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Valve Steam Deck

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Re: Valve Steam Deck

#631

Post by gchamonlive »

christophilus wrote: post #616
l0b0 wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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).

If you are conservative and thorough in your update routine, arch can be very stable.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#632

Post by mortenjorck »

pqdbr wrote: post #529
danso wrote: post #300

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 contr…

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'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.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#633

Post by mywittyname »

bogwog wrote: post #306
caslon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#634

Post by jonny_eh »

pqdbr wrote: post #529
danso wrote: post #300

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 contr…

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 recommend checking out Geforce Now, it lets you play many games from your Steam library via cloud streaming.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#635

Post by moooo99 »

linspace wrote: post #355
JeremyNT wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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!

> 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 50€ although it was released 4 years ago.

Having a handheld device with all my Steam titles playable is huge!

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#636

Post by caconym_ »

lostmsu wrote: post #572
caconym_ wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mobil…

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.

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.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#637

Post by zhynn »

schmorptron wrote: post #508
jalgos_eminator wrote: post #247

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 actual…

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.

You can connect it to external screen also just using a usb-c dongle with hdmi on it.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#638

Post by Jnr »

christophilus wrote: post #616
l0b0 wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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).

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.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#639

Post by carstenhag »

Auracle wrote: post #258
nostromo wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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 60€ for 512 GB, and that's way more price effective for most. At least on the Switch, loading times are not that noticeable imo.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#640

Post by yellowapple »

belltaco wrote: post #165
superkuh wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hardwa…

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.

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).
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