Topic: PC Gaming

@JaxonH
I'm not so sure on the comparison between Stray and Untitled Goose Game. Sure they're both animal based third person puzzle/adventure games but that's kinda where the similarities end. Untitled Goose Game is amazing because it doesn't take itself seriously at all. It's basically just a fun sandbox. I haven't played Stray but from what I've seen it seems to take itself a lot more seriously. Which can be good, and it's certainly a pretty game. But it's not the same thing

But yeah, I don't think it's (Stray) a game I want to spend $30 on. It's on my wishlist but I'm not about to rush out and buy it, even at the current sale price. There are no shortage of other "arty" walking-sim/puzzle games out there. Hell, there a few unplayed in my backlog......

On the 4K/120Hz/HDR bit? I mean, yeah. I mostly agree with you there. Though I'd say there is certainly value to 4K especially on a TV when you're sitting reasonably close. I certainly notice the gap in resolution going between 1080p and 4K but it's diminishing returns, above 4K is dumb. 120Hz? I mean, in terms of smoothness VRR makes more of a difference than a higher framerate. I'd take 60Hz with VRR over 120Hz without it any day. But for the types of games I'd be playing with a controller? 60Hz is fine

HDR but, HDR certainly makes a difference. Sure Windows makes it something I don't want to turn on and HDR in general is a bit hit and miss. Not just with games but with movies and everything. But when it works and you have a panel that actually takes advantage of it, it definitely adds a lot. Though admittedly its hard to do a side-by-side so some of that may be a bit of a placebo effect

I can't wait to get my SteamDeck attachment and show you guys the setup once it's all done.

I spent so much time meticulously researching the lightest battery, the best right angle magnetic USB-C adapter, the perfect length USB-C cable, a 180 USB-C reverse adapter to point cable downward on backside with a sleek look...

I just got confirmation from the Deckmate creator via private message on Reddit that weight is 25 grams for attachment + adapter that sticks to battery. So all in all, total weight with battery, Deckmate attachment and adapter, USB-C cable and adapters, is 850 grams on the money. Basically exactly the same weight as OneXplayer 2, and the exact same battery life, except better efficiency thanks to Steamdeck OS and architecture vs Windows and x86.

Something I didn't know is, when you're dealing with portable batteries, if they say 10,000 mAh, that's the nominal rated capacity. But you won't actually get that. Because the batteries are rated at 3.7V and the USB port is 5, it must convert, and in the process there's a conversion loss. In addition there's an efficiency loss. Basically, most batteries have an actual rated capacity of between 60-70% of the nominal capacity. The Nitecore NB10000 is one of the few that actually states both the nominal and real capacity: 10,000 mAh nominal and 6,400 mAh real.

So instead of 38.5 additional Watt-hours, it's really only 24.6 Whr of actual battery life you'll get. All batteries are like this, most just don't advertise it which I think is kinda scummy. Props to Nitecore for actually engraving both capacities on the enclosure.

I thought I may be able to push it with the Nitecore 20,000 mAh which weighs 295 grams, vs the 10,000 mAh which weighs 150. But I did the calculation, and total weight would be 1,000 grams. Which is almost exactly the weight of Steamdeck with Switch OLED on top of it without the joycon (tablet only). It's usable but... you can feel the weight. It wouldn't be a problem except for gyro aiming, which requires holding the system up in the air to tilt. So I decided against it.

But per my calculations, the Nitecore NB10000 should increase battery life by a smidge over 60%. So a game that only gets 90 minutes, would then get 2 hrs 25 min. A game that only gets 2 hrs, would then get 3 hrs 15 min. A game that gets 3 hrs would then get close to 5 hrs.

It basically extends the Steamdeck battery life from 1.5 - 3 hours, up to 2.5 - 5 hours. Which is roughly on par with the original Nintendo Switch, as Zelda BotW on max brightness got 2.5 hrs.

Now.

That may not seem like a lot, but at least it's somewhat respectable. We made the v1 Switch work despite its battery life, and if I can at least get Deck on par with that, I'll make it work too. What's unacceptable to me is having way worse battery life than v1 Switch. Sure, it ain't great but it at least meets the minimal threshold of practical usability.

I thought Stray was a decent game, if not an outstanding one, and that it didn't overstay its welcome in a year full of otherwise very drawn out games.

Mainly though, the critics were just bowled over the cute idle animations.

I bought the PS5 physical version of the game and haven't played it yet, this s--t better be worth it.

Been on an Arkane kick today.

Played some Dishonored on Deck. Low file size, looks and runs great. Sequel and expansion have a lot more kinks and much larger file size. But the first is Golden.

Also played some Deathloop. Shame it doesn't allow mouse movement and controller input simultaneously. Thankfully there was a KB/M community config so I could get my gyro aiming working.

It feels so good to play with gyro. But... that's always the case for FPS with gyro, I suppose.

1440p, 100ish FPS with Gsync and Vsync enabled through your card rather than game, with a mix of medium, high and ultra settings to make sure your framerate stays stable is my sweet spot.

If you've got a SteamDeck, you've gotta install Decky

It adds an extra option in the Quick Access menu, a little plug icon, and you have a little "storefront" icon you can select to download all kinds of plug-ins.

I downloaded one that adds the Proton-db rating for every game in my library. And if I select it, it takes me to the game's page on Proton-DB so I can easily see the Proton version and settings ppl are using to get it to run best

Installed another one that lets you easily replace all 5 artworks for a game- the grid icon, the banner, the wide banner (for "last played"), the logo and the icon. SUPER useful for PrimeHack and other games where the artwork is landscape in the grid view.

Installed another one that adds game info from GameDB for non-Steam games, so things like PrimeHack have a description under Info in my game library

Installed another that lets you download custom themes

Installed another that lets you download custom music and sound effects. I got Wii Menu sound effects and music, Switch sound effects, Wii U sound effects and music, PS4 sound effects and music, PS5 sound effects and music, Vita music pack, even a Fire Emblem Awakening sound effects pack, a Persona 4 and Persona 5 sound effects pack, Nier Automata sound effects pack... it's freakin rad!

I ultimately disabled the music but enabled sound effects for the Wii. It also has separate volume control for the music and sound effects so you can set it how loud you want vs total system volume.

I really like the Switch sound effects as it makes Deck feel like a Switch, but the Wii sound effects are just so good. Had to go with that on a lower volume.

This video is absolutely crucial information. Steam Input is the most powerful practical tool anyone can use in all of PC gaming.

This video explains how to use Action Layers, Extra Commands and Sub-Commands via Steam Input on Deck.

For example. Let's say I'm playing an FPS like Call of Duty or TPS like Sniper Elite 5. And I obviously want to use gyro aiming. I get my sensitivity dialed in just right. But then, when I'm using a gun with a scope, because it's zoomed in, the gyro is too sensitive. And if I lower it, it'll be too slow for guns that don't zoom.

What you can do is

1) Create an Action Layer. This is an alternate control layout that mirrors your default control layout, except it can add extra inputs and changes on top of it. In this Action Layer, lower gyroscope mouse sensitivity to half the normal value your default layout uses.

2) Create a sub-command for Left Trigger. A sub-command is an extra input mapped to a button. Map the sub-command to the Action Layer created. Set it to "Hold" so the Action Layer is only activated while Left Trigger is being held.

3) Done. Now, when holding LT to zoom in with a scope, the gyro sensitivity is reduced to be more appropriate.

You can also add multiple "Extra Commands" for buttons. Can easily turn 4 face buttons into 12 different inputs by mapping 2 additional "Extra Commands" to each button. Original mapping is just for a single press. Then map the first "Extra Command" to a double press, and map the second "Extra Command" to a button hold. That gets you 3 separate input Commands per button.

Obviously this applies for Steam in general, not just on SteamDeck.

Oh my gosh. You can even get Quick Resume on SteamDeck now!

Using another Decky plug-in called "Pause Games", you can suspend/resume games manually or automatically when putting the system in sleep or just switching windows to another game.

It's recommended to increase your page file size from 1 to 32 GB if you want to have enough space for swapping between multiple big games. So I'm moving MH World off internal storage to microSD to have enough space to increase the page file with Cryotools.

Another benefit is, even without increasing page file size, just using the "Pause Game" plug-in can fix the oft-reported audio issues (crackling or audio cut-out) when waking from sleep mode that many games have. So it's worth at least doing that. No reason not to. Plus it lets you pause games that don't have a pause, like Elden Ring or Dark Souls.

Not sure if this is the appropriate place to ask this, but I can't get PCSX2 (PS2 emulator) to run.

It says I need to install Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable 2015-2022 in order to run it, which I did, but after restarting my computer (it needs to be restarted after installing it) and trying to run PCSX2 it says the Redistributable needs repaired, which I do & says the instillation is successful however I need to restart the computer again, and this just goes on & on in a loop.

Even after completely uninstalling the Redistributable and trying to install it from scratch, things ultimately end up in this loop again.

I'm not tech savvy with this stuff, so any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Wow. I'm actually enjoying God of War!

It had a memory leak on SteamDeck and would crash, and also doesn't allow mouse input simultaneously with controller which makes gyro aiming a pain, as "mouse-like joystick" just isn't good enough in Steam and feels wonky. It's always been why I can't get into the game.

But the page file increase to 16GB and VRAM increase in BIOS from 1GB to 4GB gives performance increase in many games and solves the crashing in GoW.

Then I followed a settings recommendation, and downloaded a user config that uses an Action Layer with KB/M controls when holding Left Trigger to map real mouse gyro, then it goes back to button controls when you let go.

So now I can play the game with true mouse gyro, without crashing, with optimal performance settings and the VibrantDeck plug-in making it look closer to OLED... muah!

See, the game was just actively going out of its way to be not enjoyable. But I've found a way to get around all its no-fun zone booby traps.

@RR529
I don't typically emulate much anymore aside from PrimeHack and in years past, Dolphin and PPSSPP.

Per a help forum,

I'd first make sure Windows is completely up to date, and ensure you're using Windows 10 or newer. Then make sure the Emulator is the most recent stable build. Then I'd delete all .ini files in the pcsx2 folder, re-run pcsx2 and when it asks you select language as "system default"

@JaxonH, yeah, I was trying to use the "Nightly" build (as that's what the PCSX2 site recommended), but after trying again & again with no luck I decided to install the "Stable" build and the problem never showed up again.

Took me a bit to set everything up, but it looks like things are finally going a bit smoothly.

So I was having some headaches with my GPU fan ramping up and down rapidly to the point where I didn't really want to play any intensive games. Especially now I'm sitting closer to my PC, not doing much VR ATM and it's summer here so it's much easier to reach those higher temps.

After some googling and being super annoyed at MSI/ASUS' tools I stumbled across this tool:
https://github.com/Rem0o/FanControl.Releases

I don't know why I didn't know about this tool earlier. Basically it allows you to have far more control over your fan curve. Not only setting the fan curve but also the ramp up/ramp down speed and allowing you to set case fans to ramp up/down based on GPU temps, CPU temp, system temps or whatever combination of them you want. Highly recommended

Edit: at least it would be useful if my GPU fan didn't have a mind of its own and didn't just do whatever the hell it wanted

@skywake you should be able to control that via BIOS directly through your motherboard.

@Pizzamorg
Only CPU and case fans and only from CPU temps. Super limited....

I present to you... the ultimate SteamDeck.

Lightest in the world offering 2.5 - 5 hrs for the heaviest AAA games. And I centered the battery in such a way that it feels even lighter than it should thanks to the well placed center of mass.

Best part about Deckmate (aside from also storing microSD cards) is that I can easily pop the battery off and use a kickstand.

Still having my GPU fan ramp up to 100% despite limiting it. Seems something else is telling it to scream at me. Can't work out what so I've given up and decided the solution is to just cap the framerate/resolution to something well under the reach of my GPU.......

@skywake
Potential solutions...

1) MSI Dragon Center (its what I use)
2) Soundproof by putting in another room and run HDMI
3) Use quality headphones to block out the noise
4) Run at 1440p 60fps instead of 4k 60fps
5) Watercool the GPU

Idk, just throwing some ideas to provide inspiration.

@JaxonH
Yeah, I suspect the reason it didn't use to bother me is because I used to play with headphones and it was in a pretty "sound optimised" case. Then I was mostly using it for VR. Now it's in a high airflow case and I'm using speakers. Water cooling or some other after market GPU cooling option? Seems viable. Although it does feel a bit odd to do that given its a 1660Ti...... another option might be to plug the GPU fan into a motherboard fan header

There's definitely something else giving it instructions on what the fan speed should be. My best guess is that most of the fan software out there gives software level instructions and there's some firmware level stuff overriding it. I'll give that MSI software a go although I'm not super confident it'll do much for me. In the meantime I've set Horizon Zero Dawn to 1080p ultra which I can get ~80fps, then put a framerate limit of 50

Basically the one positive with being home now is I finally got to try Midnight Suns. Sadly, the one positive actually isn't really that positive at all? I dunno, I only played like an hour and I hear this is like a 50ish hour affair so maybe I'm completely off, but that first hour really doesn't leave the best impression, I know that much.

After playing nothing but Switch games for over a month, I initially thought this game looked really nice, but the longer I looked at it the more it just looks kinda weird and cheap. It runs really bad, and I have no idea if that is the game or me. I remember there being some concerns raised around performance on launch, but I figured that would have been fixed by now. I guess they are either fixed, so this is on my end, or they aren't fixed and the warning sirens should be going off.

The writing and performances are holy ***** bad. There is a lot to be said about how many Marvel adaptations try to do weird imitations of the MCU versions of characters, and it just always feels kinda like a poor man's. Well this feels like they are doing imitations of some Marvel XXX parody, it is that level of acting.

I heard the one saving grace is the combat, but I dunno if I even like that? They certainly capture the essence of different heroes and the essence of a battle between superheroes and villains. I am also looking forward to when I can start messing around with each heroes deck. But that first hour really doesn't give you much to really get that excited about.

I've been playing so much Three Houses over the last couple of weeks, and just like the combat in that game (difficulty tuning aside), is just so damn good. The game always provides you so much information to make every decision feel informed. It is really intuitive to use everything. And the presentation is top notch. This isn't really any of those things.

Maybe once I unlock better cards this will change, but the card system here just feels weirdly limiting rather than anything else. Marvel Snap is weirdly a way more interesting Marvel based card game than this manages to be. There is clunky jankiness to a lot of the animations (and it is stuttering and chugging the whole time) and a lot of the animations are canned, so you are seeing the same animation over and over again. At least Three Houses offers a couple of variants of moves to offset this a little. Arenas are weirdly small and there are times where the game just like doesn't let me move a unit or activate an environment event or whatever but doesn't make clear why.

I dunno man.