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

[Self_Destructive]

On the beta only probably.

I updated yesterday and it has definitely made improvements to the performance of the UI. It scrolls smoother and isn't nearly as juddery as before.

As a side note,

I've got over 1100+ games, and on my PC I had meticulously went through my Steam library and added custom artworks to all the games which don't have them, so I've have my library looking nice and snazzy. I took a look at the two folders of caches for artworks:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\***\config\grid
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\appcache\librarycache

The original artworks are predicably small... but they can be smaller! Files that you download from SteamgridDB can be MUCH smaller. So using Kraken.io (online image compressor) I optimized the images with an almost imperceptible reduction in quality.

Here's what I came out with:

Artwork before optimization = 1549MB
Artwork after optimization = 618MB
----
A 60.1% reduction in filesize. Nice.

The resulting effect is that Steam feels more responsive, scrolls smoother and loads images more quickly so fade in is non existent at typical scrolling speeds.. as it should. Same goes for the experience on the Deck.

There's still work for them to do, but this recent update has improved it a lot.

 

[Knurek]

Is this a beta update or a main branch update?

Stable branch, but also happening when I switch to beta.

 

[madjoki]

 

[Li Kao]

The problem with SD cards are not peak speeds, but sustained ones. Especially for the writes, installing or moving games from SSD to SD is pain.

Sure, having transfered several big files to the sd, I know that painful part. But does it impact games running from it ?

On a related note, is it voodoo magic or just me being subjective, but moving an installed game from the ssd to the sd felt relatively quick. Quicker than I expected it to be.

 

[prudis]

lol Geoff

 

[BernardoOne]

 

[Mor]

I did a thing AGAIN!

 

[Paul]

Question: Is it really, truly impossible for Valve to update the artwork for games on steam to the vertical versions?

Like, is there some actual hard legal-or-something reason why they cannot do it for games where devs do not care (or are out of business or something)?

I find it fascinating and horrible from customer perspective that Valve changes cover orientation, and suddenly thousands of games in everyone's library look like shit, and it has been that way for years now.

Yes I know I can update it myself. But that seems like a terrible solution? Like imagine being a new customer of Steam and be expected to update hundreds of covers because the store where you buy games can't be bothered? Plus I would only update it on my own machine, it does not solve the actual problem.

No other store that I know of has this problem.

Please note that I am not all that interested in guesswork, I would like to know if there is a real actual reason for it and what it is.

 

[Mivey]

Question: Is it really, truly impossible for Valve to update the artwork for games on steam to the vertical versions?

Like, is there some actual hard legal-or-something reason why they cannot do it for games where devs do not care (or are out of business or something)?

I find it fascinating and horrible from customer perspective that Valve changes cover orientation, and suddenly thousands of games in everyone's library look like shit, and it has been that way for years now.

Yes I know I can update it myself. But that seems like a terrible solution? Like imagine being a new customer of Steam and be expected to update hundreds of covers because the store where you buy games can't be bothered? Plus I would only update it on my own machine, it does not solve the actual problem.

No other store that I know of has this problem.

Please note that I am not all that interested in guesswork, I would like to know if there is a real actual reason for it and what it is.

I doubt there is any legal reason. I think Valve just can't be bothered. Not sure if my response counts as guesswork, but unless you get a response from Valve itself, I doubt anyone can give you definitive answers here.
The lord GabeN works in mysterious ways.

 

[C-Dub]

I think BoilR is going to support updating Steam library covers in a future update. So you’ll just press a button and it’ll do it all for you.

 

[Knurek]

Yes I know I can update it myself. But that seems like a terrible solution? Like imagine being a new customer of Steam and be expected to update hundreds of covers because the store where you buy games can't be bothered? Plus I would only update it on my own machine, it does not solve the actual problem.

No other store that I know of has this problem.

Yeah, imagine if Xbox Store only showed the artwork for Series titles, anything else would just show up as poop emoji...
Or the same thing happening on PSN.
Boggles my mind the shit still hasn't been fixed.

 

[Self_Destructive]

I think there actually is probably a legal reason why they can't do it.

It's not ideal to have to do it yourself, I definitely agree on that.. but thank GOD we can! (Also thank god for SteamGridDB!)

At least all that work doesn't have to go to waste if you suddenly decide to format your PC. All you need to do is make sure that you copy your "userdata" folder to a safe place on a different drive, and then copy it back over to a new installation and your entire library is ready to go.

I've got a drive for Steam games, a drive for games from other launchers, and a drive for Emulation. And as long as I always keep installing games from those launchers and emulators on their respective drives, then all the paths in Steam remain valid for them and there's no work to do.

That's the only reason why I put in the effort to do it all myself... knowing that I can just copy a folder over, and then Steam is 100% back to where I left it.

 

[Mor]

I doubt there is any legal reason. I think Valve just can't be bothered. Not sure if my response counts as guesswork, but unless you get a response from Valve itself, I doubt anyone can give you definitive answers here.
The lord GabeN works in mysterious ways.

Yes, there is legal reasons as far as I was told a few years ago, sadly.

 

[Mivey]

Yes, there is legal reasons as far as I was told a few years ago, sadly.

Really? Quite curious, but then copyright law always did seem quite ridiculous to me. It's Valve's store, and the publisher already allows them to show the game's trademark inside the store. So why shouldn't Valve be able to shuffle it around a bit to show it better in the Deck UI?

 

[Self_Destructive]

Really? Quite curious, but then copyright law always did seem quite ridiculous to me. It's Valve's store, and the publisher already allows them to show the game's trademark inside the store. So why shouldn't Valve be able to shuffle it around a bit to show it better in the Deck UI?

If the artwork isn't already uploaded to Valves servers they can't just go and take that artwork from another source and upload it themselves. And that's the problem.. the artwork isn't formatted for the correct size/aspect ratios and doesn't exist in that way on their servers.. so they're out of luck.

I think Valve should be putting more pressure on developers to update their artwork, if they aren't already. Another pet peeve of mine is developers/publishers who have multiple games in a series and do dumb things like not being consistent with naming and branding.

Again, thank god for SteamGridDB. The Steam community is something else, truly.. I've never used BoilR, but now that I know about it, I'm going to be looking into it for the future. Seems like it will do everything for you and automate as much as possible. Awesome stuff!

 

[Mor]

People, if you updated to 3.2 and got the boot loop problem, please report it here

Deck boot looping after the most recent software update. (3.2) :: Steam Deck Bug Reports

Just ran a software update on the deck and now it boot loops 3/4 times on power on before it eventually logs in successfully. Switching to desktop mode also seems to now sometimes cause the system to boot loop. Edit - Just noticed on the successful boots, it always seems to perform some kind of...

steamcommunity.com

The more we report, the better, mine looks like this:

Reporting the same problem here since 3.2 update:

-Intro logo has visual glitches (Green pixels to be more precise).

-Sometimes it boot loops (so far about 2 times and always a cycle of 2-3 loops) it's like it loads session and then machine restarts all the sudden, after 2-3 loops it works fine.

-Temperatures and performance is correct, no crashes so far.

-Stable channel, I did know about this bug from other reports but forgot to put my Deck on offline mode so when I turned it on it downloaded it and when I started session next time, it was installed, my bad there.

 

[Paul]

Yes, there is legal reasons as far as I was told a few years ago, sadly.

Depressing if true.

If the artwork isn't already uploaded to Valves servers they can't just go and take that artwork from another source and upload it themselves. And that's the problem.. the artwork isn't formatted for the correct size/aspect ratios and doesn't exist in that way on their servers.. so they're out of luck.

If this is really legal stuff, couldn't Valve modify their agreement/contract with developers to include a provision for being able to modify store art assets when/where needed?

And how come SteamGrid has no issue distributing other companies artworks and assets when Valve, who is legally actually selling the game, can't.

 

[Self_Destructive]

If this is really legal stuff, couldn't Valve modify their agreement/contract with developers to include a provision for being able to modify store art assets when/where needed?

And how come SteamGrid has no issue distributing other companies artworks and assets when Valve, who is legally actually selling the game, can't.

They probably have already done that for in the future, I would imagine.

I think SteamGridDB skates on thin ice. I'm sure if copyright holders wanted to, they could probably get the site shut down pretty easily. But the reality is that the companies probably don't give a damn if people make or replicate cover art, and hero/logo art... as long as it's not sold or used maliciously.

Steam probably COULD do it.. I mean, the GOG Galaxy 2.0 launcher scrubs sources for artwork to populate their launcher's game pages and cover art.

 

[BernardoOne]

Depressing if true.



If this is really legal stuff, couldn't Valve modify their agreement/contract with developers to include a provision for being able to modify store art assets when/where needed?

And how come SteamGrid has no issue distributing other companies artworks and assets when Valve, who is legally actually selling the game, can't.

It's legal stuff, and modifying their agreements wouldn't really accomplish anything as they already require said assets for new games.

As for SteamGridDB, it's simply because it's an enthusiast open source tool made for free by random people, not a corporation, so it doesn't attract the attention of the companies to shut it down(which they can legally do). Valve as a pretty big company can't really afford to be that lax with what they integrate on Steam.

 

[Paul]

Steam probably COULD do it.. I mean, the GOG Galaxy 2.0 launcher scrubs sources for artwork to populate their launcher's game pages and cover art.

This is a good point...

As for SteamGridDB, it's simply because it's an enthusiast open source tool made for free by random people, not a corporation, so it doesn't attract the attention of the companies to shut it down(which they can legally do). Valve as a pretty big company can't really afford to be that lax with what they integrate on Steam.

...which is incompatible with this. So how come GOG can do it and Valve can't ?

 

[Self_Destructive]

Man I love this device.

Gears 5 (not supported because of EAC, but easily passable) running on the Deck looks INCREDIBLE. On the handheld itself, at native res 1280x800, 60fps is easy peasy at medium/high settings. Looks insane.

But I wanted to test what it could do with it on my 3840x1600 Ultrawide at 30fps.... Obviously this isn't running native res (I can't remember what I had it set at) but is a mix of medium and lower settings.

This running from a ~25w device too... really impressive. And things are really only going to get better from here.

 

[Mivey]

Man I love this device.

Gears 5 (not supported because of EAC, but easily passable) running on the Deck looks INCREDIBLE. On the handheld itself, at native res 1280x800, 60fps is easy peasy at medium/high settings. Looks insane.

But I wanted to test what it could do with it on my 3840x1600 Ultrawide at 30fps.... Obviously this isn't running native res (I can't remember what I had it set at) but is a mix of medium and lower settings.

This running from a ~25w device too... really impressive. And things are really only going to get better from here.

I hope we get all Gears games easily accesssible on Steam once that rumoured MCC-like collection hits. I hear good things about Gears 2, and despite it getting bad user reviews, I personally really enjoyed 4.

 

[prudis]

shaem that 4 is imprissoned in UWP jail

 

[Mor]

shaem that 4 is imprissoned in UWP jail

Probably will come to Steam if collection comes

 

[Satori]

snip. posted in wrong thread lol, ;(

 

[prudis]

---

 

[Paul]

Still salty over losing this lottery twice

Still waiting for the good fan to be in stock..

 

[Mivey]

Still salty over losing this lottery twice

Still waiting for the good fan to be in stock..

It's remarkable how there is less than 1DB between the two fans, and yet the Delta one sounds so much worse due to the higher frequencies there.
Hard to be angry at Valve here .Supply must be short and they had to get another fan, and at least on paper the two fans do sound similar, it's just the subjective experience is so markedly different due the Huaying one sounding much deeper to many people.

Also, I know it's what Youtubers have to do, but I'll never get used to the wonkiness of Thumbnails on Youtube.

 

[Le Pertti]

 

[Mivey]

The Enhanced Edition of Original Sin 1 is currently marked as unsupported, but from this video it seems like it also just works. They show the controller UI here, so it must be the Enhanced Edition.

 

[C-Dub]

After Monday’s orders, I’m now in the 10 minute zone. I expect I’ll get my order today or Monday as it’s going up between 6 and 10 minutes each Monday/Thursday.

Edit: Aaaaand today’s the day! Finally!

 

[prudis]

 

[Mor]

This fixed my problem

 

[MomoVideo]

The home screen works much smoother after this update.

 

[lashman]

 

[Kvik]

lol Geoff

 

[DrShrapnel]

Picked up Risk of Rain 2 specifically for the Deck, last night.

The Deck is definitely going to be a factor in my purchase decisions.

 

[Paul]

Played Trine 4 today for two hours. Looks gorgeous and runs well at 40fps.

But god damn. It has been 40 minutes since I shut steam deck down and I can still hear the fan whine seared in my brain.

ifixit stock these damn fans already.

 

[Knurek]

Played Trine 4 today for two hours. Looks gorgeous and runs well at 40fps.

But god damn. It has been 40 minutes since I shut steam deck down and I can still hear the fan whine seared in my brain.

ifixit stock these damn fans already.

Play games that don't drive the fan up natively, stream the games that do from your PC. Win-win

 

[prudis]

The Deck is definitely going to be a factor in my purchase decisions.

yep , big time

at least here

 

[prudis]

 

[C-Dub]

Does anyone in the UK know how long it took from placing an order to actually having the package? Some people are saying 10-11 days, but I'd like to plan which days I'm WFH and which days I'm in the office.

 

[LEANIJA]

Reminds me of this


And I just realised thats https://twitter.com/KaciAitchison in there.

 

[Shantom]

Does anyone in the UK know how long it took from placing an order to actually having the package? Some people are saying 10-11 days, but I'd like to plan which days I'm WFH and which days I'm in the office.

8 days for me and IIRC there was a bank holiday so it would have been 7 days. Ordered on Monday, shipped Thursday, delivered Tuesday.

 

[skLaFarebear]

Gotta say, one of the most underrated parts about this device is the speakers. For a handheld they are so incredibly good and the audio comes through really clear, which is very nice for Cold Steel 4 cuz the soundtrack has some real bangers.

 

[Knurek]

For two people that care, I helped Heroic Launcher devs to fix up GOG Dosbox installs on Deck.

 

[Li Kao]

Is there a setting for the trackpad sensitivity ?

 

[Self_Destructive]

Is there a setting for the trackpad sensitivity ?

Yep, it's under Settings > Keyboard oddly enough.. right at the bottom.

 

[Li Kao]

Yep, it's under Settings > Keyboard oddly enough.. right at the bottom.

Oof, I’m already at the minimum.

 

[Self_Destructive]

Oof, I’m already at the minimum.

Yea, it's unfortunate that they don't allow you to adjust it both ways.

Throw in a feature request. It seems like something they could implement fairly easily. I'll make one too.