Topic: Valve's Steam Deck console Thread

Dolphin runs under Linux, so that's very easy.

As for Windows, it's currently short a few drivers but it shouldn't be harder than installing from scratch on anything else once that's sorted out.

Some steam deck pre orders have been pushed back to after q3 2022. https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/steam-deck-pre-orders-be...

@DannyBoi I don't think that article is accurate. As far as I know they only had "Q1 2022", Q2 2022" and "after Q2 2022" and they have now added "Q3 2022" in the mix

By all accounts, the Deck is a very capable system with long battery life, low heat output, and can run even new PC games with a stable 30FPS.

Nobody got pushed back. They simply clarified their place in the queue. Before you were "After Q2" which meant anywhere from July to Armageddon. Now they're clarifying who's in Q3, who's after Q3, etc. It's just increasing resolution of ETA.

I'm Q3 now so I expect by October I'll have my Deck. Perfect to let them iron out the kinks in the meantime. Judging by Linus Tech Tips, you definitely don't want to install Windows. Performance is way worse. Could be bad drivers and optimization bur, what incentive does Valve have to ensure Windows optimization? None. That'll be left to the community.

The SteamOS is just so well done. Keyboard is wide and stretches entire bottom half of screen at press of a button. Easy frame limiting, FSR, etc.

They just need to increase game compatibility, improve stability of the games already compatible, and squash as many bugs as possible. A year from now I expect Deck to be a lot more stable.

What I can't stand is the Nintendo-hate fanboys who are advertising Switch emulation on Deck and saying "Get ****ed Nintendo" despite the game running at the same resolution or 75% resolution, same framerate or worse, with half the battery life, on a worse screen and all kinds of emulation hitches and performance issues, without gyro integration or HD rumble, without tabletop or easy seamless docking, all while acting as if they've struck the motherlode or something.

Like, I can appreciate the appeal of emulating purchased Switch games on a desktop where you can actually see tangible benefit in terms of resolution, but on Deck? It's an objectively inferior experience in virtually every way. Unless you're desperately set on only using one device and are willing to accept those sacrifices to achieve it, or you're a thief who just wants to steal, or a fanboy who just wants to stroke your ego over a company you irrationally hate, I don't get it.

Now. Legacy consoles? That's a different story. I'm all about that GameCube and Wii.

It's impressive that Steam Deck can run a game like Elden Ring very stable.

Elden Ring isn't actually that demanding at the lowest settings. A lot of people have been running it on PCs with integrated graphics - both Intel 760 and AMD Vega 8 - and the performance is similar to what you'd get on the Steam Deck. If anything, the game appears to have more issues running on higher end PCs with the settings turned up.

Still, they're running it on Windows, and Valve have really put the hard yards into getting it working well under Proton.

ER's performance is all over the place. With that said, getting it running decently on a $400 handheld device that's a fair size smaller than your average gaming laptop is definitely impressive.

@JaxonH People with Nintendo Derangement Syndrome can't really be reasoned with. I've just taken to ignoring them. Absolutely not worth wasting mental energy on.

Does every Steam game work on the Steam Deck? I'm seeing people here discussing Elden Ring on it and it's got me intrigued as to whether or not you could run the highest fidelity kind of game on it and whether or not it would immediately explode.

Not yet every game, they're testing them, @Fizza .... Obviously, it wouldn't run them at ultra graphics settings, either! Steam now has a filter if you want to check games that are confirmed to run well on Deck

@Fizza
Not every game will run, but not because of power. Incompatible games boil down to the Proton compatibility layer (what translates Windows based commands to Linux, which is what SteamOS runs on) or anti-cheat protection measures that don't work with Linux.

Valve is currently testing as many games as possible to see what works and what doesn't, and of those that work, which are a pristine experience (no launchers requiring you to manually pull up on screen keyboard, text large enough to read in handheld, quality performance, etc). Games are labeled as Verified or Playable or Not Supported

Online multi-player games and VR games, right off the bat, are unsupported. Beyond that it's usually a case by case basis, but generally speaking most games tested do work. And if they don't, they usually become Playable or Verified later as updates are made to Proton, or as the game is updated by the devs who wish to iron out any kinks hindering playability.

There are now over 1,000 Verified and Playable games for SteamDeck. And that number is rising very fast. In early February less than 50 games were working.

Any game can run on Deck from a power standpoint. It may need to be capped to 30 fps and it may need Low or Medium settings, but even Cyberpunk 2077 is playable on Deck on medium settings. That tells you all you need to know.

Granted, your battery life for games like that will likely be 2 - 2.5 hrs tops. However, that's what lowering the resolution and using the system level FSR is for. Cap at 30 fps, run at 540p with FSR to upscale back to 720p, on medium settings and get 3 - 3.5 hrs battery life for heavy AAA games, on average.

@Ralizah
I can't wait to get my Deck so I can play Monster Hunter World Iceborne in handheld. And Mass Effect Legendary Edition. Portal 1 and 2 should be out on Switch by then, so ironically that's not on my must play list for Deck, despite being something I've desperately wanted handheld for over a decade now.

Gonna play a lot more PC games once I can just grab a handheld and wake it from sleep like Switch.

@JaxonH That is an incredibly fascinating process. Makes you wonder if Nintendo would ever do a similar thing with a future console (we technically have something like that already with games like Super Mario Party and 1-2 Switch where you can only really play them in TV Mode).

@Fizza
Do something like what?

Uh, what, @Fizza ....? There's already a Switch Lite?

@JaxonH @BruceCM Make a console that has every game go through the process of being playable or not. Basically, it's a home console that later in it's lifespan will have a handheld equivalent that'll have certain games on it and others not (saying this makes me realise this is just Steam Deck but Nintendo but hey, that's still pretty enticing).

Went ahead and put in a new reservation for the Steam Deck. The base model. One I intend to keep.

The base model + a decent MicroSD card is about as speedy as the SSD models in most games, which seems nuts to me.

There are a lot of unsupported games, but those will hopefully be addressed over time, and, honestly, even several of the "unsupported" games are still playable with little tweaks.

It's a work in progress, and it'll be years before the full library is tested, let alone supported, but this completely reinvigorated my interest in PC as my primary gaming platform.

Steam Deck will be my expensive "next-gen" purchase alongside Nintendo's next console. I don't care about Microsoft or Sony any more.

It'll probably be December (or later!) before my number comes up, but that just gives me more time to work on my console backlog, and also for Steam and developers to continue optimizing games for the Deck.

Now you can play Persona 4 on Steam Deck without any problems

https://gamingbolt.com/persona-4-golden-is-finally-steam-deck...

Mine says it's shipping July-September for the $650 model. I pre-ordered a couple of hours into the original reservation opening. The servers were crashing otherwise I would have put mine down within minutes.

Has anyone here received theirs by now? Mine should be one of the last in the Q2 from the pacing of deliveries so far...

I won't officially receive mine till quarter 4 at the earliest (after Q3), so I caved and got one of ebay for a decent price. Should be with me tomorrow.
**31/05/22**
Steam Deck arrived as a brand new sealed unit and as described!