues has a Series S and a Steam Deck. He's new to PC gaming and still plays AAA games on his Xbox. But he downloads PC exclusives, the odd Sony exclusive and smaller games on Steam. He can stream his Series S to Deck for handheld games, and when he docks his Steam Deck to his TV he can double-tap the pairing button on his Xbox controller and it connects to his Deck via Bluetooth.

So he's basically got one controller, two systems, hooked up to a 1080p TV and has a great time with it! I kind of admire the simplicity of his setup, but I've got a 4K TV now so no chance of me going solo with my Deck. Maybe if a hypothetical Deck 2 supports eGPU over Thunderbolt/USB 4.0 or something...

And while we all have our preferences, Steam Deck has pretty much obliterated nearly every use-case I have for the Switch. Since I'm primarily a HTPC gamer, Deck has done what my Switch could never: one purchase, play on handheld at 40-60fps (where Switch is 30) or TV at 4K (where Switch is sometimes 1080p, mostly 900p). Heck, some of my games play at 4K 60fps on the Steam Deck, so I don't even need my PC powered on to play them at all!

I still have a Switch for the odd Nintendo game (the last one I played was the 3D Kirby game which was, admittedly, awesome) but it's been so good to just play my games on my PC.

For sure! I think it's about our individual use cases, and the Deck is flexible enough to meet them all

EDIT: play Metroid Prime, Pokemon Legends, Xenoblade 3, and Theatrhythm!

 

[MomoVideo]

• Some complaints I have pertain to things such as the inability to download things in sleep mode (I understand why this is, but it's a huge omission for my specific use case, and I hope they manage to patch it in somehow, albeit I am not sure if these AMD chips even support that; I know Intel dropped the functionality from their x86-64 chips a few years ago). Another one is the lack of built in video recording! Happy the screenshot tool is built in though.

Yeah, the download in sleep mode would be convenient, but at least there is an option to turn off the Deck after the download finishes, so you can plug that bad boy into the charger and leave things to download at night. As for the recorder, grab Decky plugin ASAP and you can find the recorder plugin in there. And while you're already fiddling with Decky marketplace, don't forget to download Vibrant Deck. It will make your screen look better.

 

[Arc]

Saw a few Reddit threads about EOS installations being borked on Deck.

 

[undu]

I see this error when launching returnal on the linux-running desktop, but after closing the error dialog the game works fine.

Maybe the online is broken and I haven't noticed since it takes so long to find another player and it makes the game harder, I just haven't tried it in a long time

 

[prudis]

volvo quickly fixing Tim's saboatge

 

[Arc]

https://omdia.tech.informa.com/pr/2023/04-apr/omdia-steam-deck-installed-base-to-surpass-three-million-during-2023

Steam Deck will surpass 3 million units sold during 2023, according to new research from Omdia. The report, which focuses on the portable gaming PC from Valve Corporation, is the first sizing of the addressable market for the device and estimates that hardware sales during 2022 reached 1.6 million units, growing 14% to 1.9 million units in 2023.

Obviously estimates, but I think those numbers are good. It was never going to be a mass market device like the Switch, but it is most likely ahead of other handheld PCs by a huge margin. Maybe it can hit 4 to 5 million by the time the Deck 2 releases?

 

[fantomena]

https://omdia.tech.informa.com/pr/2023/04-apr/omdia-steam-deck-installed-base-to-surpass-three-million-during-2023

It was never going to be a mass market device like the Switch

It could be, lots of countries still can't buy it.

 

[Arc]

Octopath 2 runs perfectly on Deck so this is some of the least surprising news you'll read all day.

 

[fantomena]

Do that tweet, but with Kingdom Hearts, I dare you, Square.

 

[Alexandros]

Do that tweet, but with Kingdom Hearts, I dare you, Square.

Square:

 

[Knurek]

Do that tweet, but with Kingdom Hearts, I dare you, Square.

Square: We're proud to announce Kingdom Hearts 3 is Steam Deck verified, available exclusively on Epic Game Store.

 

[prudis]

 

[yuraya]

Looks like ASUS really went ahead and made the Steam Deck 2 lol.

Their new Ally device is pretty much what I expected the Deck 2 to be.

2x performance with 120hz screen. I don't know about the 1080p screen as that is most likely gonna be wasteful for the battery.

But the other 2 things are pretty much the next Deck 2. The price will probably be nowhere near the cheap version of the Deck so we will see how low they can make it.

Its ridiculously impressive how fast the tech is moving. AMD already has a chip with 2x performance. In the coming years we should see 3x performance of the Deck so I hope Valve is getting ready for the sequel. The dream for the Deck 2 now is 3x more powerful + 120hz display + 720p or 900p screen. The bar is being raised lol. Valve needs to nail that 400$ point again imo. It wouldn't surprise me if Valve does different tiers with screen sizes and resolutions this time.

 

[MomoVideo]

2x performance with 120hz screen. I don't know about the 1080p screen as that is most likely gonna be wasteful for the battery.

When feeding the Ally with twice as much wattage as Steam Deck. When at the same TDP as Steam Deck, the Ally is not twice as fast.

Overall there are some nice things to be found here, but visually this looks like another Chinese company's first try at Windows-based handheld, but this was made by Asus, a big tech company as far as I am aware. The d-pad looks like cheap plastic, the shoulders button weirdly sticks out very much, speakers have a weird shape. None of this is a dealbreaker, but I wish it looked differently.

 

[yuraya]

When feeding the Ally with twice as much wattage as Steam Deck. When at the same TDP as Steam Deck, the Ally is not twice as fast.

Overall there are some nice things to be found here, but visually this looks like another Chinese company's first try at Windows-based handheld, but this was made by Asus, a big tech company as far as I am aware. The d-pad looks like cheap plastic, the shoulders button weirdly sticks out very much, speakers have a weird shape. None of this is a dealbreaker, but I wish it looked differently.

Yea in the Linus video he said at same wattage as the Deck its only 50% more powerful but you need twice to get 2x. So the 2x is probably more of a docked device in the living room type of experience. But still the fact that its only been a little over a year and we already getting devices that are pushing so much more power while having a 120hz screen is impressive.

And even 50% is still nothing to sneeze at as that could easily be the difference between playing a game @ locked 60fps instead of a choppy 50-60s. Also it weighs less than the Deck too. If Valve can somehow get the Deck under 500 grams its gonna be a big difference.

 

[MomoVideo]

Yea in the Linus video he said at same wattage as the Deck its only 50% more powerful but you need twice to get 2x. So the 2x is probably more of a docked device in the living room type of experience. But still the fact that its only been a little over a year and we already getting devices that are pushing so much more power while having a 120hz screen is impressive.

And even 50% is still nothing to sneeze at as that could easily be the difference between playing a game @ locked 60fps instead of a choppy 50-60s. Also it weighs less than the Deck too. If Valve can somehow get the Deck under 500 grams its gonna be a big difference.

Yup, I hope that the next iteration of Deck is slightly smaller and lighter. It's my biggest complaint. Also, the dual fan design is smart in Ally - I would easily trade 1W of power for a cooler and more silent device. I have a Delta fan and uhh, in some games this thing gets loud.

 

[ExistentialThought]

The lack of trackpads in the Ally is a major loss for me, there are just too many games and non-game cases where I use them. I could make do without them of course, but it seems like the number of games with no controller support, mouse required launchers, and needing to navigate desktop makes a strong case to have at least one trackpad. This is the one thing, outside of GPD, that I feel everyone comes up short on.

I do think The Phawx is spot on too with the marketing since picking a higher refresh, higher resolution screen, and higher brightness while claiming significantly higher performance is a potential to disappoint folks with either less performance than they expect or way less battery life than they expect. That said, I think the Ally could make a great desktop replacement with a dock and then having the option to play handheld on the go.

Edit: The other thing that will be great about the Ally is it will likely be sold in more places

 

[Ascheroth]

I think the Ally specs are really unbalanced.
Its display has 2x the pixels of the Steam Deck, which means it needs double the power to hit native resolution at the same fps and graphics settings than the Deck. But it only hits 2x the power with 2x the wattage meaning half the battery of the Deck (which already can drain quite fast).
The only real scenario that I can see for where the resolution and Hz can actually be used is very lightweight games. For more demanding games it would have to be used at sub-native resolutions to get higher fps or settings then the Deck.

 

[C-Dub]

1080p on a 7 inch screen is by and large pointless as far as gaming is concerned. Double the power draw to render at that resolution for such diminishing returns is wasteful.

It’d also make the UI really hard to see.

Then there’s the 120hz display. There is no way it’s ever gonna play a game at 120hz with the specs without having one of ASUS’s proprietary eGPUs clunked on to it.

Excessive for the sake of being excessive. In a gaming PC or even a laptop/tablet you can kind of see the merit of that, but handhelds are all about efficiency and doing more with less. This is anything but a Steam Deck 2 - this is the anti-Steam Deck.

 

[prudis]

2x performance with 120hz screen. I don't know about the 1080p screen as that is most likely gonna be wasteful for the battery.

aka half the battery life
tbh it has too many red signs to even think about it
but nice to see more companies joining in

 

[Durante]

What I'm really not sold on (in addition to what everyone else said about screen/battery life) are the ergonomics. One thing that makes the Deck great is how surprisingly good it is at being comfortable to play for hours on end -- and much of that is due to its size and how the shape fits your hands, especially the depth.

The Ally has much thinner and less accentuated handles while being thicker in the middle. Even with it being very slightly lighter I can't see that as a recipe for comparable comfort.