Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Valve Steam Deck

steamdeck.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

741–750 of 1001 posts

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#741

Post by [deleted] »

shadilay wrote: post #248
least wrote: post #9

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…

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.

[deleted]

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#742

Post by adrusi »

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).

Steam bundles its own runtime for games (it can be configured to use system libs instead, but that's not the default). Games will often also ship with copies of additional libraries not in steam's runtime.

I bet that the underlying distribution doesn't matter much at all, and since this console is meant to also be a desktop (or living room) PC, might as well ship with a distribution that's good for that purpose. Arch makes more sense for desktops than Ubuntu, and has for a while tbh.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#743

Post by ergot_vacation »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #56

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 l…

It's a neat piece of hardware, but I have a hard time believing it will be any more than a fad. Who is this for? Serious PC gamers? Why not just play on the "real" PC they already have, with the super-expensive monitor, graphics card, and input devices they carefully assembled? Casual gamers that don't care so much about those things and want to play meatier games on the go? Why wouldn't they just buy a Switch (which already carries many "PC" games, large and small)?

The Index was genuinely revolutionary, despite also being punishingly expensive. It's hard not to feel a sense of envy on seeing one in action. But this? No one will care in a year (or maybe even six months).

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#744

Post by Aeolun »

huffmsa wrote: post #512
andrewljohnson wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

But with it being designed to run AAA games on 1280x800 at 30fps, how good is it going to be on my 4k 60fps display?

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#745

Post by whalabi »

It's 1280 X 800 on the device, I wonder how it fares playing AAA titles at higher res on a TV or monitor.

Have only given the specs a cursory look so far but seems the GPU is (understandably) significantly less powerful than, say, a laptop GPU from a few years back.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#746

Post by 41209 »

I'm planing on dual booting Windows and installing Maschine in order to make music.

Might also see if I can just wipe Linux entirely and go only Windows.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#748

Post by thelopa »

awill wrote: post #627

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.

Proton is the answer to the chicken-and-egg problem of linux gaming. No one will make games for it because no one games on Linux because no one will make games for it. With Proton and this, they’re trying to bootstrap a Linux gaming community. From there, native ports will happen when the community is large enough to be worth optimizing for.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#749

Post by Fnoord »

l0b0 wrote: post #606
css wrote: post #135

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

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…

Arch Linux sucks. Its the default OS on the Pinephone which I use as a backup smartphone (main smartphone is Android). I'm used to running Debian, which is rock stable. Arch Linux? I get dependency issues when I'm running the software update installer. Not once or twice, all bloody time. I mean, WTF? How would anyone want such in production???

NixOS is more sane because it has roll backs, and declarative configuration is like a gigantic black hole eating everything which was known before it.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#750

Post by [deleted] »

dm319 wrote: post #571
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…

I wondered why they didn't go for the same style as their Steam controllers with the concave pads.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN