[HN Gopher] Valve Steam Deck
___________________________________________________________________
Valve Steam Deck
Author : homarp
Score : 1404 points
Date : 2021-07-15 17:03 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.steamdeck.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.steamdeck.com)
| nullgeo wrote:
| I am excited about this because it finally seems like there will
| be one more worthy competitor in the portable gaming arena. I was
| getting really tired of Nintendo's majority market share, with no
| one to compete against them they have been reigning free with
| their ridiculous "no sale on 4 year old games" policy.
| Arrath wrote:
| Glad to see two sticks in addition to the trackpads.
|
| The Steam Controller with its one pad/one stick approach
| was...interesting but I just couldn't adapt to it for most games.
| donkarma wrote:
| I can't buy this until it runs Windows, too many games need it
| minimaxir wrote:
| Proton supposedly works well with Windows only games, and you
| can apparently install Windows on it as you would a normal PC.
| hn8788 wrote:
| Storage seems like it'll be an issue unless you only want to play
| indie games. It says it's got the hardware to play AAA games, but
| even last gen AAA games like Doom Eternal won't fit on the base
| model, and the next step up with more sufficient storage is more
| expensive than the next gen consoles.
| fetus8 wrote:
| microSD cards are pretty cheap though.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Does anyone play AAA titles off of SD cards? Wouldn't it take
| forever to load stuff?
| philliphaydon wrote:
| On switch it isn't an issue for 12gb games. But I couldn't
| imagine trying to load an 80gb game. Especially if you
| needed to load stuff while playing.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Yeah - I imagine that the games are designed thinking
| most players probably have an SSD or - at worst - an HDD.
| An SD Card - especially a not-good one - can be 100x+
| slower than an HDD for small reads. Any games that depend
| on this would effectively not be playable.
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| Micro SD cards are up to about ~290 MB/s for read times
| these days, IIRC. That's the same as low-end SSDs.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| That's throughput.
|
| IOPS is important.
|
| For random 4kb blocks / second
|
| SD Card => 2.1 [1]
|
| SSD => ~200 [2]
|
| [1] https://www.cameramemoryspeed.com/reviews/micro-sd-
| cards/
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOPS
|
| And that's comparing good SD cards to good SSDs.
|
| As I was saying, bad SD cards can be REALLY bad. The
| difference can be over 1000x. Anything that depends on
| being able to read ANY small piece of information
| regularly in a reasonable amount of time from disk would
| simply not be playable.
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| That's assuming the games are writing to the SD cards and
| not the SSD though, right?
|
| If this is Debian/Arch OS, I'd assume they are writing to
| a system folder.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| No - those are random READS - not writes.
|
| If the game is on the SD Card - it will be read from the
| SD card.
|
| Sure, if the game needs to randomly write data to disk (I
| assume this is much rarer) - then it would write to the
| system SSD as usual.
| bserge wrote:
| Used to play them fine on hard drives. Micro SD cards
| became as fast as them quite a while ago.
| partiallypro wrote:
| Aren't read speeds a little too slow for heavy game loading?
| Anunayj wrote:
| Well for heavy gaming I doubt you'll be able to put any
| more power in such a small package. I don't think the
| target audience is heavy gamers, but mid-tier games.
| hn8788 wrote:
| All the next gen consoles have SSDs though, so games are
| going to be designed around that. Current AAA games might be
| playable on a microSD, but I doubt any of the AAA games
| currently in development will.
| bserge wrote:
| You're saying 100+ MB/s won't be enough anymore? Why would
| that be the case?
| hn8788 wrote:
| Because the PS5 SSD does 5GB/s, and that's the kind of
| speeds new AAA games are going to be built around.
| chme wrote:
| Well, those are PC games, optimized for all sorts of
| hardware, like spinning rust, where other stuff is
| happening in the background as well.
| hn8788 wrote:
| A lot of AAA games are built for PC and consoles, that's
| why you don't normally see much progress in graphics
| until a new console generation comes out. Current AAA
| games are also already recommending SSDs, so if people
| think they're going to have a good experience playing AAA
| games on an SD card, they're going to be dissapointed.
| bserge wrote:
| Oh right, NVMe. I have yet to experience it. Yeah, I
| suppose if the software is optimized for it, it is a much
| better experience.
|
| SD cards also have the drawback of having pretty limited
| write cycles compared to any SSD.
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| NVMe does next to nothing to PC games (compared to an
| SSD). Direct Storage (Windows 11) requires a minimum of
| 1TB.
| Ashanmaril wrote:
| We still have yet to see if that will actually become a
| standard going forward. Sure there's probably gonna be
| some fancy games without loading screens doing crazy
| content-streaming tricks to show of the new console
| hardware, but in the long-term, studios may decide it's
| not worth the time and effort compared to just having a
| loading screen that loads the whole level in a big chunk.
|
| Plus you're gonna be targeting a much wider userbase for
| the time being by not targeting SSDs.
| jms55 wrote:
| I think there's the argument that most studios will do
| whatever's easiest. Only a few will really try to be
| fancy and use the new hardware to the utmost, right?
|
| So then yeah, sticking with a load screen _might_ be
| easiest. But if the tooling supports it, it might be even
| easier to just not worry about loading and having to make
| a loading screen, and let the engine handle that stuff
| for you. UE5 at least seems to be going in that
| direction.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Being not NVMe is enough to call it slow
| msie wrote:
| You'll probably be able to hack it and add your own NVME drive.
| Everything is standard and won't be locked down like Apple's
| hardware.
| remir wrote:
| Seems like all the pieces are in place for this to be good at
| least on paper. If the demand is there, this could be a huge
| success for Valve.
| Thaxll wrote:
| Arch linux really? Does not make much sense tbh Ubuntu would have
| been imo way better. Why would you want a rolling OS for some
| hardware.
| tlackemann wrote:
| Ubuntu would be bloated garbage for this use. I'm sure they're
| maintaining their own Arch repositories to ensure their OS is
| stable.
| Thaxll wrote:
| So why use Arch then? You're not going to use the main
| feature of it which is rolling release and constant updates.
| olyjohn wrote:
| You're not going to do anything to it. Valve will be the
| ones monitoring the Arch repos and testing it before
| releasing it to you. Maybe they want to have the option to
| have the latest updates, if they deem them stable, rather
| than having to wait.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Kubuntu is hardly bloated, and if you're really worried about
| size, Ubuntu has minimal and server images you can base a
| Plasma-powered desktop off of.
| aaomidi wrote:
| If this supports dGPUs, it can actually replace my desktop.
| lasagnaphil wrote:
| The device has a USB-C port so I think it will probably work.
| People have been successful connecting up their eGPUs to the
| GPD Win 3 (which is a similar device)
| danhor wrote:
| To tunnel pci-e over usb-c Thunderbolt or USB-4 is needed,
| which this device doesn't seem to support.
| slmjkdbtl wrote:
| This is my chance to finally play the 1000+ games I bought on
| steam but never touched.
|
| Curious to know how they map the buttons / pads / sticks to PC
| game inputs, or games have to manually provide input scheme for
| this system.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I always felt their controller was a bit of a weird product.
| Turns out they were just dipping their toes in the water. I
| wonder if they are going to produce this fully in house like the
| controller.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCgnWqoP4MM
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Valve wanted to compete with consoles. Consoles go in the
| living room and are played with a controller. Your home's PC is
| not in the living room, so how does Valve fix that? The Steam
| Link. Okay, but PC games are frequently designed to be played
| with a mouse and keyboard. There's lots of stuff to click on.
| So how do you play that from the couch without some elaborate
| lap pad with a mouse and keyboard on it? The Valve Controller.
| I see how it could very well have worked. Consoles are
| expensive, and if you already have a PC, it's an awfully cheap
| way to play games with better graphics for less money.
| grawprog wrote:
| >So how do you play that from the couch without some
| elaborate lap pad with a mouse and keyboard on it? The Valve
| Controller. I see how it could very well have worked.
|
| I guess maybe in a world where every console controller isn't
| compatible with most PC games, cheaper than the valve
| controller and more ergonomically designed than the valve
| controller...maybe if Logitech, 8bitdo, Razer etc. didn't
| exist and didn't produce cheaper or better controllers it
| could have worked....
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Most first person shooter PC games, sure, but there are
| thousands of PC games that assume you have a mouse and a
| keyboard. Point and click adventures, that sort of thing.
| grawprog wrote:
| Yeah i know. Playing an RTS or a Moba game or something
| with a controller would be a nightmare. Most 4x games
| like Civilization would suck a lot. Games like Dwarf
| Fortress, Cataclysm or pretty much any non mobile
| roguelike would be unfeasible to play with a controller.
|
| Even some games you'd think should work well with a
| controller don't really. Unepic's a 2d side scrolling
| action-adventure game, you'd think it'd be controller
| friendly, and there are console ports of it, but the PC
| version uses 10 hotkeys for various spells and abilities.
| I managed to map i think 4 or 5 of them to controller
| buttons, but it meant more going through the game menu
| and reassigning spells than it would have using a
| keyboard.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| It really is a great controller. The omission of the d-pad
| was a mistake, but the real reason it failed was because
| people already had a preference for the X-Box controller.
| Most games worked with the X-Box controller with no extra
| configuration.
|
| This is why I think the Deck has done it right: include all
| the standard buttons _plus_ the extra stuff.
| have_faith wrote:
| > Deck
|
| What an uninspiring name! (with unfortunate mispronunciations).
| Looks very interesting though, price point (starting at PS349)
| seems very competitive.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| It's a term used a lot already for DIY'd portable computers in
| a kind of cyberpunk aesthetic, apparently from the game series
| Shadowrun
|
| https://hackaday.com/tag/cyberdeck/
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/
|
| https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Cyberdeck
| Baeocystin wrote:
| I mean, yes, but isn't Neuromancer where the term was born?
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I'm ignorant ! Had seen the diy decks and just tried
| googling for the etymology
| bserge wrote:
| I'd like to believe they named it that simply so kids could
| pull a "My Deck is bigger than yours!".
| reificator wrote:
| > _" My Deck is bigger than yours!"_
|
| Ah, the rallying cry of EDH/Commander players everywhere.
| justinsaccount wrote:
| The closest competitor to this is called the switch. Other
| competing products are called a station and a box.
| have_faith wrote:
| Steam Deck just doesn't seem to roll off the tongue, maybe it
| will grow on me.
| queuebert wrote:
| Sticking with the ship metaphors, it was better than Poop
| Deck.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Not a William Gibson fan I take it - I heartily recommend you
| read Neuromancer if you enjoyed the Matrix / any cyberpunk at
| all.
| shusson wrote:
| > 40Whr battery. 2 - 8 hours of gameplay
|
| Battery life doesn't seem too good.
| lasagnaphil wrote:
| I wonder if they would touch the Linux kernel a bit to improve
| things on power management. Vanilla Linux doesn't seem to
| provide good battery life for portable devices (at least, if we
| look at laptops.)
| Ancapistani wrote:
| Given the time, skill, and inclination to tinker, Arch has
| very good power management. Also considering that Steam is
| throwing dedicated dev resources at this and it will end up
| being a very limited array of hardware to need to support, I
| would expect improvements here.
| gtzi wrote:
| Reminds me of Sega's Game Gear - oh, the memories!
| chme wrote:
| > Do I need a Steam account to use Steam Deck?
|
| > The default Steam Deck experience requires a Steam account
| (it's free!). Games are purchased and downloaded using the Steam
| Store. That said, Steam Deck is a PC so you can install third
| party software and operating systems.
|
| I like their middle finger against other console and smartphone
| manufacturers.
| lampe3 wrote:
| Does it run Crysis? \s
| arendtio wrote:
| I don't know if Proton runs on SteamOS, but if it does (it
| should), yes, then it should be able to run Crysis ;-)
|
| https://www.protondb.com/app/17300
| sangnoir wrote:
| Valve authored Proton _for_ SteamOS - so yes it runs on
| SteamOS. I can separately confirm that Crysis 1 & 2 run on
| Proton at max settings, at 4k (:
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| This thing is banking on Proton pretty heavily. It's even
| mentioned in the marketing material for developers:
|
| "Steam Deck runs SteamOS 3.0, and thanks to Proton, your
| build will likely work right out of the box."
| kderbyma wrote:
| I like this concept - it feels like they are repurposing rather
| than price gauging like everyone seems to these days
|
| also I like that this may actually upset the mobile game space
| which frankly is a stain on the gaming industry imo
| rewq4321 wrote:
| > "Steam Deck starts shipping December 2021 to the United States,
| Canada, the European Union, and the United Kingdom. More regions
| coming in 2022--stay tuned for more info."
|
| Does anyone know why hardware product launches tend to be region-
| constrained initially? Is is for shipping/logistics reasons, or
| legal/tax/etc stuff?
|
| Software/SaaS launches never have these constraints, so I figure
| it must be shipping related, but that would amaze me. Is there
| still no company that makes international shipping
| painless/simple? What would be the difficult part for Value here?
| andrewmunsell wrote:
| Shipping (distribution from local warehouses to avoid
| unnecessary customs surprises), taxes, certifications, (and I
| know it's not the case here but for some HW projects) regional
| electrical differences (50/60hz, 120/240v), and of course
| supply-- there's a number of differences that could lead to a
| hardware project restricting the initial launch.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Does it run the Epic store?
| baby wrote:
| Did not see that coming! I've been saying for a while that the
| nintendo switch is one of the best idea of the decade and the
| poor quality leaves a lot of room for competition. My first guess
| at a successful competitor would have been Apple, who I think has
| a lot to win in entering the market with a switch-like console.
| hyperion2010 wrote:
| I dual boot windows and linux, but have not booted into windows
| in years. I can play many games on linux now, but having a
| completely separate system means I can keep games and work
| separate. The dock also means it can be used as a real gaming
| computer. I also refuse to play mobile games, but might make an
| exception for the ability to play full pc games on the go.
| Normally I would never consider such a device, but the price
| point, size, and the dock makes it almost a no-brainer.
| least wrote:
| I really hope that this market picks up steam (heh) and we get to
| see even more bigger names coming up with devices. The Aya Neo
| [1], OneXPlayer [2], and GPD Win3 [3] have all come out
| relatively close to each other with different ideas of what
| people want in a handheld gaming PC.
|
| Valve seems to want to get in on a price that is more competitive
| with the Nintendo Switch, so its hardware specs are a bit worse
| it seems than the others in the market. The plus side to this is
| that the base model comes in at just $399, though that is with
| eMMC storage, while the next bump up uses NVME. The other specs
| seem to be identical across the 3 SKUs, though.
|
| The trackpads a la the steam controller seem appropriate for the
| types of games that require a mouse on PC, which is unique in
| this product market. Gyroscopes are also built in, which I'd
| presume would work similar to the Wii U and Nintendo Switch for
| aiming. I don't think it'll be as good as a mouse, but I've found
| that aiming with gyroscope on the Wii U was much easier than
| using just the analog stick, so hopefully it makes FPS games with
| a controller more pleasant for me.
|
| I also think it's interesting that it is using SteamOS, which had
| been kind of abandoned by Valve for quite some time. This also
| means that it is depending on Proton for game compatibility,
| which in itself is a huge statement on their confidence in the
| maturity of it. Without it, this would be a complete failure like
| "Steam Machines" were. If it works out well, maybe we'll finally
| see a real product instead of a tech demo from Dell and other PC
| manufacturers. Exciting.
|
| [1] https://www.ayaneo.com/aya-neo
|
| [2] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/onexplayer-best-
| performin...
|
| [3] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gpd-win3-the-
| world-s-1st-...
| shadilay wrote:
| I'm surprised they went with a custom AMD part. Seems expensive
| for what is likely to be a low volume product. Why not just do
| a laptop in a handheld form factor.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I don't think you come at the Nintendo Switch expecting low
| volume. Whether another company can be successful at it is a
| good question, but if you build expecting low volume, that's
| what you're going to get.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| I doubt its custom, probably just a Ryzen embedded chip on
| some default motherboard:
| https://www.amd.com/en/processors/embedded-
| ryzen-v2000-serie...
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| If I want to develop software for this platform do I have to go
| through steam?
|
| Btw Looking at their link for developers and they accidentally a
| word here:
|
| > This site is a resource for Steam developers - here you can
| about developing for Steam Deck, developer kits, and more.
| msie wrote:
| Probably not. You can load anything through the SD card slot.
| Just create software and load it through there or the many USB
| ports it has! They are saying you can even overwrite the OS so
| they are not restricting you.
| danso wrote:
| Well I guess their time developing the Steam controller isn't all
| for naught. Looks similar in concept, except with dual joysticks
| and thumbpads (instead of just 1 each) and extreme deemphasis the
| traditional X/Y/A/B buttons, and 4 (instead of 2) back paddle
| triggers. Which is great, I loved the paddles on my Steam
| controller.
| Arrath wrote:
| I wonder if the triggers are also two-stage, like the Steam
| controller's. I loved that feature, found some niche uses in
| some games.
| dm319 wrote:
| The IGN video seemed to suggest that.
| throwaway158497 wrote:
| Honest question. Is there a gaming platform where I can play only
| free games? Or atleast where I don't have to put a credit card
| number before giving it to my kids?
| PAGAN_WIZARD wrote:
| Check out itch.io
| fermentation wrote:
| At a cursory glance this thing seems to be well-equipped to
| handle emulation. There are a lot of (sometimes sketchy) portable
| emulation devices on the market but most are pretty underpowered.
| This seems significantly more powerful (at a higher price point
| of course).
|
| I'm curious if more folks interested in portable emulation will
| go for this or wait for an FPGA-based Analogue Pocket.
| rchaud wrote:
| What kind of emulation? Android phones handle N64, SNES and PSP
| emulation very well, with a compatible game controller you
| don't need anything else.
| dm319 wrote:
| That's a good point. I reckon it'd be fairly trivial to get
| EmulationStation working nicely on it.
| dbreunig wrote:
| Nearly 70% heavier than the Switch. That's a deal breaker for me,
| sadly.
| azhenley wrote:
| Reminds me of a modern take on the Sega Game Gear!
| k12sosse wrote:
| Wonder how many AA batteries this will burn through in a day
| though.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Damn this hardware in a laptop form factor would be awesome. I
| really want to buy it but I hardly game...
| davidkunz wrote:
| Gamers be like: "btw I use Arch."
| shmerl wrote:
| Handheld gaming console running Linux and allowing doing whatever
| you want with the OS - nice!
| tqi wrote:
| As a person who is mostly interested in playing a few older PC
| games out of a sense of nostalgia (such as the definitive
| editions of Age of Empires / Age of Kings), should I get this and
| if so, what size?
| myrloc wrote:
| Would've been an instant win for me if I could do a Switch-style
| hookup to the TV. Without that, it's just another limited mobile
| gaming console.
| detaro wrote:
| "would've"? it can do that, it has "USB-C" carrying video and a
| dock is announced.
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| There is a dock available for this purpose.
| mattfrommars wrote:
| I do find intriguing Valve continues to be a private company.
| Unlike the rush start up these days have to do an IPO.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Valve doesn't need money. They make enough profit as it is,
| purely from digital goods and their revenue cut. So why give up
| control when you are free to do what ever you want. In the end
| it is extremely profitable company.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| It seems that IPOs are sometimes the only way for investors and
| founders to cash out, or get a return on their investments,
| even if the companies themselves are unprofitable or
| unsustainable.
|
| I don't know about their investors, but I assume they aren't
| pushing for an IPO because Valve works well and is profitable
| as it is.
| robotnikman wrote:
| I'd rather it be that way, so they are not pressured by
| investors to extract every single cent from their consumers.
|
| They have a very loyal consumer base which trusts them and
| which is keeping them afloat, they don't want to blow that
| trust
| eloff wrote:
| Bringing PC gaming to a portable form factor will probably be
| successful, but I don't game on my phone, so I don't think I'd
| buy this.
|
| I am in the market for a gaming laptop that can dual boot Linux
| as my work machine. If they did an Alienware or ROG style build
| I'd very likely buy that.
|
| Btw if anyone has recommendations for me, I'm looking right now.
| Looking for a 15-17" heavy ass laptop with minimum 32gb ram,
| quality 4k or close display, and as much performance as I can
| find.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Get a Thinkpad. You probably want one of the W Series.
| Shadonototro wrote:
| Finally a linux gaming console
|
| Now valve, for the love of god, PUSH NATIVE LINUX GAMING, proton
| only as a way to supplement the library..
|
| Reduce your steam tax for the companies that provide a native
| linux build
|
| I will not buy this if your main selling point is "proton"
|
| As for the price, 419EUR.. very bad marketing, 399EUR would have
| been perfect... you got greedy for 20EUR, that'll hurt sales
| eropple wrote:
| _> Reduce your steam tax for the companies that provide a
| native linux build_
|
| The idea that this would move the needle seems like
| wishcasting. Ten percent less of 0.89% of the Steam hardware
| survey is a couch-cushions rounding error. Meanwhile, Proton is
| a _really good_ way to get hold of that rounding error as-is
| and works with surprisingly few problems across most games I
| 've tried; For the amount of noise that 0.89% of the audience
| makes, Valve's spent quite a lot of time-and-effort to come up
| with something that works quite well.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| Where have you been? Valve has been pushing native Linux games
| for about 10 years.
|
| https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTcxMTY
| Shadonototro wrote:
| yeah i can't play MMOs, yay
|
| i can't play most multiplayer games, yay
|
| i can't play most AAA titles because of DRMs, yay
|
| proton is a waste of time
|
| most of the time you have to fiddle with weird settings,
| portable console appeal more to casual people, majority of
| them are tech illiterates, if something bug or doesn't work
| properly and requires tweaks, it'll backfire at both the devs
| (they bought the game after all), and valve (they bought the
| console)
|
| if they don't push native builds, it'll flop due to lack of
| proper NATIVE ecosystem
|
| "daddy, why this game doesn't work, this console sucks"
|
| this only asks for a proper windows based machine, if XBOX
| releases their XBOX portable, it's game over for valve
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| > yeah i can't play MMOs, yay
|
| > i can't play most multiplayer games, yay
|
| > i can't play most AAA titles because of DRMs, yay
|
| That's on the developers and publishers.
|
| > proton is a waste of time
|
| It works well enough for a lot of people.
|
| > most of the time you have to fiddle with weird settings,
| portable console appeal more to casual people, majority of
| them are tech illiterates, if something bug or doesn't work
| properly and requires tweaks, it'll backfire at both the
| devs (they bought the game after all), and valve (they
| bought the console)
|
| That sounds like PC gaming in general. If you're talking
| about Proton messing up, there's lots of warnings that
| things might not work right.
|
| > if they don't push native builds, it'll flop due to lack
| of proper NATIVE ecosystem
|
| Way to miss my point. There's lots of games with native
| Linux versions:
| https://store.steampowered.com/search/?&os=linux <-- AFAIK,
| Steam's "os=linux" means without Proton.
| Shadonototro wrote:
| but not the best sellers, because devs have no incentive
| to release native linux builds
|
| with that new console however it can change
|
| valve has to make it compelling for them, by lowering
| their tax for example
| Forbo wrote:
| It looks like it is $399 USD, so the price point may mostly be
| a conversion thing.
|
| Edit: Just looked up the conversion rate, right now 399 USD is
| 288 GBP? Weird. The mid tier is 529 USD, so something like 382
| GBP. Upper tier is 649 USD, or 468 GBP.
| panzagl wrote:
| VAT?
| levital wrote:
| $399US is ~338EUR though. Even adding in 19% VAT we'd come
| out at a nice round 400EUR, so I don't really understand the
| 419EUR, which is just a weird number from a marketing
| perspective as well.
|
| That we're getting overcharged on this side of the Atlantic
| isn't new though, but happens with basically everything.
| _flux wrote:
| And if you add 5% for import duty, you get a number very
| close to 419 EUR.
|
| I don't however know how much the import duty is, it seems
| to be a number that is very difficult to find :).
| Ekaros wrote:
| With 24-27% VAT in use in some countries it comes to
| exactly 419EUR, which might explain the price. As they
| really don't charge different price per country in Europe.
| jvzr wrote:
| Isn't that a tax thing? Prices in Europe are displayed VAT-
| included, while prices in the US are VAT-free, are they not?
| Shadonototro wrote:
| Ah, 399 USD sounds already better
| madpata wrote:
| 1EUR ~= 1.18$ US So, probably not just a conversion thing
| Tajnymag wrote:
| The pricing even doesn't seem unreasonable. If the device is of a
| good quality, this could sell pretty well.
| trey-jones wrote:
| I don't disagree, but I think the $399 version might be their
| undoing. 64GB is about 1 AAA game, and 0 in some cases. So
| people are going to get this one for their kids for Christmas,
| the kids are going to say it's shit, and it's going to get a
| bad reputation, even if the high end models are good.
|
| Maybe they have solutions lined up for the problems that will
| come with low/slow storage, but we'll see!
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| >64GB is about 1 AAA game, and 0 in some cases.
|
| They will just use an SD card. Yeah it's not as fast as SSD
| but it's the low end device.
| msie wrote:
| It will be easy enough to hack it to add your own storage.
| Probably just a screwdriver is needed and you insert your own
| NVME drive. Everything is standard hw.
| cma wrote:
| I'm guessing the NVME is soldered into place. But with a
| full usb-c port you should be able to add fast enough
| storage.
| hobofan wrote:
| The Switch has had the same problem, which causes me to
| basically never keep AAA games installed for long, but they
| are still quite successful.
|
| The Switch also tops out at 64GB with the new OLED model,
| whereas that's the starting point for the Steam Deck. There
| is also a history of consoles being offered with a wide
| variety of different storage sizes (Xbox 360), and I don't
| remember that causing any serious problems for them (if you
| ignore the humongous size of the Xbox dashboard at the end of
| its lifetime, which is an avoidable problem).
| christkv wrote:
| This will be great for the development of proton as more
| companies will be incentivized to make sure their game runs on
| linux to target the deck.
| ixacto wrote:
| This is kinda cool. Needs a 144hz display though. That would be
| the killer feature to differentiate between the switch.
| adamc wrote:
| For those of us with older eyes, I am skeptical -- the screen is
| pretty small for the amount of detail PC games often want to
| display.
| lasagnaphil wrote:
| The screen's as big as the largest model for Nintendo Switch, I
| think the hardware is fine. The problem is that most PC games
| are optimized for higher resolution and screen size (especially
| the 4x or strategy ones), and unlike Nintendo where there is a
| standard 5.5" ~ 7" size you have to optimize for, the PC
| developers don't have any top-down pressure to port their game
| for smaller screens.
| collinvandyck76 wrote:
| somewhat off topic, but i'm 45 and just recently got my first
| pair of prescription reading glasses -- a game changer!
| The_rationalist wrote:
| Are game UX designed for such screens? E.g would Hollow knight
| render well?
| txdv wrote:
| Valve, you created a lot of products that were great but then you
| dropped them for some or another reason.
|
| I would like for once for you to keep working on a singular
| product, release multiple iterations, make it better and make it
| the market leader.
| not_math wrote:
| It was pretty clear why they dropped them, which is most people
| hated it (while a few very much loved them). I loved my Steam
| Controller but right now I'm using mostly my Xbox controller
| for PC.
|
| The Wii U was a failure, but I feel (and I guess the sales can
| confirm that) that Nintendo learned from their mistakes.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| In many ways this is clearly their second-take on Steam
| Machines. They learned the first time around that licensing the
| name to third party hardware vendors didn't work (a lesson they
| could have learned from the 3DO), and that people didn't really
| like streaming games from PC to TV.
| kiriberty wrote:
| The display specs seem very mediocre: Resolution: 1280 x 800px
| (16:10 aspect ratio) Type: Optically bonded LCD for enhanced
| readability Display size: 7" diagonal Brightness: 400 nits
| typical Refresh rate: 60Hz I feel like they dropped the ball on d
| jakeinspace wrote:
| No point in a higher resolution display if you can't get above
| 30 fps.
| seneca wrote:
| Valve has a pretty bad track record with hardware, do they not?
| I'm not very aware of this industry, but the vague impress I have
| is that they've tried this a couple of different ways and it
| hasn't gone well for them. I'm curious why they would make this
| play again.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| They have a great track record with hardware. They have a poor
| track record of hardware adoption.
|
| I have the Steam Controller: it's fantastic, so versatile, and
| everything it claimed it would be. I have the Steam Link: works
| great, brings my desktop to any TV in the house. I haven't used
| their VR equipment but from those that have, seems like
| basically the reason get Oculus instead of Valve is because of
| Oculus exclusives.
|
| I've been dying for this form-factor for years, since long
| before the Switch came out. Valve has been losing tons of money
| from me in the form of purchases, because games in their
| library haven't been in the right form factor, so I've bought
| them for mobile and for Switch, when really I'd rather have
| bought them in Steam with a mobile-play option.
|
| I've explored the mobile-phone-with-controllers-streaming-from-
| a-desktop option, and it's just not what I'm looking for. I've
| been looking for a feasible option in this space since the
| Razer Edge came out in 2013, and there just hasn't been a good
| one...not with phones-with-controllers-attached (have to
| stream), not with mini-laptops (bad ergonomics and
| performance), etc. I've looked into a number of homebrew
| efforts to try and get Steam games onto my Switch (streamed or
| otherwise) but it's just not worth the commitment of time and
| effort when I could spend the same $10 for that indie game I
| want on Switch instead of on Steam.
|
| I reluctantly got a Switch two years ago. I was reluctant
| because although I've been wanting this form factor for years,
| I also wanted a device that was compatible with my Steam
| library. Since buying the Switch, I've only bought Switch games
| (and not a single Steam game) mostly because being able to play
| on that form-factor is worth the price-premium to me.
|
| It's Valve's excellent record of delivery on hardware that
| makes this a pre-order for me. Super excited about this.
| Reubend wrote:
| The people who have used their VR hardware say it's excellent.
| porphyra wrote:
| I have a Valve Index VR headset. It was clearly the best on
| the market when I got it last year. The controllers and
| headset tracking are great and the video quality was a notch
| above the competition (though recent newer headsets have
| closed the gap). However it did have some hardware issues
| such as crackling audio in one of the speakers, so I ended up
| removing the headset speakers and wearing my own headphones.
| Anyway, overall I'm satisfied.
| kawsper wrote:
| They have a tendency to drop their hardware quite early - I had
| a Steam Link so I could play computer games on my television,
| it works really great.
| malfist wrote:
| Steam link and the controllers were great. Too bad they
| dropped support for them so quickly. Went looking to replace
| one that finally broke down and found you couldn't buy them
| anymore.
| amiga-workbench wrote:
| Do they? My Steam link still works, and its great. As is the
| controller.
| djrogers wrote:
| I think the issue is that both of those are dead products
| now. Dropping support/sales for hardware so quickly is a bit
| of a turnoff.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| The Valve Index is one of, if not the best, VR headsets on the
| market. Quest 2 is a very close competitor and arguably better
| when you consider price + wireless ability. But the Index is no
| slouch.
| legitster wrote:
| The Steam Link was awesome. Their VR headsets are the industry
| standard. The controller was niche but I heard good things.
| Steamboxes weren't really a hit, but I don't consider them a
| failure either (users still got fully functional gaming rigs).
|
| So no, I would disagree with that assessment.
| Bayart wrote:
| They've got a good record with making hardware, but not making
| it mainstream.
| mindvirus wrote:
| I think their hardware has been great. The Index VR headset is
| high quality, and so was their controller although it didn't
| seem to find market fit.
| moritonal wrote:
| I'd argue the opposite.
|
| The Steam Controller was a work of technical art (albeit
| without the centuries of experience in ergonomics its
| competitors had).
|
| The Steam Link was a few years ahead of its competitors.
|
| And the Steam Vive's Lighthouses were a literal light-speed
| ahead of the Oculus for a while.
|
| Fully agree however that you're right that they're too small to
| support a hardware long past its release when the market share
| is too small.
| mojzu wrote:
| Happy index/steam controller customer here, had to RMA one of
| the index controllers for a weird resetting issue but they
| handled that really well so I feel I've got my money's worth. I
| may be biased though because valve is actually the company I
| have been a customer of the longest in my life
| danso wrote:
| Valve's arguably biggest most obvious failure are the Steam
| Machines [0], but that doesn't feel like a track record failure
| in the way that, say, a PS Vita was. Weren't Steam Machines
| basically just branded (and reasonably priced) PCs pre-loaded
| with SteamOS/Linux? Not even the Steam Controller feels
| proprietary. I mean, in the sense that I can still use it
| handily on macOS despite its ending production 2 years ago.
|
| [0] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/06/its-time-to-
| declare-v...
| mikl wrote:
| Typo in the title. It's "Steam Deck", not "Steam Desk".
|
| Interesting that Valve is diving deeper into hardware. Remember
| when they still made video games? Remember when there was still a
| hope they would some day release Half-Life 3?
| myhf wrote:
| Finally, the year of Linux on the Desk.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| I thought Half-Life: Alyx was basically our HL3? It certainly
| got critical reviews/scores suggesting it _deserves_ its
| moniker of Half-Life.
| User23 wrote:
| My understanding is that their Index VR hardware is quite good
| too.
| mmastrac wrote:
| I can confirm this. The index is a marvelous piece of tech in
| so many ways. It's a premium bit of kit (with the associated
| premium price) and I have zero complaints about it.
| criddell wrote:
| Does the Index VR work with the Steam Deck?
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| Yes. It's a PC running Linux and can do anything a regular
| PC can. It's probably a little lacking performance wise for
| VR though. It's optimised for the native 1280x800
| resolution.
| jsight wrote:
| Haha, I read it and wondered why they put a computer in a desk.
| Buy a desk, get a free computer!
|
| What?!
| dang wrote:
| Fixed now. (At one point the title on
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27847007 said "Desk".)
| sascha_sl wrote:
| Don't forget Alyx exists.
| mikl wrote:
| Alyx is a VR game, not a video game in my book.
| [deleted]
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| Cmon, don't gatekeep games. There are inputs, outputs and
| challenge. Fits the classical definition.
| mikl wrote:
| Not saying it's not a game. It's just not a video game.
| "Video" is a thing you can project on a flat screen. VR
| games is a separate category, imo.
| caslon wrote:
| "Half-Life is a PC game, not a video game in my book."
|
| Seriously, Alyx is pretty obviously the future of video
| games. Have you tried it? It's incredible.
| hn8788 wrote:
| I doubt it's the future. There's a mini documentary
| called "Half-Life Alyx: Final Hours" and the majority of
| the developers at Valve said they don't want the next
| game they work on to be VR.
| mikl wrote:
| "Video" is a thing you can project on a flat screen. VR
| games is a separate category, imo.
|
| And no, I don't own a VR setup.
| caslon wrote:
| VR headsets are just a flat screen with a pair of lenses
| on them.
| hellotomyrars wrote:
| You can project VR content on to a flat screen. You don't
| want to look at it that way, but you can do it. The part
| that makes it 3D is entirely down to the lenses and
| optics used. The display inside is just like any other.
|
| Because it is video.
| mikl wrote:
| That's an extremely pedantic interpretation of the word
| video. The game isn't designed to be playable on a screen
| with regular control input. It's a video game the same
| way a full flight simulator is. Technically true, but it
| requires specialised and expensive hardware to "play".
| caslon wrote:
| Hardly specialized and expensive, it works fine with a
| $300 headset aimed largely at serving as Facebook's next
| social platform hooked up to your PC. It's like saying a
| Wii game isn't a video game, or that games you can't play
| without stereo headphones aren't video games.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Honestly I'd much rather have Hardware Innovation and Linux
| Gaming Enthusiast Valve than Made Yet Another AAA Shooter
| Valve.
| mastrsushi wrote:
| Yet another successful game vs Yet another failing hardware
| device.
| indexuser wrote:
| The index is fantastic, minus the c-stick of all things to
| get wrong. Still play it often, lobbies for Pavlov fill in
| seconds.
| sprafa wrote:
| The Valve Index is working just fine. If you follow VR
| devices, it's actually now the only one with good support
| and no huge privacy issues.
| autoexec wrote:
| I wonder about the privacy issues here to be honest. The
| "FAQ" linked to by the site says "we can go to ign.com on
| it" but what happens if we do? Does Steam see that we
| went there? Do they log that? If we log into our bank
| accounts on the device does Steam see that too? What
| telemetry are they collecting? Does changing the OS
| prevent all of it? Will there be ads?
|
| It's cool tech, but I have to ask how will it be used
| against me? Will it only be pushing me to spend more of
| my money on Steam games or is there something more?
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Amazing. If the hardware is good, this will leave no gaming use
| case that is not best covered by PC
| ohyes wrote:
| The one issue with this is going to be the storage space. 512GB
| isn't really enough for multiple AAA games. It will also be
| interesting to see what the battery life is going to be on this
| thing, and how well they've tuned the controller hardware.
|
| It could either be an amazing upgrade for mobile gaming or
| incredibly janky.
| birdman3131 wrote:
| Looks at my 374Gb Ark install. Yah thats gonna be an issue. (I
| think about 50gb is mods but still.)
| afterburner wrote:
| Does that not look uncomfortable to anyone else?
| BuckRogers wrote:
| How long until Epic Games sues Valve because they're not a first-
| class store on Steam Deck?
|
| Companies like Apple, Valve, and Microsoft build out ecosystems
| and take massive risks doing so, only to have someone who made
| millions if not billions of dollars off of these systems to come
| knocking.
|
| Epic made millions if not billions off these platforms. Nintendo
| is locked to their store. So is Xbox and PS. Not sure why anyone
| else that designed it that way would be any different. If it's a
| closed ecosystem, it's just not for you.
|
| If Ram pickup trucks sold door chimes on the dash's touchscreen,
| Epic Games would be suing for access for their alternative
| marketplace.
| cartesius13 wrote:
| Does anyone have any idea why they ditched Debian to use Arch?
| Bancakes wrote:
| Wow that's as powerful as a base model PS4.
| FinalBriefing wrote:
| Yea, that's a great base to aim for. Lots of great games will
| look respectable with those specs. I'd have loved a full 1080p
| screen, but at least its larger than the Switch's 720p.
| Bancakes wrote:
| It's far below the average Steam hardware survey system.
| sureglymop wrote:
| It's crazy, it almost seems to be timed with the new Nintendo
| Switch announcement...
| nyghtly wrote:
| The way that Gabe talks about the console is really interesting.
| From what I understand, the purpose of this device is simply to
| ensure that gamers continue to buy games on PC (i.e. from Steam),
| even as desktop PC gaming becomes less and less relevant in the
| wake of an increasingly mobile landscape.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FXgDAF6QpM
| spoonjim wrote:
| Won't these guys get in trademark trouble with Elgato's "Stream
| Deck" which is also a piece of hardware targeted at the gaming
| market?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Don't think so. Steam in this market segment is well known
| enough name. So they are very likely to get away naming
| anything Steam something.
| phront wrote:
| What video card is equivalent to this steam deck hardware?
| lasagnaphil wrote:
| It's using a custom AMD APU, so I estimate it would be probably
| a bit weaker than Ryzen 7 5700G's integrated GPU (1.6 TFLOPS
| advertised vs 2.1 TFLOPs for 5700G).
|
| Though the performance may get a lot worse if you're using it
| on battery power, or the device gets hot enough to get
| throttled.
| z3t4 wrote:
| I hope it has better latency than the Nintendo Switch - if you
| build your own hardware with display included, why not make it
| fast!? Why does it need to have a 20+ ms response time!?
| msie wrote:
| This is great because there is only one platform to program for.
| The previous Steam Console was a big failure because it had so
| many different hardware configurations. This could be awesome!!!
| [deleted]
| krylon wrote:
| Those specs sound quite impressive for the price.
|
| I wonder if one could run a custom Linux distro on it? It looks
| like a sweet device, but I'm not enough of a gamer to spend that
| kind of money on a device I can only play games on.
| Urgo wrote:
| As someone who has a stReam deck[1] sitting on their desk this is
| a very confusing name. Before I realized this new product was
| steam not stream I was trying to find if valve bought elgato or
| something.
|
| [1] https://www.elgato.com/en/stream-deck
| mdoms wrote:
| Cool another Valve product that won't be sold in my country.
| jgerrish wrote:
| Man, imagine you were a kid getting one of these for the first
| time, like a Nintendo or Apple. I can't imagine the magical
| feeling. I really can't.
| jeppester wrote:
| Due to its openness and built-in controller this looks like a
| great device for emulators and remote play / cloud streaming.
| doublepg23 wrote:
| Are people really looking for _another_ device for emulators?
| k12sosse wrote:
| This one has all sorts of input styles, covers a lot of
| arcade games. No trackball or dial, though :) so marble
| madness and arkanoid be damned.
|
| Touchpad, Touch Screen, Stick, D-Pad..
| [deleted]
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech
|
| > Operating System: SteamOS 3.0 (Arch-based)
|
| > Desktop: KDE Plasma
|
| This is sure to excite the Linux community.
| vbernat wrote:
| And they switched from Debian to Arch. Can't say I don't
| understand them, but I would have thought there would have been
| better bases than a rolling distribution (Gentoo, NixOS,
| Fedora).
| chme wrote:
| Both Debian and Arch are very fine distributions. Your other
| three options aren't really good for what Valve is going for.
|
| Gentoo is source based, and while distribution of binary
| packages is possible with it, why would they do that?
|
| NixOs ignores FHS, and while it is possible to install a
| steam compatible runtime, why would they do that?
|
| And Fedora belongs to RedHat, and why would they do that,
| when they actually try to switch away from a OS distribution
| controlled by one company?
|
| I am not saying those distributions aren't good, just that it
| would not make sense for Valve to use any of those.
|
| Debian (via Ubuntu) and Arch are probably the most well
| tested Linux distributions by gamers, that do not belong to a
| single company.
| vbernat wrote:
| Gentoo, like Debian, has always been a good distribution
| for derivatives. It is quite flexible and you can
| definitely distribute binaries in the case of a commercial
| derivative. Gentoo has also been used more widely in the
| embedded world (because it has the ability to lower its
| footprint). Known derivatives include Chromium OS and
| CoreOS/Flatcar Linux. Both of them do not use the source
| model.
|
| Fedora is also very friendly with derivatives and features
| the ability to upgrade painlessly through atomic
| upgrades/rollbacks, thanks to rpm-ostree. Something that is
| shared with Nix. RedHat is mostly a sponsor and Fedora is
| community-maintained. Unlike CentOS, RedHat didn't get any
| bad press on how it tries to influence Fedora. Fedora is
| pretty consistent and quite polished on the desktop side.
| You also get a distribution who has access to the most
| influential upstream distributors (including for the
| graphical stack for example).
|
| Debian/Arch do not offer such things. Arch does not even
| offer a stable base to start from. Taking a random snapshot
| of a rolling distribution needs a lot of work. Ubuntu does
| that with Debian. All Arch derivatives are desktop
| distributions. It would be interesting to know why Steam
| did not continue with Debian. Is it bad experience on the
| previous SteamOS or inability for Debian to move forward?
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| Yeah I love NixOS, but for something like this it'd
| probably be a mistake.
| petepete wrote:
| They'll surely host their own repository rather than use
| Arch's directly. There's no reason to question stability when
| they're in control of both ends, and Arch is light with
| excellent tooling.
|
| It's a good fit.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I find that odd too, but in my recent experience, Manjaro has
| been the best Linux experience I've had since Ubuntu 14.04.
| Just install and everything works. Although Gnome was a bit
| of a hassle, xfce and Cinnamon run beautifully.
| [deleted]
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| It's based on Arch? That really is exciting. I never expected
| something like this.
| cma wrote:
| Capacitive joysticks is really nice, it improves gyro aiming
| adjustments by letting the gyro only activate when a finger is on
| the joystick.
| rdtwo wrote:
| I don't know if this has changed but the problem with This is the
| same as the stream controller. Pc game interfaces aren't designed
| for controllers and aren't intuitive. This can be seen if you
| just compare Minecraft Xbox vs Java and the lack of some little
| menu optimization really makes Java a pain to run on controller
| only.
| jsnell wrote:
| https://www.steamdeck.com/en/ might be a better link? Has pricing
| information, for one.
|
| The rumors were discussed a couple of months ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27288653
| dang wrote:
| (We've merged from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27846843 now, which points
| to that link)
| sprafa wrote:
| if the microSD card slot works ok, I think the price is exactly
| right. Doesn't the switch run games from SD cards?
| olovets wrote:
| dfsf
| [deleted]
| paxys wrote:
| Tech specs - https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech
|
| 800p resolution is a bit disappointing, but I guess that's the
| only way to get a good frame rate without a massive power-hungry
| GPU.
| Shadonototro wrote:
| 7", bigger resolution would be useless, and a waste of
| ressources tbh, it's a portable console, i'd rather have better
| FPS and better battery life than higher resolution with lower
| FPS
| paxys wrote:
| It's about the same size as a large smartphone. Having a
| screen with half the ppi of an iPhone would definitely be
| noticeable.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| Looks more like the size of an 11" tablet to me, but with a
| smaller screen. The physical interface uses most of that
| real estate - which is good, because otherwise a tablet
| would be a superior device.
| Majestic121 wrote:
| You can plug it to a bigger screen, so a bigger resolution
| could be useful
| Shadonototro wrote:
| but you'll have to make a bigger "portable" console as a
| result, and it would cost way more than $399
|
| it's a trade off
|
| the main selling point here is it's portable, let's not
| forget that
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| Maybe the 800p thing only refers to the console's display,
| as it's in the "Display" section, and it could output more
| resolution when plugged to an external display?
|
| If it can't do at least 1080p on a bigger screen, it would
| be a deal breaker for me, to be honest. I'm considering
| reserving one but it would see plenty of big screen use.
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| It does have a bigger resolution when connected to an
| external display, 800p is only for the internal one. Tech
| specs say "up to 8K @60Hz or 4K @120Hz" for USB-C display.
| ortusdux wrote:
| If I were them, I would launch a 2nd version of the dock around
| Dec-2022 that has an integrated GPU. Use a GPU than can push 2k
| content and call it the Steam Dock 2K. 4K version in 2023.
| robotnikman wrote:
| If the USB C port supports USB 4 or Thunderbolt, that would
| definitely be doable
| MikusR wrote:
| It has neither.
| hackathonguy wrote:
| I'm so excited about this - I've been looking for a cheap device
| that won't take up much space and allow me to play AAA PC games
| despite having a Macbook as a primary machine. Can't wait to get
| my hands on this.
| bob1029 wrote:
| This is neat, but I really would like to see Valve putting a tiny
| fraction of what must be a monstrous private cash pile into some
| new content that can run on these devices (and my old-school
| desktop).
|
| I feel like I am in the middle of a desert of gaming content
| right now... I can see the mirage of BF2042 and AOE4 on the
| horizon, but who knows how that is going to play out once we get
| there.
|
| Maybe Netflix (with the recent EA exec acquihire) can pick up
| some of the AAA gaming slack with their even more gigantic pool
| of cash and inclination to greenlight and fund everything that
| even remotely sounds interesting.
|
| I'm totally cool with a role reversal if Valve execs feel the
| need to master all manner of hardware. Someone else will
| eventually fill that software role.
| Animats wrote:
| What, no 5G? Just WiFi? That seems surprising.
| smbv wrote:
| I was more disappointed that it didn't support 802.11ax.
| dang wrote:
| To read all the comments, click 'More' at the bottom of each
| page, or like this:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27846969&p=2
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27846969&p=3, etc.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| Curious what the battery life will be.
|
| Bummer the charging port is on top. That's inconvenient if you're
| playing and charging at the same time.
|
| Still, an exciting device!
| ericcholis wrote:
| 40Whr battery. 2 - 8 hours
| dcdc123 wrote:
| I game on a Switch a lot and wish the charging port was up top.
| On the bottom _sounds_ good, but the cable ends up being in the
| way all the time. Up top really is better.
| christkv wrote:
| Take my money
| COMMENT___ wrote:
| I have a Steam Controller. It performed well in several games.
| However, my experience with it and most games was very bad. Most
| games did not really support it and community keybinding presets
| were either non-existent or unplayable. I had to learn how to use
| a controller as if I did not use any in my life. I had to spend a
| lot of time to get everything up and running and learn the
| controls. Most of the time I switched back to wireless keyboard
| and mouse or xbox controller.
|
| I hope that controls on this device will be decent and the games
| are playable.
| css wrote:
| From the FAQ [0]:
|
| - What OS is Steam Deck running?
|
| SteamOS 3.0, a new version of SteamOS based on Arch Linux.
|
| - Will people be able to install Windows, or other 3rd party
| content?
|
| Yes. Steam Deck is a PC, and players will be able to install
| whatever they like, including other OSes.
|
| [0]: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/faq
| modeless wrote:
| That is a great link. Perhaps even more interesting is this:
| Valve is working with anti-cheat vendors for Linux (Proton)
| support. So one of the biggest remaining obstacles to Linux
| gaming may soon be addressed as a side effect of this.
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| I hope they put some effort into anticheat on Linux for their
| own games. Team Fortress 2 has been barely playable for the
| past year because of cheaters running bots using widely
| available software which Valve seemingly can't detect on
| Linux.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Non-gamer here: what's the point of these bots? Is there
| money as stake? Or just a leader chart? But if you get your
| bot to #1, but you're not able to do anything with it and
| it's a bot, what's the incentive?
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| Most of the TF2 bots seem to be about trolling. They just
| kill players, spam chat and voice, and some have racist
| names (because Valve don't check for Unicode characters
| in player names)
| TchoBeer wrote:
| Some men just want to watch the world burn
| andrewf wrote:
| Same reasons you'll see some kids (and some grown-ups)
| cheat at Monopoly or any other game.
| KillahBhyte wrote:
| Depends a lot on the game. If there is nothing to be
| 'earned' by being competitively better then it is nothing
| more than street cred. Think simple games or older games.
| CS 1.6 before rewards, knifes, and skins. A small few
| players might make some comp scene to get to some
| incentive but most are ultimately found out.
|
| The bigger issue, and I believe the primary reason for
| the rise in popularity of these bots, is when your
| performance does 'earn' you something. As the OP was
| speaking of TF2, this comes in the form of hats and
| custom weapons. Today's counterstrike game has weapon
| skins and knifes that go for pretty extreme real world
| dollars.
|
| Almost every modern shooter has some sort of rank up
| system tied to rewards. Some of the worst examples would
| be PUBG's real world money trading of loot box items or
| Diablo 3's real world money auction house.
|
| In my mind, these kind of systems turn video games meant
| for enjoyment into some weird NFT mining system where
| normal players are manually mining them with pen and
| paper while the bots have built ASIC devices.
|
| In cases where the items themselves cannot be sold, you
| have people selling the whole accounts. There are entire
| middlemen businesses set up around this stuff. It's crazy
| but there is your primary driver for incentive.
| alliao wrote:
| China and it's 50k USD cap per capita restriction
| (probably lower and harder still now) practically become
| in infinite demand side pressure for these too.
|
| They can buy players /cheat to farm, then sell the
| virtual goods over to those with USD; with healthy
| discount as profit for the other end. Thereby transfering
| their asset out of China.
| neaden wrote:
| For some people, causing frustration and annoyance in
| others is all the incentive they need. But in this case
| also, possibly hats.
| CreepGin wrote:
| With YOLOv4-based aimbots on the rise, it's really a losing
| battle even for the most anticheat infused games.
| episteme wrote:
| Not sure what the connection is between YOLOv4 and
| difficulty of detection? Isn't YOLOv4 about object
| detection? No matter how good your object detection is,
| you need to read the game and influence the input which
| is the part an anticheat is trying to detect, no?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| There is no way to defeat an aimbot that just reads the
| screen, detects enemies, and moves a mouse.
| kibwen wrote:
| That's kind of beside the point. Classic aimbots work by
| reading the game's memory, which means that you can aim
| at things that are on the other side of walls, or behind
| you, or obscured by smoke or darkness, or so far away
| that they don't even render. "Only" being able to aim at
| things that are actually visible is a significant step
| down from what we have today, which is the tradeoff for
| being almost impossible to detect.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Actually, no, that's incorrect.
|
| You're thinking of wallhacks or wallhacks+aimbot
|
| Aimbots only aim at things you can see, it's one of their
| main features. That way you won't snap into someone's
| head through a wall which would make everyone know you're
| hacking and get you banned.
| kibwen wrote:
| I'm no expert here but surely aimhacking originally
| implied wallhacking? The alternative requires doing
| actual image analysis in realtime, which AFAIK has only
| become feasible in the last decade and is way more
| processor-intensive than just reading coordinates in
| memory and doing some trig to adjust your aim height.
| Maybe this is selection bias talking, but I see plenty of
| videos of cheaters who are obviously just snapping to
| heads through walls.
| f1refly wrote:
| Since you can check in memory where the enemies head is,
| you can obviously also check if theres a wall inbetween.
| Cheats for video games have had humanizing/cloaking
| forever.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| You don't actually need image analysis. There are tricks
| you can use to decide if an enemy is visible or not
| without it - obviously the game itself does it already to
| decide if it should draw the enemies to begin with :)
|
| Also yes these were invented a long time ago because
| people got caught snapping through the wall when CS
| servers started recording demos.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| Modern FPSes like CS:GO don't even send you data your
| client can't see/hear, so wall hacks are effectively
| near-impossible.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| While that's true, being able to see any enemy that you
| could theoretically hear at all is huge.
| brigade wrote:
| Only if it's running on a separate computer and you're
| passing your own mouse movements through that computer. I
| think it's still typical for the ML aimbots to run on the
| same computer?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| There was a recent demo of one that didn't. With modern
| hardware you can run Yolo on an RPi 4 with an 8$ capture
| card and a Teensy as USB HID for like 50$, you could
| definitely charge 200$ for it as a cheating appliance.
|
| BRB I'm gonna ask for VC funding (just joking)
| majormajor wrote:
| There are probably plenty of ways to tell "fake
| controller input from a bot" from "actual human
| controller input" today.
|
| Sounds like a scary arms-race, though. At some point the
| bots will probably be very hard to distinguish from
| "skilled human."
|
| It will be sad if online play becomes only enjoyable with
| people you already know. I'm surprised how gleeful some
| people seem to be about this sort of "soon cheating will
| be undectable!" tech advancement.
|
| Or you just go all-in on the surveillance path and there
| are models that look at your performance in the game over
| time, your performance in other games over time, etc.
| Mediocre player suddenly amazing? Probably a cheater!
| etc... Not great sounding privacy-wise, but Steam
| probably has access to the data to do this.
| nullsmack wrote:
| There's a form of cheating I've heard about a while back
| called softaim. Basically the cheating software doesn't
| aim for you, but it can tell if you're aiming at the
| person and pull the trigger for you.
|
| The YOLO stuff combined with softaim is going to be
| pretty hard to detect. The game can't tell if your video
| is going into the cheating device. Even if it can tell if
| there's a secondary input coming in for the trigger...
| people could just mod their mouse to take external input
| for the button. Someone pathetic enough to cheat
| absolutely would do this.
|
| I honestly don't know how multiplayer will even work in a
| year's time or maybe even less!
| cle wrote:
| > I honestly don't know how multiplayer will even work in
| a year's time or maybe even less!
|
| It's easy, IMO: remove the incentives for cheating. If
| this is the only way forward, I might be more likely to
| actually participate in the industry, because it'll put
| the focus back on intrinsically-fun games, instead of
| treating games as merely a vehicle for chasing
| status/rankings/items/etc.
| the8472 wrote:
| > Sounds like a scary arms-race
|
| Or a GAN
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Also, there is enough variance amongst human that
| eventually the generator network can actually slip under
| the noise floor and become 100% undetectable.
| greenknight wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObhK8lUfIlc
|
| They are using deep learning to detect hackers, since
| 2018
| mikenew wrote:
| > There are probably plenty of ways to tell "fake
| controller input from a bot" from "actual human
| controller input" today.
|
| Only in the "do these movement patterns appear human-like
| or not" sense. These aim bots can use assistive devices
| to input mouse movements and there's no way to tell
| whether or not there's a human hand moving the mouse.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| There might be for now. You just have to train a second
| model that actually moves the cursor towards the target
| on normal player behaviour, eventually it becomes
| essentially perfect, and what then?
|
| As far as performance improvements, oh it's going to make
| the cheat programmers even more money as they implement a
| skill ramp up period and get to charge more.
|
| The only way in which I'm "gleeful" is that it might
| finally put an end to the spyware when we realize that
| controlling someone else's computer is a losing
| proposition. Otherwise yeah it does suck.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| How about: every time you snipe someone from an
| implausible distance, you have to identify some
| crosswalks and traffic lights before the score is
| counted.
| CodesInChaos wrote:
| I expect the anti-cheats to require an unmodified SteamOS.
|
| Though the FAQ says the following, so it might not be quite
| as bad as I feared:
|
| > We recommend using user-space anti-cheat components for
| best results, as they can typically run in the Wine
| environment and provide the same level of functionality.
| Kernel-space solutions are not currently supported and are
| not recommended.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| God I hope not. I don't want invasive proprietary kernel
| modules screwing up my system.
| ziml77 wrote:
| I really hope this happens for all current anti-cheat
| software. With Windows 11 coming, I was looking into the
| state of gaming on Linux and anti-cheat seems to be one of
| the main blockers right now.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| It's really discouraging honestly. Wine/Proton finally gets
| to the point that nearly everything works and now all of
| the anticheat systems move to injecting kernel mode
| drivers.
| entropy1111 wrote:
| Here are a few good videos about the subject and Linux
| gaming. I don't know anything in article format or I would
| have linked that instead.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8apCPN56PU
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B35XhcmBDDI
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/Collabora/videos
| exit wrote:
| do you think anti-cheating is ultimately solvable? it seems
| likely to me that eventually bots just take in a video
| stream, running on an otherwise separate device. what happens
| to gaming then?
| mikenew wrote:
| Not eventually:
| https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/07/cheat-maker-brags-
| of-...
| darkwater wrote:
| I'm totally out of the game scene nowadays and I don't
| understand how anticheat software should be installed
| locally. How does it work? I thought it was done on the
| server level.
| tonmoy wrote:
| It would be impossible to catch all cheaters just from
| server side. Game clients for example need to have the
| location of other players but as the gamer it would be
| cheating to know this information. Moreover you can have
| assist clients installed which can do something as simple
| as image processing on what's on screen and highlight the
| visible enemies - this would also be considered as a cheat
| for which you don't even need to change the game client
| code
| yellowapple wrote:
| You absolutely could design a multiplayer game such that
| the client only has access to what the player should be
| able to see. Whether such a game would actually be
| _performant_ is obviously a different question, but as
| Internet bandwidth continues to improve on average I
| wouldn 't be surprised if the server ends up becoming
| much more involved - both for anticheat reasons and to
| reduce the client-side workload.
| [deleted]
| Mawr wrote:
| https://technology.riotgames.com/news/demolishing-
| wallhacks-...
| kaoD wrote:
| It's not a problem of bandwidth, it's a problem of
| latency. What a client sees at any point in time is
| actually a client-side prediction.
|
| If this wasn't the case, and the server wouldn't send
| player positions until they were actually visible,
| players would pop out of thin air when turning corners or
| crossing doorways.
|
| This leads to a different kind of disadvantage called
| "peeker's advantage", where the peeking player shows up
| later at the peeked player's screen... but this is
| generally accepted as a tradeoff. Players like their
| object persistence apparently :)
|
| Latency isn't getting any better soon, and there will
| always be an impassable limit on link latency due to
| distance.
| penagwin wrote:
| You _must_ have server-side anticheat if you have any at
| all because client side can (eventually) be bypassed -
| however client side anticheat is better at catching subtle
| but low effort/obvious cheats.
|
| Also some types of cheats such as wall hacks can only be
| detected client side.
| whatshisface wrote:
| On Windows, anticheat runs as root and scans processes like
| an antivirus would. As is par for the course with
| DRM/License management/anticheat systems it is more about
| making a token effort to increase the difficulty of the
| most primitive attacks than it is about actually stopping
| anything.
| SpaceNugget wrote:
| It's gone way past that. Some anticheat software runs in
| the kernel now. They are doing crazy things like looking
| for PCIe devices trying to DMA game memory.
|
| https://github.com/ufrisk/pcileech/blob/master/readme.md#
| har...
| opheliate wrote:
| I find it really difficult to see the value proposition
| for anti-cheat companies in spending time developing that
| functionality. Is it really worth spending dev hours on
| catching what I imagine is a tiny population of people,
| who you already know are prepared to use hardware
| modifications to circumvent anticheat? Or is it just a
| good marketing point?
| rasz wrote:
| Apparently its cheaper than cost of infrastructure that
| would allow properly implementing server side checks,
| like validating if the player supplied entity data is
| within possible parameter limits aka why the fuck is this
| dude flying all over the map and server letting him do
| that?!?!?!
| yccs27 wrote:
| A competitive game without the typical flood of cheaters
| sells much better, because hacks and bots can really
| destroy your experience as a player.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| I'm not a heavy gamer so don't have great insight, but it
| seems like you might be undervaluing the problem.
|
| > I find it really difficult to see the value proposition
| for anti-cheat companies in spending time developing that
| functionality.
|
| Let's say 1% of the population cheats. Maybe that's high
| (or low, but I could easily see 1% of the real world
| population having less than stellar morals w.r.t.
| cheating). So you play an online game with 20 people in
| it. That means on average one out of every 5 games there
| is a cheater in it.
|
| That ruins the experience for you (and everyone in it).
| Not to mention now because there are so many legit
| cheaters, people start mistaking really talented players
| of cheating. Accusing them, starting back and forth
| arguments online which worsens the experience even if
| they're not cheating. This adds to the frequency of
| assumed cheating. Then one of those 20 people decides the
| way they'll fix it is they'll download a cheat a next
| time someone on the other team cheats then they'll start
| cheating too. And so they do, but sometimes they do it
| when someone is actually just good an not cheating and so
| they worsen the game.
|
| Overall if you're a company, trying to run an online game
| you need a positive environment where people will want to
| return to play. Cheaters very quickly ruin the trust in a
| game, and that leads to real financial impact.
| darkwater wrote:
| Ok but then you cannot log into an online gamr using
| Windows without having an anticheat installed saying that
| your machine is good to go? Is it something like this?
| freeone3000 wrote:
| Yes, that's correct. It launches as part of the game.
| Siira wrote:
| Anti-cheat is not exactly consumer-friendly.
|
| They should design their games such that the client is not
| trusted, and then the only possible cheats would be UI/AI
| assistants to the human players, which is not really
| cheating.
| majormajor wrote:
| An "assistant" that generates input to move your player in
| a sports game, or aims for you in a shooter, is absolutely
| cheating.
|
| You can't make the client untrusted to the point of "I
| don't trust that the human really pushed the button" or you
| don't have a useful multiplayer mode anymore. Cheaters are
| truly ruining everything, here.
| mulmen wrote:
| You are right of course.
|
| Like so many seemingly intractable moderation problems
| maybe this is why we shouldn't scale to infinity. YouTube
| is literally too big to moderate. Maybe this is a feature
| of humanity. What's wrong with more, smaller communities
| that have a dang to keep everyone in line? Other than the
| unfortunate lack of dangs in the world.
|
| Back in _my day_ CS servers were mostly privately run. If
| you were caught cheating you got banned. If you
| _appeared_ to be cheating (you were too good) you also
| got banned. From the perspective of the players on the
| server those are the same thing. Communities formed on
| servers with similar skill levels and recognized players.
| Cheating in that kind of environment becomes extremely
| risky from a social perspective. You could piss off your
| _actual_ friends.
|
| There wasn't a need for rank-based matchmaking or anti-
| cheat or anything like that, you just eventually found a
| place you fit in and could have fun. Valve tried to
| replace that with algorithms but maybe they should "crowd
| source" so to speak, like we did 20 years ago.
|
| This is all a lot of words to say that there is a "right
| size" for a community to form and enable everyone to have
| a good time. When you get to the point that "technology
| can't help us" I think that's an indicator that your
| community is too big.
| [deleted]
| caymanjim wrote:
| It'd be great if clients could be completely untrusted, but
| the reality is that it's impractical--if not impossible--to
| have the server dictate what's visible. Games rely on
| client-side rendering to determine if you can see
| something. In milliseconds-matter FPS games, there's no way
| that the server can calculate whether you can see someone
| poke their head around the corner or whether you're using
| wall hack to see them in advance. Human reaction time is
| way too fast, and even great networking is too slow for
| that to be effective, even if there were enough computing
| power server-side to run all the numbers. I can't even
| think of a way that things like aimbots could be prevented
| server-side; it's hard enough just to detect them.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > but the reality is that it's impractical--if not
| impossible--to have the server dictate what's visible.
|
| Gamestreaming (Stadia etc) shows that this absolutely is
| possible. It might not be feasible due to players on bad
| connections and hardware cost (in fact, the reason that
| games do so few checks serverside is hardware cost), but
| it's not something impossible anymore.
|
| > I can't even think of a way that things like aimbots
| could be prevented server-side; it's hard enough just to
| detect them.
|
| Pattern detection can, things like following enemy
| movements through walls or extreme precision. I agree
| that it's easier to check for running software on the
| client, but this is error prone as well and can also be
| defeated by a sophisticated enough hacker.
| caymanjim wrote:
| > Gamestreaming (Stadia etc) shows that this absolutely
| is possible. It might not be feasible due to players on
| bad connections and hardware cost (in fact, the reason
| that games do so few checks serverside is hardware cost),
| but it's not something impossible anymore.
|
| That's a fair point, and maybe we're closer than I think,
| but I don't think that fully-streamed games demonstrate
| that we're there yet. At the risk of sounding too
| elitist, those games aren't "hardcore". The things that
| streamed game players expect and will put up with are a
| far cry from the things that hardcore gamers expect.
|
| A serious Counter-Strike player wants things to operate
| as close to the limits of human reaction time as
| possible. People can typically react (as in press a
| button) in response to visual stimuli in something like
| 150ms, and to audio stimuli in something like 50ms (I
| don't have good links for these, so don't hold me to the
| numbers; there are studies out there).
|
| While this may seem like it's slow enough that processing
| and network delays don't matter too much, when you add
| those in, you're well into the territory of perceptable
| delays. Advanced/pro gamers (especially younger ones) are
| even faster. I don't know that it's possible for fully
| server-side systems to compensate for this. Anecdotally,
| I can't tell the difference between 20ms and 70ms latency
| while gaming (at least not now that I'm old), but I can
| tell the difference between 20ms and 120ms. If everything
| had to happen server side, I think it'd be noticeable.
| episteme wrote:
| How would you apply those rules to say, chess? Games should
| be computers against computers or they are badly designed?
| That's quite a lot the biggest games of all time that you
| consider badly designed.
| alanwreath wrote:
| `Steam Deck is a PC, and players will be able to install
| whatever they like, including other OSes.`
|
| this is probably this most exciting thing about this release.
| How many days until this thing is running k3s and/or serving up
| a prometheus dashboard on the same device that is touch
| capable?
| jcastro wrote:
| Finally, someone thinking outside the box! :D
| yellowapple wrote:
| Or, more accurately, thinking inside of many tiny boxen.
| rasz wrote:
| The only exciting thing is the form factor. Spec wise its an
| underperforming laptop with integrated graphics delivering
| below 8 year old GTX 760 level of "performance".
|
| 1280 x 800 at up to 30 fps.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| The Nintendo switch has the same screen resolution and way
| worse specs and sold like crazy.
| risyachka wrote:
| Its because when it comes to gaming consoles hardware
| doesn't matter. Only games do. Nintendo has proven this
| over and over. You can add rtx it still won't sell unless
| there are some great titles that run like native (usually
| this means custom ports because ui and other elements in
| 99% of games are not created with small screens in mind
| and usually are not usable at all)
| Aeolun wrote:
| Also half again as cheap.
| minimaxir wrote:
| Valve engineers explicitly frame the Steam Deck as a PC with an
| integrated controller rather than a game console:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLtiRGTZvGM
| shmerl wrote:
| Console is supposed to mean simply a type of interface and
| form factor. The fact that incumbent consoles are all crazily
| locked-in and DRMed (that it requires to explain that this is
| in fact a PC and you as a user can control it) has nothing to
| do with them being consoles per se. So let's call it a
| console, but without all the garbage.
| css wrote:
| Yeah, this is an awesome change of pace for an industry that
| notoriously locks down its hardware.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| While I am happy to hear this, this is par for the course
| for Valve.
|
| The Steam Machines were also equally open, and the
| (otherwise streaming-focused) Steam Link supported
| sideloading.
| j1elo wrote:
| I still use my Steam Link, and still love how smooth and
| easy it is to bring the game picture to my living room's
| TV. (wow that sounded like a commercial)
|
| btw to this day it still receives updates!
|
| But, what were people sideloading on it? any alternative
| usage that might be interesting to explore?
| novok wrote:
| Steam is the platform for games on non locked computers
| moron4hire wrote:
| Yeah, they're more focused on screwing the content
| creators rather than the consumers.
| spiraling_shape wrote:
| Steam is the only place I ever actually pay for software.
| They earned my trust where so many others have lost it.
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| In what way, if I may ask? I am not aware of any
| controversy surrounding the steam store with that regard.
|
| Now that the store had that facelift the only issue I am
| aware of is the honestly pretty lacklustre curation...
| Which is an extremely hard issue so pretty forgiveable
| wazanator wrote:
| They take a bigger cut then most other digital store
| fronts and they have a history of using the loyalty of
| fans to do unpaid work such as translations and perform
| the majority of moderation on Steam.
| antonzabirko wrote:
| Haha, agree but most places do it anyways, steam screws
| content creators about equally.
| [deleted]
| metalliqaz wrote:
| This allows them to proceed without having to obtain new
| platform rights from every single publisher on Steam.
| YouCanDoBetter wrote:
| It is still a PC though. You can plug it into a monitor,
| attach a mouse and keyboard, and write a book with it.
| flatiron wrote:
| they really missed out on saying (btw it runs Arch) or somin to
| play to that meme
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| At this point, i can't tell if I'm an arch user because of
| that meme, or if that meme is true because I'm an arch
| user...either way as an Arch user, I must make you aware of
| this fact whenever linux operating systems are brought up (I
| think it's even in the EULA). This has been a PSA.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Thanks! This was the #1 thing I was looking for and didn't see
| while scrolling through all their marketing material.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| This is absolutely awesome!
| ghostly_s wrote:
| Isnt using Windows on this thing going to be an awful
| experience, though?
| deadbunny wrote:
| That's the beauty of a device that respects the fact that it
| is indeed your hardware. It'll allow you to shoot yourself in
| the foot however you like.
| jchw wrote:
| I'm super excited to see that they've chosen Arch as a base for
| SteamOS. I understand fully why they originally chose Ubuntu,
| but I feel like Arch actually hits a lot of sweet spots for
| consumer use cases and could be adapted for such use quite
| effectively. (To be fair, I feel similarly about Gentoo, which
| was similarly adapted for ChromeOS quite successfully.)
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| I'm required as an Arch user to also reply and say I'm an
| arch user, and approve this message.
| luke2m wrote:
| roses are red, violets are blue sudo pacman -Syu there is
| nothing to do
| peakaboo wrote:
| I use Arch btw
| furgooswft13 wrote:
| hello fellow Arch user. I too approve of this message and
| sudo pacman -Syu without fear.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Me too... don't forget the Btrfs snapshots.
| lscotte wrote:
| ZFS here.
| vlowther wrote:
| Same, except just yay.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| I love a good distro story but it doesn't seem very relevant
| here.
|
| A Linux distribution like Ubuntu, Arch or Gentoo provides a
| platform for users to configure their system. The distro is a
| toolkit for finishing up a generic OS into the specific
| workstation needed by the user to do their work.
|
| Steam Deck on the other hand has one job to do: launch
| /opt/steam and run things linked against libsteam. The end
| user won't be doing anything with the OS itself.
|
| Accordingly, the underlying distro just doesn't seem that
| interesting. What about the distro could possibly be surfaced
| to the end user/gamer that they would care about?
|
| It's not like Steam will apt dist-upgrade their device:
| upgrades will be a complete reimage.
| dvogel wrote:
| Game developers end up using the distro tooling when they
| port the game to SteamOS. One of the tensions with Ubuntu
| was that developers felt familiar with it (good) but the
| system libraries lagged what was needed by new games (bad)
| so developers would need to run their game in a SteamOS
| Ubuntu-esque chroot instead of their Ubuntu host system
| despite them being very similar. Arch does provide the
| promise of easier native porting because testing the game
| during active development (on an Arch host system) will be
| closer to the SteamOS Arch-esque system. It's small but
| meaningful for those who try to support SteamOS to the
| maximum extent, which is important when you're trying to
| seed a new ecosystem.
| Defenestresque wrote:
| >The end user won't be doing anything with the OS itself.
|
| What makes you think so? The desktop environment will be
| powered by KDE Plasma.
|
| >Accordingly, the underlying distro just doesn't seem that
| interesting.
|
| Valve is pretty clear that in addition to having a gaming
| mode they want the device to be a full-fledged (linux-
| based) PC.. hopefully with everything that entails.
|
| >What about the distro could possibly be surfaced to the
| end user/gamer that they would care about?
|
| Maybe nothing in "gaming mode," but in "desktop mode", it's
| Arch running KDE Plasma. It's essentially a Linux-based PC
| with a gaming option. (Or vice-versa, depending on your
| primary use case and point-of-view.)
|
| Given the fact that the desktop mode exists and is leaned
| on as an important feature, I'd assume a lot of underlying
| functionality will be exposed.
|
| >It's not like Steam will apt dist-upgrade their device:
| upgrades will be a complete reimage.
|
| I too am interested to see how they will handle this, but
| based on their website copy I would not be surprised if you
| could at least apt-get upgrade the desktop portion, with
| the gaming mode running either on top or separate from it.
| Igelau wrote:
| It sounds like a practical choice. "What's a malleable sort
| of distro we can start with that will be easy to shape into
| the OS we need?" Apparently the answer turned out to be
| Arch.
|
| So yeah, not exactly an exciting story, more like a
| practical solution.
| whoisburbansky wrote:
| Why do you think the end user won't be doing anything with
| the underlying OS? It seems to me that the sort of customer
| that would go for something like this over another console
| is precisely the sort of customer who would love using the
| underlying OS and this device as a more general purpose
| compute device.
| madpata wrote:
| Using Arch probably allows for faster updates, since Steam
| won't have to wait for ages to use some of the newest Linux
| kernels. Same goes for other supporting software.
|
| Ubuntu is good as a stable platform, but it's probably too
| slow moving.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| For an appliance where they control the system, they
| could just ship a stable Debian/Ubuntu/whatever LTS
| release with just the kernel replaced. (Hetzner does
| this, actually; their rescue system is a netbooted Debian
| system with a bleeding-edge kernel.) The kernel has a
| stable userspace ABI, so you can generally take the
| latest release, build with the same config, and drop it
| in and have it work.
| riffraff wrote:
| But why would you want the latest upgrade rather then a
| stable platform to build a console?
|
| If you upgrade often and you break stuff people will
| scream at you, so you need extensive testing of 3rd party
| games before you release an update of your os, which will
| naturally limit you anyway.
| aseipp wrote:
| Because the turn-around time from upstream-to-packager is
| smaller, which in turn helps get problems fixed faster.
| That in turn means devs have more space to fix issues. It
| is an effective velocity improvement for them and they
| think it will work for their targeted market.
|
| First, it's worth keeping in mind that this Steam Deck is
| for all purposes and intents a fixed-spec system. Valve
| will control all of the most major components that make
| various end-user support problems appear (fixed CPU, GPU,
| RAM, motherboard, controllers, storage, etc.)
|
| Now, with that in mind, if you use a system that has a
| release cadence like Ubuntu, if you want to fix issues,
| you must report them upstream and backport them into your
| current system. This is workable, but it is implicitly
| predicated on the assumption that the backport is the
| only way to deliver the fix to users in a reasonable
| timeframe. Otherwise you would have to wait 6 months for
| Ubuntu to release anything.
|
| If you use a rolling system like Arch that is much closer
| to the very latest versions, the same process above
| occurs. But the window for those changes to appear
| downstream (from reporting the issue to the person
| receiving the fix) is much smaller. If this window
| becomes small enough, say "I report an issue and a patch
| is issued and released in 48 hours", it often means you
| don't have to backport or maintain the backport for long.
| If you're maintaining less backports concurrently, or
| even none at all, that means you have less workload and
| can focus on diagnosing real issues with up to date code.
|
| Finally, and this is the important part: it doesn't
| matter for who they want to buy this. I don't think Valve
| intends this to be seen as a console, but as a portable
| PC, and I don't think PC gamers who use Steam (and thus
| are the target market) are unexperienced with the fact
| games might not work and bugs need to be reported. It's
| part of PC gaming culture at this point to complain about
| bugs in PC games. They actually will probably want one
| anyway because it will make their massive investment in
| their Steam library all the more available. And if you're
| some die-hard guy who likes this thing because it's
| Linux, well, Proton is basically as good as it's ever
| going to get at this rate, and it's objectively made
| Linux gaming massively more available, so, you just gotta
| deal. (Proton's very existence gives developers _less_ of
| a reason to deal with native Linux ports when they can
| just target Windows and let the magical translation layer
| fix it instead. So actually the focus will be going into
| making Proton better instead to fix these issues, and
| that is actually probably the best way forward to ensure
| older games can be available, too.)
|
| There are a thousand confounding variables in this
| equation and I'm sure you can line up to list them or
| whatnot. But the important thing here is that in all
| cases there are social expectations about how the
| maintainers of each upstream project and distro fix
| issues, and on what timescale, and how users respond to
| them. That's why they think this will work.
| supernintendo wrote:
| I've been using Arch as my only OS on desktops and
| laptops for years now. Maybe I'm just lucky but in my
| experience it's been incredibly stable. I've only run
| into one issue with updating packages using pacman and it
| was a Postgres + PostGIS conflict caused by my own
| configuration mistakes (easily fixed). I imagine most
| updates for the Steam Deck will either be from the core
| repositories or through Steam itself though, so the same
| issues you might run into when installing bleeding edge
| packages from the AUR shouldn't apply.
|
| As far as why Arch, I think it's a great "build your
| Linux OS" distribution that gives you a solid foundation
| to expand into the bespoke system of your dreams. On my
| desktop, I have a personalized computing experience using
| Wayland + Sway, PipeWire and only the software I use.
| That same DIY principle makes Arch a compelling option
| for anyone looking to build their own distro; Manjaro is
| one such example and it's the distro I used before making
| the full dive into Arch.
| rubyn00bie wrote:
| Driver support would be my _guess._
|
| With PC games, at least in my humble experience, you
| pretty much always need the latest drivers to run things
| well (especially so on Linux). With AAA games you will
| likely need to download several different driver updates
| within the first month to make it play reasonably well.
|
| My understanding of Arch, is that it's more focused on
| providing systems which are more up-to-date/current than
| strictly "stable." [1] This is a pretty big advantage for
| Valve/Steam/Gamers since its less likely they'll be stuck
| having to back-port a sea of changes to a dying, but
| stable, LTS version. Instead they'll be on a platform
| with a community that prioritizes it. In all honesty,
| it'll probably make for a more reliable/stable gaming
| experience since patches will be easier/quicker to ship.
|
| [1] Just to note, I'm not saying Arch is unstable in case
| someone reads it as that. I honestly was thinking of
| giving it a go this weekend (currently on a Debian based
| system), and this is probably the kick I needed to do it.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| But in this specific case, Valve doesn't _need_ to worry
| about driver support, since they control the hardware?
| Unless they mean it to be a general purpose distro that
| people use on other hardware as well, maybe.
| evol262 wrote:
| Historically, this is AWFUL for gaming on Linux, since
| NVidia is a terrible company which takes forever to get
| their drivers working on/with new features (Wayland,
| kernel modesetting, new kernel versions at all for a long
| time). You seem to be taking a lot of assumptions about
| what gamers want/need on Windows and cross-applying it.
|
| Steam (via Proton, mostly) already does a lot of
| development work, and it doesn't care which distro it's
| on. "Oh no, I updated my kernel and now my graphics
| drivers don't load at all!" is incredibly common, even
| with DKMS. Sometimes (mostly) bugs get fixed in Mesa or
| whatever. Often, new subtle bugs are introduced when a
| new Wayland/Pipewire/whatever feature goes GA. Having as
| few moving pieces as possible (by using an LTS distro, or
| at least something which isn't rolling with upstream and
| has a modicum of QA) lets you optimize the pieces you
| need to without worrying that this or that API is going
| to change underneath you.
|
| Intel and AMD drivers do not have this issue, and Valve
| was smart enough to not go with NVIDIA, but "I want to be
| up to date" is a terrible experience.
|
| Additionally, it generally makes for a much less
| reliable/stable experience (gaming or otherwise) because
| `pacman -Syu` may at any point break something because
| you didn't read the release notes, or "mostly" stable
| features were committed upstream then released so the
| userbase can put them through their paces and report bugs
| the developers didn't encounter.
|
| Users of Arch/Fedora Rawhide/whatever accept this, but
| someone who buys an OEM gaming machine does not need or
| want this.
|
| Just to note, I AM saying that Arch is unstable. I've
| been using Linux for 20 years, and I've had my time with
| Gentoo and Arch. 99% of the tinkering users do is
| reproducing the work of professional developers at distro
| vendors who spend a lot of time and effort making sure
| you never encounter the problems Arch users revel in
| fixing at all. Sure, you can tell yourself that means you
| "know" more about the system. But that is time invested
| that you could have spent doing REAL THINGS, and solving
| REAL PROBLEMS which are not un-breaking your distro.
| darkwater wrote:
| In general I agree with you but this:
|
| > Sure, you can tell yourself that means you "know" more
| about the system. But that is time invested that you
| could have spent doing REAL THINGS, and solving REAL
| PROBLEMS which are not un-breaking your distro.
|
| You can start a sysadmin career with that kind of
| experience.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| You definitely can, that's how I got into sysadmin jobs
| :)
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Can confirm. Basically did just that. :)
|
| Not necessarily on Arch specifically, mind you, but a ton
| of the experience I had that led to me getting my first
| tech job was breaking stuff and then figuring out how I
| broke it. It's a great learning experience.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > Historically, this is AWFUL for gaming on Linux, since
| NVidia is a terrible company which takes forever to get
| their drivers working on/with new features
|
| Historically, sure, but with the leaps and bounds Intel
| and AMD graphics drivers have made (in no small part
| thanks to Valve!), we can leave Nvidia in the dust. With
| said FOSS drivers, "I want to be up to date" is a
| perfectly reasonable desire and does indeed get the best
| results as far as gaming goes.
|
| That said, I agree that Arch wouldn't be my first choice
| for something I'd expect non-technical users to maintain.
| If Valve really wants a rolling release and close-to-
| cutting-edge kernel/driver versions, distros like
| openSUSE Tumbleweed could readily do that (with, at
| worst, an extra repo for bleeding-edge kernels, though
| I've yet to find that necessary on my openSUSE-running
| gaming laptop) without anything even vaguely resembling
| Arch's maintainability nightmare.
| moehm wrote:
| If we are talking about upgrading means a complete
| reimage, Valve probably doesn't push every minor upgrade,
| but bundles them together. Like what Manjaroo is doing.
| asciimov wrote:
| I moved off of a standard release and onto a rolling
| release distro because the software I used the most was
| always a major release (or two) behind.
|
| Since it's based on arch, I assume they will pull the
| latest software from arch, test it, and push out updates
| as they are verified.
| depressedpanda wrote:
| I'm fairly certain SteamOS was based on Debian, not Ubuntu.
| homarp wrote:
| https://store.steampowered.com/steamos/ says
|
| So, what is SteamOS?
|
| SteamOS is a public release of our Linux-based operating
| system. The base system draws from Debian 8, code named
| Debian Jessie. Our work builds on top of the solid Debian
| core and optimizes it for a living room experience. Most of
| all, it is an open Linux platform that leaves you in full
| control. You can take charge of your system and install new
| software or content as you want.
| [deleted]
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| Goddamn, take my money
| l0b0 wrote:
| Arch Linux is amazing. The biggest surprise for me was that
| it's _more_ stable than so-called stable distros, probably
| because the various packages don 't end up drifting several
| months from each other when keeping up to date.
|
| Hopefully this eventually results in more user friendly Arch
| Linux installers. The learning curve is an absolute _wall_ when
| installing, even after several years on Linux, but after that
| it 's pretty standard.
|
| Based on this trajectory I expect they'll be migrating to NixOS
| (or maybe Nix on Arch) in about 5-10 years.
| qznc wrote:
| There are different kinds of stability. For Debian it means
| version numbers stay the same as much as possible. For Arch
| it means software does not crash because bugs get fixed in
| newer versions.
| hugosbaseball wrote:
| > For Arch it means software does not crash because bugs
| get fixed in newer versions.
|
| ....what. That is not how OS stability works.
|
| Also, Arch is nearly impossible to use in production
| environments.
|
| Let's say there is a vulnerability discovered in the
| version of lighttpd you're running in your production
| environment. On Debian, you pull that package, do some
| testing, and you're done.
|
| On Arch? It's a rolling release distro. They're
| continuously updating everything, including system
| libraries. You can easily end up in a situation where
| getting a security bugfix means you have to update nearly
| the entire OS thanks to it being built against updated core
| system libraries.
|
| Like Gentoo it's one of those OSs that is cool for linux
| nerds and a headache for people who actually need to
| practice proper systems engineering.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Actually, you don't have to do a full system upgrade, you
| can update a single package.
|
| People have used Arch in prod. But personally I'll still
| use Debian to be on the safe side despite all of the
| issues that comes with.
| bwood wrote:
| Just because it often works doesn't mean it's a good
| idea. Updating a single package is officially unsupported
| [0] and it's burned me personally on a number of
| occasions.
|
| [0] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System_maintenance#P
| artial_...
| dylan604 wrote:
| >For Debian it means version numbers stay the same as much
| as possible.
|
| I would call that stagnant rather than stable. If a version
| of software remains the same with the same bugs/issues not
| getting resolved, that seems unstable to me. Yes, not
| crashing could also be considered stable as well.
| voxl wrote:
| I highly recommend staying away from Arch and NixOS if you're
| not ready to commit upwards of 30% of your work and free time
| fixing and tweaking your box.
|
| I've tried both, Arch Linux will routinely hose your entire
| install if you don't carefully read the update notes every
| time (even if most of the time there is no call to action for
| you). Unless it has changed, this is still the expectation of
| users.
|
| NixOS promises stability, you just walk back to a previous
| version! Alas, i've had NixOS hose _all_ of my previous
| versions because of X server issues. Not only that, but the
| community of NixOS is hostile to getting shit done, if its
| not the NixOS way please stay away,
| COGlory wrote:
| You spend upwards of 33 hours per week maintaining your
| Arch/NixOS system?
| saghm wrote:
| > I've tried both, Arch Linux will routinely hose your
| entire install if you don't carefully read the update notes
| every time (even if most of the time there is no call to
| action for you). Unless it has changed, this is still the
| expectation of users.
|
| I'm honestly not quite sure what you're talking about. I've
| been using Arch as my daily driver for maybe 5 or 6 years,
| and I don't recall ever having my installation messed up
| from an update. Arch is fair bit along the spectrum of
| being a "build your own system from the ground up" type of
| deal though (although not quite as far along as something
| like Gentoo), so I don't doubt your experience, given how
| much two Arch installations can differ.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| I've had Arch on 3 servers for 5-6 years also and only
| had a couple of incidents where Arch updates messed
| things up.
|
| _But_ one of those was a big compatibility breaking one
| that I hadn 't done the prep for (because I'd missed the
| whole lead up for various reasons and was months late on
| the update anyway) and I still can't really explain the
| other.
|
| Compared to Debian which I managed to break many times in
| the same time frame...
| pizza234 wrote:
| > Compared to Debian which I managed to break many times
| in the same time frame...
|
| How did you exactly break Debian multiple times?
|
| I've read about people doing crazy stuff, like replacing
| the default compiler entirely (rather than setting an
| alternative one) or forcing apt to install incompatible
| packages... and then complaining that the distribution is
| not stable.
|
| Non-rolling distros are very very conservative with
| package upgrades, and they don't "just break", as little
| changes over a given version.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Generally Debian breaks come from a mission critical
| software that isn't really available and requires package
| updates beyond what your version does or from trying to
| force an update. Also twice dpkg just shat the bed for no
| reason, but that was 7 and 8 years ago.
| Latty wrote:
| I've run Arch for years and this in no way resembles my
| experience.
|
| Yes, Arch requires you manage and maintain your system,
| it's not a "just works" thing, but that's a few minutes of
| work here and there, it mostly just chugs along.
|
| As to hosing your install, I've never had even the threat
| of that. Yes, you should check the news before doing
| upgrades to make sure there isn't something that requires
| your attention, but it's not exactly a big deal to check an
| RSS feed before you run an update command.
| __jem wrote:
| I never read the update notes and the only time I've ever
| bricked my Arch system was by pulling the power chord
| during an update. I probably could have recovered from live
| cd, but it didn't seem worth it.
| pxc wrote:
| > NixOS promises stability, you just walk back to a
| previous version! Alas, i've had NixOS hose _all_ of my
| previous versions because of X server issues.
|
| I'd love to hear more detail about this, because `nixos-
| rebuild switch` is not capable of causing such a problem in
| a permanent way.
|
| (It can arise temporarily, though, if you switch to a new
| configuration without rebooting, and that configuration
| requires a different kernel than you are currently running.
| Rebooting and choosing your old configuration at the
| bootloader menu fixes this.)
| swalsh wrote:
| Also an Arch user, I've saved countless hours running it. I
| tried Ubuntu, Fedora, and Suse. Arch has given me the least
| amount of problems.
| christophilus wrote:
| I share your feelings about Arch, but I'm still running
| Fedora mostly out of laziness.
|
| Still, I think Arch is an interesting choice for a console.
| I'd think you'd want stability (in the sense of very
| controlled changes / not requiring updates every day).
| gchamonlive wrote:
| If you are conservative and thorough in your update
| routine, arch can be very stable.
| Jnr wrote:
| My guess is that Valve will keep their own mirrors and
| update from upstream only once their relevant packages will
| be tested for compatibility.
|
| I have been using Archlinux for more than 10 years and from
| time to time some major upgrades can make things broken for
| a couple days until all the packages get updated and all
| the relevant compatibility fixes have been pushed upstream
| by the developers. But in most cases this happens with some
| 3rd party desktop related packages or closed source
| drivers. I bet that Valve won't have that many problems
| with AMD since their drivers are open source.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The problem with Arch is that Arch needs to be tinkered
| with when Arch wants to be tinkered with, not when you want
| to spend an evening messing with your OS configuration.
| "This evening I want to learn about X," becomes "this
| evening I am learning about the linux userspace ecosystem,"
| for every value of X.
| xyproto wrote:
| Not if you have a filesystem with snapshots.
| mr_sturd wrote:
| Manjaro Linux provides a nice, easy installer for Arch. With
| different editions based on your preferred DE.
|
| https://manjaro.org/download/
| unicornporn wrote:
| _> Manjaro Linux provides a nice, easy installer for Arch.
| With different editions based on your preferred DE._
|
| It's more than an installer. Manjaro and Arch don't even
| share repositories.
| __jem wrote:
| I just used the new arch installer script, even though I've
| gotten my install time down to under an hour over time. It
| took maybe 10 minutes. I don't have very complicated or
| unique needs, but it "just worked" on my 4 year old
| Thinkpad.
| flatiron wrote:
| I just installed arch two days ago on my wife's 2013
| MacBook Air. I heard of a script. Googled around. Looked
| in the wiki. Didn't find squat! That being said arch on a
| 2013 MacBook Air is 10 minutes of cli and it runs like a
| champ!
| gchamonlive wrote:
| For pure arch, there are some helpers, like Arcolinux and
| anarchy Linux.
|
| Only recommend using them for subsequent installations. You
| have to get the basics right first, so you can troubleshoot
| anything in the arch forums
| loufe wrote:
| When I built a new PC a couple months ago, my first OS on
| it was Manjaro - coming only from an Ubuntu/debian
| background. Linux has its limits but the experience is
| pretty seamless.
| pxc wrote:
| Nix's existing support for Steam is pretty reliable as it is.
| Using Nix to distribute Steam would be awesome!
|
| I'm not sure how ready Valve would be to require not only
| their own game distribution mechamisms but a whole package
| manager, but Nix + NixGL would be a very reliable and low-
| overhead way to get cross-platform support and to make it
| easy for games that might depend on extra libraries or
| specific versions of them.
| pizza234 wrote:
| > it's more stable than so-called stable distros, probably
| because the various packages don't end up drifting several
| months from each other when keeping up to date
|
| What are you precisely referring to with "packages drift from
| each other"? Stable distros like Ubuntu (and I suppose
| Debian) don't do release updates at all, only
| critical/security fixes only. Only some software has special
| treatment (browsers first of all) and get full updates.
| [deleted]
| JeremyNT wrote:
| This is an amazing bit of kit for the price, and it's just a
| normal PC running Arch Linux!
|
| I hardly ever even play video games these days, but I'm
| absolutely buying one of these just to have a nice little
| portable PC.
| 5Qn8mNbc2FNCiVV wrote:
| Yeah I can imagine this being super nice to have even just
| lying around at home to connect to as a remote development
| environment or better: Plug it into the TV like a switch and
| have a powerful PC that fits behind the TV. At least for me
| it's super convenient since I wanted to play old games on
| emulator anyways (but not on a underspecces raspberry)
| yellowapple wrote:
| > Plug it into the TV like a switch
|
| Speaking of: I wonder if it'll work with a Switch dock?
| Probably would require some physical modification of the
| dock itself, but it'd still be neat if they're
| interchangeable and I can stick either one into any dock.
| linspace wrote:
| I have both Steam on a PC (Windows) and a Nintendo Switch and
| I mostly use the Switch for gaming for the convenience,
| although it sucks to see the price difference on so many
| titles. So, great news!
| moooo99 wrote:
| > although it sucks to see the price difference on so many
| titles
|
| Thats what I always think when considering a new Switch
| game as well. They're so incredibly expensive, Breath of
| the wild is still 50EUR although it was released 4 years
| ago.
|
| Having a handheld device with all my Steam titles playable
| is huge!
| uncoder0 wrote:
| If you want to see something heinous look at Skyrim's
| price. 10 years old... $60...
| dm319 wrote:
| The video looked like it was running KDE.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| From the specs page[0]:
|
| > Desktop: KDE Plasma
|
| [0]: https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech
| gigel82 wrote:
| I try Proton a few times a year and the experience is almost
| always disappointing; I'm not even a hardcore gamer, so mostly
| playing 2-3 year old games which I'd expect good experience with.
|
| However, if they ramp up investment and actually make Proton
| viable for the majority of titles, this is very bad news for
| Microsoft / Windows.
| robotnikman wrote:
| Since they are targeting a single hardware platform with little
| difference in configuration, I feel proton will run much more
| smoothly on the Steam Deck. They will be able to tie the
| software with the hardware more closely for better
| compatibility.
|
| IIRC most problems with proton arise due to various hardware
| issues or incompatibilities.
| azornathogron wrote:
| While we're reporting our experience, I'll say that my
| experience with Proton has been highly mixed. By which I mean I
| have seen several games work pretty much flawlessly, and
| several that were pretty much totally busted, and many in
| between. I think there are also quite a lot of games that
| benefit from customising the Proton setup instead of just using
| the default configuration (there are often guides online for
| particular games, advising what version with what tweaks will
| make things work), but tbh I rarely have the motivation to go
| down that route. I usually check protondb before buying things.
|
| For what it's worth, I no longer have a Windows install. If a
| game doesn't have a Linux version and doesn't work on
| Wine/Proton, I just live without that game.
|
| I will say that I give Valve major kudos for their work on
| Proton even with its limitations. It's one of the primary
| reasons that I continue to use Steam and haven't done much with
| GOG or other sources (despite GOG's admirable stance on DRM)
| ttctciyf wrote:
| > make Proton viable for the majority of titles
|
| Protondb[1], which collects user reports, says:
| 18,811 games reported 15,261 games work
|
| which is about 81% - a bit more than a simple majority.
|
| 1: https://www.protondb.com/
| fartcannon wrote:
| I play old and new games. It's nearly flawless. The only things
| that don't work, don't work because they're locked into special
| DRM.
|
| The achievement here is nothing short of astounding.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Yeah this will be an interesting test. They're eliminating all
| of the variables but one (which game is running). No more
| "works on my machine" protondb reports! It either works on
| Steam Deck or it doesn't. Excited to see what they can do with
| that power.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| The site Crashed my browser (chrome) as soon as I scrolled down.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| All the more reason to buy Steam Deck, I guess.
| yehudalouis wrote:
| Halfway down the page on https://www.steamdeck.com/en/ they have
| a graphic of a user logging in with the username 'gordon' and an
| obscured password, which conveniently has the same number of
| letters as halflife3, haha.
| [deleted]
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Well, wouldn't it be a killer move to announce HL3 on steam,
| with heavy com on the mobile gameplay?
| yehudalouis wrote:
| Maybe. I, uh, would be a little nonplussed if HL3 was
| announced a mobile game. I'd even go so far as to say that
| I'd be miffed.
| qwertox wrote:
| Nice hardware specs[1]. It's really delightful to see such
| relatively powerful hardware in that form factor, because if
| stuff like this catches on, it will only push the market of those
| small form factor PCs which make really good home servers. Like
| the industrial SBCs that can be found on http://linuxgizmos.com/
|
| If I were into gaming, I'd definitely consider getting one of
| these.
|
| [1] https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech
| toddmorey wrote:
| I know from first-hand experience as a dad of a gamer that AAA PC
| games aren't optimized for space in any way and 64GB of storage
| is nowhere near enough. I know they are trying to hit a price
| point, but for all practical purposes, this thing starts at $529
| (where you get what I'd consider the minimum of 256GB).
| [deleted]
| ineedasername wrote:
| Did anyone find anywhere what the compatibility of all/most games
| would be with SteamOS? I know Proton has come a long way but
| doesn't have complete coverage of the Steam library: is SteamOS
| improving on that?
| ulysses wrote:
| Looks nice, but...
|
| It doesn't appear to be set up to work without logging in to
| Steam first. That really reduces the portability.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Seems great as a niche enthusiast device. Based on my past
| experience with Steam Link though I'm not sure how well it'll do
| as a mainstream gaming console.
|
| Too much of Steam's game library just wasn't designed to be used
| without a keyboard/mouse, and touchpads + mappable controller
| buttons aren't a great substitute, particularly when the game
| you're playing still thinks you're using a keyboard.
|
| There's a certain level of polish expected from console gaming.
| People expect to be able to launch a game and have it just work;
| they don't want to be futzing with controller mappings and
| adjusting graphics settings for 15 minutes before they can start
| playing.
|
| To be clear, I think these are surmountable problems. From what
| I've read though I'm not sure if Valve has done anything to
| address them. There's a lot of talk on the website about having
| access to "your entire Steam library", and a mention of how the
| touchpad lets you play games designed with a mouse in mind. But
| again, based on my experience with Steam Link, it's not really
| that simple.
| post_break wrote:
| This looks great. A Nintendo switch with more than a handful of
| AAA titles and shovel ware and power. I'll be buying I think
| since the Nintendo DS is dead, switch isn't for me, Sony gave up.
| This looks like a winner.
| jalgos_eminator wrote:
| Everyone is talking about gaming, but do you guys think this
| could be a laptop replacement? I've been intrigued by docking
| tablets for years now, but haven't found one I like yet (that can
| run linux well, so no Surface). I like the tablet form factor for
| web browsing and watching videos, but nearly all the tablets are
| too phone-like to get real work done.
|
| I don't actually play games much anymore, but do people actually
| want a portable gaming device in addition to their phone? They
| always felt like gimmicks to me.
| hu3 wrote:
| This video gets my hopes up. You can see it's a desktop with
| taskbar, browser etc.
|
| https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamdeck/images/vide...
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| Honestly full linux desktop in a handheld form factor is pretty
| attractive.
|
| One of the biggest pain points of linux laptops is getting the
| drivers right.
|
| That being said The screen is quite small if you are dealing
| with text & while you can do some typing with the steam
| controller you won't want to do too much.
|
| If your general set up is doing a tiny bit of work while away
| from a dock (with mouse + keyboard + monitor) and you dock it
| most of the time I think this could be a really nice package.
| Normal_gaussian wrote:
| I'm thinking this looks fantastic. I can dock it at home and
| in the office, its powerful enough to do a lot of dev work
| locally, and I can just VNC to my home/office server when I
| need more beef like I do with my laptop. So - first pass, the
| same as a laptop.
|
| Second pass, anti-glare ok-nits screen means I can use it
| outside. Format means I can use it on the fortnightly train.
| Whilst I don't want to code with it without being docked I
| _can_ review, plan, read, have meetings, and make minor edits
| + run tests while sitting in the garden.
|
| Having meetings outside will probably be the best use of time
| and justify the spend.
| schmorptron wrote:
| You can probably do it, it's just that the screen is probably
| too small to get any real major work done, but some quick
| VSCode editing should be no problem at all. You can also
| connect usb or bluetooth peripherals as much as you want.
| zhynn wrote:
| You can connect it to external screen also just using a usb-c
| dongle with hdmi on it.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| And I already own one. It came with my Pine Phone!
| ragebol wrote:
| Rather than a laptop, it would make a handy remote control for
| eg. a robot, with visualization integrated.
| rchaud wrote:
| I bought a gaming PC years ago, and I hate booting it up to play
| my Steam library, because of the constant, unending updates.
|
| Didn't turn on your PC for a week? Enjoy a 45-minute wait while
| Steam downloads and installs yet another giant update, preventing
| you from playing anything until it's done.
|
| If this is going to be like that, I'm out. Even though a device
| like this is what I've been looking for.
| k12sosse wrote:
| That is configurable, from within Steam. You can install
| updates on demand if you'd like to only update prior to
| playing. If you're not wanting updates at all, just keep it in
| offline mode until you need to go back. It's even adjustable
| per-game: you can keep your THICC titles to update on demand
| and the lightweights to keep updating as needed.
| awill wrote:
| I'm a little disappointed that Valve is focused on Proton only.
| This can also play native Linux games. A well written native game
| should perform better, and, more importantly, get better battery
| life.
|
| Maybe Valve is going about this the right way. Focus on Proton
| now, and if it takes off, game devs will make the effort to do a
| native port.
| christophilus wrote:
| IGN preview:
|
| https://www.ign.com/articles/steam-deck-hands-on-impressions...
| vyrotek wrote:
| Can I install Windows 11 on it?
| msie wrote:
| Yes
| mankyd wrote:
| What os does it run? And the more important follow up: what games
| can it therefore run?
|
| I _assume_ it's linux, but that must limit the games to protondb
| and linux compatible games which, speaking from a lot of
| experience, misses quite a few.
| [deleted]
| dillon wrote:
| If you click to the site and go to the Software tab it talks
| about it being SteamOS with Proton etc.
| OnionBlender wrote:
| I've been wanting to try to write games for the Switch but this
| looks like a good alternative.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Good luck getting a dev kit. I had a relatively successful
| game/app on the Wii U, wanted to make a sequel, and have been
| rejected 3 times without reason.
| xcuseme wrote:
| They should be coding HL3 instead!
| ineedasername wrote:
| Wow! a few weeks ago I made a comment to the effect that SteamOS
| seemed to be close to abandonware at this point with no new
| releases in a few years.
|
| I am extremely happy to be wrong! Sure this is great for gaming,
| but it will also bring Linux to a lot more people too.
| ivrrimum wrote:
| Have been using Nintendo Switch for a while(I travel a lot, its
| great that its portable and can be connected to TV's in hotels).
| Will definitely check Steam Deck out!
| caslon wrote:
| First impressions:
|
| Really good hardware for the price.
|
| They fixed the worst thing about SteamOS: It's now got an Arch
| base.
|
| They're definitely overcharging for storage, but I imagine it'll
| be easy enough to modify one, so it probably doesn't matter much.
|
| Why is any company having more USB-2 slots than USB-3 these days?
|
| Going with a relatively low resolution compared to modern ones is
| actually a surprisingly smart move, given how small the display
| is.
| nostromo wrote:
| > All models of Steam Deck support expanding your storage via
| microSD cards. Games stored on a microSD card will appear in
| your library instantly.
|
| This makes buying the model with limited storage a bit of a no-
| brainer. I'm glad Valve supports external storage.
| [deleted]
| modeless wrote:
| Loading times will likely be a lot better on the high storage
| versions due to NVMe. And PC loading times can be brutal so I
| think the upgrade will be very noticeable.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Eh, UHS-1 is pretty slow compared to an SSD.
|
| I think for the types of games I'd want to play on it
| (emulation) that'd be just fine, but for some it could be a
| bit annoying.
|
| I think they should have gone with a faster interface though.
| carstenhag wrote:
| Sort of agree. I just purchased a UHS-1 microSD card, UHS-I
| U3 certified. And the advertisement only claims up to 100
| MB/s speed, which is terrible in comparison to the SSDs you
| mention.
|
| But then, it cost 60EUR for 512 GB, and that's way more
| price effective for most. At least on the Switch, loading
| times are not that noticeable imo.
| cma wrote:
| You could do a small USB-c storage dongle as well.
| ilaksh wrote:
| In my opinion, unless you only want to play extremely
| lightweight games (like less than 50 megabytes to load) such
| as older retro games, the SSD is a requirement.
| thorum wrote:
| One negative: With all that hardware it's almost 3 times
| heavier than the Nintendo Switch, which is already near the
| upper limit for holding comfortable for longer play sessions.
|
| edit: On closer look that's comparing the Switch without
| controllers (297g) to the Steam Deck with controllers (669g).
| The Switch with controllers is 398g, so the Steam Deck is only
| ~1.7x times as heavy - though that's still a lot of extra
| weight to hold in your hands.
| Topgamer7 wrote:
| As someone with with incredibly poor wrists, the OG switch is
| already too heavy.
| baby wrote:
| On the other hand I find the switch pretty light.
| darthrupert wrote:
| Unless you have an actual disability or are like 7 years
| old, this is trivial to fix in about one month.
| delecti wrote:
| It's much less than 3x the weight of a Switch. They list it
| at 670g and a Switch with Joycons attached is about 400g.
| [deleted]
| fullstop wrote:
| The tech page says that it weighs "Approx. 120 grams" [1] Is
| this information incorrect?
|
| 1. https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech
|
| edit: crtl-f mistake, that's the docking station
| pledg wrote:
| That's the docking station.
| fullstop wrote:
| Yes, I had scrolled too far before I used find. I was
| trying to figure out how it was lighter than my phone
| until I realized that it was the dock.
| hermitdev wrote:
| 120 grams is the weight of the dock. You scrolled a little
| too far. From the same page, "Approx. 669 grams" for the
| system.
| thom wrote:
| I've been thoroughly unimpressed with the build quality of
| the Switch, I'd probably have paid more for a sturdier 'pro'
| version, to be honest.
| baby wrote:
| That's what I keep saying. The switch is amazing but the
| quality is truly bad. Apple launching a switch-like console
| would be amazing.
| thom wrote:
| Hopefully I can save up the downvotes for a third pair of
| replacement joycons.
| wil421 wrote:
| That's almost a deal breaker. My hands get tingly after
| playing in hand held mode for too long. Not sure if it's the
| weight or ergonomics.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Sounds like ergonomics. If it was weight based I'd expect
| you to experience pain or cramps near your shoulders or
| upper back, not your hands.
|
| Tingling in your hands sounds worryingly like RSI, I'd see
| a doctor about that.
| rustyminnow wrote:
| I bought a "switch grip" that completely fixes the tingling
| and cramping for me. I have the "satisfye pro" I think.
| It's pretty big, but there are smaller ones out there if
| portability is important to you
| Groxx wrote:
| Ergonomics for me. The buttons are far too close to the
| edge for my big hands, and it's so thin and flat I have to
| grip it more with my outer-most fingers than a random
| comfortable controller.
| The-Bus wrote:
| Had this issue as well. I now use it as a display only and
| always play with a controller (tabletop mode). If I can't
| use a controller, I play slower games (like Civ).
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I wonder if they have lanyard loops so you can hang it
| around your neck like those heavy RC controllers xD
| joshschreuder wrote:
| Definitely second the recommendation for the Satisfye Pro
| in terms of ergonomics
| [deleted]
| boringg wrote:
| Tingly feelings in your body are almost always nerve
| related. Sounds like its pressure on a specific nerve thats
| causing this issue for you. Hopefully nothing to be alarmed
| about but that you are putting a strange pressure on a
| specific nerve.
| rebuilder wrote:
| Do you play lying down, by any chance? I sometimes get that
| if I do, but not seated.
| wil421 wrote:
| Yes I think it's usually playing while pretty much laying
| down on my couch.
| delecti wrote:
| Your problem is probably not the weight of the Switch,
| but that you're resting the weight of it and your
| forearms on your ulnar nerve (the "funny bone"). Next
| time it happens, try lifting your elbows off the couch.
| You'll be supporting more weight with your muscles, but I
| bet the tingling would go away pretty quickly.
| opheliate wrote:
| What was wrong with SteamOS being based on Debian? I've not
| used SteamOS myself, but I wasn't aware there were problems in
| that regard.
| Conan_Kudo wrote:
| It's ancient and Valve had to do _tons_ of backports to
| support it properly. I imagine they didn 't like that very
| much.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| What does Valve have to backport? Surely games aren't
| targeting super new libraries? (I'd expect Valve themselves
| to be the ones deciding what versions are targeted.)
| tlamponi wrote:
| Could just have switched to Debian Sid, which is basically
| the rolling release variant of Debian.
|
| That could have saved some time on tooling/packaging
| adaptions.
|
| Not that I dislike Arch Linux, I run both Arch Linux and
| Debian (Stable on servers Sid on laptop).
| caslon wrote:
| Sid is still far behind most rolling release
| distributions, and anecdotally I haven't found it more
| stable than any of the ones I usually use.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| This. Only rolling releases are fit for end user systems;
| point release is a server meme.
|
| Not only is having new stuff good from a feature and
| hardware-support standpoint, but, paradoxically, new
| software seems to have WAY less bugs than old software.
| (I assume this is because devs are mainly on the new
| versions and don't care about old versions that much.)
| Try using CentOS 7, with ancient, should-be-rock-solid
| versions of apps. Dolphin crashes every time you load
| into a large directory. Kate's keybinds are broken. Tmux
| refuses to support 256 colors. I get none of these issues
| on Arch or Manjaro.
| klodolph wrote:
| My own personal experience with Arch & Debian Sid is that
| Sid is noticeably more stable than Arch, long term. Maybe
| Valve thinks it's easier to address the stability
| problems on an Arch-based distribution rather than deal
| getting the latest versions of stuff on something Debian-
| based?
|
| I'm also sure that Valve's system is going to have a
| smaller set of software than I'd use on an Arch desktop
| anyway, so there's less surface area for stuff to break.
| caslon wrote:
| It seems to me that most people finding Arch unstable
| find it so because they rampantly abuse the AUR. I'm not
| implying this is something that you, personally, would
| do, but it seems to be the case in most "Arch is
| unstable" scenarios.
| klodolph wrote:
| I might have one or two packages from AUR, but mostly I
| don't touch it. I've had a number of discussions in
| meetups about stability and Arch over the years and have
| encountered plenty of people who switched from Arch to
| Debian or Ubuntu because of stability problems with Arch.
| I have a hard time imagining that it's mostly down to
| AUR.
|
| Maybe the people using lots of AUR are complaining a lot,
| and the people who don't just quietly switch distros?
| deadbunny wrote:
| Quite possible. The number of packages in the main arch
| repos is a lot smaller than the number in Debian/Ubuntu.
| I would imagine the kind of people you're talking about
| are leaning on the AUR or packages found by default (and
| thus more heavily tested) in Debian/Ubuntu.
| jcelerier wrote:
| > My own personal experience with Arch & Debian Sid is
| that Sid is noticeably more stable than Arch, long term.
|
| I have the exact opposite experience, I used to use sid
| and had to do full-blown reinstall every couple months
| because e.g. dpkg would break too much and I wouldn't be
| able to install anything, or once, even boot and ended up
| migrating to arch despite the warnings - never had to
| reinstall the distro once since then
| Liskni_si wrote:
| I've been running a mixed testing/sid install since 2005
| and not once did I have to reinstall. Even managed to
| cross-grade from i386 to amd64 a couple years ago.
| klodolph wrote:
| Do you remember when that happened? I vaguely remember
| that I used to experience problems installing packages in
| Aptitude and it would make me "fix" them without a way
| forward that I liked, but that was years ago.
| jcelerier wrote:
| eh, I switched to arch around.... 2013/2014 ? after an
| especially bad crash with sid. Never used aptitude, only
| apt-get. Since then I'm carrying the same "distro" from
| computer to computer.
| klodolph wrote:
| Aptitude is mostly a front-end to apt-get, but if you try
| to install some impossible combination of packages or get
| your packages in a weird state, aptitude offers solutions
| to fix it.
| II2II wrote:
| Has there ever been an analysis to see what is most
| likely to break on a rolling distribution? I have been
| using Arch for years, and have only had a couple of
| hardware related issues. If that is typical, rolling
| distributions may not even be an issue when the vendor
| has tight control over the product and can isolate
| hardware related packages in their own repository.
| klodolph wrote:
| In my own experience, the hardware support that breaks is
| the GPU. For me, the GPU has broken occasionally (once
| every couple years) regardless of distribution, unless
| I'm using an Intel GPU or an older GPU with mainline
| support.
|
| I'm sure that Valve is going to install a much smaller
| set of core software than a typical desktop, though.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Looks like the Deck is using an AMD GPU, which tend to
| have good mainline support.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Debian GNU/Linux: operating system so conservative that
| "unstable" means production ready rolling release
|
| (My go-to though)
| scns wrote:
| Have you tried openSUSE Tumbleweed? It is a well tested
| rolling release (https://openbuildservice.org/), with
| snapshots on update via btrfs.
|
| With the opi package you can install: chrome, codecs,
| dotnet, msedge, msteams, plex, skype, signal, slack,
| teamviewer, vivaldi, vscode, vscodium, zoom and more.
|
| Brave is app i am missing so far, but having the newest
| version KDE and other software that required a PPA on
| Ubuntu is pretty nice.
|
| And it feels much snappier installed on a SATA SSD than
| Mint from a NVME SSD on the same machine!
| desine wrote:
| Pedantic comment: it's not that Debian itself is ancient,
| it's that they prioritize stability and thus older
| packages. Both Arch and Debian get frequent updates in
| their packages, but Arch prefers cutting edge cool and
| Debian prefers "don't break any users existing setups!"
|
| Arch is still a better choice because gaming is generally
| using cutting edge software.
| wayneftw wrote:
| And yet, Debian based desktop systems are the ones that
| have always broken after updates for me. It was only when
| I started using an Arch based system that I was able to
| go past 6 months without any issues. I've been running
| Manjaro now on three different systems for almost 3
| years. No other Linux desktop has ever lasted this long
| for me and I'm not even a newbie. I've been using Linux
| since Red Hat 4. I've actually had less problems with it
| than I have had with any other desktop of us including
| Windows and Mac.
| desine wrote:
| If you're combining external packaging and debian
| packaging, or installing things manually, this is
| typical. Oftentimes if you're doing those, you'll have
| broken dependencies because Debian lags behind. I had
| issues keeping Blender and some other creative software
| up to date, because of this.
|
| It works great if you mostly stick to official Debian
| packages through and through.
| wayneftw wrote:
| Yeah, I almost always need something from an external
| repository with Debian based systems.
|
| I need external repositories (albeit rarely) with Arch
| too though and that has never caused a problem.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| My solution on Debian has been to use Flatpak.
| sincerely wrote:
| So Debian is fine if you want to use your desktop
| computer like an iPhone?
| desine wrote:
| Or you can put in enough time and effort to actually read
| error messages and do a little work
|
| If you want iPhone ease Linux use Ubuntu based distros.
| But traditionally Linux hadn't been single click easy.
| Much like smartphones weren't originally iPhone level
| easy.
|
| Polite edit: if you're a Linux noob start with a vm or
| live disk Ubuntu image and play around. If you like
| computers and understanding them, you'll find the lessons
| you need as you need them by searching the web. Then
| you'll install a bunch of distros and understand what I
| mean.
| dralley wrote:
| >They fixed the worst thing about SteamOS: It's now got an Arch
| base.
|
| I'm a little surprised they didn't go with something like
| Fedora. The kernel / drivers are kept just as up-to-date as
| Arch but the rest of the system is a little more stable.
| awill wrote:
| I don't think either of those points are correct.
|
| 1. Fedora is not a rolling release, so you don't get every
| single kernel point release like you do in Arch.
|
| 2. Steam does not want to do a full Fedora 30 to 31 upgrade
| every six months. They want to roll. It's a better model,
| especially when kernel/drivers are improving gaming quickly.
|
| 3. Arch has a stable base and gets small updates every day.
| Regular software services tell us this is a better model than
| infrequent large updates. Things like RHEL are the exception,
| but take years of QA, and leave you with old drivers in
| between releases.
| Conan_Kudo wrote:
| > _1. Fedora is not a rolling release, so you don 't get
| every single kernel point release like you do in Arch._
|
| Wrong. The kernel and mesa stack rolls and is rebased
| regularly throughout the life of a Fedora release. Fedora
| is prepping for a rebase to Linux 5.13 for both Fedora 33
| and Fedora 34 now: https://fedoramagazine.org/contribute-
| to-fedora-linux-kernel...
| dralley wrote:
| > 1. Fedora is not a rolling release, so you don't get
| every single kernel point release like you do in Arch.
|
| Fedora rolls the kernel. I'm on Fedora 33 (a full release
| behind), and yet I still have kernel 5.12.15, the exact
| same as Arch currently has. I don't have any custom repos
| configured.
|
| On rare occasions Fedora even gets new kernels faster than
| Arch, but usually it's less than a week behind.
|
| >2. Steam does not want to do a full Fedora 30 to 31
| upgrade every six months. They want to roll. It's a better
| model, especially when kernel/drivers are improving gaming
| quickly.
|
| Fedora gets constant Mesa updates as well, it's not pinned.
| Admittedly it's 2 months behind Arch (21.0 vs 21.1)
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Aren't up-to-date libraries fairly important for steam?
| isatty wrote:
| From my personal experience not really. I've steam running
| on an about 2yo old (at this point) Gentoo system that's
| still working perfectly fine. I really should update it but
| I don't do much on that system except play a single game.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| My point is that new games can need new libraries, so
| they're not really factoring in your use case.
| dralley wrote:
| I said "a little" - Fedora is still more aggressive with
| updates than Ubuntu or Debian. Just slightly less than
| Arch.
|
| The most important libraries for Steam are things like
| Mesa, which Fedora updates on a rolling basis along with
| the kernel.
| flatiron wrote:
| fedora will also patch stuff from upstream to include in
| their distro. for better or worse arch will try to
| upstream the patch and if they don't like it just keep an
| older version around if they don't accept it
| dralley wrote:
| Both Fedora and Arch share that philosophy, though. There
| are very very few patches in Fedora compared to the
| Debian ecosystem - and often the only exceptions are
| support for features that in the process of being
| upstreamed, like Firefox' hardware acceleration support
| that was added by a Red Hat engineer.
| prg318 wrote:
| This is not always true. Fedora maintains over 100 RedHat
| exclusive patches for grub2 alone:
|
| https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/grub2/tree/rawhide
|
| Some of these are pretty questionable, particularly
| disabling the use of "grub-install" on UEFI systems
| (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1917213)
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| I don't know a ton about this, but I thought their major
| issue was games needing new versions of some random
| libraries. Being more up to date than Debian would still
| put you (presumably) years behind.
|
| Mesa and the kernel would be less important, as all the
| hardware needs to be supported by them on release.
| dralley wrote:
| > I don't know a ton about this, but I thought their
| major issue was games needing new versions of some random
| libraries. Being more up to date than Debian would still
| put you (presumably) years behind.
|
| That's not the case w/ the Fedora release cycle. Like I
| said, it's only slightly behind Arch.
| caslon wrote:
| dnf adds a layer of complexity that's really unnecessary;
| pacman keeps things much simpler.
| [deleted]
| dralley wrote:
| Admittedly I've never used pacman, but how is the workflow
| more simple than "dnf update", "dnf install", "dnf remove"?
|
| I guess I don't understand what complexity there is to
| remove in the first place.
| caslon wrote:
| dnf is a large and complex tool to manage a format that
| has miles of backwards compatibility (and, for extra
| inconsistent fun, random cases of incompatibility, since
| they forcibly broke spec at some point, without changing
| the extension of rpm, so while there's the expectation of
| compatibility, many old packages just won't work at all
| and you'll have very little clue as to why unless you're
| familiar with the history of the format), and has a lot
| more to it than pacman.
|
| I'm not talking about the workflow for an end-user: Valve
| is _definitely_ not going to force people to run terminal
| commands to update their systems. While pacman 's update
| workflow is _way_ simpler than dnf 's, it's just not
| relevant here.
|
| I was primarily talking about the complexity of the tool
| itself, of updates, and also the complexity of packaging.
| Arch is a packager's distro, and much of the foundation
| Arch is built on is the Crux-style "as simple as
| possible" mindset. There's much less that can go wrong
| when you're doing much less with much smaller tools.
|
| I'm not hating on dnf or rpm, here, for the record.
| They're fine tools for their use cases.
| NotEvil wrote:
| It's all about how it works underhood. The speed of
| pacman is on another level compare to even dbf
| ridiculous_fish wrote:
| Arch is a surprising choice because of their rolling release
| schedule. How will software updates for Steam Deck work? Will
| Valve just snapshot Arch at a random time, and then stabilize
| it?
| flatiron wrote:
| my guess is pretty much what manjaro does. i was surprised to
| see its running kde. i thought they just woulda launched a
| steam frontend and that's that.
| paavohtl wrote:
| They do also have a customized Steam frontend on top of
| KDE.
| brink wrote:
| Yeah, it's not that hard to hold updates back a bit.
| cesarb wrote:
| > Why is any company having more USB-2 slots than USB-3 these
| days?
|
| I think it's not a case of "having more USB-2 slots than USB-3
| slots", I think it's instead a case of "having precisely two
| USB-2 slots", no matter how many USB-3 slots there are. The
| reason for exactly two USB-2 slots is obvious: one of them is
| for the keyboard, the other one is for the mouse. Neither the
| keyboard nor the mouse need more than USB-2, so there's no
| reason to have the more complex USB-3 hardware for these two
| ports.
|
| Other than those two ports, it makes sense to have the rest of
| the USB ports be USB 3, which seems to be the case here, even
| though there's only one (the USB-C port seems to be meant to be
| always plugged into a charger, so it might also be USB-2 only).
| kbenson wrote:
| I agree on the reasoning, but at the same time, they might as
| well have just gone with a single USB-2 port and had people
| buy a <$10 USB hub off Amazon or something (or offered it as
| a peripheral for $20). Although, you can buy a few port USB-c
| hub for almost the same price, and if they just had two USB-c
| ports it would all work just as well with the addition of a
| hub (since you only need to add a keyboard and mouse when
| stationary).
| mehlmao wrote:
| My assumption is that the intended use of the USB 2.0 ports are
| mouse + keyboard.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > Why is any company having more USB-2 slots than USB-3 these
| days?
|
| Because it's cheaper to produce and easier to design for USB 2.
| The cpu and chipset are limiting factors as well.
|
| https://www.amd.com/en/products/chipsets-am4
|
| Scroll down to the table at the bottom of the page to see what
| AMD's chipsets can support.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| USB 2 on a mobile device might be for limiting power
| consumption?
| caslon wrote:
| Nope, it's on the dock. One USB-3, two USB-2. There's no
| power consumption reason for the dock.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Internally, it might be a single USB 3 interface routed to
| a hub chip that breaks out one USB 3 and dual USB 2, or
| maybe even three with one of them going to a GPIO
| controller or some other random peripheral.
| ukd1 wrote:
| USB 3/C has really fine grain power control - using "PD" (htt
| ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#USB_Power_Deliver...)
| , it's possible to negotiate the rates pretty finely - so I
| don't think it's that.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| In a mobile device, it's not necessarily about the power
| delivered over the Vbus wire, but about the energy required
| for the transceiver and serdes logic in the controller. USB
| 1.0 "low speed" had a clock of 1.5 MHz, and USB 1.1 "full
| speed" is clocked at 12 MHz. You can communicate at that
| frequency with a microcontroller on an ancient process node
| on a coin cell. USB 2.0 "high speed" runs at 480 MHz.
| Running a processor at that frequency requires
| significantly more power, but is not too egregious.
|
| USB 3 is clocked at 5 GHz, which requires more power still.
| Just having a transceiver capable of that frequency enabled
| will draw a significant load from a battery, regardless of
| whether you're using the bus for power delivery.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| I meant that there's probably a usb 2 controller with lower
| power draw reqs compared to a usb 3 controller, but I now
| see that the ports are on the dock like others said.
| Scramblejams wrote:
| There are a surprising number of USB devices that don't work
| right when plugged into USB 3. I figure it's a compatibility-
| driven move to support random cheap janky
| controllers/keyboards/mice that customers will inevitably try
| to use.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| The best part is that you don't need to buy games if you
| already have a Steam library full of games.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I really wonder what it means to be based on Arch Linux. Are
| users supposed to run packman to grab the latest security
| fixes? Are users going to be installing apps from the AUR or
| whatever? Why does this thing even need a package manager at
| all? Or is there more to a Linux distro that I'm not getting?
| It seems like a distro is mostly defined by it's package
| manager and repository paradigm or philosophy, with Debian
| being the slow stodgy stable distro and Arch being bleeding-
| edge. Everything else they have in common (wayland, systemd,
| standard components that don't know or care thst they're
| running on Debian or Arch).
| jcelerier wrote:
| > Are users supposed to run packman to grab the latest
| security fixes?
|
| there are plenty of graphical frontends for updates on Arch.
|
| Another big thing is more recent glibc and mesa for instance
| which can be huge for performance. Also, Arch makes it fairly
| easy to rebuild all packages with optimizations for a given
| CPU ; for instance someone recently made a test of arch built
| with x86_64-v3. Also there's the way packages are built (much
| simpler than with debian), etc.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Why does valve need to use a "distro" at all? LFS exists
| and is trivial to throw together a custom install. You can
| grab whatever glibc or mesa you want. Also building a
| kernel with improvements for a certain CPU is dead simple
| out of the box with Linux. Distros make it hard, and Arch
| makes it "easier".
|
| As for packages, why does SteamOS need packages? They can
| just make one large update package that includes all
| library updates for the latest SteamOS version. Or are they
| expecting users to say "Oh I want to update just this one
| library"? Seems like a huge missed opportunity to make
| SteamOS a "stable target" that Linux devs can make games
| for. But if everyone is like "I want this weird glibc!"
| then that's impossible.
| techrat wrote:
| There's unattended updates and GUIs for everything, bruh.
|
| The adage that you have to use a terminal if you want to run
| a distro has been out of date for over a decade.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Oh oops, when I said "pacman" I meant "or a GUI on top of
| it". I figured that would be obvious.
| jreese wrote:
| > Why is any company having more USB-2 slots than USB-3 these
| days?
|
| Almost certainly has to do with cost and PCI-E bandwidth.
| Mobile chips like this only have so much bandwidth, and USB3
| requires more dedicated bandwidth than USB2, not to mention
| more complicated circuitry that drives up price. And when your
| expected use case is attaching keyboards and mice, which
| generally are USB2 only anyways, it reduces the cost and
| bandwidth needed to support that many ports.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| It's not really a mobile chip, it's a full laptop-grade Zen 2
| processor.
| kbumsik wrote:
| > full laptop-grade Zen 2 processor.
|
| That's exactly what we call a "Mobile" chip in the x86 CPU
| market.
|
| The mobile phone grade chipsets you are probably thinking
| is probably called "Embedded" chip in the x86 market.
| ("Embedded" chips is wider than a mobile phone though)
| jreese wrote:
| PCIE lanes are still a function of both the CPU and the
| motherboard chipset. It's cheaper to build a board with
| fewer PCIE lanes, and cheaper to have fewer components that
| need said PCIE lanes.
| caslon wrote:
| "laptop-grade" _is_ mobile, in CPU terms. That 's why Intel
| marks their laptop chips with an "M" at the end.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Yes and no. There are desktop computers with laptop chips
| and laptop chips are much closer to desktop than to a
| phone for example
| bredren wrote:
| Presumably most people use usb for peripherals that don't
| require usb3 spec. Webcams, input devices, etc.
| Gadiguibou wrote:
| Regarding that storage thing: in the hardware section, they
| specified that the storage could be expanded with a microSD [1]
| card which should already improve storage capacity by a lot if
| you wish.
|
| [1]: https://www.steamdeck.com/en/hardware
| klodolph wrote:
| Micro SD is an order of magnitude slower than the NVMe
| option, though.
| checkyoursudo wrote:
| I am not sure I can tell the difference between games that
| load from my SSD versus my NVMe. Is there real benefit?
| klodolph wrote:
| So, this is actually something that is in flux right now,
| and the tech is shifting towards loading from storage
| directly into memory, like the cartridge days back in the
| 1990s (Nintendo 64, etc). This is in flux to the point
| that it's really the _new_ games from the past year or
| two you 'd want to test.
|
| What caused this shift is that the current generation of
| consoles shipped with SSDs. The PS5 and Xbox Series X/S
| both shipped with NVMe storage standard. Games going
| forward are designed with this baseline in mind.
|
| The reason this affects game technology is because it
| changes the tradeoffs. You always wanted assets to load
| quickly, since forever. The amount of time it takes to
| load an asset has two parts that contribute: I/O time and
| the CPU time spent decompressing.
|
| In the past, storage was more precious and slow, so your
| game would load much faster by compressing the data. NVMe
| users would never see _worse_ loading times than SSD or
| HD users, so you 'd just compress everything, and the
| NVMe users would see a slight benefit.
|
| Now that NVMe is a reasonable minimum requirement, you
| can ship a game that uses uncompressed data on disk.
| People with NVMe see faster load times, and people
| without them see slower loading times, possibly MUCH
| slower.
|
| When I say "uncompressed", I just mean "uncompressed,
| relative to the runtime representation" which may still
| use compression, like ASTC.
|
| The situation with the Nintendo 64 is remarkably similar
| to what's going on now... because the Nintendo 64 had
| such a fast storage system, games could "easily" load
| assets on the fly. The system had only 4MB of RAM, which
| seemed like a very severe limitation, but you could make
| very expansive areas in games by streaming assets from
| the cartridge while playing. It was fast enough that you
| could load some assets from the cartridge into RAM, and
| they would be available to render during the same frame!
| These are the kind of technological changes that are
| going to happen inside engines, now that NVMe storage is
| more common.
|
| I put "easily" in quotes because nothing about Nintendo
| 64 programming is easy.
| [deleted]
| CyberShadow wrote:
| By Arch, do you mean Arch Linux? According to https://www.game-
| debate.com/news/25482/valve-counts-to-3-ste... , it seems to be
| based on Debian 9.
| jvzr wrote:
| They specifically mention Arch Linux (with KDE Plasma
| desktop) in the software specs
|
| SteamOS 2 was Debian-based
| EamonnMR wrote:
| Anyone know what the story is for running non-steam games on
| this? I'm thinking 2000s win32 keyboard-and-mouse games, or even
| MacOS9 emulation.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| It's a fully fledged PC. You can install anything you want. So
| if you can run the emulator on linux, you can do it on here.
| aceazzameen wrote:
| I'm really curious how hot this will get under load and what kind
| of cooling it will have.
| tus89 wrote:
| Stadia should have made something like this obsolete
| but...Google.
| ElFitz wrote:
| Tried Stadia. Wouldn't ever let me start a game no matter what
| I tried.
|
| Ended up giving up after two months and went back to either
| GeForce Now or my Windows partition, depending on the game.
| Polycryptus wrote:
| I don't think it's currently possible for any cloud service to
| make this obsolete, at least in the ways that I'd want to use a
| portable gaming device. Which is to say, mostly in transit,
| which tends to have spotty (at best) internet accessibility.
| (In the air on an airplane, between stops on the subway, ...)
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| this is a very interesting product. x86 for handheld instead of
| ARM.
|
| ARM for desktop and server x86 for handheld
|
| i love it
| 63 wrote:
| Sort of an unfortunate name since it's so similar to "Stream
| Deck." I imagine there might be some confusion between the two if
| this takes off.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I initially clicked this link thinking it was a Valve-branded
| Stream Deck. Only then did I realize it was a Valve-branded
| Switch instead. :P
| whoisburbansky wrote:
| Anyone else understand why the storage upgrades are described as
| "Faster" and "Fastest." At least for eMMC to NVMe, I can see how
| that can be described as "Faster," but how does increasing NVMe
| capacity get you "Fastest?"
| gorbypark wrote:
| A lot of times larger SSD have a faster throughput. If each
| flash module can do n mB/sec then 2n is twice as much.
| Obviously there's overhead and how much the actual bus can
| manage, but plenty of 512gb SSDs are ~20% faster than their
| 256gb brethren.
| cma wrote:
| Higher capacity is often faster by reading from more underlying
| chips (or layers?) in parallel.
| [deleted]
| drumhead wrote:
| Is this a reference model, could be see other PC manufacturers
| build their own versions of the Steam Deck?
| vngzs wrote:
| This seems to integrate tech from Steam Controllers. I.e., dual
| touchpads on a gamepad style layout. They went through many
| prototypes [0] attempting to create something as portable as a
| console controller but as accurate as a mouse. I certainly prefer
| it to a touchscreen.
|
| [0]: https://i.imgur.com/3FskweR.jpg
| ketzo wrote:
| There's obviously a _lot_ of people who like playing games in a
| more mobile format, as evidenced by the huge popularity of the
| Switch Lite / mobile gaming.
|
| Giving the PC games market access to that form factor seems, on
| its face, like an extremely good move.
|
| But we've seen products like this before -- the NVIDIA Shield,
| for one. Pretty cool piece of tech, but didn't exactly start a
| revolution.
|
| I guess the question becomes "what percentage of current PC
| gamers are motivated to shell out $400 to play on the train?"
|
| Frankly, I feel like it's probably a decent number of people?
| Enough for this product to do okay, if not change the whole
| market. But people have been very confidently incorrect about
| almost every iteration of mobile gaming in the past. I guess
| we'll see.
| pier25 wrote:
| > _the NVIDIA Shield, for one. Pretty cool piece of tech, but
| didn't exactly start a revolution_
|
| Other than emulators, Android is a barren land for good
| controller based games. Specially compared to Steam.
| calgoo wrote:
| It's more less the same price as Nintendo switch and the switch
| is limited to expensive Nintendo games. Now if you are a fan of
| Nintendo games, great! But if you are a of gamer then this
| steam deck sound like a better idea!
| danso wrote:
| Had to google what you meant by NVIDIA Shield (wrt portable
| gaming): https://www.amazon.com/NVIDIA-SHIELD-Portable-
| pc/dp/B00E3667...
|
| One major difference (besides the form-factor obviously) is
| that the Deck doesn't require WiFi + desktop to play your PC
| games. I'd also argue that the trackpads will be a major
| difference. The Steam Controller's trackpad wasn't perfect, but
| it made possible to sanely play a ton of designed-for-mouse
| games
| awill wrote:
| The Nvidia Shield ran Android. So either bad Android games
| locally, os streaming. The Shield might do better today as a
| client just for Stadia, Xcloud or PS Now.
|
| However, this is far better. Not only are the specs very
| impressive for the size/power, but it runs an OS that can
| plan anything (with Proton). It's like mixing the switch with
| a ps4. Imagine playing the Witcher 3, or Doom Eternal on this
| compared to the 480p blurry Switch version. I hope this does
| well.
| libertine wrote:
| >But we've seen products like this before -- the NVIDIA Shield,
| for one. Pretty cool piece of tech, but didn't exactly start a
| revolution.
|
| People forget that these devices without marketing and
| consistency they won't go far.
|
| Nintendo, Sony, even MS that came later to the party have
| hundreds (if not thousands) of millions poured to build their
| brands, over decades... Sega knew how to play this game and
| still didn't manage to hang on...
|
| They are already taking the crops of nostalgia, that's for how
| long they have been around. Leveraging these devices base on
| hardware it's nothing in the great scheme of things.
| irq wrote:
| > Sega knew how to play this game and still didn't manage to
| hang on...
|
| I see what you did there :)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang-On
| libertine wrote:
| Honestly wasn't with that intent, but thank you for point
| this out - won't forget it and will use it in the future!
| romwell wrote:
| >I guess the question becomes "what percentage of current PC
| gamers are motivated to shell out $400 to play on the train?"
|
| Yup.
|
| Before clicking the "Reserve" link, I put a personal threshold
| for this thing at $300. If it was somewhere around that, it'd
| be an instant purchase for me.
|
| Over $500 for a version with barely acceptable (by 2021
| standards) storage? No thank you.
|
| The 64GB version is almost a made-for-landfill device. I can't
| imagine people not running out of space very, very fast (even
| with microSD card slot, which we may or may not be able to
| install games onto: I wish they made it clear in the specs).
| Still, for $300, it'd be an instant buy for me - just to be
| able to play in bed.
|
| I really hope enough people buy this thing, because I'd really
| want it to thrive - and the price to drop :)
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| >>"augment your built-in storage with a microSD card and fill
| it up with even more games."
|
| I think that hints that you can install games... hopefully
| :).
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| SD cards are _slow_. This is important for large size games
| that need to load large assets. Loading times will be long.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| > The 64GB version is almost a made-for-landfill device.
|
| I felt that way about the Quest 2, and opted for the maxxed-
| out version. As it turns out, I use it a few times per week
| and have ~40GB of storage in use.
|
| I originally used Virtual Desktop to remote in to my desktop,
| mostly from across the house but also over 5G. Now that
| Airlink is available in beta I use it exclusively at home,
| and mostly play "PCVR" titles wirelessly.
|
| The Steam Deck seems to be taking the same approach. I see
| myself using it to play games from my desktop library while
| in bed or sitting outside. Few if any games will actually get
| installed on the device, because I won't want to use the on-
| board processing and drain my battery anyhow.
| eugeniub wrote:
| To be fair, many Quest games are very small (1gb-5gb). In
| contrast, GTA V on Steam is 72gb.
| [deleted]
| wtfrmyinitials wrote:
| Since it runs Linux I don't see any reason you couldn't put
| your entire library on an NFS server in the other room. If I
| get one I'll certainly be doing that
| mywittyname wrote:
| If you're at home, you might as well just stream from a
| gaming PC anyway.
| ehnto wrote:
| Most blockbuster games are over 64gb on their own these days.
| You couldn't install just one of: GTA5, Red Dead Redeption 2,
| Cyberpunk 2077, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Forza
| Motorsport/Horizon, Fallout 4, the list goes on.
|
| At least Todd Howard can't sell Skyrim yet another time, it's
| already in my steam library.
| jeofken wrote:
| Any game devs here willing to share how large the
| code/compiled code output is for these games?
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| You mean code without resources?
|
| The required storage is listed on the steam store page,
| Cyberpunk for instance requires 70 GB free.
| bogwog wrote:
| I don't get this, if you're using it for gaming then storage
| isn't a huge deal. Even on a dedicated gaming PC, most people
| don't have their entire Steam library installed at once.
|
| Not only is it just too much space, but it'd be wasted since
| there's no way you're going to play all of those games.
|
| The 64gb version of this definitely is too small though.
| That's less than the average AAA game. And while there are
| certainly people out there who don't play AAA games, I don't
| think the average Joe will do the math ahead of time when
| buying one of these, and will be very disappointed/angry when
| they find they can't play the game they want (without using
| external storage/a dock).
|
| But, if this thing does have an SD card slot (idk, I haven't
| checked), it should solve the problem. SD cards aren't super
| fast, but the Nintendo switch is proof that they're at least
| good enough for gaming.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| It does have an SD card slot.
|
| However, when the hypothetical average Joe you propose
| picks up a cheap 256 GB SD card off of Amazon and it takes
| five minutes every time they reload from a checkpoint in
| Control, I think they will be at least as frustrated as
| when they ran out of space on the internal SSD.
| birdman3131 wrote:
| I have a single game that clocks in at 374gb. (Ark + DLC
| and 50gb of mods.) And I don't want to be limited to a
| single game. I am really hoping the 64gb can have an nvme
| drive added.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| > I guess the question becomes "what percentage of current PC
| gamers are motivated to shell out $400 to play on the train?"
|
| At first glance at least, it seems like it may end up being
| much more than that. I see appeal here for non-gamers as well -
| or at least, for people who aren't _only_ or even primarily
| gamers.
|
| It's a very nice cyberdeck for general use, though granted it
| doesn't have a hardware keyboard. Given the size and form
| factor any keyboard they'd tried to graft on the thing would be
| basically unusable anyhow so I'm glad they didn't try.
|
| I can totally see myself picking one of these up and throwing
| it in my bag alongside a small Bluetooth mechanical keyboard.
| For working in coffee shops in a terminal it'd be just fine.
| Connect it up to a TV via Chromecast or something and you've
| got a damned nice setup for less than a grand.
| novok wrote:
| Id just want a smaller laptop at that point then?
|
| I find its really hard to beat the convertible laptop form
| factor in general
| pinkythepig wrote:
| This has so much more potential because its a desktop OS. You
| could e.g. play WoW using this. Not to mention the huge
| selection from emulators. I've tried gaming with Android before
| and the game selection is awful. Realistically, the only good
| gaming options are from e.g. snes emulators. On top of that,
| most phone GPU drivers are horrendously broken when doing
| advanced 3d stuff so even if a good game was released for
| android, you wouldn't be able to play it on 80% of phones.
| d7e7eyeudi wrote:
| Personally I find a lot of these devices backwards minded. I'd
| much rather just shell out for a service like Stadia (if the
| catalogue was larger) and turn my actual mobile device into
| something capable of playing pc titles. Especially if the
| implementation is platform agnostic like Stadia. Gaming devices
| of all stripes have become expensive enough that I'm more than
| happy to see cloud gaming takeover and leave hardware for the
| activists and bitcoin miners.
| rkido wrote:
| Playing PC games on a cell phone is painful. You can't even
| see half the game because your thumbs always obscure the
| screen to operate the touch controls.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| Why couldn't you use this with Stadia?
|
| The price isn't out of line even if you consider it as a
| "thin client" gaming device.
| d7e7eyeudi wrote:
| It's not that I couldn't it's that I wouldn't want to with
| an agnostic service like Stadia. That's money I could put
| towards a nicer smartphone or into nicer non-internal pc
| components like the monitor instead. But I also say this as
| someone who doesn't mind touch controls when they're done
| well so having physical things to press isn't as big a draw
| for me as I imagine it is to their target audience.
| ehnto wrote:
| Your phone lacks the controller interfaces these devices have
| though. I guess it depends on if you can hook up a controller
| to your phone, or if you're able to play the games you like
| without to much fuss on your phone screen.
| knodi123 wrote:
| > I guess it depends on if you can hook up a controller to
| your phone
|
| ps4 controllers are generic bluetooth gamepads that I've
| been able to connect to a surprising range of devices.
| what_ever wrote:
| You can attach your phone to a Stadia controller.
|
| Disc: Googler.
| d7e7eyeudi wrote:
| Matter of taste. A pc gamer will hate a mobile control
| scheme but I can play Cyberpunk fine on my S10 with the
| touch controller and if it had even the level of
| customization that CoD Mobile or Pubg Mobile offer the
| player I'd go so far as to say I could be happily
| comfortable. Imo, people underestimate both how poor the
| quality offerings are on mobile and how far ui control
| design has come (in the few top tier offerings that exist).
| Cloud gaming kills two birds with one stone in that it
| suddenly adds a plethora of games to mobile that are good
| in the real way while simultaneously mitigating the
| mounting costs of being a pc gamer (maybe consoles too but
| I can't speak to them) by letting me run high-end games on
| average hardware so long as I have a good internet
| connection.
| grawprog wrote:
| I tried pubg mobile and a few other mobile FPS games.
| There's one major flaw with using a touchscreen for those
| kinds of games, you need to be able to aim, move and
| shoot at the same time. In my experience, touchscreens
| only allow you to do two of those things at the same
| time.
| bogwog wrote:
| Apple had a solution to this problem years ago but made
| the very very very stupid decision of removing 3D Touch
| from recent iPhone models.
|
| On phones with the feature, you can use your left thumb
| to walk, right thumb to aim, and 3D touch (press down
| hard on the screen to shoot). I know at least call of
| duty mobile supports it, and when I tried it out it felt
| revolutionary.
|
| But rather than add new input methods, they're removing
| them at the same time they're trying to push harder into
| mobile gaming (with Apple Arcade).
|
| It's baffling as an outsider to see such obviously
| bad/stupid decisions like that from such a massive
| company.
| usrusr wrote:
| I don't game on mobile, but wouldn't back-side tap be the
| obvious solution? I've never tried but I'd expect the
| accelerometer to be able to detect something like a
| middle finger tapping on the back of the phone with
| sufficient precision and latency (just the binary event,
| not the location)
| bogwog wrote:
| I do remember a game that did something like that many
| years ago (posted on reddit I think?). It was an endless
| runner type game with a fox character IIRC, and you had
| to alternate taps on the back of the device to get it to
| move. I do remember that I couldn't get it to work
| reliably though.
|
| Tapping the back of my phone now, I can see it maybe
| working for some types of games/shooters where you don't
| have to hold down the fire button, if implemented well
| (which probably isn't easy to do for all hardware). The
| tactile feedback of smacking the phone could help provide
| a good experience if paired with appropriate
| audio/visuals.
|
| This isn't quite the same thing, but the Playstation Vita
| has a rear touchpad, and not a ton of games managed to
| use it well, even with the much higher precision
| (Tearaway[1] is the only good one I can remember).
|
| Tearaway gameplay:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw5LD4B-3DI
| usrusr wrote:
| Rear touchpad is that one feature that amazes me every
| year by not being introduced by any of those very many
| manufacturers desperate to have a USP.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Rear touchpad means you can't put it in a protective
| case. Unless you can figure out a way to make one that
| protects it from most of the kinds of drops a phone would
| take in normal daily use and still exposes the rear pad.
| d7e7eyeudi wrote:
| It's not perfect but this, speaking as a casual observer,
| is something I think will improve with time. It took far
| too long to move away from fixed d-pads and now more
| games are experimenting with on-screen zones you tap to
| fire. There's still a lot of unwieldyness exactly as you
| noted but I think this is a surmountable challenge.
| grawprog wrote:
| I'm not sure how this could really be surmountable. With
| a controller you have access to at least 6 simultaneous
| inputs, more if you do some finger claw tricks or have
| back buttons or something. A keyboard and mouse gives you
| around the same or more simultaneous inputs. On a
| touchscreen you can make 2 simultaneous inputs.
|
| Most action games require at least 3 simultaneous inputs
| to be played effectively.
|
| There's definitely workarounds like the ones you mention,
| but unless a game is actually made for touchscreen
| controls, as in optimized for no more than 2 simultaneous
| inputs, it's not going to be as playable on a touchscreen
| as it would be with anything else.
|
| Unfortunately, some genres of game just aren't as suited
| to only 2 simultaneous inputs.
|
| There's lots of fun touchscreen based games, but they're
| always better with game mechanics specifically suited to
| touchscreens.
| riffraff wrote:
| I wonder how really portable this thing is; it has PC hardware,
| a screen and a small factor in which to stick batteries: how
| long will the battery last?
| dageshi wrote:
| It's interesting timing because the Switch Oled edition was
| just announced with no bump in power. So if you want a capable
| handheld with access too all the indies which will play games
| much better than your switch... here you go.
|
| And you can still keep your switch for nintendo exclusives
| because they've just made it clear that they're not upgrading
| the switch in a worthwhile way for at least a year.
|
| I would say this is squarely aimed at the existing switch
| customer base.
| Hamuko wrote:
| The Switch power bump would've probably only made sense in 4K
| docked gaming anyways, and people are probably not going to
| buy one of these for docked gameplay.
| novok wrote:
| The biggest disappointment in the new switch is the lack of
| native bluetooth audio headphone support and becoming less
| picky about its hdmi travel adapters and chargers
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| I'm guessing you could run Breath of the Wild better on the
| Steam Deck with CEMU emulation than the Nintendo Switch.
| justapassenger wrote:
| > I would say this is squarely aimed at the existing switch
| customer base.
|
| PC gamers and steam gamers are often very different markets.
| Nintendo, for decades now, was about fun, not power. I'm
| casual gamer, just for fun, and steam deck, while super cool,
| is certainly not going to replacement my switch.
| dageshi wrote:
| An awful lot of indie games release on PC and Switch
| nowadays, really the switch supplanted xbox and ps in terms
| of where a lot of indie games sell.
|
| So certainly a lot of switch owners are playing indie games
| that they could be playing on this device with better
| performance.
| izacus wrote:
| That's great, but "Nintendo not being about power" doesn't
| change the fact that many of my 40$+ Switch games barely
| run on the device and run at such low resolutions that it
| feel like looking through an oily glass.
|
| Seems like something is very wrong with either Switch
| hardware performance or Nintendo quality control.
| robotnikman wrote:
| After playing No Straight Roads on the Switch, I feel the
| same way.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| It will replace my Switch. I mostly play indie games, but
| the Switch can only play those indie games that get
| released to the Nintendo store, and then, usually at almost
| double the price of what you can get them elsewhere. As for
| experimental games that never even get sold? Not likely to
| happen on the Switch, there's just not enough incentive to
| publish.
| dorchadas wrote:
| I'm absolutely in the market for this. I'm fixing to move six
| time zones from my friends, who all play. Instead of buying a
| gaming laptop to take with me I'd just buy this if it's let me
| play with the easily.
| asah wrote:
| I for one love my Shield and would upgrade / buy again - real-
| time upscaling/upmixing makes YouTube into a competitive
| "channel" I regularly watch on my 4K TV.
|
| The shield runs all the major streaming networks and there's
| now Airplay apps that run in the background, closing that gap.
|
| As with all chrome-based devices, the Google voice assistant
| blows away AppleTV and Roku.
| usrusr wrote:
| > I guess the question becomes "what percentage of current PC
| gamers are motivated to shell out $400 to play on the train?"
|
| Does it even matter? For consumers, they get what they paid for
| even if Valve shows zero commitment as long as Steam does not
| actively shut them out. For game companies, support for
| controller and Linux/Proton is valuable with or without Steam
| Deck.
|
| And for Valve itself, all the software investment is a long
| term hedge against the existential threat of Windows failing
| them, this is just an opportunistic bonus use. The only actual
| cost is the hardware side of the project. If it tanks in the
| market they'll simply refrain from doing a v2 and do damage
| control with long tail sales of v1. While taking comfort in
| knowing that the Deck hardware will at least have lured a few
| game companies into the arms of Proton, strengthening their
| Windows hedge.
| matt_s wrote:
| I think a better question is will games traditionally built for
| PC's hold up on a mobile device?
|
| Mostly I'm thinking about controller vs keyboard+mouse.
| Typically you have more controls available on PC and when I
| play the same game on PC I am complete garbage at it because
| I'm used to controller, maybe I'm too old though.
| mywittyname wrote:
| The videos on the site show people playing Doom Eternal
| (FPS), Crusader Kings III (4x strategy game), Balder's Gate
| (top down RPG), and Disco Elysium (point-and-click adventure
| game). It looks playable to me.
|
| Plus it natively supports "mouse" controls via a few input
| methods: thumb touch screens and tilt-o-whorl. And if neither
| of those work, you can use a bluetooth mouse/keyboard.
| usrusr wrote:
| Valve has been pushing their Steam Controller for quite some
| time now, it sits squarely in the no man's land between clear
| success and total failure. The core audience of this new
| product will know quite well what to expect.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _But we've seen products like this before -- the NVIDIA Shield,
| for one_
|
| Atari Lynx. Sony PSP. Sony Vita. Nintendo Switch. Any others I
| don't remember?
| ehnto wrote:
| The inimitable Nokia Ngage!
| Bellyache5 wrote:
| Sega Nomad. Sega GameGear.
| mastrsushi wrote:
| Hey, with the right set cargo pants you can carry as many
| batteries as you want!
| goda90 wrote:
| The Shield was Android with GameStream. This will run games
| directly on x86 Linux which, with all their Proton work, will
| result in a much bigger game library out of the box. There have
| been more niche handheld x86 devices, but they were even more
| money, and different form factors. Steam being as big as it is,
| I think this has way more potential than anything done before.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| This is different than the NVidia Shield handheld in that
| hardware has come a loooong way since 2013 and it's actually
| possible to run modern AAA games at 1200x800 using what is
| effectively a mobile chipset. No streaming from a PC required.
|
| If I played more games I would absolutely buy one of these. I
| already own the NVidia Shield that plugs into your TV because
| it's a great streaming box even if you ignore the gaming
| aspect.
| rkido wrote:
| The mere fact that NVIDIA Shield Portable didn't take off
| doesn't tell us much. It had poor design sensibility (i.e. it
| looked like ass, like some kind of portable Xbox designed in
| the early 2000s), and it ran Android, which lacks a compelling
| games library.
|
| Steam Deck at least stands a chance, although I'm worried about
| the weight and the battery life.
| rchaud wrote:
| The battery life is a straight up lie. 8 hours on a single
| battery charge? What game were they testing, Solitaire?
| caslon wrote:
| You have to consider that PC hardware is currently spiraling
| out of control in terms of price, and $400 for the specs it has
| presently is a fairly decent buy even if you don't care about
| the form factor.
| tempest_ wrote:
| A steam machine if you will
| bogwog wrote:
| I wonder if they're selling at a loss? Valve can afford it,
| plus it'd be no different than Sony/Nintendo/etc subsidizing
| hardware since they make most of their profits from software
| sales.
|
| Only difference is that, unlike traditional game companies,
| this Steam Deck thing isn't a walled garden. But of course,
| Steam has a near monopoly on PC gaming so it's unlikely
| that'll be a problem for them.
| nyghtly wrote:
| To be honest, I don't think your assumption is that far
| off. The way that Gabe talks about this device, I feel like
| the purpose is simply to extend the PC gaming market, which
| is essential for Steam.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FXgDAF6QpM
| mywittyname wrote:
| I doubt it.
|
| If Valve isn't locking the hardware down, but is
| subsidizing it, then they might run into a situation where
| cryptominers (or some other group) start buying these
| things up in bulk, but never playing any games on them.
|
| I could see owning one of these as a non-gaming desktop.
| rchaud wrote:
| I don't see why they would, they'd be on the hook for
| service costs as well.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Similar products (look up GPD Win for example) are
| _roughly_ in the same ballpark cost wise, and that 's
| without much economy of scale.
| ketzo wrote:
| That's a really good point, viewing this as an accessibly-
| priced entry into PC gaming makes it even more attractive.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| If current trends around availability of discrete desktop
| graphics cards hold out, then it'll be even more
| attractive.
| libertine wrote:
| PC hardware prices will affect this as well, since this is
| based on shortages and high demand... basically these will be
| almost impossible to get outside of secondary market.
| caslon wrote:
| I'm calling it now, people looking back on this thread six
| months or a year from now will have found your speculation
| false.
| libertine wrote:
| I gain/lose nothing for being right/wrong, it's just the
| status quo.
|
| I'm waiting to buy a laptop I want for some months now,
| still not available.
|
| Unless this custom APU for Steam Deck is made in a
| special foundry with a special process, then they will be
| in line just like everyone else.
|
| Plus scalpers love this shortage to make easy money.
| anoraca wrote:
| You don't think that Valve was waiting until the supply
| chain was ready before making this announcement?
| libertine wrote:
| You think Sony Computer Entertainment didn't wait until
| the supply chain was ready before launching the PS5?
|
| It's not about being ready or not, it's about supply and
| demand.
|
| An example from Valve themselves from early this year
| regarding Index, an interview with Gabe:
|
| _"We actually have components that are manufactured in
| Wuhan and when you're setting up your manufacturing lines
| it doesn't occur to you that you're suddenly going to be
| dependent on this peculiar transistor that's sitting on
| one board that you can't get," Newell said.
|
| "Everybody ended up running into the same problem
| simultaneously -- you go from, 'Oh, we're in great
| shape,' to, 'What do you mean Apple or Microsoft just
| bought the next two years' supply of this just so they
| could make sure they aren't going to run out?' You went
| from a situation where everything was getting done just
| in time to people buying up all the available supplies."
|
| Newell says these constraints are also why the headset
| still doesn't ship to some markets like New Zealand or
| Australia. "The only thing keeping us from shipping in
| New Zealand at this point is just getting enough of them
| made -- we're very much manufacturing constrained."_
|
| [1] https://uploadvr.com/gabe-newell-index-supply-
| shortage/
| f6v wrote:
| I can buy a decent gaming laptop right now, but it's much
| harder to get a desktop GPU. I'm guessing all stock goes to
| OEMs.
| the8472 wrote:
| PS5 and Xbox are using PC hardware too. The only difference
| is that they might have secured some supply for those
| customized parts in advance.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| I'm willing to shell out so that I don't have to buy all the
| games I already paid for.
| feifan wrote:
| To me, someone whose gaming experience rounds down to "never",
| but who's casually interested in maybe playing some games, this
| looks very appealing. Switch form-factor but it runs PC games? I
| don't need to carry around a tower with me and sit in front of a
| desk and disconnect my peripherals from my other computer? Sounds
| great!
| RobRivera wrote:
| I am so excited about this
| nikstar wrote:
| A bit worried about the screen. 1280x800, 400 nits, 7 in -
| nothing to write home about, and marketing on the website does
| not focus on display at all.
|
| Everything else looks really strong though.
| yobert wrote:
| I'm curious if they have this running wayland or X? I know KDE
| supports both nowadays.
| modeless wrote:
| I don't see any mention of VR. I wonder if they will support
| plugging in a Valve Index. Seems like it should be possible
| through the dock. Oculus headsets wouldn't work though, since
| they don't support Linux. Unless you can install Windows on this
| thing somehow...
|
| Edit: Yes you can install Windows:
| https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/faq This might be a
| good companion for an Oculus Quest headset. $299 for Quest plus
| $399 for this and you get access to the Steam library of PC VR
| games in addition to the Quest library.
| traspler wrote:
| I'm not sure this delivers enough performance for decent PC
| level VR but you can install Windows, they say you are free to
| reinstall whatever OS you want.
| nameless912 wrote:
| Not a chance in hell that this runs SteamVR with acceptable
| performance, though. I'm not convinced that this will work as a
| VR rig at all.
| autoexec wrote:
| they say you can, but good luck to you:
|
| IGN: Can I play VR off of it?
|
| Pierre-Loup Griffais: I mean, it has all the connectivity.
| You would need [a lot] to do that, but that's not really what
| we're optimizing the performance for.
|
| IGN: So you can try it, but your mileage may vary.
|
| Pierre-Loup Griffais: Yeah.
| ugjka wrote:
| I don't think the 64gb version is going to fly with AAA titles
| moretti wrote:
| it has a microSD card slot: https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech
| beezischillin wrote:
| I would love to see Valve create similar hardware (and software)
| for mobile VR to compete with things like the Oculus Quest.
| jader201 wrote:
| My first reaction/two cents is that while this seems really cool,
| PC games are mostly set apart from console games in that they're
| often designed with keyboards in mind, as part of the core
| experience (similar to how motion controls were core to the Wii).
|
| PC games that _don't_ need a keyboard /aren't designed with a
| keyboard as a core input are already available on most consoles
| (e.g. many Steam games with controller support are already on the
| Switch).
|
| Not saying this won't work out -- I think it will likely do fine.
|
| But I don't think this was meant for the more hardcore PC gamer,
| and a lot of controller-only gamers are likely fine with consoles
| (and for their portable fix, the Switch). So there's a pretty
| niche set of gamers this will attract.
| rasz wrote:
| AMD APU CPU: Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz (up to 448 GFlops
| FP32) GPU: 8 RDNA 2 CUs, 1.0-1.6GHz (up to 1.6 TFlops
| FP32)
|
| and 5 screenshots with Control by Remedy, game that runs at
| ~10fps on PS4. PS4 has faster GPU than listed here ...
|
| BTW Somehow Sony didnt delist Control from PS store despite
| performance problems, their official reason for delisting
| Cyberpunk :)
|
| Edit: IGN "hands on, but not really hands on"
| https://www.ign.com/articles/steam-deck-hands-on-impressions...
| Once again Control by Remedy in EVERY fricking shot of the
| screen. Even the shot where Valve employee is "casually" sitting
| with the Deck on his lap, the screen is facing the camera and you
| can see Control right there :D And the mystery is solved, Control
| is playable in mid to low settings at 800p with Ray Tracing
| turned off, something you cant do on PS4.
| zacmps wrote:
| The screen is 720p, not 1080p which is probably what the PS4
| was rendering. Also worth noting the GPU architecture is newer,
| so a straight clockspeed or Flops comparison might not tell the
| whole story.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| There's enough demand for a more powerful handheld gaming device.
| Nintendo continues to let down their most avid and vocal fanbase
| by not producing a "Pro" model of the Switch that can run AAA
| classics. I think this will do really well.
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| Battery: 40Whr battery. 2 - 8 hours of gameplay
|
| Having the battery as low as 2hrs is brutal. I know the early
| Switch consoles weren't much better running AAA titles like BoTW
| but they've revised the chipset a few times since, and newer
| models floor at ~4.5hrs (3hrs for the lite).
|
| I'm all for more competition, but I'm not clear on who the
| intended audience is for this device.
| thomascgalvin wrote:
| It's not great, but I'd wager it's enough for a two-way train
| ride for most people, and almost certainly enough to commute
| in, charge at work, and commute home.
| wongarsu wrote:
| If the Steam Deck is successful I imagine that will give less
| demanding titles that will be much closer to 8 hours battery
| lifetime a nice boost.
|
| I'm suspect games like Among Us, Mindustry, Poly Bridge or
| Human Resource Machine or Life is Strange will boast a good
| battery runtime (just scrolling through my steam library).
|
| USB-C charging also opens the door to some quite large battery
| packs (Dells sells a 65Wh power bank)
| gfaure wrote:
| Many people I know have bought more games on Steam than they
| could ever play (a behaviour encouraged by seasonal Steam sales).
| This strikes me as a great chance for people to discover and play
| titles that have sat in their collections for years.
| agilob wrote:
| The specs look good enough to smoothly run The Witcher 3 in
| 720p (screen size).
| samstave wrote:
| How many arrows to the knee must I take?!?!?!
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Guilty. For various reasons, I just don't find gaming on my
| laptop or media computer an enjoyable experience. Too much
| dealing with thermals, audio/controller issues, random driver
| crashes and updates (thanks AMD), etc etc.
|
| I know I _can get it to work_ , but when I'm at the point in
| the day where I just want to play a game for an hour before
| bed, the PS4 can have me into it in 10 seconds or less with a
| very low likelihood of drama.
|
| Anyway, I know this isn't universal, but it's enough of a thing
| for me that I've even re-bought Humble Bundle games on PSN just
| so I can enjoy playing them that way.
|
| Maybe Steam Deck would be polished enough to change my mind?
| thomascgalvin wrote:
| I really need to get around to beating _Darkest Dungeon_ some
| year.
| trey-jones wrote:
| > Exclusive virtual keyboard theme
|
| They will monetize UI skins for this as well it seems.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| No information where they are going to make the hardware. I hope
| it's not China.
| kmnc wrote:
| Whoever named this an idiot, my first thought was reading "Stream
| Deck" and I thought it was streaming device. Valve makes good
| hardware but their marketing is terrible leading to abandoned
| hardware that enthusiasts rave about. The marketing page is
| white... it is Valve... why is the marketing site white?!?!
| _flux wrote:
| I guess that would be a reasonable complaint if it wasn't so
| that Steam is already Valve's main product, and that this
| device is intended for playing games from Steam!
| Minor49er wrote:
| The button placement seems really high, but it might be
| comfortable to play while resting the bottom on a table.
| notjustanymike wrote:
| I just hit the site on my desktop. Like the steam controller
| before, it's got a lot of back buttons that you can likely
| remap (R1 to R4 and L1 to L4). So yes, the front buttons are
| backups.
| Minor49er wrote:
| Judging by the image in the "Speeds and feeds" section, there
| are only four shoulder buttons. Also, looking more closely at
| the placement, it looks like they're putting more emphasis on
| touchpads over the joysticks, and certainly over the D-pad,
| much like the Steam Controller.
| notjustanymike wrote:
| Huh yeah that is odd. Valve is typically pretty good at
| ergonomic hardware, maybe the buttons aren't the primary
| interaction tool for this.
| echelon wrote:
| This looks like it will trounce the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo
| doesn't even have new hardware in the pipeline other than an
| iterative OLED screen.
|
| Now that Nintendo depends on a single portable console, is there
| a risk that they'll go the way of Sega?
| wlesieutre wrote:
| This will trounce the Nintendo Switch as soon as Pokemon,
| Zelda, Mario Kart, and Smash Bros are released on Steam. Which
| is to say "never."
| krylon wrote:
| If Valve goes through with this and sticks to the device, it
| could become a serious competitor, though.
| lawl wrote:
| I think they're completely different audiences. Nintendo
| games aren't, and never were about cutting edge graphics or
| the latest tripple A games. They were always about
| family/kids oriented more casual games. Which is not to
| disparage them in any way. I like playing some nintendo
| games every now and then.
|
| But my mom bought a Wii back in the days. For herself. My
| mom doesn't usually play video games. And she is most
| certainly not at all interested in playing Doom or Hades
| (just because they're shown prominently on the webpage).
| But she liked Wii Fit and bought a Wii.
|
| I honstly think the subset of people who would buy a Steam
| Deck to avoid buying a switch is so small, it would not put
| a significant dent in nintendo's bottom line.
| krylon wrote:
| Good point, I hadn't thought of that. The last time I
| played anything on Nintendo hardware was Mario Kart on a
| Nintendo64 (which was awesome!), so I missed quite a bit
| of evolution there.
|
| Valve _could_ try to create games that are more appealing
| to the typical Nintendo enthusiast, but I suspect the
| respective cultures are too different.
| jms55 wrote:
| Agreed that they're different audiences. The deck is for
| people with existing steam libraries who don't feel like
| sitting down at a PC to play games.
|
| The switch is for everyone else - way cheaper, unique
| games you won't find on a PC, etc. Plus, co-op. I
| recently spent 6+ hours at my friends house playing Super
| Mario 3D World Deluxe. They got one joycon, I got the
| other. In my college dorm, we have a switch dock attached
| to a monitor in the dorm lounge. Split the joycons, and 4
| people can play smash or mario kart. I don't see the deck
| supporting these use cases.
| fonix wrote:
| i know what you're saying and this wouldnt be out of the box,
| but wait till someone gets emulators running on it, within a
| year i'd say
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Emulators already run on it out of the box.
|
| > You can also install and use PC software, of course.
| Browse the web, watch streaming video, do your normal
| productivity stuff, install some other game stores,
| whatever.
|
| https://www.steamdeck.com/en/hardware
|
| But you can run emulators on all sorts of things. Hell, I
| first played through BoTW on a WiiU emulator on my PC. I
| still ended up buying a Switch and one of the first things
| I did with it was play BoTW again.
| schmorptron wrote:
| They'll run day 1, if it comes with the proper repos you
| just pacman install retroarch and you're emulating
| everything under the sun.
| cnasc wrote:
| IMO Sega's problem was started by having a confusing lineup of
| too many products. Then they fumbled the US Saturn launch and
| faced stiffer competition than before. Then the Dreamcast was a
| victim of the PS2 _also_ being a DVD player, which made it a
| much more compelling option in its early days.
|
| In this case, Nintendo has a large and dedicated fanbase,
| hardware that they (IIRC) sell at a profit, and a truly
| enormous warchest. They'll be fine.
| wil421 wrote:
| Nintendo has the best IP as a whole in the industry. Nobody has
| what they have. They also aren't going down the crazy AAA
| shooters who will milk every skin or map pack penny from their
| users.
| TinkersW wrote:
| It has solid hardware for the price, but if I was forced to
| pick one I'd get a Switch, hardware specs don't matter that
| much.
|
| This thing has many things working against it..
|
| 1. Games were designed for Windows, but are now running Linux--
| some are buggy or don't work
|
| 2. If they have controller support it isn't always 100%
|
| 3. That SSD will fill up in no time
|
| 4. With Switch you can get split screen multiplayer, not many
| PC games bother with that.
| whateveracct wrote:
| > That SSD will fill up in no time
|
| So does the Switch's. That's why you get a fat microSD (which
| the Deck also supports.)
| caconym_ wrote:
| No way. Nintendo's success isn't about the hardware specs, and
| characterizing the Switch as a "portable console" doesn't
| capture it well. It has first-class support for traditional
| "couch gaming".
|
| The Steam Deck will be a great complement to traditional PCs
| for people who are already bought into that ecosystem. For
| people who aren't, the console offerings from
| Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft are similarly priced and have obvious
| advantages.
| [deleted]
| tasogare wrote:
| The Switch has a hige game library with some interesting
| exclusive title. This machine only has a subset of compatible
| PC games, and the subset the make sense to be played on that
| hardware (I sure won't play Age on that).
| timw4mail wrote:
| I wouldn't count on the Switch going anywhere. PC gaming is a
| fairly small market compared to consoles these days.
| doctorsher wrote:
| Source? The console market (~45 billion) is larger than the
| PC market (~37 billion) [0], but I wouldn't describe PC as
| 'fairly small'. Maybe you have different data though?
|
| [0] https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/newzoo-games-market-
| num...
| kevinventullo wrote:
| I believe the Switch itself is evidence that Nintendo's success
| is driven by strong IP, not strong hardware.
| duxup wrote:
| Considering their immense success with the Switch so far, I
| think worrying about Sega seems miles away.
|
| Raw spec peeping is something enthusiasts like to do, but I
| think they're a small chunk of the market.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I doubt it. Nintendo hasn't dominated in hardware specs for
| several generations. They survive by primarily being developers
| of great games that just happen to only be available on their
| whatever-hardware-we-could-get-for-$250 platform.
| ezoe wrote:
| >SteamOS 3.0 (Arch-based)
|
| What? So they ditched Debian?
|
| >1280 x 800px (16:10 aspect ratio)
|
| Yeah... that's like 2000s.
|
| Seriously who what this? For those who can spend fortune for the
| PC games, they have better options. Those who can't spend that
| much, Nintendo switch is probably better for the gaming.
| rkido wrote:
| It's a 7" screen, so this resolution is comparable to an Apple
| Retina display in terms of ppi.
| davidwparker wrote:
| Probably someone like me. I have a pretty crappy PC for gaming,
| but I have 100s of games via Humble Bundle I've bought over the
| years. I already have and enjoy my Switch, but having another
| option (plus all the games I have already) would be nice.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Gotta admit, I never saw that coming. I thought SteamOS was dead
| after the failure of Steam Machines and Valve was only continuing
| with their Linux efforts because it's still a useful hedge
| against Microsoft locking everyone in the App Store. I totally
| did not expect them to copy the Switch use-case with it.
|
| I'm anxious to see how this turns out. Valve's history with
| hardware is not so great, so it could go nowhere like Steam
| Machines, Steam Link, and the Steam Controller did. On the other
| hand, it could end up all but killing off PC gaming if it is
| super successful. If it lands somewhere in the middle it will at
| least be yet another boon for Linux gaming brought to you by
| Valve as more developers will port or ensure compatibility with
| Proton.
| sprafa wrote:
| The Valve Index was a testing ground for their hardware
| efforts. I 100% believe they are serious, they've built a
| hardware operation.
| andrewljohnson wrote:
| I don't really see how a cheap, low-end, mobile computer is
| going to kill off desktop gaming. Why would that happen? People
| will all of a sudden stop wanting top end equipment and big
| high-res screens because they can play some Steam Gameboy?
| huffmsa wrote:
| You can plug it into a display, and plug in a mouse +
| keyboard.
|
| I'd be inclined to buy one of these for gaming and an ultra
| light laptop for laptop stuff when the time comes, versus
| getting a gaming laptop or desktop.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| I'm also wondering if they'll open the door to third-party apps
| on the Steam Deck, which could let you use it for other cloud-
| based gaming platforms like Stadia.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| It's a PC running SteamOS (apparently Arch base with KDE
| Plasma). You can install anything on there that you can
| install in Arch, or install Windows or another Linux distro
| if you want. This is all in the copy:
|
| "You can also install and use PC software, of course. Browse
| the web, watch streaming video, do your normal productivity
| stuff, install some other game stores, whatever."
| m-p-3 wrote:
| I just saw about the dock, if I didn't build a new PC
| recently I'd be definitely considering that for gaming.
| nichch wrote:
| The Steam Link continues to be very useful for my girlfriend
| and I. It's plug and play and we haven't had issues with
| compatibility or controllers like we have trying to set steam
| up on a Pi 4.
| Blackthorn wrote:
| Did the steam link really go nowhere? I have a physical box,
| and it works magically well. My understanding is it's still
| available, just not as a physical box.
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| It works, but if you have an nvidia GPU Moonlight works
| better.
| patrickk wrote:
| Parsec works great for me. Main gaming PC + Parsec macbook
| client via ethernet.... enables a Switch emulator running
| in 4K on the living room OLED! Yes please.
| lostgame wrote:
| How is Switch emulation, these days?
|
| Do any major Switch emulators natively support JoyCons
| the way Dolphin does WiiMotes? (Do JoyCons even use
| regular ol' Bluetooth the way the WiiMotes do? EDIT:
| quick Google says yes :) )
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I have one too, I got it on ridiculous clearance when they
| stopped making them. If they had been successful, why would
| Valve have needed to liquidate stock?
|
| It currently sits in a box somewhere in my house because I
| have never had any use for it, which I think is the case for
| most PC gamers, hence its failure.
| rkido wrote:
| The Link hardware just wasn't necessary anymore once the
| software became good enough to run on any device as an app.
| I have Stream Link on my TV as an app now.
| Blackthorn wrote:
| Right, my understanding is it's still available but not as
| a physical hardware box anymore but instead as some kind of
| software. But it's still there and supported, no?
| capeterson wrote:
| To be fair though, Valve does make the best consumer VR headset
| available (Valve Index).
| baby wrote:
| What? That's false. Oculus quest 2 is hands down the best
| consumer VR headset available. It's not even comparable.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Having tried both, my preference is definitely for the
| Index. The controllers alone are a substantial step up, not
| to mention the graphics, tracking, and pretty much
| everything else.
|
| The Quest is nice because it's cheaper and self-contained,
| but that's about all it has going for it.
| capeterson wrote:
| What makes it "not even comparable"?
|
| The Q2 is good, and certainly a better value, but I'm not
| sure I'd say "not even comparable".
| mlindner wrote:
| Quest 2 requires Facebook so it's not even in the running.
| practice9 wrote:
| It's still one of the best tethered headsets even considering
| it's 2 years old already. Other ones have disadvantages in
| many areas (like tracking) still.
|
| I'm waiting for some company to release a decent hybrid
| standalone + tethered headset (that can compete with Oculus
| Quest at least on the hardware specs), but most companies are
| only interested in selling very expensive devices for
| enterprise
| silicon2401 wrote:
| is there any indication of a valve index 2 coming? given
| that facebook is a no-go for me, that makes the index the
| most appealing VR option for me. but it would suck to buy
| soon and have the next iteration come out right after I buy
| deadbunny wrote:
| I own an Index and would highly recommend it. Even if
| something was on the horizon. It's fantastic.
|
| With that said I vaguely remember seeing a patent for a
| wireless index 2 recently. Can't remember where though so
| I may be wrong.
| caconym_ wrote:
| The thing about Valve's record with hardware is that the
| products aren't _bad_ , just extremely niche. If this thing
| really can play most of most people's Steam games in a Switch-
| like form factor with a standard gamepad layout, I think it
| stands to be a hit in a way their past hardware attempts
| weren't.
|
| It's also an interesting counterpoint to all the streaming
| services popping up these days. PC game streaming to mobile has
| major downsides, even more so when you're away from stable and
| fast internet. Until 5G is everywhere and mobile bandwidth
| [soft] caps aren't a thing anymore, a mobile device that can
| play games locally will be a much more attractive option for a
| lot of people.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| Exactly, used Steam Controllers cost more than retail now.
| There is a small number of extremely hardcore fans of it.
| moosey wrote:
| I am one of them. I have three in the house, mostly for
| future parts.
|
| I have been gaming for 35 years, and in the 15 of those
| where I have played first person shooters, no controller
| compares. Even when I'm playing other kinds of games, the
| ability to do everything without having to remove your
| finger from the pads to hit buttons, the size is perfect,
| everything is so responsive.
|
| They "feel" cheap, but I don't care. They are gaming
| nirvana for me.
| vimacs2 wrote:
| I am definitely a SC Stan too. I learned how to truly
| master it playing Hollow Knight funny enough. Have a
| setup where I literally do not need to use anything but
| the trackpads and the occasional turning over of the
| whole controller to invoke the map. Absolutely love it.
|
| Only things I don't like are the bumper buttons and I'd
| much rather USB C than micro usb.
|
| I wish they would make an SC 2 with fixed bumpers,
| ditching the thumbsticks for bigger trackpads with more
| advanced haptics and a doubling of paddle buttons like
| with this new device.
| VortexDream wrote:
| This seems like it'll become the best emulation platform
| we've seen so far. I'm excited.
| lostmsu wrote:
| One of the major reasons people play PC games is mouse and
| keyboard are way better than joystick. I don't see myself
| playing PC games on a handheld.
| Crespyl wrote:
| Valve has experience already with making m+kb games
| playable via a trackpad on the Steam Controller, so I'm
| confident that the trackpads on the Deck will be good
| enough for a decent chunk of games (though I'm not about to
| try Dota 2 on the thing).
|
| Not every game will be a perfect fit, certainly, but I've
| had a great time with my Steam Controller playing things
| like XCOM, Prey (2017), and Divinity Original Sin. IIRC
| Civilization 5 was explicitly a part of the advertising for
| the controller in the first place, as a way to play mouse-
| heavy games from the couch.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Depends on the game. Flight and driving games are vastly
| better with a gamepad (let alone proper joysticks or
| steering wheels) than with a keyboard and mouse IMO.
| conradev wrote:
| You can use a keyboard and mouse on a PS5 and a PS5
| controller on PC, depending on game support. I believe the
| same is true for Xbox.
| caconym_ wrote:
| These days I think many or even most PC gamers own a
| gamepad and choose to use it for certain games, even when
| they have a mouse and keyboard sitting right in front of
| them. These also tend to be the same games I'd consider
| most suitable for playing at reduced resolutions and
| framerates.
| nvarsj wrote:
| Not sure I agree. I feel like the majority of AAA PC games
| are designed for console first and work well with gamepads.
| At least the ones I play. It's also just more relaxing
| since you can lean back.
| deadbunny wrote:
| But not all games are "PC" games. Plenty of games that are
| released on PC are best/better played with a conroller and
| thanks to the PC being a open platform you have many more
| choices than console. Hell you can use your console's
| controllers if you like.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > Plenty of games that are released on PC are best/better
| played with a conroller
|
| Fewer than people think, in my opinion. Snake Pass and
| Outer Wilds insisted to me that they would be better with
| a controller and both were wrong.
| Ashanmaril wrote:
| I'd argue the Steam controller was kinda bad. But more in
| concept than execution. The touch pads were just not a good
| replacement for a thumbstick or a D-pad
|
| But I agree with what you're saying. If this thing is
| actually good, it could have some real mainstream appeal.
| caconym_ wrote:
| > I'd argue the Steam controller was kinda bad. But more in
| concept than execution. The touch pads were just not a good
| replacement for a thumbstick or a D-pad
|
| There are plenty of people with great things to say about
| it, but they largely seem to be people who wanted to play
| FPS games without a mouse and keyboard, and were willing to
| put in some effort to get it configured right. I can
| imagine it being more successful if it had gotten first-
| class out-of-the-box support for more games, but it seems
| like it never reached the level of adoption where that was
| worth it for developers.
|
| I've never tried it myself, though. If the Steam Deck is a
| success, maybe we'll see the Steam Controller model finally
| take off (since the Deck has similar touchpads built in).
| Or maybe it will be like the Kinect, a pet feature deleted
| in later hardware revisions.
| schmorptron wrote:
| I felt completely differently, the Steam Controller is my
| favorite one by far. The touch pads make so much sense for
| a lot of games, and you still have the analog stick for the
| rest.
| Crespyl wrote:
| I felt almost the exact opposite, in that I think the
| concept was great but the execution fell a little bit
| short, mostly in build quality/button-feel.
|
| The biggest single win for me is replacing the right stick
| for camera control, as the trackball emulation with haptics
| on the touchpad is so much faster and more responsive than
| a traditional thumbstick. There are some games that I'd
| still prefer the standard twin sticks or dpad (twin-stick
| shooters maybe, some platformers, or hyper-specific
| designed games like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons), but
| overall I've much preferred the touchpad over thumbsticks
| for almost every first- or third-person game I've played.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| Steam controller definitely took a minute to get used
| to..now it's the best controller of all time.
|
| Steam chords are brilliant. If you have a steam controller
| and don't know about steam chords, go look it up. Life
| changing.
| trixie_ wrote:
| Touch pads a _better_ than a joystick by far. You don 't
| need to snap back the stick to stop moving. Where ever your
| thumb stops is where your aim is at. A fast flick of a
| touch pad can 180 which takes a lot longer on a joystick.
| Plus gyro support it's almost as good as a mouse.
| chx wrote:
| > On the other hand, it could end up all but killing off PC
| gaming if it is super successful.
|
| Why? I thought PC gaming is about powerful graphics cards you
| can't have pretty much anywhere else.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| For me personally, PC gaming is all about being able to play
| anything from multiplayer FPSs to moddable content to random
| indie games in my web-browser to emulated games from the
| early 90s to keyboard-centric roguelikes. Ie, more about
| having a vast backward-compatible library and the ability to
| hack on the games for fun than about cutting edge graphics.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| It can be about that, but it's also about the low end, the
| modders and weird hybrid devices like this.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| There are various game genres (flight sims, real-time
| strategy, simulation games like Factorio and Kerbal Space
| Program) that just don't fit the console + controller
| paradigm. Individually, the niches may be small but together
| they're not insignificant.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| There's a relatively niche segment of the PC gaming
| population that really wants to push the envelope in
| graphics. I think most PC gamers like gaming on their PC
| because it is a very open platform that allows them to play
| games they bought the 90s, all sorts of mods, games from
| random nobodies on the internet, the latest games, and also
| emulate a wide variety of game systems and computers.
| westpfelia wrote:
| https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/
|
| This is directly from valve. It's probably what Valve looks
| at when making these decisions. I assume this APU is
| relatively similar to the 1060 in power? Maybe the 1050.
| But I haven't seen any benchmarking around the APU.
| rasz wrote:
| This APU is slower than base PS4, and ~2x slower than 8
| year old GTX 760.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4z4igRnlLQ
| rodgerd wrote:
| Certainly the Steam surverys support the notion that the
| people who won't shut up about $1,000 graphics cards are
| very much a minority in PC gaming. They eat up all the
| oxygen in the room, but they certainly aren't the actual
| majority of the group.
| jakeinspace wrote:
| Based on my experience, people wanting to play games which
| are over 20 years old are much more of a niche crowd than
| those using beefy GPUs. Obviously, few people have RTX
| 3080/3090 levels of investment, but based on Steam
| statistics, mid-tier cards from a few years back like the
| GTX 1060, RTX 2060/2070, and RX 580 are all near the top of
| the most recent steam surveys.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| Oblivion on Xbox= ffffff that glitch. Delete everything
| start over from scratch.
|
| Oblivion on PC= glitch? Options are- Unofficial patch,
| console, mod myself
|
| Heck I would have deleted the marauder from Doom Eternal if
| I didn't quit playing video games forever out of
| frustration. Now I read nonfiction books.
| friedman23 wrote:
| >I think most PC gamers like gaming on their PC because it
| is a very open platform that allows them to play games they
| bought the 90s
|
| This is just not true. Most pc gamers are playing free to
| play competitive multiplayer games. Think league of
| legends, fortnite, call of duty warzone, and hearthstone.
| The people playing these games care about framerate for
| competitive reasons which means they need good gpus.
| superkuh wrote:
| I love Valve but it seems like they create these hardware
| projects to occasionally remind platform owners like
| microsoft/playstation/nintendo that they can't completely abuse
| their users and software devs (Win10 store lock-in, etc) and
| retain all of them. Valve just wants to protect steam and
| credible hardware platform competition is how they do it. I
| don't think they have any real plans to produce and support
| hardware long term.
| MikusR wrote:
| What windows store lock-in?
| rasz wrote:
| For example Microsoft kept Forza Horizon 4 Microsoft Store
| exclusive for 4 years.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| MS has tried to push locked versions of Windows several
| times over the years, starting with Windows RT up until S
| Mode (which is still a thing).
| kmeisthax wrote:
| This is way back about a decade ago, when Valve was very
| Windows-centric and barely even had macOS ports of Steam
| running. Windows 8 was announced with an entirely new
| application type, APIs, and distribution model intended to
| support tablets. Existing applications were shoved in the
| Desktop penalty box, while new applications had to be
| fullscreen or side-by-side, like a tablet. Furthermore,
| Windows on ARM was announced, with the Desktop penalty box
| further restricted to _only_ Windows apps (though you could
| jailbreak it). If you wanted your app to work as a tablet
| app, you had to rewrite it for XAML and distribute it
| through the Microsoft Store, with similar technical
| restrictions to that of Apple 's.
|
| The very clear message from Microsoft was that the future
| of Windows was in fullscreen tablet apps and that the
| desktop - as well as third-party app stores - was going
| away. Valve would proceed to launch a Linux version of
| Steam a few months before Windows 8 RTM'd, their own Linux
| distro a year later, and consolized PC hardware another
| year after that. Basically, the whole company made a very
| clear pivot away from game development (which they _still_
| haven 't fully gone back to) to ensure Steam had a lifeboat
| if Windows 9 were to drop the Desktop or enforce app
| lockouts on it.
|
| Of course, what actually happened is that Windows 8 became
| the laughing stock of the entire PC industry. Microsoft was
| trying, like, _five_ developer transitions at once and
| nobody was interested. (Not even _Apple_ can do that, and
| they actually did try. Ask me about Rhapsody sometime.) So
| the end result is that app developers never wrote anything
| to the new native XAML APIs, users just used the Desktop
| app, and nobody had any interest in Windows on ARM tablets.
| That 's why you don't remember the Windows Store lock-in;
| in Windows 10, Microsoft got rid of it.
| samtheDamned wrote:
| > Ask me about Rhapsody sometime
|
| I'd actually love to hear what you think about rhapsody,
| a quick google search doesn't tell me too much about it
| GeekyBear wrote:
| After Apple bought NextStep to serve as the basis of
| their next gen OS, Rhapsody was a developer preview that
| was a reskinned NextStep running on Mac Hardware.
|
| Existing Macintosh software could be run under emulation,
| and the original plan was that everything going forward
| would need to be rewritten using the NextStep APIs. (All
| those NS frameworks still used on iPhones and Macs today)
|
| Eventually Apple decided they would have to create an
| additional set of APIs (Carbon) based on the existing
| Macintosh APIs that would allow software vendors an
| easier path forward.
|
| Developers could adopt Carbon with much less effort and
| eventually transition to the NextStep APIs as part of a
| future large scale rewrite.
|
| Carbon never transitioned to 64 bit, so those NextStep
| APIs did eventually become the default for native
| software.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| In very, very short terms, Rhapsody is Apple's Windows 8.
|
| In order to explain why that comparison makes sense _at
| all_ , I first need to go over some basics.
|
| After shipping the original Macintosh in 1984, Apple's
| investors got really mad about how the computer wasn't
| selling, and more or less forced Steve Jobs out of the
| company. Jobs decided he was going to build another
| computer company called NeXT, which was going to out-
| engineer Apple and make the next big thing. It didn't
| actually work out that way, but conveniently for Steve,
| Apple had been mismanaged into the ground and drowning in
| technical debt. So Apple basically bought NeXT because
| OPENSTEP (previously NeXTSTEP; at this point Steve was
| trying to turn it into a cross-platform API) was a
| functional operating system and all of Apple's attempts
| at System 8 (including asking IBM to finish Copland,
| which is _another_ boondoggle called Taligent) weren 't.
|
| So, right when Apple announced the NeXT buyout, they also
| announced that the next version of the Macintosh's OS
| would be built on top of OPENSTEP, with all existing
| Macintosh software running in a fullscreen "Blue Box" VM.
| The "Yellow Box" would hold new software written to the
| OPENSTEP APIs, and these apps were properly memory-
| protected. (Context: At this point in time all System 7
| apps ran in kernel mode with separate segmented heaps.
| It's exactly as bad as it sounds.) This new OS was code-
| named "Rhapsody", and it even came in an Intel port that
| would install and run just fine on most PCs (albeit
| without the Blue Box).
|
| Apple's plan was basically to continue the NeXT business
| as-is, with some quick rebrands (including rebranding the
| Windows NT port of OPENSTEP as "Red Box") and hastily-
| written compatibility bridges so that Macintosh users
| wouldn't be completely left out in the cold. Users were
| anticipating the new OS, but developers were utterly
| furious that they were being told to basically abandon
| _all_ of their software and rewrite it to this entirely
| different and far more complicated API. They called the
| Blue Box the "penalty box", because they felt punished
| for staying loyal to the Mac.
|
| I call Rhapsody "Apple's Windows 8" because it basically
| tried the same thing Windows 8 did a decade later:
| foisting a technically superior but entirely incompatible
| API on developers who weren't interested in any of it.
| Some might disagree because, well... Apple never actually
| shipped what they announced. A year after assuming
| control of Apple, Jobs would come up on stage again and
| announce that Rhapsody was "cancelled". Instead they'd
| build an entirely new OS called Mac OS X, built
| exclusively for the Mac, with three new subsystems;
| "Cocoa" (OPENSTEP APIs), "Classic" (Mac Toolbox APIs),
| and now "Carbon"; the latter being specifically intended
| for quickly porting existing Macintosh software to OSX
| _without_ rewriting your app. This made developers a
| _lot_ happier and saved the entire transition.
|
| In the meanwhile, because Mac OS 8 was terrible for
| running servers on, Apple would ship _another_
| """unrelated""" OS called "Mac OS X Server", which was
| literally just the cancelled retail release of Rhapsody
| with some extra server applications bundled in. It even
| called itself Rhapsody in uname.
|
| If you're wondering what happened to the Intel version of
| Rhapsody, well... not counting the two developer releases
| before Rhapsody's faked death, Apple would maintain Intel
| ports of everything up until actually announcing a proper
| developer transition from PowerPC to Intel _years_ later.
| Just as proof of how much Apple had learned their lesson
| of how not to handle a developer transition, Carbon would
| actually get _ported_ to Intel, and there were Intel OSX
| apps that needed it. It was ultimately removed only in
| macOS _Catalina_.
| MikusR wrote:
| You don't remember the Windows Store lock-in because
| there wasn't one. (Except for the arm based Windows RT
| and even that because of no x86 emulation). It was mostly
| FUD by companies that already had app stores (EA/Valve)
| or were preparing one (Epic).
| kmeisthax wrote:
| No, it absolutely did exist, but it _only_ applied to the
| new tablet /store app environment and APIs exclusive to
| it (such as native/WinRT XAML). Win32 apps weren't locked
| out from running, but they also couldn't use these new
| APIs. If you wanted to rewrite your app for the tablet
| environment (perhaps because Win32 was entirely
| inadequate for developing apps even back in 2012), then
| you had to also distribute that app on the store, as
| AFAIK there was no easy way to sideload AppX packages. In
| fact, games that were packaged for the store couldn't
| support things like G-Sync, Vulkan, or overlays because
| the lockout technology also firewalled off external DLLs.
|
| You might not have noticed this because _nobody cared
| about the store_ and just used Windows 8 like Windows 7
| with some annoying tablet UI duck-taped to it.
| MikusR wrote:
| The lock-in they were talking about was that of the only
| way to get software to Windows would be from Store. On
| the other hand all the half baked "modern" apis were
| Sinofskys revenge for not getting the CEO job.
| pjmlp wrote:
| No it didn't, in fact the new revamped store also
| includes Win32.
|
| https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2021/06/24/bu
| ild...
| brigade wrote:
| Steam can be installed on all editions of Windows 10,
| unlike Windows 8 where you _could not_ install it on the
| RT edition.
|
| (Yes you might have to switch out of S mode, but that
| wasn't an option in RT)
| MikusR wrote:
| RT was also only arm.
| ineedasername wrote:
| A reminder that if Microsoft _does_ continue along that path,
| Valve is happy to come along and gobble up significant
| portions of their market share. It 's a win-win for Valve:
| either MS keeps their platform out of a walled garden,
| allowing Steam to continue it's current path, or Valve eats
| their lunch while making Linux in general a more mainstream
| option.
| belltaco wrote:
| And yet it looks like you cannot use the Steam Deck without
| logging into a Steam account. Looks like we are trading in
| one lock-in for another.
| kaetemi wrote:
| You can install any OS on it, it's just a PC.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Seems like you can access the KDE desktop, so I think using
| the Steam account isn't mandatory. Not 100% sure though.
| Previous Steam machines allowed full control, even changing
| the OS.
| filoleg wrote:
| Apples to oranges. Valve is concerned about hardware lock-
| in, not software lock-in.
|
| I think users care more about being able to play their
| games on any hardware platform they own than about which
| software platform hosts their games. Also, it seems like
| Steam Deck is just running a customized Linux distro, so it
| isn't really a lock-in.
|
| If Epic Games or Ubisoft decides to make their game stores
| work on Linux, I bet they would run on Steam Deck too. If
| that's the case, then how is it Valve's fault that other
| vendors/game stores aren't bothering to make their software
| platforms/games work on Linux? Valve put in the work, and
| they want to reap the fruits of it, without even trying to
| lock-in their device from using any other competitors'
| software (as far as I am aware). Competitors just gotta put
| in the work to make their platforms work on Linux.
| kbenson wrote:
| > If Epic Games or Ubisoft decides to make their game
| stores work on Linux, I bet they would run on Steam Deck
| too.
|
| They can, because the FAQ says it's just a PC running
| Arch linux and you can install Windows on it if you want,
| which means you can do whatever you want. Maybe it can
| run on the same OS (probably, if it's just Linux, but
| we'll see how customized it is), or at a minimum you
| could just install something else.
| ElFitz wrote:
| > Apples to oranges
|
| Apple to Valve?
| danso wrote:
| The ign preview suggests otherwise:
|
| https://www.ign.com/articles/steam-deck-hands-on-
| impressions...
|
| > _This flexibility means you can do pretty much anything
| on the Steam Deck that you can do with a regular PC.
| Connect a mouse and keyboard? Yep. Alt-Tab out of your
| games to a browser or video? Sure. Load third-party
| programs or even other game stores like Origin, uPlay, or
| Epic Games Store? No problem. You could even wipe Steam OS
| entirely and install a fresh version of Windows if you want
| - but the default Steam OS is smooth and efficient at
| getting you into your games, so I imagine most people won't
| want or need to go that far. The point is, you can if you'd
| like to._
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I wonder if pure cloud service like GeForce Now can then
| be used, to benefit from portable hardware but have
| semblance of battery life, and avoid a likely jetengine
| cooling fan spin up...
| captn3m0 wrote:
| Assuming that Valve does a decent job with integrating
| the inputs, and they show up correctly with the HTML5
| GamePad APIs, it ought to just work.
| mcdevilkiller wrote:
| Wrong, you can install whatever OS you want, the developers
| even said so. You have a lot of freedom.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| They state you can install a different OS. That is just if
| you want the default system. There was a video playing CK3
| that shows KDE running so it's not like you can't install
| windows or a different distro.
| yellowapple wrote:
| KDE is part of the stock software, apparently. Similar to
| existing versions of SteamOS in that regard, except with
| Arch + KDE instead of Debian + GNOME.
| timdorr wrote:
| You don't need a Steam account if you're not using the
| default Steam Deck install. Wipe it and install TempleOS.
|
| > Do I need a Steam account to use Steam Deck?
|
| > The default Steam Deck experience requires a Steam
| account (it's free!). Games are purchased and downloaded
| using the Steam Store. That said, Steam Deck is a PC so you
| can install third party software and operating systems.
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck
| lawl wrote:
| > And yet it looks like you cannot use the Steam Deck
| without logging into a Steam account. Looks like we are
| trading in one lock-in for another.
|
| valve so far has been miles better than any other big DRM
| platform. i would almost bet valve will let you have root
| on these and do whatever you want with the hardware without
| any jailbreaks. It may not be supported, but I really
| cannot imagine them locking this down. That would be very
| much unlike valve.
|
| iirc steam machines back in the day did also let you go
| into a bash shell?
|
| full disclosure: i may contain traces of a valve fanboy.
| oauea wrote:
| > i would almost bet valve will let you have root on
| these and do whatever you want with the hardware without
| any jailbreaks.
|
| They do, and they let you install your own OS.
|
| https://www.steamdeck.com/en/software
|
| > The new version of SteamOS is optimized for handheld
| gaming, and it won't get in your way with other stuff.
| But if you want to get your hands dirty, head on out to
| the desktop.
|
| And https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLtiRGTZvGM has a
| Valve engineer it's more accurate to view these devices
| as PCs with custom controllers, and that you can install
| your own OS.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > You can also install and use PC software, of course.
| Browse the web, watch streaming video, do your normal
| productivity stuff, install some other game stores,
| whatever.
|
| https://www.steamdeck.com/en/hardware
| l-albertovich wrote:
| I'd like to think they'll at least make it easy to root
| or otherwise repurpose these because I like them and
| would likely get one, however, in the software part of
| the specs they state that they have been in the works
| with game studios to basically have them implement their
| anti-cheat systems in their platform so I suspect said
| studios would be against that.
|
| This is pure speculation on my side and I really hope I'm
| dead wrong but that's the first thing that comes to mind
| when I think about it (also, their own DRM right?).
|
| Edit : the reply bellow seems to prove me wrong =)
| techrat wrote:
| Why speculate when you can read directly from the product
| page yourself?
|
| >You can also install and use PC software, of course.
| Browse the web, watch streaming video, do your normal
| productivity stuff, install some other game stores,
| whatever.
|
| and
|
| >The default Steam Deck experience requires a Steam
| account (it's free!). Games are purchased and downloaded
| using the Steam Store. That said, Steam Deck is a PC so
| you can install third party software and operating
| systems.
| yellowapple wrote:
| The FAQs and such make it clear that it's basically an
| ordinary PC in a handheld form factor; if you don't want to
| log into a Steam account, then any ol' Linux distro or even
| Windows should run on it just fine (though whether the
| handheld controls play nicely is something I'd be curious
| about).
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| On the landing page they say "You can connect to
| peripherals, throw the picture onto a big screen, and do
| all the other PC things you'd expect."
|
| On the hardware page they show it docked and running a
| normal desktop interface and say "Use your Deck as a PC.
| Because it is one" and "You can also install and use PC
| software, of course. Browse the web, watch streaming video,
| do your normal productivity stuff, install some other game
| stores, whatever."
|
| On the spec page, it says the OS is SteamOS 3.0 (Arch-
| based) and Desktop is KDE Plasma.
|
| I guess I'm just not understanding where you'd even get the
| impression that it would be locked into a Steam account.
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| Seems like the Google Fiber strategy - start deploying key
| products/services to influence the big players in the market
| to finally innovate or at least play nice for consumers.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| Sadly, I'm not convinced that strategy has any long term
| effect.
|
| I'm still bitter about how bad & expensive Internet access
| is _in the Silicon Valley_
| rcheu wrote:
| SF is actually getting really fast internet now. All the
| new developments we looked at had gigabit internet at
| ~$80/month with multiple competing providers. It's
| getting to older apartments now as well.
|
| At these speeds, the WiFi adapters are more of a
| bottleneck than the ISP. I can only get close to full
| speed on ethernet.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Just in SF, though, right? Immediately south in Daly City
| the options were either paying through the nose for
| Comcast's mediocre cable or being stuck with DSL, and
| that was in 2019.
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| I think that says more about Silicon Valley municipal
| priorities than anything else.
|
| Besides, when it comes to infrastructure and consumer
| habits, influencing any change for the better is still
| better than none at all.
| kingsloi wrote:
| I would've thought somewhere like Silicon Valley would be
| dirt cheap... considering for $100 I get ~950 up/down in
| Gary, Indiana!
| ipaddr wrote:
| Afintiy: From $29.99/month for for 10 mbps. AT&T: From
| $40.00/mo for 45 mbps
|
| What are you paying?
| troyvit wrote:
| I pay $49.99/month for gigabit in Colorado.
| vxNsr wrote:
| RCN: $44/m 1gbps/50mbps down/up
|
| Comcast: $70/m 1gbps/30mbps down/up
|
| Chicago
|
| Both are copper. RCN is slowly rolling out fiber but I
| think it'll still be asymmetric.
| rewq4321 wrote:
| Honest question (I may have misunderstood): Do you mean
| to imply that those are good prices? For reference, I'm
| paying about $40 for 1000 mbps (I'm not in the US). Can
| go to 10gbps for about double that price (IIRC), but I
| think the bottleneck becomes server bandwidth so it
| wouldn't speed me up for most services.
| zeku wrote:
| $80 USD for 1000mbps in Tennessee, USA. Unfortunately I
| have the best internet of all my friend groups and will
| be moving across town to a _newer_ home soon where the
| best I can get is 50mbps for $50 USD.
|
| It is completely random what internet speeds you can get.
| The only constant is the monopoly of Comcast & AT&T.
| unixhero wrote:
| USD35 for 1gbit symmetric fiber here! Non US.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I pay $59/month for 1 gbps through Sonic in Oakland (SF
| Bay Area).
| azinman2 wrote:
| I do as well in SF. And it's 1gbps SYMMETRIC.
| zeusk wrote:
| I pay $50 for symmetric gigabit in Redmond, WA. Not
| everywhere in US has crappy internet but the most
| populous places are entrenched.
| Aea wrote:
| I pay $60 for gigabit in Denver -- but my ISP is owned by
| Big G.
| mcdevilkiller wrote:
| 37EUR for 1000/300 in Spain, one VoIP phone number
| included.
| homarp wrote:
| In Spain also, DIGI: https://www.digimobil.es/fibre-
| mobile
|
| 1Gb fiber symmetrical - 30 EUR
| Hrundi wrote:
| Those are terrible prices.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Is it for real?
|
| I live in a rural city of France and I pay EUR24 a month
| for 400Mbps (upload: 200Mbps).
| zeku wrote:
| Yes it's real! In rural cities in the USA many people
| only have 1-2mbps speeds still!
|
| My family in rural areas are waiting and hoping for 5G
| internet to save them, but I live in a rather hilly
| region and many are worried their homes won't get good 5G
| service!
| jhgorrell wrote:
| I think this is why starlink will sell well.
|
| Rural users are sick of slow speeds, and in low density
| areas there should be enough bandwidth for starlink to
| work well.
|
| Dont know how starlink would handle a city-full of users;
| Think that is something we are looking forward to finding
| out.
| te_chris wrote:
| Those speeds are a joke. I'd be mad to have less than
| 100, and currently have 1gbps
| solumos wrote:
| Isn't Fiber more than 20x that speed for less than 2x the
| price in Austin, TX?
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| FWIW - About 80cad for gigabit in Toronto Canada.
|
| 40us for 45mbps feels old. Any money for 10mbps feels
| antiquated in an urban area of a developed country :(
| CivBase wrote:
| > I don't think they have any real plans to produce and
| support hardware long term.
|
| With Valve's track record, I absolutely believe they have
| limited plans for production in the long term. But their
| long-term hardware support is impeccable. I have several
| discontinued pieces of hardware from Valve (the Steam Link
| and Steam Controller), both of which are still used and work
| as well as they day I bought them - _better_ even, thanks to
| continued software updates.
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| Will these be as hard to find as the PS5 currently is? I suppose
| this should be affected by the silicon shortage as well...
| myworldmyrules wrote:
| It is similar to Nintendo switch
|
| https://nintendosmash.com/valve-announces-steam-deck-a-hybri...
| mushufasa wrote:
| With those specs and that price, this would make a wonderful
| portable linux machine if someone can build a case with a
| keyboard fold-out
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| Such a thing really needs a cellular modem. Wifi only just
| doesn't cut it.
| owaislone wrote:
| Only thing this and Steam OS is missing is native support for
| software like Easy Anti-Cheat. Because EAC explicitly refuses to
| work on wine (proton), it's impossible to run a huge number of
| AAA multiplayer games. I know Value probably cannot do much on
| it's own here though.
| calebegg wrote:
| "For Deck, we're vastly improving Proton's game compatibility
| and support for anti-cheat solutions by working directly with
| the vendors."
|
| So presumably they are working on this
| terramex wrote:
| They are working with BattlEye and EAC to add anti-cheat
| support to Proton before launch.
|
| https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/faq
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Probably going to have hardware root of trust, which I
| expect will heavily split the community.
| owaislone wrote:
| That's actually wonderful news. Thanks
| Roritharr wrote:
| Two gripes: Wifi 6e should be included for a new device that's
| launching for gaming this holiday.
|
| OFDMA really has the potential to decrease the lag of cloud
| gaming when playing wirelessly.
|
| 2 why would you just let the microsd card dangle in the breeze
| like that?!? It's a necessity at the storage sizes provided and
| ruining that slot will make the whole device a big hassle to use.
| Crash0v3rid3 wrote:
| I'd like a device that streams my home PC games with decent
| handheld controls, it doesn't need to do anything else.
|
| Any recommendations?
| t0mbstone wrote:
| You can use Steam Link to stream games from your PC to your
| phone or tablet.
|
| For decent handheld controls, simply pair a PS4 or PS5
| controller (or even an Xbox Series X controller) with your
| phone/tablet over bluetooth.
|
| All you need now is a phone mount for the controller and you
| are set. For example, google: "PS5 controller phone mount" for
| a big selection of options available for sale.
|
| The only downside to this type of gaming is the latency. Some
| people don't mind the latency from streaming games, but it
| really bothers me.
| jjcm wrote:
| Given steam PCs can stream between each other, I suspect this
| would be able to as well. Otherwise there's the nvidia shield
| portable, though I haven't tried it.
| schmorptron wrote:
| This can do that. Or you could get a clamp controller for your
| phone, and use the Steam Link app.
| notjustanymike wrote:
| Anyone else getting some Atari Lynx vibes?
| unixhero wrote:
| I am getting one!
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Is this going to be locked down? Can I use a web browser or
| install my own Linux apps?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| They show it running htop and a normal desktop. I'd assume so.
| sliken wrote:
| Quotes from the announce and FAQ:
|
| "Steam Deck is focused, of course, for running Steam but also
| advertised as an "open PC" that can run other software too."
|
| "That said, Steam Deck is a PC so you can install third party
| software and operating systems."
| schmorptron wrote:
| You can. You can even install Windows, if you so choose. Or
| probably another Distro.
| everyone wrote:
| So, I guess its plays only games from Steam? I'm curious, does
| every game on Steam run on SteamOS? cus SteamOS is Linux.
| dantondwa wrote:
| Thanks to Valve and Proton/Wine, my games run great on Linux
| now, in most cases. So, I can say I'm really satisfied. We're
| certainly miles ahead of, say, 5 years ago.
| Underphil wrote:
| I've had great results with their WINE/Proton layer.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Just thought I'd mention, that I have not had great results
| with this. But presumably it'll be a different story when
| supporting one known specific hardware shared by many Steam
| users.
| heelix wrote:
| I ran Steam on Centos. You had to do some conversion to get the
| Steam app into an RPM format (or use one of the relases that
| did it for you). I've messed with it on Centos, Ubuntu, and
| even played with SteamOS.
|
| Last time I did this with Centos 8 and the AMD proprietary
| drivers, it looked like this
|
| sudo yum update -y (reboot)
|
| sudo yum install -y kernel-headers-`uname -r` kernel-
| devel-`uname -r`
|
| sudo dnf -y install --nogpgcheck
| https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8....
| https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/el/rpmfusion-free-relea...
| https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/el/rpmfusion-nonfree...
|
| sudo dnf config-manager --enable PowerTools sudo yum -y install
| dkms sudo dnf config-manager --add-
| repo=https://negativo17.org/repos/fedora-steam.repo sudo dnf -y
| install steam kernel-modules-extra libva-intel-driver
|
| (reboot)
|
| ( https://www.amd.com/en/support, grabbing the RX580 driver)
|
| tar -Jxvf amdgpu-pro-19.50-967956-rhel-8.1.tar.xz cd amdgpu-
| pro-19.50-967956-rhel-8.1/ ./amdgpu-pro-install -y
|
| (reboot)
|
| Mind you, you don't need the AMD propriety drivers. I'm also
| still trying to figure out what my long term home will be for
| my workstation once Centos 8 becomes Centos Streams.... so will
| be seeing if Rocky or one of the others becomes my long term
| home.
| ranger207 wrote:
| Just curious, why not Fedora?
| schmorptron wrote:
| Nope, you can also install any other linux app / game on it. Or
| even an entirely different OS. SteamOS is arch based, so you
| can probably just pacman install whatever you please.
| everyone wrote:
| Is it actually a PC? Could I just put windows on it? Also as
| per installing any other linux stuff, Can u plug a keyboard
| into it so u can type in terminal? Otherwise how would u
| install stuff?
| depressedpanda wrote:
| Yes.
| hzhou321 wrote:
| An under powered expensive hardware for running games that are
| not designed for it? Doesn't sound like a good buy.
| duxup wrote:
| The size of that thing looks like half a laptop... I'm wondering
| about how comfortable that beast is?
|
| I would love to see more competition in portable land, but it
| will take a lot to pull me away from the Nintendo Switch.
|
| I'm also wary as Valve hardware has had an up and down history.
| liminalsunset wrote:
| Can the 64GB version be upgraded DIY with a NVMe SSD?
|
| It claims to be a eMMC but goes on to clarify it is a PCIe Gen2
| x1 connection. Does this mean it is just a m.2 card?
| msie wrote:
| You probably can. Everything seems standard hw and they are
| touting the ability to add anything to it and even replace the
| OS. It won't be locked down like Apple's hw.
| rasz wrote:
| AMD CPUs have dedicated eMMC controller on die. eMMC flash is
| super cheap compared to dedicated pcie SSD.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| That's what I'm wondering here. If it's just a normal m.2 slot
| then you're way better off price-wise getting the entry level
| unit and upgrading later on.
| ElFitz wrote:
| I wonder what this might mean for the Valve Index.
|
| I mean, 1.6TFlops is still far from an RTX 2080 (10.1 TFlops), by
| a factor of 10, but still...
| mciancia wrote:
| >>> 1280 * 800/(3840 * 2160)
|
| 0.12345679012345678
|
| Assuming ideal scaling with resolution, this should be similar
| (or better) in terms of performance as playing in 4k on 2080
| ElFitz wrote:
| Sure, but that is not what I meant.
|
| > I wonder what this might mean for the Valve Index.
|
| -> Could this somehow lead to a standalone Valve VR headset
| _at least_ just as good as the Vive?
|
| The Index has a 1440 x 1600 resolution _per eye_ , at 120Hz.
|
| By your own calculation, that means
|
| >>> 1440 * 1600 * 2 / (3840 / 2160)
|
| 0.55
|
| So, if I follow correctly, 10x less performance for half the
| number of pixels, meaning 5x worse than playing in 4k on a
| 2080?
|
| Which means that embedding this specific hardware in an Index
| absolutely wouldn't do the job.
|
| Correct?
| deeviant wrote:
| I really wonder what the point of this is. Mobile gaming is a
| meme at this point. It's a thing but phones and tables have it
| well catered too. We don't need another mobile gaming thing that
| will surely be in the bargain bin in as couple years.
| RankingMember wrote:
| This is clearly influenced by the Nintendo Switch, which has
| proven that if mobile gaming is "a meme", it's a supremely
| popular one.
| jerf wrote:
| I would not classify the Switch as portable gaming. It
| definitely acts more like a console.
|
| Of course this is ultimately a definitional issue, but there
| is IMHO clearly a difference. I think rather than "mobile"
| the distinction might be "touchscreen only" gaming; contra
| some of the wild predictions I recall on HN about a decade
| ago, "touchscreen only" has failed to displace all other
| input mechanisms, because it's honestly not all that good. It
| works, and can be better than nothing, but I think it's hard
| for touchscreen to ever attain that transparent "flow" state
| where controls just disappear, and is table stakes for being
| a 'core gaming' platform.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| My kids who play Octopath Traveler and Captain Toad on long
| road trips disagree.
| deeviant wrote:
| Yes, road trips, aka ~1% of time owned...
|
| Which could just as easily be fulfilled with a tablet or
| a phone.
|
| And in the case of valve deck, it even has to compete
| with the switch in the mobile space. It's a miserable
| position right out the gate.
| retromagik wrote:
| The switch is widely used as a portable game console. The
| switch lite can't even connect to the dock
| deeviant wrote:
| Widely-used really doesn't mean anything anything to me.
|
| The numbers are 13 million lite vs 85 million non-lite
| sales.
|
| The mobile part is a meme, it's subsidized by the people
| who just want play Nintendo games (and the switch is the
| only/best way to do it)
| mbesto wrote:
| > Mobile gaming is a meme at this point
|
| I can't take your post seriously, but just for posterity:
|
| - _The lifetime-to-date sales figure now stands at 84.59
| million Switch units shipped worldwide since its launch in
| 2017_
|
| - _Game sales for the year also spiked by 37 percent, selling
| 230.88 million units compared to 168.72 million units in the
| previous fiscal year_
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/6/22422451/nintendo-annual-e...
| sinstein wrote:
| Nintendo Switch sales figures will prove otherwise.
| deeviant wrote:
| I own a switch. I have never played it in mobile
| configuration in the years I have owned it, neither do any
| people that I know that have it, neither do my nieces or
| nephews. I would trade switch mobile capability for 4k in a
| second.
|
| The reason why the switch is popular is the same reason why a
| long line of absolutely craptastic Nintendo hardware is
| popular: exclusive Nintendo software, which this platform
| will obviously not have.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Must be you I used it almost 100% mobile
| deeviant wrote:
| Regardless, without Nintendo's library, this thing is
| going to sink. And frankly, if the switch had no Nintendo
| exclusives, it too would have sunk.
| grae_QED wrote:
| Just wondering, it notes that the base model has 64GB and it has
| an SD card slot. 64GB isn't enough space to play most modern AAA
| games. Do SD card really have the bandwidth to play AAA games or
| Will the memory be upgradable post purchase?
| mrpippy wrote:
| CPU: AMD APU Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz (up to 448 GFlops FP32)
|
| GPU: 8 RDNA 2 CUs, 1.0-1.6GHz (up to 1.6 TFlops FP32)
|
| RAM: 16GB LPDDR5
|
| Display: 7", 1280x800, 60Hz
|
| OS: SteamOS 3.0 (Arch-based), KDE Plasma desktop
|
| Storage: Onboard 64GB eMMC/256GB NVMe/512GB NVMe, microSD slot
| xaduha wrote:
| AMD has its hands in all kinds of console pies. Best Intel has
| in this area are Compute Element things, last heard about in
| that KFC Console.
| mastrsushi wrote:
| They really have this level of Moxie that gives Intel Jeb
| Bush vibes.
| ksec wrote:
| All previous CEO refuse to lower their margin. Not just
| console but also for iPhone. Which leads to Intel losing
| everything except their highest margin Server and PC market.
|
| Let's see how Pat Gelsinger do.
| cynicalreason wrote:
| so I imagine the games will be ran via stadia ?!
| progbits wrote:
| What makes you say that? That is quite beefy machine, very
| capable of running most modern games on reasonable settings
| (the resolution is a lot smaller than what people are used to
| which means lot fewer pixels to push). The only concern I
| would have is thermals and cooling but I'm sure they have it
| figured out.
| FredFS456 wrote:
| Does this mean it's a next gen AMD APU, since it uses LPDDR5? I
| don't think Cezanne (current Zen 3-based APUs) support DDR5.
| MrRadar wrote:
| It's likely a custom chip designed by their "semi-custom"
| division, like the APUs in the PS4/PS5 and Xbox consoles.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| 215 PPI (estimated), which matches Apple macOS retina displays.
| Ashanmaril wrote:
| Apple's "retina displays" aren't mapped to any specific PPI
| number. It depends on typical viewing distance for the device
| it's on (e.g. an iPhone would need a higher PPI to be
| "retina" than an iMac which would sit further from your face)
|
| So for a device like this you'd probably compare it to an
| iPad. The latest one is 264 according to a quick Google
| search.
|
| That's not to say this thing's display is bad by any means,
| but it's worth noting.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| Valve's new Steam Deck 7" @ 215ppi has essentially the same
| pixels per inch as the new Nintendo Switch OLED 7" @
| 221ppi, so from a gaming perspective their target aligns
| with their direct competitor's hardware. You're right that
| an iPad has a higher PPI, but Apple typically runs a lot
| higher on PPI compared on _all_ platforms (handheld and
| otherwise), and in this case, now that I 've run all the
| numbers, I think the Switch would have been a better first
| point of comparison for a successful gaming deck handheld
| than the iPad. (I just happen to know Apple's macOS retina
| PPI by heart, is all!)
|
| I do recommend measuring the distance from your eyes to a
| gaming handheld that you're playing while it rests in your
| lap, and then measure the distance from your eyes to your
| work monitor; for me, these are only a couple inches
| different, so it makes sense to me that Nintendo is willing
| to let the PPI drop _down_ to Apple macOS Retina levels
| with this year 's OLED update, since they have some PPI
| room to work with.
|
| Detailed breakdown for the curious:
|
| Apple's macOS retina displays are all 220ppi +/- an
| insignificant amount:
|
| MacBook M1 Air 13": 227ppi
|
| MacBook Pro 13": 227ppi
|
| MacBook Pro 15": 220ppi
|
| MacBook Pro 16": 226ppi
|
| iMac 4K Retina 21.5": 219ppi
|
| iMac M1 24": 218ppi
|
| iMac 5K Retina 27": 217ppi
|
| Apple's iPadOS retina displays are all 264ppi, except the
| 8" Mini which is halfway to an iPhone (probably to maintain
| fidelity at the much lower screen size?):
|
| iPad 7.9" Mini: 326ppi
|
| iPad 10.2" Retina: 264ppi
|
| iPad Pro 11": 264ppi
|
| iPad Pro 12.9": 264ppi
|
| Apple's iOS retina displays are all 460ppi, with negligible
| variation, with the Mini offering more support for the
| "maintain fidelity at small sizes" thought above:
|
| iPhone 12 Mini 5.4": 476ppi
|
| iPhone 12 6.1": 460ppi
|
| iPhone 12 Pro 6.1": 460ppi
|
| iPhone 12 Pro Max 6.7": 458ppi
|
| However, the nearest competitor to this Steam device is
| actually the Switch, so let's look at that. These numbers
| might be off by a few points, but essentially Nintendo
| seems to maintain the exact same resolution and just sizes
| the pixels based on that:
|
| Nintendo Wii U 6.2": 158ppi
|
| Nintendo Switch 5.5" (Lite): 267ppi
|
| Nintendo Switch 6.2": 237ppi
|
| Nintendo Switch 7" (OLED): 221ppi
|
| And finally, Valve's entry here is nearly an exact match
| for the 2021 OLED Switch:
|
| Valve Steam Deck 7": 215ppi
| driftywinds wrote:
| Wow its a handheld computer, sounds like a customizable and
| (arguably) better Switch
| pimeaple wrote:
| Yep, I think that was exactly their play, blurring the lines
| between a console and a PC, making this a console-PC
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Is this APU good enough to do significant AI/ML workloads that
| you'd normally have to use Colab for?
| lasagnaphil wrote:
| Although this is a pretty niche case - this might be a godsend to
| those who have too many little indie games piled up in their
| library and actually want to finish some of those in commute.
|
| The hardware doesn't seem to be apt for the latest AAA games, but
| that's maybe fine - the majority of Steam games aren't really
| that taxing in terms of hardware.
| aschearer wrote:
| Very cool. Seems like a steam-powered Switch. Wonder how the
| other console manufacturers will react.
| 4ec0755f5522 wrote:
| The abbreviation for Canadian Dollar is CAD, not CDN. Sometimes
| C$ or CA$.
|
| I checked Valve's website for an email address to let them know
| but it seems they have scrubbed it quite deliberately. This is
| not a surprise, it's something we see all the time with scale: if
| a 100 person company can have 100 million customers, they will
| happily do so and gladly take their money, but never scale up
| enough people to deal with this extreme staff:customer ratio.
| Google, FB, etc., we know they all have terrible customer service
| and that this is the reason. Seems with Valve it's the same.
| calibas wrote:
| This is the most interesting part to me:
|
| > On Steam Deck, your games run on a different operating system
| than the one on your desktop PC. It's a new version of SteamOS,
| built with Steam Deck in mind and optimized for a handheld gaming
| experience. It comes with Proton, a compatibility layer that
| makes it possible to run your games without any porting work
| needed from developers. For Deck, we're vastly improving Proton's
| game compatibility and support for anti-cheat solutions by
| working directly with the vendors.
|
| Of course, it doesn't magically make every Win 10 game run on
| Linux without issue. Your favorite games may not even work, but
| it does make _most_ games _playable_. More info:
| https://www.protondb.com/
| jl6 wrote:
| "Installing Linux is hard" is about to flip on its head as people
| find themselves with Linux installed by default and instead
| having to figure out how to install Windows (and pay for it
| explicitly).
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I don't think people are going to install Windows on this, it's
| unsuited to this kind of tiny screen.
| MikusR wrote:
| It's 7" 1280x800 that's more than required.
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| Arch no less
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Maybe a mod can correct the title to "Steam Deck". This post made
| me think Valve had introduced a second product, Steam Desk, in
| addition to Steam Deck.
| dang wrote:
| Yes, fixed now.
| OscarCunningham wrote:
| Most online gaming is currently borked on Linux because the
| anticheat software doesn't work. Does this get around that
| somehow? Will I be able to use the same method on my Linux
| machine?
|
| EDIT: Otherwise 'runs the latest AAA games - and runs them really
| well' seems like oversell.
|
| EDIT2: From their 'software' page: 'For Deck, we're vastly
| improving Proton's game compatibility and support for anti-cheat
| solutions by working directly with the vendors.' Yes!
| Anunayj wrote:
| This is such good news for linux users! Since this means more
| linux compatibility, rather than game studios going "Just use
| Windows".
| traspler wrote:
| You should be able to install Windows on it. As they say on the
| website you are free in your choice of OS. Then the anticheat
| shouldn't be a problem.
| Vaslo wrote:
| Hope there are enough chips to support this in today's supply
| chain mayhem...
| typon wrote:
| A $400 dev machine running Arch?
| lasagnaphil wrote:
| It doesn't have a keyboard and a comfortably-large-enough
| screen though. You would be better off using a Chromebook with
| Crostini for less than that price.
| typon wrote:
| 16GB lpddr5, solid AMD CPU, NVME SSD?
| mastrsushi wrote:
| A more expensive Nintendo Switch with the attractiveness and
| weight of the Sega Nomad. Complimented by the extensive Linux
| gaming library.
|
| Brought to you by the maniacs at Valve who lost their minds
| somewhere around Portal 2.
|
| Just listen to that mobile AMD64 go hnnnnnngggggg
|
| Edit: LR 4 and 5? what monster was this designed for?
|
| I'm glad to see Valve attempting to be creative again. But this
| is an idea we all drew in our 8th grade composition notebooks.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| > A more expensive Nintendo Switch
|
| and? Consider this is HN, which is largely populated by people
| with the disposable income that this doesn't much matter.
|
| > with the attractiveness and weight of the Sega Nomad
|
| ... which competed with the Gameboy
|
| > Complimented by the extensive Linux gaming library.
|
| First, this is much larger than you might expect.
|
| Second, it's only limited _on the device_. I see this being
| used as a thin client into a desktop gaming PC that you already
| own, which presumably will be running Windows.
| mastrsushi wrote:
| > Consider this is HN
|
| Consider this is the gaming community which already owns PCs
| and consoles that either outperform or have larger, richer
| libraries than this thing.
|
| > ... which competed with the Gameboy
|
| You mean the more successful, lighter competitor with a
| better library?
|
| > First, this is much larger than you might expect.
|
| Really not that big considering the demands of actual gamers.
| Especially compared to already established platforms
|
| >I see this being used as a thin client into a desktop gaming
| PC that you already own
|
| $400 thin client
| squarefoot wrote:
| This is great! I don't know how much of it is open in the -all
| specs open- sense, but being able to install usual OSes on it,
| paired with the really nice price, makes the platform interesting
| for a lot more uses other than gaming. In fact, I don't see it as
| a simple gaming platform but also a portable terminal with lots
| of buttons. Hopefully more competition in this field will also
| help bring down prices of other interesting gear such as the GPD
| handhelds and mini-PCs, the One Xplayer etc.
| MR4D wrote:
| Uh, anyone else think this is poor (confusing) branding compared
| to the _Stream_ Deck from Elgato?
|
| https://www.elgato.com/en/stream-deck
| floatingatoll wrote:
| Never heard of it, so no. But I've heard of Elgato, and of
| Steam!
| SN76477 wrote:
| Why are Valve trying to reinvent the pc?
|
| Make games and services.
| sekai wrote:
| What? Have you seen Nintendo Switch sales numbers?
| lemoncookiechip wrote:
| The resolution, the weight, the battery life and potentially the
| cooling are all sub-par. There's also the fact that this can't
| compete with the Switch due to the simple fact that games are
| optimized to run at a stable framerate by the developers or
| subcontracted companies for the Switch, while this will just run
| games from Steam at a low-res and hope for the best.
| nvarsj wrote:
| Switch is infamous for adding lots of input lag to its PC ports
| (like hollow knight). Not to mention the abysmal online
| experience. The steam deck looks like it will destroy it for
| any third party title.
| jogu wrote:
| > There's also the fact that this can't compete with the Switch
| due to the simple fact that games are optimized to run at a
| stable framerate by the developers or subcontracted companies
| for the Switch
|
| I have a pretty extensive Switch library and can definitely say
| that performance of ports is really hit or miss.
|
| This is also missing that PC games are already designed with a
| broad range of hardware in mind and nearly every game for PC
| has extensive settings to control graphical quality vs
| performance.
|
| Sure, maybe a device like this might have performance issues
| but I don't think the Switch completely trumps this in terms
| delivering playable experiences.
| hellotomyrars wrote:
| Even some first party Nintendo games can't be relied on to run
| at a stable framerate so I'm going to have to disagree with you
| there. Link's Awakening has some nasty and inconsistent stutter
| issues, Breath of the Wild runs better than on the Wii U but it
| still has its moments.
|
| Then you have games like Hyrule Warriors where it just feels
| actively bad.
|
| Lots of Switch Games actually run a lot better under even a
| very mild overclock (Nintendo even officially lets the CPU get
| OC'd during loading screens for limited periods of time, to
| great effect).
|
| This is beating the Switch on most aspects outside of first-
| party Nintendo library.
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| I might be the target audience for this. I have a steam account
| for years but I barely touch it. I don't feel like building a PC,
| and games for MacOS were limited last time I checked. I've been
| happy playing my Switch and PS4.
|
| My first thought when I saw this was that it better be able to
| connect to an external screen, and it does! An added bonus would
| be if I could hook up external controllers to it as well.
|
| I've heard of Valve's Proton[1] but not sure how stable it is and
| if it can support any Windows game on their platform. If so, then
| that would be pretty amazing to have access to some Windows-only
| games without building a PC.
|
| I'm definitely interested but I'm in no rush. I'd rather upgrade
| to a PS5 first but I'm gonna keep my eye on this. If the reviews
| in the long term are good maybe I'll get the 2nd generation of
| it.
|
| Wonder if they'll release a Oculus-Quest-like all-in-one VR
| system next.
|
| 1. https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton
| mariusor wrote:
| Here is the community created ProtonDB:
| https://www.protondb.com/
|
| You can check how well titles are supported, or if you need
| tweaks to make it work.
| bmurphy1976 wrote:
| Proton is absolutely incredible. It doesn't support all games,
| but what it does support work fantastically well. It's a great
| 80/20 solution for your games library.
|
| You still need to have Windows for a couple bleeding edge must
| play AAA games and a few slackers that haven't been ported
| over, but there's a wealth of wonderful games that run great on
| Linux now. More than enough to last a lifetime.
| legitster wrote:
| As a long-time user of Big Picture Mode, I am pretty skeptical
| how happy I would be long term with one of these. When it comes
| to things like basic controller support or options for unusual
| resolutions, it's still the wild west in the Steam library.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| Sure when you're talking about older games. But for newer games
| I'd say support for XInput is pretty consistent, and resolution
| support is usually OK too.
| fermentation wrote:
| Agreed, support is very much not standardized across games. If
| this thing takes off then I'm sure the story will be different
| in a few years, but the early adopters will surely face some
| headache in games that aren't "officially supported".
| ilyas121 wrote:
| How open is this platform to custom peripherals (wifi/bluetooth)
| ones? I've always wanted a nice controller for robotics projects
| with a touchscreen. Right now it seems like most hobby projects
| use a laptop and ps4/xbox controller.
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| Sounds like it's just a custom linux install, so if you can get
| it working on another distro you can probably get it working
| here.
| spiralganglion wrote:
| Impressions:
|
| * 1.47 pounds is 666g, versus the Switch's 398g (with Joy-Con
| attatched). 67% heavier.
|
| * I do like that the two people I can see on the landing page
| both appear to be female, and not overtly "models" at that. I
| don't want to read into whether this implies anything about what
| the marketing for this system might be -- rather, I just like
| that we're seeing a further erosion of the video-games-as-boys-
| club trope.
|
| * The visual appearance of this console is brazenly ugly. It sure
| feels like they were unwilling to compromise something for the
| sake of appearance, though I'm not sure what that something is.
|
| * They claim that there's no performance difference between
| tiers, but obviously disk speed has an impact on how games
| perform whenever they need to fetch data. This feels like a bit
| of skating by on ambiguity rather than being fully forthright
| about tradeoffs -- which only hurts since the price jump from the
| entry level to the middle tier is so dramatic, and we don't yet
| know pricing for the dock.
|
| * Countdown until this thing is EOL? Any bet on what the firesale
| will look like? No, I'm not assuming it'll flop necessarily, we
| just all know Valve's track record for being fickle about
| hardware.
|
| * This really goes to show how much prowess Nintendo has at
| hardware, and how hard mass-market product design is. According
| to my napkin math, Nintendo and Valve are both in the same
| ballpark in terms of financial status / resources. Though if the
| Xbox and Surface has shown us anything, if you keep trying and
| trying in earnest, you'll eventually get there.
| sdwr wrote:
| Nintendo has a major advantage, in that they're not trying to
| run _everything_ on the Switch. All their first-party titles
| target low-power hardware, and they make those games smooth and
| responsive. Valve is trying to give people their entire Steam
| libraries on a portable device, which is bound to lead to a
| worse user experience.
|
| If they keep trying, one day the stars are going to align and
| their hardware dream will hit, but today isn't the day. I give
| it 18 months to live, no chance at a v2.
| rchaud wrote:
| An excessively negative take, why?
|
| 1.5 pounds is what the 2010 iPad weighed, people managed to use
| it just fine.
|
| As for visual appeal, who knows? PC gamer aesthetics seem to be
| oriented around dotting your CPU case with the most gauche RGB
| lights Amazon dropshippers have to offer. At least this is more
| toned down than say, a comparable Alienware product.
| jhchabran wrote:
| Regarding the weight, it's a different position when you're
| holding it at arms length while playing. You don't hold your
| iPad in the air while reading, you put it against your knees
| or something else!
| staticman2 wrote:
| I would put the Steam device on my knee when seated and
| playing on a train, possibly on top of a backpack that's
| also on my knee. I'd have to try it to be sure but I think
| it will work out fine.
| sdwr wrote:
| Experience! Every portable gaming PC and piece of Valve
| hardware have flopped. This is a "We have tons of money and
| are still committed to hardware" release, not a success
| story.
| rkido wrote:
| This is news to me. What is an example of a portable gaming
| PC that has flopped? I'm honestly just not aware of any
| major company trying to make one.
|
| As for Valve hardware, the only clear flop was Steam
| Machines -- which weren't Valve hardware at all.
|
| I think it's odd to focus purely on the mass market success
| of Valve's actual hardware (Link, Controller, Index) since
| these can all be considered experiments by a company that
| can afford to fail, and since these have all been widely
| praised as the best-in-category. Clearly they know how to
| make great hardware; they just haven't done anything mass
| market yet. Who knows, maybe the disappointment with
| Nintendo will fuel sales for the Steam Deck.
| treesknees wrote:
| The weight is pretty excessive for something you hold out in
| front of your face with two hands. Yes an 11 year old iPad
| weighs the same, but people tend to rest the edge of the iPad
| on a lap, chest, table. At least with the Nintendo Switch, I
| find it uncomfortable to play while resting it against
| something else. The angle on my wrists ends up being painful
| after say 20 minutes.
| drzaiusapelord wrote:
| >Countdown until this thing is EOL?
|
| I feel this device is too "on the nose" for what PC enthusiasts
| want. Its a Nomad, not an iPod. Its a Game Gear, not a Gameboy.
| Enthusiasts will just shrug at its lackluster performance and
| tiny screen vs just paying a bit more for a gaming laptop or
| desktop with several times the performance.
|
| I also don't like the idea that if you want to play many
| popular games, especially those beholden to anti-cheat systems,
| you have to run Windows and now you have to go through the
| hassle of buying a Windows license and installing it on this
| machine. A lot of kids might be disappointed when their parents
| buy this and they find out they can only play stuff that works
| on Linux and that stuff may not include the big AAA shooters
| they want to play (mostly due to anti-cheat being windows
| only). Worse, Win10 costs $120, which is a pricey upgrade for a
| device that starts at $399.
|
| I think its often in technology that the customer doesn't know
| what they actually want. They don't actually know how to ask to
| be surprised or what that surprise might be, afterall its a
| surprise! So they just ask for slightly better or tinier
| versions of the things they already own, which may or may not
| be the right answer.
|
| Products that actually get successful tend to surprise and
| break expectations and introduce new concepts. This device just
| seems like its not doing any of that, but on paper its what PC
| enthusiasts claim they want, but I'm guessing won't actually
| buy. I don't know what its EOL will be, but its definitely
| going to be a super-super niche device, at bit like how Android
| tablets with things like full size USB slots were seen as
| potential iPad killers just a few years ago, but failed to get
| any real marketshare. You can still get an Android tablet, but
| its just a lackluster device compared to the competition and
| super-super niche. This device may also have a very long life
| as potential ammunition against Microsoft trying to seal off
| Windows from gaming again. It'll always be in production even
| as a loss because its so politically and economically important
| to Valve to be able to keep MS from locking them out with the
| MS store.
| oehpr wrote:
| the difference between a mid tier nvme drive and a top tier
| nvme drive isn't that big. 1.5GB/s or 3GB/s (numbers made up, I
| don't know the actual specs), That's still crazy fast. The
| impact here would be minimal.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| The bottom tier uses eMMC (and/or and SD card), which I've
| found to be a bit slower (maybe depends on the EMMC?)
| donatj wrote:
| > 2 x full-size analog sticks with capacitive touch
|
| That's listed separate from the track pads. The sticks have
| capacitive touch?
| cma wrote:
| It will allow for only activating the gyro when the stick is
| touched, which is a great feature for augmenting aim without
| having the gyro wobbling the view all over the place all the
| time when not wanted (like when staking out through a window in
| an FPS).
| dantondwa wrote:
| And so, this is what Proton was for. Hope this is a success, as
| the success of Linux as a gaming platform is strictly linked to
| the success of this.
|
| It does look very appealing: it could become a Switch with the
| whole PC library available. Damn cool.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| I hope so too, and I think this time Valve has a _much_ higher
| chance of success. When they launched the Steam machines it was
| almost guaranteed to fail. The Linux ecosystem wasn 't there
| yet and the prices weren't competitive.
|
| But now with Proton most problems I have are caused by
| hardware/driver incompatibilities. Which is exactly what Valve
| can get rid of by launching their own hardware which is
| actually built and tested primarily for Proton. That's why I'm
| really hoping this takes off. I'd honestly have preferred a
| stationary device, but now that the Switch is the only serious
| portable console they might be able to build a market there.
| Especially as people can just keep using their Steam library.
| PeterHolzwarth wrote:
| > When they launched the Steam machines it was almost
| guaranteed to fail.
|
| Too true. Steam Machines solved a problem for Valve
| (existential fear of a Windows store built into Windows), but
| didn't really solve any problem for the bulk of their
| customers (existing windows users).
| msie wrote:
| Exactly! Only one hardware configuration makes it easy to
| program for and test. This will be way more successful than
| the confusing array of Steam Machines.
| Thaxll wrote:
| " PC library available"
|
| That's the problem proton does not run all the games.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| It runs many more games than the Nintendo switch right from
| the start, with many people being able to play games on the
| go without buying them again.
|
| It's not perfect, but it sounds like a much better deal than
| the Steam Machines which didn't really offer any additional
| value to anyone and were much more limited.
| freeflight wrote:
| Proton supports around 15.000 games [0], I couldn't find a
| concrete number for all games on Switch, but this list [1]
| has around 4.000 of them.
|
| [0] https://www.protondb.com/
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_Switch_gam
| es_...
| hn8788 wrote:
| Protondb isn't completely reliable, it's all based on user
| generated reports of how well a game works. I've had games
| that were rated gold and platinum on ProtonDB fail to
| launch on my PC. Then you have people reporting that a game
| works great, but they say that they had to compile a custom
| version of Proton, not just use what's included with Steam.
| ThatGeoGuy wrote:
| Compiling custom versions of proton are somewhat a thing
| of the past already.
|
| I installed Steam on Debian sid via Flathub / Flatpak,
| and then installed
| https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom using
| their flatpak instructions as well.
|
| Honestly, it has never been easier to get a version of
| proton that makes gaming on linux seamless. Of course, I
| understand "run these terminal commands" is the usual
| defensive linux nerd^H^H^H^H coward's reaction, but
| installing Steam and this package from flatpak and then
| going from there is a _vast_ improvement from yester-
| years. I've been fairly happy with it, and I didn't have
| to do any actual compiling / building!
| paavohtl wrote:
| You can install Windows on it too, to run run pretty much all
| the games.
| Ameo wrote:
| Yeah this makes all the investment in Proton make a ton more
| sense. I've been really enjoying the side effect of pretty much
| any game I try running on my Linux desktop with little to no
| extra effort as well.
|
| For me personally, I value the openness and out-of-the-box
| hackability of this device very much and it will likely be the
| first handheld gaming device I'll buy since the Nintendo DS.
| I'm interested to see if that sentiment is shared more widely
| as well.
| hobofan wrote:
| I know giving predictions against Nintendo is always a bit of a
| gamble due to their strong 1st party IPs, but with the
| announcement of the Switch OLED (and with that basically killing
| the hope for a Switch Pro), they might have seriously bungled it.
|
| At least for me, I know when my Switch finally kicks the bucket
| (and maybe even before then) I'll seriously consider a Steam Deck
| instead. I've been using my Switch almost exclusively for indie
| games, and even though there is quite the selection of them for
| the Switch I could have played basically all of the indie games
| earlier (and then some) if would have had access to my Steam
| catalog. So unless you really want Nintendo's 1st party
| (expensive, never-dropping-in-price) games, this really looks to
| be a no brainer.
| tyingq wrote:
| Pretty nice specs for a handheld battery powered device...
| Processor AMD APU CPU: Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz (up to 448
| GFlops FP32) GPU: 8 RDNA 2 CUs, 1.0-1.6GHz (up to 1.6
| TFlops FP32) APU power: 4-15W RAM 16 GB LPDDR5
| RAM (5500 MT/s) Storage 64 GB eMMC (PCIe Gen 2
| x1) 256 GB NVMe SSD (PCIe Gen 3 x4) 512 GB high-
| speed NVMe SSD (PCIe Gen 3 x4) All models include high-
| speed microSD card slot
|
| Though it does weigh 669 grams (~1.5lbs).
|
| https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech
| ds wrote:
| Im not sure how apples to oranges it is, but a GTX 980
| (Released in 2014) has 5 TFlops. Genuinely curious how powerful
| this might be for GPU intensive games. (Call of Duty, Rust,
| etc..)
|
| Maybe this is equivalent to something like a MX-150 or GTX1050?
|
| Should be totally fine for Valves games though (CSGO, TF2,
| Etc..)
| dygd wrote:
| It also allows developers to target and optimize performance
| for this specific device (or family of devices). Won't be
| surprised to see games having a Steam Deck "mode" in the
| future.
| [deleted]
| rasz wrote:
| ~ GTX 750 Ti, ~800p@30fps gaming.
| newsclues wrote:
| Switch is 390ish-500 GFlops (higher is when docked)
|
| It's about perf/watts
| jcelerier wrote:
| but the switch's graphics are terrible
| munchbunny wrote:
| Having a screen resolution of only 1280x800 helps a lot.
| Steam Deck specs say up to 1.6 TFlops from the GPU.
|
| That's half as many pixels as the 1080p screens that people
| in 2014 were playing on. Keeping "rendering quality" fixed,
| pixels and flops aren't necessarily linearly correlated, but
| half the pixels does mean approximately half the flops to hit
| the same quality targets, ignoring the new upscaling tech
| that will almost certainly be used to close the gap. So 1.6
| TFlops today vs. approximately 2.5-equivalent 2014 TFlops is
| probably not that dramatic of a gap.
|
| And running on a battery. That's actually really damn
| impressive.
| shadilay wrote:
| I was thinking AMD Renoir but Zen 2 and RDNA 2 is an odd
| combination. Is it custom?
| vimy wrote:
| > We partnered with AMD to create Steam Deck's custom APU,
| optimized for handheld gaming.
|
| From the hardware section on the website.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> I was thinking AMD Renoir but Zen 2 and RDNA 2 is an odd
| combination. Is it custom?
|
| I don't recall any APU with that combination. The 5700G which
| is due next month is Zen 3 with Vega graphics.
|
| Personally I don't care much about RDNA 2 but I would like
| the hardware AV1 decoder.
| m45t3r wrote:
| Yeah, probably. Kinda like a Xbox Series/PS5 CPU lite.
| paulpan wrote:
| This seems like the rumored AMD Van Gogh for low power
| configurations: Zen2 CPU + Navi2 GPU. Essentially it's AMD's
| stop-gap solution before the launch of Rembrandt (Zen3 +
| Navi2). https://www.tweaktown.com/news/78815/amd-van-gogh-
| apus-zen-2...
|
| Also agreed that this looks very price competitive. Given
| storage is SSD-expandable, $399 gives you a fairly powerful
| mobile gaming platform and PC.
| oever wrote:
| Desktop: KDE Plasma
|
| KDE Plasma visible in this video of a docked SteamDeck:
|
| https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamdeck/images/vide...
| pantalaimon wrote:
| It runs Arch btw
| frompdx wrote:
| I think the Switch gets this type of handheld play right by
| having detachable controllers. I never use my Switch with the
| controllers attached to the side. Instead I use a separate pro
| controller when playing handheld mode. Maybe this doesn't matter
| if you can still use a separate controller.
|
| Beyond that, it's not clear to me what this will support. If I
| can play Fallout, any of them, I will seriously consider buying
| this.
| manojlds wrote:
| It's also funny that all the games on the screen are available
| on the Switch.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| The website is pretty clear: this runs SteamOS 3.0, which is
| Arch Linux with a KDE Plasma desktop. You can run anything you
| want on it, including switching out the OS if you want, and it
| uses standard PC peripherals.
|
| In other words: your wireless XBox controller (or whatever)
| should work fine and you can play Fallout whatever as long as
| it is supported by Proton or you put Windows on the thing.
| disambiguation wrote:
| this is great! i hope we get access to the underlying linux
| system
|
| in a similar vein, i just finished installing ubuntu on my
| Switch. It's a lot of fun so i can imagine this will be even
| better with fancier hardware!
| smcleod wrote:
| Fantastic that it runs Linux by default.
|
| A real shame it's not available in Australia at lunch.
| mikkelam wrote:
| So that's why valve was pouring all this manpower into proton
| christophilus wrote:
| Honestly, those specs are pretty decent[0]. I could see myself
| using that as a workstation, since it's already preinstalled with
| Arch.
|
| [0] https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech
| vially wrote:
| I'm going to buy this just to support Valve for their continued
| support in making Linux desktop a viable gaming platform. Their
| reasons may not be entirely altruistic, but there's no doubt that
| they had a tremendous impact on the Linux gaming ecosystem.
|
| And it's not just the Linux gamers that are benefiting from their
| work. They also seem to be doing good work on lower-level parts
| of the stack (e.g.: graphic drivers, Flatpak, etc) that are
| improving the Linux desktop in general.
| mrzimmerman wrote:
| Same. I already have $1,100 saved for a gaming PC, but since
| that might only buy a GPU right now I'll just jump into this
| and hopefully wait out the GPU crunch.
| agilob wrote:
| Screen is 720p by default, but it can be used as a gaming
| laptop, which is really cool. I hope this will be new PSP
| rasz wrote:
| This thing has GPU 2x weaker than 8 year old GTX 760. You
| might as well buy one used for $100.
| mlindner wrote:
| That's not really true because of the advancements in
| compute technology and energy efficiency since then. It'll
| definitely use a lot less energy than a GTX 760 at the very
| least.
| rasz wrote:
| I want you to remember this so you can repeat "a lot less
| energy" when your game inevitably drops below 30 fps at
| 800p.
| pkulak wrote:
| Apparently they are working with anti-cheat makers to get those
| games working on Linux before release? This honestly seems like
| the best news for Linux gaming... ever.
| smbv wrote:
| I wonder what this will mean for Linux support on the Steam store
| in general? Since this is SteamOS[0], then manufacturers will
| have to support Linux / Proton in order to have their games on
| this machine.
|
| [0] https://www.steamdeck.com/en/software
| jvzr wrote:
| It is! A new version, in fact. It includes Proton.
|
| (I'm not sure if SteamOS v2 and below were already Arch-based,
| but it's interesting to know that v3 is, given that the Steam
| Linux Runtime is mostly Ubuntu-tested)
| jsnell wrote:
| It is indeed SteamOS, though they're claiming that Proton will
| be improved for this:
|
| > For Deck, we're vastly improving Proton's game compatibility
| and support for anti-cheat solutions by working directly with
| the vendors.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I noticed one of the screen shots was using KDE on the
| connection to another screen. Honestly that got me to realize
| it's another PC and made me consider getting one. Worst case
| scenario, I just have another PC that's marginally better than
| those small box office PCs.
|
| Edit: I read further, it is a fully fledged PC. You can install
| or do whatever you want to it.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| I want to know if I can stream and play on a TV or external
| monitor. It will double the value of this device if I can also
| play on a bigger screen at home.
| msie wrote:
| Yes. It's a PC with lots of ports. They showed it connected to
| a large desktop display.
| whateveracct wrote:
| Can I run NixOS on it?
| OnionBlender wrote:
| Elsewhere in this thread someone linked to the developer docs
| that said you can install other operating systems, including
| Windows.
| whateveracct wrote:
| That seals it - gotta get one of these. Hackable console!
| moralestapia wrote:
| It would be AMAZING if you could run some linux distro on this,
| somehow.
|
| Edit: I mean, a linux you could control, ssh into it, install
| stuff etc...
|
| Edit 2: Wow! Apparently, you can do all of this out of the box.
| jamesfmilne wrote:
| It's already running Linux, in the guise of SteamOS.
|
| https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech
| caslon wrote:
| It's...just a Linux PC, running a Linux distribution (SteamOS
| 3, Arch-based). It says that on the site.
| CosmicShadow wrote:
| First thing I thought was, did they buy all the old Wii U's and
| repurpose them?
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Valve is like 90s id Software without Carmack. They understand
| business models. They know that the money is to be made in game
| engines and game platforms, not games themselves. However,
| they've never had the technical talent and vision to execute on
| that.
|
| Half-life was supposed to be a demo for GoldSrc. It never took
| off and I can't name a single 3rd party GoldSrc game. Likewise,
| Half-life 2 was supposed to be a demo to sell the Source engine
| but I've yet to see a successful Source title that wasn't Valve-
| based.
|
| They tried with the Steam console (the name of which escapes me)
| and I don't know anyone who owns one (despite the excellent
| controller). Now we're at them trying their hand at a Nintendo
| Switch competitor. Based on their past failures, I don't see this
| being any more of a success.
| azornathogron wrote:
| I think they've done fine with VR hardware, except for that
| market still being pretty small/niche in general. Oculus
| probably has a more well known brand, but the Valve VR hardware
| is - I think - pretty much best in class, and I think anyone
| would choose Valve over Facebook as a source of VR games. HL
| Alyx was well-received as well. But VR is still pretty niche.
|
| Steam itself is their biggest success of course, though that is
| not hardware. I do believe Steam took good perseverance and
| good execution to achieve the success that it's seen. (Re:
| perseverance, remember that when Steam _first_ came out, people
| really hated the idea!)
| twostorytower wrote:
| Counter-Strike was a third party GoldSrc mod before Valve
| bought it and is arguably one of the most popular games of all
| time.
|
| Source has Titanfall as well as its spiritual successor, Apex
| Legends, which use a modified Source engine.
| schmorptron wrote:
| Titanfall, Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends all run on Source
| choeger wrote:
| Wow. This thing will either flop massively or change gaming. I
| really hope for the latter.
| mmastrac wrote:
| This is a pretty amazing. Given the ports on the back, will this
| support the Valve Index? I love my index, but having to boot up a
| PC and keep myself tethered to the desktop is a bit of an effort
| that I'd love to skip.
|
| EDIT: Found a half-answer to this: "Pierre-Loup Griffais: I mean,
| it has all the connectivity. You would need [a lot] to do that,
| but that's not really what we're optimizing the performance for."
| [1]
|
| [1] https://www.ign.com/articles/steam-deck-valve-faq-big-
| questi...
| freeflight wrote:
| I don't think this thing is beefy enough to power an Index.
|
| But it's been rumored for a while that Valve is working on a
| Index successor with wireless connectivity.
| aneutron wrote:
| I have a lot of doubt about it supporting the Valve Index.
| Mainly because it's a 15W CPU. Sure, you can optimize for it,
| but VR is extremely performance heavy as far as I can
| understand.
| Kaze404 wrote:
| Depends on the game. It used to be very performance heavy,
| but these days any low-mid end gaming pc can handle a decent
| amount of games.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| I always got motion sickness using those during demos a few
| years ago during the hype phase, is that still an issue
| today?
| pault wrote:
| It depends, running less than 90 fps is borderline and
| anything under 60 is a vomit comet. Most people have some
| issues with motion sickness at first but after a few days
| your brain adapts to it (so called "VR legs"). I
| regularly play games with lots of fast locomotion for 4+
| hours at a time and have no nausea at all. Subnautica
| with an xbox controller in particular would send most
| people to the toilet after 60 seconds, which is a shame
| because it's the most profound VR experience I've had.
| cardy31 wrote:
| Like others have said, it really depends on the game for
| me. I have the Oculus Quest 2 and some games (Beat Saber,
| Half Life: Alyx) are fine, but some like Star Wars
| Squadrons make me really nauseous.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Not really. Keep in mind that getting the headset out in
| your room is very different to getting a whirlwind tour
| in a shop. You can just sit down and gasp at the
| sensation of seeing the trigger move in sync with IRL
| peebeebee wrote:
| Depends on person, the game mechanics and the hardware.
| Oculus Quest 2 is very nice HW for its price. Shame you
| are locked in with a mandatory FB account.
| harpersealtako wrote:
| Depends. I get horrible carsickness just riding a bus or
| a plane, so I get some motion sickness in VR no matter
| how high of FPS it is, no matter how low the latency. I
| sometimes get motion sickness playing games on my monitor
| too though, so I'm definitely in the most susceptible
| category for this stuff.
|
| Like other said though, the worst of it goes away after
| using it a few times. I noticed though that if you're
| really susceptible to motion sickness, you basically need
| to adjust to every type of locomotion or movement
| individually -- and any vehicles or cockpits are still
| totally unviable for me still, from No Mans Sky to
| American Truck Simulator.
|
| Though it's not just one kind of locomotion either -- I
| adjusted to head-position-relative smooth locomotion with
| a joystick on a flat surface at a walking pace, but what
| about downhill at a running pace, on horseback? Then I
| have to spend another week getting used to THAT. Or what
| about smooth locomotion circle strafing in a dungeon
| around a bunch of skeletons? Another week. And I still
| can't handle any camera rotation at all.
| danso wrote:
| IGN has a detailed hands-on which really boosted my interest:
|
| https://www.ign.com/articles/steam-deck-hands-on-impressions...
|
| The joystick layout looks funky to me, but apparently it works?
|
| > _However, as soon as I held it myself, the layout felt
| completely natural: the intuitive hand orientation when you grab
| the Steam Deck is more straight up and down, like holding the
| sides of a steering wheel, whereas with a controller your hands
| are at more of an angle. As a result, it's easy and natural for
| your thumbs to reach the Steam Deck's face buttons, D-pad, and
| thumbsticks._
|
| And as a Mac user who has to load up Boot Camp to play most of my
| Steam library, a portable dockable PC is extremely appealing:
|
| > _As a result, in desktop mode the Steam Deck honestly just
| feels like a PC. The OS is Linux-based, but it feels largely
| familiar to Windows and is capable of running everything I threw
| at it from either platform. I played a bit of Factorio and Death
| Stranding with mouse and keyboard on a 32" monitor, and if it
| weren't for the Steam Deck sitting docked next to me on the desk
| I would have forgotten it wasn't running off a traditional
| desktop PC._
| pqdbr wrote:
| As a Mac user, I'm very interested as well. I don't play any
| games nowadays because I cant justify spending all that money
| for a latest generation PC, let alone the space it takes.
|
| If I can have a dockable PC that can churn decent frame rates,
| It's just a matter of switching the input on my monitor and
| switching the bluetooth mouse/keyboard to it. For me, the fact
| it's portable is just icing on the cake to be honest. I'd buy
| it even if it didn't have a screen or controls to be honest.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| I'm in largely the same boat, but with a Playstation 4 (and
| no current Playstation 5 plans until Sony releases a version
| that is both readily available and not ugly).
|
| I have a Steam library full of games bought on sale that my
| Mac was never quite up to the task of running, and the
| prospect of having them all on a neat little handheld for
| less than the cost of a midrange iPad is awfully compelling.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| I recommend checking out Geforce Now, it lets you play many
| games from your Steam library via cloud streaming.
| tristor wrote:
| Unfortunately my experience with Geforce Now was deeply
| deeply underwhelming when played from a current-gen maxed
| out Macbook Pro w/ a wired Gigabit connection and
| 1050Mbps/75Mbps Internet service. It was a horrible lag-
| fest and felt like the game I was playing was being
| rendered as a flip-book.
|
| Coming from previously having a top-of-the-line ($6k+)
| gaming PC a decade ago that still does "okay" on most
| titles at 1080P to trying to game via GeForce Now from my
| Macbook was a shockingly bad experience. I'm very
| interested in the SteamDeck specifically because it allows
| me to use local hardware to run the game without requiring
| me to build another $6k+ gaming PC which I might get to use
| one day a month.
| pqdbr wrote:
| I'm in Brazil, and the latency is a deal breaker.
| dm319 wrote:
| I wondered why they didn't go for the same style as their Steam
| controllers with the concave pads.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I don't know about anyone else, but I hated the Steam
| controller. So I can understand why they didn't continue with
| that design.
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