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Topic: Valve's Steam Deck console Thread

Posts 41 to 60 of 332

JaxonH

@Ralizah
Dude! Valve really has thought this thing through extremely well.

This will be a very nice feature to have, as it will allow capping Framerate for those select older titles that don’t have Framerate options in the settings. And, if what you say is true about it feeling more stable that’s even better.

I’m going 30 across the board, except for games where I can do 60 and still get 3-4 hrs battery life. But if going 60 means 2-2.5 hrs then I’m good. I’ll stick with 30.

People don’t give Valve enough credit.

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

ThanosReXXX

@skywake @JaxonH Well, I just wanted to post this video to inform, not to start a yes/no discussion. The article that I took the video from LITERALLY and specifically mentions the aim for 30fps, so I don't know what else to tell you guys.

I just figured it would be a good idea to share that info with the people interested in this device, because it might be important/useful to know. Perhaps this is a thing because of its lesser power compared to an actual PC, which might necessitate it to aim for 30fps, instead of whatever other frame rate. It's not PC gaming in general, it's a handheld PC, which is not quite the same. Unless you're streaming, but that's obviously not the purpose of this device.

Anyways, I'm out. This device isn't for me, so I'll leave it to the interested people.

Edited on by ThanosReXXX

'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'

Nintendo Network ID: ThanosReXX

Ralizah

@JaxonH Valve is IMPRESSIVELY in touch with the wants and needs of their audience. I mean, I already knew that after they made it where you could configure any of the modern controllers to work well on Steam, create and share custom configurations for specific games on particular controllers, and configure pretty much any game to use gyro, but still.

I'll probably be sticking with 60fps for most of my games. I don't usually play in long bursts, and most of my games are visual novels, indies, or generations old, lol.

I will say, I was mildly annoyed by EGS antics before Steam Deck, but I'll be doubly-annoyed by the timed exclusives now, since each one will be delaying a portable version of a game by a year or more.

Would've been cool to play those Kingdom Hearts PC ports portably.

Alas.

@ThanosReXXX From the article I just posted.

Valve coder Pierre-Loup Griffais has clarified that when Valve says the new Steam Deck handheld gaming PC is targeting 30 fps for games at its native resolution of 800p, that "refers to the floor of what we consider playable in our performance testing; games we've tested and shown have consistently met and exceeded that bar so far."

It's really just going to depend on the game you play. 60fps in Starfield and Red Dead Redemption 2 aren't going to really be viable, lol.

edit: Holy crud, I just realized Starfield and RDR2 are going to be natively playable on a handheld. This thing is insane.

Edited on by Ralizah

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

JaxonH

@ThanosReXXX
The issue is that it’s misrepresented in headlines. Valve clarified their comments as follows:

Valve coder Pierre-Loup Griffais has clarified that when Valve says the new Steam Deck handheld gaming PC is targeting 30 fps for games at its native resolution of 800p, that "refers to the floor of what we consider playable in our performance testing; games we've tested and shown have consistently met and exceeded that bar so far."

Aka, every game plays at at least 30. It’s the lowest common denominator that every game on the entire Steam storefront can an least do on the Deck. Which is a huge win, as some had concerns modern bleeding edge AAA couldn’t run (think Cyberpunk 2077). This puts those worries to rest as all games can at least hit stable 30 at a minimum.

Which, I don’t think anyone was expecting a handheld to run games like that at higher framerates anyways, when even the PS4 couldn’t do that. Basically, wherever the performance on PS4 was, that’s what Deck will have. Except at 720p.

@Ralizah
That’s the best part about PC. You can tailor the experience to your preferences. Though I would probably do the same if it’s the types of games you mentioned. There’s really no downside to 60 since you could still get 4+ hours battery life.

EGS is annoying and will continue to be. And Ubisoft no longer releases their games on Steam either. They’re strictly EGS and UPlay. So no AC Valhalla or Immortals Fenyx Rising. BUT, all their previous games are on Steam, Like every other AC, 3 different Trials games, etc. I’m good with that. Activision also didn’t release their latest CoD on Steam but frankly I don’t care. Those games take up too much space, are too resource intensive and rarely allow mouse gyro anyways. I can live without. Rather play Doom, Wolfenstein, Borderlands, etc, all of which have mouse gyro that works perfectly.

So ya, there’s a few concessions. Outer Worlds and Borderlands 3 took a year to come to Steam. But we are used to that anyways with Switch. And when they did release they were half price. At least, BL3 was. I can wait. There’s far too many amazing games to get hung up on the select few exclusions or late ports. As far as I’m concerned, games outside of Steam don’t exist. You want my money? Release on Steam. But I refuse to use EGS or UPlay or Origin or any other 3rd party launcher. Yes, you can add them into Steam as a “non-Steam game” and it works. But you have to add your own custom artwork that you download if you don’t want a blank image, and while you can map Gyro you don’t have access to community config’s because it’s not sold on Steam so nobody’s making them. It’s just not worth it. I understand some games require launchers to run, like Ubisoft games via Steam launch through UPlay and EA games launch through Origin. That’s fine to me. Many games have built in launchers anyways for Settings so I don’t care about that. As long as the game is sold through Steam so I have access to community configs, I’m happy.

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

Needeep

Ralizah wrote:

edit: Holy crud, I just realized Starfield and RDR2 are going to be natively playable on a handheld. This thing is insane.

Yeah man, I can’t wait to try RDR on it!!! Was first game I thought of when they announced it!

Needeep

ThanosReXXX

@JaxonH Fair enough. Point taken.

'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'

Nintendo Network ID: ThanosReXX

JoeDiddley

I must be the target market for this as I’ve put a four quid punt on a preorder.

I always play handhelds and I was toying with getting a gaming laptop as my laptop is a potato. But this will be more affordable.

Even if it doesn’t keep up with new releases the back catalogue is immense, and if I buy the games I know I’ll sill have them if I upgrade later. I don’t get this with Nintendo systems - I have to rebuy the games instead and then only if Nintendo choose to rerelease them.

I’d look forward to playing series like Yakuza which I can’t on Switch.

I won’t get it until Q2 which gives me time to save, and also bail out if day 1 it has issues.

Edited on by JoeDiddley

Switch: SW-2923-8106-2126
Steam ID: joediddley
https://myanimelist.net/profile/JoeDiddley

JaxonH

@JoeDiddley
To be fair, Nintendo has always offered BC across each generation. The only exception has been with Switch as they radically changed architecture from the dated PowerPC they’d been using for decades. Future generations will almost certainly offer BC support.

Granted, that’s only good for about 15 years. Once two generations go by the games usually don’t carry forward. So it’s not the same as having your library in perpetuity. But that’s all consoles that do that, really (except Xbox- their recent push in BC has brought it more in line with PC). It’s just the nature of consoles changing architecture. Though we may be seeing the birth of more permanent ecosystems across the board.

Back catalog alone makes it worthwhile. But I’m fairly certain it will keep up with new releases. We’ve kind of tapped out on realism, to the extent it takes a massive jump in power just to see marginal benefits graphically. Most devs are now redirecting their efforts to ultra-high resolutions and framerates. Which works to our benefit as it makes them easier to run at 720p 30/60 FPS.

@ThanosReXXX
I take it you don’t own a gaming PC? not exactly the best time to jump in with GPU prices where they are. But this device is a perfect entry point not just because of its console like use, but because it also offers console like pricing.

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

GrailUK

@JaxonH Thanks for the reply

I never drive faster than I can see. Besides, it's all in the reflexes.

Switch FC: SW-0287-5760-4611

Ralizah

So, I canceled my base model order and went with the 256GB. I'd be expanding the on-board memory regardless, and solid state memory is a quantum leap over mechanical hard drives and flash memory. Even a super cheap 1TB SSD I put into my PC makes system load times lightning fast. No point in cheaping out on something that'll impact literally every aspect of my experience.

It's expensive, but so are PS5s, Series Xs, and modern GPUs (even at MSRP). And, frankly, the more I learn, the more my interest in next-gen console hardware is being nuked from orbit. I don't game at 4K anyway.

And with Microsoft launching all of their games on PC day and date, and even Sony getting their feet wet with PC ports of their first-party games... yeah, I don't see why I should be investing in any ecosystem other than Steam and Nintendo going forward.

@Needeep I looked up an equivalent GPU (although, performance-wise, Steam Deck will massively punch above its listed specs for a variety of reasons) running RDR2 at 720p and it looked great. With a 30fps cap, it should easily run this game at native resolution at medium settings.

While I probably won't bother actually buying it, I am really interested in seeing how Cyberpunk runs on this, as it tends to stress even newer GPUs at high settings.

@Zuljaras Yeah, I don't think a lot of console-only gamers realize just how massive the Steam catalog is. Putting aside the massive number of games that are PC only, or PC/[insert specific console] only, this will have full BC going back generations. Far beyond anything even Microsoft can support. Granted, there's still the possibility of compatibility issues with Linux for certain games, which Valve says it's working on, and which will be something I also look closely at when the first Decks start going out in December.

But even if there were no improvements whatsoever with the "borked" Steam games between now and launch, it would still have an unparalleled library available to it.

@JaxonH Thankfully, my interest in Ubisoft begins and ends with the next Mario + Rabbids game unless they bring back Rayman or Child of Light, and those would undoubtedly also come to whatever the current Nintendo system is, so... eh.

Yeah, the apologetic pricing when games launch a year later on Steam is great. You don't get any similar benefits with delayed Switch ports.

People give Valve grief for essentially abandoning their first-party development efforts, but, IMO, their moves for the last few years have massively won me back: mainstreaming compatibility of all modern controllers on Steam; opening the door to adult-only games on Switch (this has been extremely inconsistent, but I'll take anything that pushes back against Sony's slide into leftist puritanism); massively pushing motion aiming; and now, the Steam Deck, which is finally giving me the portable versions of Monster Hunter World, Resident Evil VII, Yakuza, etc. I always wanted on Switch. A piece of hardware with its finger firmly on the pulse of the core handheld gaming community.

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

Zuljaras

@Ralizah Also let's not forget the possibility of Windows and GOG library. People are excited about the big titles like RDR2, GTAV etc. but they also forget that there are some old PC exclusive titles that would be perfect playing in bed/toilet or in a car like:

1. Monkey Island Series
2. Batman Arkham Games
3. Fallout games

Also city building games and the big one ... emulators!

Endless possibilities! Also future revisions could improve the battery life!

If they do not mess up the hardware it will be a huge success!

JaxonH

@Ralizah
I do wish Valve would make games again. Maybe Half Life Alyx lit a fire under them- we’ll see. Their games were so good though. Like, Nintendo level of good. If they released a Portal 3 as a Deck exclusive just to help sell the hardware, they’d have orders backed up for years.

People just don’t understand the significance of the Steam input configuration editor. It’s one of the most incredible innovations in gaming of the last 2 decades, up there with the hybrid concept of the Switch and the magnometer of the DualSense controller.

It’s not just compatibility (although that in and of itself is huge) it’s also the insane depth and level of control offered to the player, a resource for easily posting and sharing configs with the community within seconds, mapping mouse gyro to any game and making PC games not designed for a controller… actually playable with a controller. It’s the single reason I refuse to play PC games anywhere other than Steam. It’s that much of a game changer. When I first toyed with it I thought oh, this is neat I guess. But the more I learned about it and the things you could deal with it, it blew my mind.

Valve is also very much like Nintendo inasmuch that, they have a lot of clever ideas but don’t always execute properly. Steam Machines were a great concept, but they sabotaged it by not sticking with a single SKU created by Valve. Not only that, SteamOS didn’t have the Windows support via Proton it has today, so games needed to be ported to Linux, and most devs weren’t willing. Great idea, poor execution.

But then you have things like the Steam Controller which were very well executed. I’m not saying it was perfect- I think missing the second right analog was a major flaw, but it’s the only controller that can actually make games designed for keyboard and mouse playable on a controller. And it does it very well. Most people didn’t get it and it got poor reviews, but after it had been on the market a while and people had a chance to acclimate and learn it properly, the SC developed an incredibly loyal following.

Steam Link was a good product, and Valve Index is the best VR headset you can buy. They seem to be improving with every release. And nothing makes that more evident than Steam Deck, which seems to be taking everything they’ve learned over the years, all the lessons learned, and making a gobsmacker of a handheld that essentially nails it in almost every regard. We’ll have to see the final verdict upon release, but from everything I’ve seen this is the closest to perfection I could’ve possibly imagined for a handheld gaming PC.

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

JaxonH

Someone printed a 3D model and compared it to a crap ton of other handhelds and tested comfort.

@Ralizah
And with Microsoft launching all of their games on PC day and date, and even Sony getting their feet wet with PC ports of their first-party games... yeah, I don't see why I should be investing in any ecosystem other than Steam and Nintendo going forward

These are my feelings precisely. Switch + Steam has me covered. I want my games hybrid so I can play on the TV and on handheld, and I want my games to have gyro aiming when needed.

Neither PS5 nor XSX offers hybrid play, and neither offers gyro aiming. Both Nintendo Switch and Steam offer hybrid play, and both offer gyro aiming. And, as a bonus, those two platforms alone can provide access to Xbox exclusives, Playstation exclusives, Steam exclusives, Switch exclusives and legacy platform exclusives. Two platforms cover it all.

I also think you were wise to upgrade to the NVMe. Having that SSD for the OS, that alone is worth it for instant boot times and load times for demanding games as needed. Like you said, it needs the storage expanded anyways, best not to cheap out where it really matters.

Edited on by JaxonH

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

ThanosReXXX

@JaxonH Well, I do play games on my PC, but it's definitely not a gaming PC. It's an old, multi-purpose rig, running Windows 7. The games I play on it are all from the Xbox 360/PS3 era, anything more than that, it can't handle, but it's only every now and then that I actually use it to play games. I've got multiple consoles, so there's no need for me to play on PC.

As for the Steam Desk: I like the idea of it, but I'm not the target audience, and I'm definitely not willing to spend 500 bucks on a handheld device. That's just too rich for my blood. I'd rather save that money for a Series X, which I also still haven't bought.

'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'

Nintendo Network ID: ThanosReXX

JaxonH

@ThanosReXXX
Ya, it’s not the same. I remember before I bought my gaming PC and I was still using the one my brother built for me, I just didn’t like it that much. I had to worry about what games could run and what kind of settings they needed. As soon as I got a 2080 ti and decked it out, and every game was high Settings 4k 60 fps to the point I just max everything on every game, suddenly PC gaming was like a whole new world.

I’m not a fan of spending $500 on anything to be honest, but this is my one and only hobby I spend money on, and it’s just the price of admission nowadays. But I feel like I’m getting a lot more for my money with this than I did with my PS5. Of course, I already had a gaming PC that outperformed PS5 before it even launched, so that definitely affects how I view things. If I can spend $350 on a Switch with an OLED, and $500 on a console where games basically look the same as PS4, I feel like any device that can offer me those same games as a hybrid experience with gyro for the same price is the way to go.

Certainly more enticing than the $850-1,000 buy in of GPD Win 3, Aya Neo and OneXplayer, all of which are considerably weaker, have less battery life and can’t offer gyro through Steam input. And I did consider buying one of those to upgrade from my Win 2. But no gyro… that just killed it.

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

skywake

@ThanosReXXX
To be fair, and I'm using Australian pricing with an assumed straight conversion on the current exchange rate, this thing isn't THAT expensive relative to PC gaming. It works out to be around $720AU for the 250GB SKU. You can't really get a "powerful gaming PC" for anywhere near that price. You're looking at something like a 1650 with an Intel 10100 for about $300AU more.

The closest thing I can find that's near the price of this thing is a generation old i3 based NUCs and laptops. There are some super low end chromebooks cheaper than it but not much. So in the current climate it's not a bad price for a PC more generally let alone one that is as portable as it is. I for one have been looking at maybe building a small HTPC in the next year or so. This thing looks like it'd be a better value option

And yeah, the XBox Series X and PS5 are better deals if you want higher end gaming. No doubt about that, the retail prices for both of them are pretty damn good compared to what you can get in the PC space currently. Problem is, you can't buy them here. The only consoles you can buy at this moment at one of the larger electroincs retailers here in Australia are XBox Series S, PS4, Switch OLED preorder, Switch Lite and Switch. That's it. I mean I can't order the Steam Deck either but still, those are my options. And with those options (and a Steam Library of a couple of hundred games) I'm following news on the Steam Deck

Edited on by skywake

Some playlists: Top All Time Songs, Top Last Year
"Don't stir the pot" is a nice way of saying "they're too dumb to reason with"

JaxonH

Valve showcases the Gyro a little closer here. They did this with great success for the SC, where Gyro only activates when your thumb is on the trackpad, and that carries over here, but since this also has a right analog, they've actually included a sensor on that as well.

I tend to just turn Gyro on via toggle when holding LR, which prevents it from being on all the time (although some games I want it on all the time, like in Doom Eternal), but the thumb sensor option is really popular. I notice all the community configs use it.

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

Magician

I've said it before, but since we have a dedicated thread I'm compelled to say it again. The Steam Deck's entry into the market is a good thing. Core casual gamers (like myself) who don't raise their torches and pitchforks in defense of their favorite platform, like some blind fanboy, will find the Steam Deck irresistible. The Switch won't play all the games we'd like it to be able to. And here comes Valve, with the cash and the clout to deliver a product that will occupy mindshare that the Switch won't be able to grasp.

Things might be different in a few years when and if Nintendo gets around to delivering the Switch's successor, but for 2022 and beyond the Steam Deck will be the primary platform for playing third party games portably.

Switch Physical Collection - 1,241 games (as of March 23rd, 2024)
Favorite Quote: "Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age the child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies." -Edna St. Vincent Millay

JaxonH

@Magician
At least... for those fortunate enough to get a system. By the time they start shipping out in earnest it'll be 2022, and it could take a year or two for substantial quantities to ship out. I imagine Nintendo will want to time the leap to next gen at the mind point of PS5/XS, as they did with Switch in the middle of PS4/X1. It's worked with great success for them, whereas 3 systems all releasing around the same time has not.

With that in mind, I expect next gen Switch in March 2025 or 2026, which would mark 8-9 years; that's consistent with their desire for this generation to last longer for them.

That potentially gives Steam Deck up to 4 solid years to shine. Unless Nintendo opts to release a Pro model and forego traditional generations, which I doubt but can't entirely write off as impossible. If they were to do such a thing we could see the next leap sooner. Either way though, Deck has a couple good years ahead of it.

And it's perfect timing for us. Once Switch 2.0 releases we'll pretty much be set. We'll have an all in one machine that doesn't struggle to run high end games (as Valve said, recent trends focusing on high resolution and framerates means games should be able to scale to PS4 level hardware for a long time). But until that day comes, we would have otherwise been left without any viable option to play games hybrid that don't come to Switch. Now we will.

Valve- not the hero we deserved, but the hero we needed.

Edited on by JaxonH

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

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