Topic: PC Gaming

https://www.ign.com/articles/steam-deck-hands-on-impressions-...

The main issue I have with a Steam handheld is that it would have to sell huge numbers before any developers really starting targeting games for it.

Unlike with Nintendo, where you pretty much know ahead of time there will be about 7 years of first party games being made for this bit of hardware. With something like Steam it's quite different. You don't know ahead of time what you'll be getting in the future. It's more of a "you'll be able to play whatever games happen to vaguely run on these specs", rather than the Nintendo version which is more like "you'll be able to play the games made by this developer, who you already know and love".

It makes it a lot harder to evaluate in terms of its actual value, in my opinion.

Yeah, I reckon that it'll run maybe one in five of the games in my Steam library without some serious modding, hacking or re-mapping of controls, because that's all that'll run on Linux with full controller support.

Hopefully they'll put a little icon in the store next to all the games that are going to work with it, otherwise they're going to be handing out a lot of refunds.

Ya but pretty much any game will run on these specs. At 720p 30fps low settings? This thing will run basically every game that releases for the next 5 years, maybe even 10. And even if a few extremely demanding games release that can’t, the overwhelming majority will. I pan through my Steam library and half of my games can run on my Win 2, even to this day.

PC isn’t as drastic as some believe with games not being able to run. You can almost always run them (unless you have absolutely ancient hardware), it’s just a matter of settings, resolution and framerate. Most games running today push 4k and raytracing- that’s where all the power is being funneled. As long as you’ve got raytracing turned off and resolution set to 720p, this thing is gonna last a very, very long time.

I do wonder though if it has tensor cores to support DLSS? edit: Nevermind, they’re using an AMD chip. AMD has its own version of DLSS coming. But still. That sucks.

@Matt_Barber
All games work!

They modified the Steam OS so that ALL Steam games work natively!

@Magician
They’re only starting reservations tomorrow. Get an account now and you can make a reservation 48 hours after they begin taking them tomorrow.

It’s a queue system so, you’ll still be among the first to reserve within the first couple days. They said there’s no promises but they’re going to try to ensure everyone who reserves will be able to order come December. When they have them in stock they send you an email and you have the right to purchase the one you reserved. $5 down, and it goes toward the purchase.

So ya. Anyone who wants this, get your Steam account set up and you can reserve as of this Sunday. If you already have an account and made a purchase prior to June, you can reserve tomorrow.

No, they're not running natively; that would require SteamOS to incorporate a lot of Windows subsystems. Rather, they're running via Proton, which is a development of the earlier Wine, and works by trapping Windows system calls and translating them into Linux ones.

That's been available for a while and is pretty good in terms of the number of games that will start up, but it certainly won't run everything. You're typically taking a performance hit in the best case and various degrees of broken in the worst. Relatively few games have gone through the professional QA process but there's a community grading system that should give you a rough idea with a lot of others.

It's also had historical issues with anti-cheating mechanisms, but things appear to be improving on that front as their developers have been brought on board with the concept.

It's great for that one game that you really want to run on your Linux PC but only has a Windows version, especially if you're prepared to do a bit of manual troubleshooting. However, I wouldn't relish the idea of using it with a library of thousands.

@Matt_Barber
Ok, terminology technicalities. It’s not being emulated, let’s just say that.

Obviously there are exceptions. Anti-cheat being a good example. I imagine they’re doing everything they can to get as many games running as possible though.

But fair enough. The DRM anti cheat is something to keep in mind. At least Capcom removes it from their games after they’ve got the bulk of sales after launch (MH World, for example).

If Steam Deck does well enough, we could start seeing custom settings profiles specifically for the device. Not that it’s needed- customizing settings isn’t that hard. Choose medium, see how you do, notch it down to Low if necessary. But still, it would be great to see.

@Matt_Barber
Per the FAQ

My game uses anti-cheat, which currently doesn’t work with Proton - how do I get around this for Steam Deck?

We’re working with BattlEye and EAC to get support for Proton ahead of launch.

Sounds promising

@JaxonH Good news!

I just think it's best to go into it with the knowledge that Proton isn't a universal fix. That way you can be pleasantly surprised at how many games work with it rather than be disappointed with the ones that don't.

@Matt_Barber
That’s good advice.

Today I bought some games on GOG:

Caesar III
Zeus + Poseidon
Pharaoh + Cleopatra
Emperor Rise of the Middle Kingdom

Fantastic city building games!

And I downloaded Rising Kingdoms. A very special game for me as it is made by Bulgarians

Although the Steam Deck is an exciting product, I feel I can shrug it off. Even the 512 GB option feels meager; I'd love to have FF XIII portably, but that game alone would eat 60 GB. Never mind the compatibility concerns. As a life-long console gamer I've always been leery of PC gaming's need for certain drivers, sometimes the necessity for fanmade plug-ins for some games to function more properly, etc. It's a daunting prospect.

My hope is for the Steam Deck to be successful enough to gaslight Nintendo into releasing the Switch successor sooner than planned.

@Magician I hope that it delivers what it promises. I want it to have quality parts and not overheat if you play on it for 1 hour.

If they manage that I would get it 100%.

However it is not a device for gamers that do not want to tinker with it. I mean it could be made as plug-and-play but there is so much more to it! Especially with window etc.

@Magician
That kind of stuff was more applicable to PC gaming 5-10 years ago. While it's still not as streamlined as consoles, admittedly, ever since buying my PC with 2080 ti I've never once needed some driver, never once needed any plug in, or anything of the sort, and I have a LOT of games. It's mostly plug and play now. Or rather, download and play. Stuff just works.

There are Nvidia drivers that ensure the latest compatibility for games which add DLSS or raytracing, but if you have an Nvidia GPU, you have the GeForce Experience app running 24/7. It tells you when an update is available for a new batch of games. Run it once a month and you're always up to date for cutting edge improvements. It's as simple as clicking it icon in the notification tray, then clicking "Download and Install". Takes 60 seconds and you're good to go.

The only time I've ever encountered the need for a mod or something is in Resident Evil 5/6/Revelations/Revelations 2 when trying to get mouse Gyro to work simultaneously with controller inputs without flashing a "input method has changed" message. And I think in Code Vein at launch the mouse cursor would show in the middle of the screen when using a controller. But that's pretty much it. Out of hundreds of games.

With Steam Deck having Steam Controller like input built in, every single game can be played with it, even old games that only had KB/M support (again that's an issue of days past- now everything has controller support) can be mapped to it automatically and played as if it had native controller support. Games like the original Dragon Age doesn't have controller support, but use a Steam controller and it works perfectly. Valve really is amazing with their controller compatibility.

I imagine for Steam Deck, the overwhelming majority of games will be "download and play" and that's it. Settings are usually auto adapted based on detected hardware nowadays, but sometimes not. Just go with medium settings, or if it's demanding maybe try Low for better battery life. Choose your framerate, turn on V-sync to avoid screen tearing and you're ready to rock and roll.

With micro SD support, throw in a 1 TB card and bam, you've got 1.5 TB, which should be more than sufficient for a portable library. Game sizes can be big, but not all are unreasonable, especially if you're not downloading optional high res texture packs and stuff. 20 GB on average I'd estimate. 50 GB for big AAA games. You're gonna fit a lot on there.

A few years ago I'd never touched a gaming PC. I had all the same concerns you have. But now, in hindsight, I realize it's way overblown. PC gaming has come so far now it almost feels like console gaming. It's so easy, everything just works.

Any game you play through Steam, if you hit the home button while playing, brings up the controller configuration editor. And it recognizes and shows a blueprint diagram for whatever controller you're using, be it Steam Controller, Dualsense, Switch Pro, Xbox Series, etc. And you can easily map any action to any other button, assign mouse to the gyroscope in 5 seconds, add a button toggle if you only want it to activate when holding shoulder button or when your thumb is on the right analog or trackpad... it's insanely awesome. And at the bottom it has options for exporting your config or browsing community configs, all from within the editor. 10 seconds and you can download the highest upvoted control scheme for your controller for the game you're playing, then modify it if you want to add Gyro or something. It's the most innovative and coolest gaming feature I've ever used. And it automatically reloads that same configuration any time you play the game. It remembers the control config you used last time. So it's all automatic.

@Magician I agree, there are tons of games on Steam that I have issues even pairing a controller, how can I trust the games to run natively on a handheld? Also I have never used Steam offline mode much but as far as I understand there are games that do not support it so Will this work offline in a good capacity?

I will still wait and see as playing my PC games on the TV or handheld is something I have been trying in a satisfatory way for some time now without success but I am not sure I trust Valve to deliver

@Balta666
The only controllers with issues pairing is Switch controllers and that's a Windows Bluetooth issue not a Steam issue. Switch controllers just don't play well with Windows.

Any PS4, PS5, X1, XS or Steam controller controller pairs perfectly in the OS, eveb works as a mouse and keyboard, and is automatically recognized in Steam, AND, has specific support for each one with customization settings.

I recommend a DualSense, Xbox One controller and Steam controller. Stick with those 3 (Xbox for emulation, Steam Controller for old games without native controller support, Dualsense for everything else) and you'll have every possible situation covered. Though with Steam Deck you won't need any of them.

Steamdeck has a built in Steam Controller type layout. It will have 100% compatibility, no exceptions. Just like the Steam Controller now has full compatibility. Heck, every controller has full compatibility tbh.

And FYI, every single game I own (200+) plays offline.

@JaxonH I only use Xbox controllers on pc and there are many games that don't work well at times even when it says it is compatible with it.

@Balta666
???

What games, specifically? Every game has Xbox support. It's the standard PC controller. If you're playing on Steam, every single game will support it. Older games without native controller support would need to have mouse and keyboard inputs mapped in the config (which is why Steam controller was so awesome as it came with default control schemes to auto map KB/M) but as long as you're playing actual Steam games every single one works.

Which specific game are you referring to? It has to be an issue with your Bluetooth, not having Xbox support activated in Steam settings, having KB/M activated in the game settings instead of controller, or not using the config editor to import an applicable config for the game you're playing.

The beauty of Steam is, every game is playable with every controller, even games not designed for controllers.

Out of curiosity I found a more powerful search tool for Steam games I own. Apparently of the 276 games in my Steam Library (ouch) I have 95 games that are listed as SteamOS/Linux compatible in Steam itself. Drilling down further I have 56 games that are SteamOS/Linux compatible with full controller support and 69 with some controller support.

But I also think this tool isn't entirely representative. There are games it doesn't seem to include, like Portal 2, which I know have native Linux compatibility based on what's listed on Steam itself. Also there are plenty of games that don't have "native compatibility" that have pretty high compatibility ratings on Proton

Even so, without Proton and without knowing the games this tool isn't listing. Would this collection of games be worth getting something a bit above the price of the Switch to get playable in a portable form factor? Probably. Although to be fair most of the titles in my library that are listed I'd want to play again? They're either very Keyboard/Mouse heavy or they could run on a toaster. Hell, a lot of these games exist on the Switch and probably run fine on it. Stuff like Super Meat Boy, Pikuniku, VVVVVV, Transistor or on the other end Civilisation & Cities Skylines

@skywake
Every game I've played with partial controller support was just as good as full controller support. And at least for Steam Controller, even older games without play incredibly well with a Steam Controller. Given the 2nd analog and Dpad (which Steam controller did not have), I think every game in my library would play fantastic.

As for Proton support it sounds like a good reference, but as you stated, Portal 2 is like, the gold standard for Steam OS and SC compatibility.

They've also said they're working to improve compatibility, so I imagine the majority of games will be playable, especially since the community and Valve and everyone with a device will be working in tandem to identify any issues and see them resolved.

I'm thinking more for games like Portal, Portal 2, Control, Monster Hunter World, Resident Evil VII, Horizon Zero Dawn, Yakuza Like a Dragon, Days Gone, Nier Automata, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Trails of Cold Steel 1/2, Forza Horizon 4, etc.

At least for me it's very compelling.

@Dezzy
It won't be, however, Windows OS takes a lot of resources to run in the background so it may even out or even work in favor of game performance, depending on the game. Windows is resource intense. And the Steam OS is easy and console like.

But installing Windows seems a viable option at least. Once I get mine, I'll check out some reviews and decide if I want to go the Windows route or not.