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Steam Deck: First Anniversary

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251–258 of 258 posts

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#251
Getting new hardware+software used to be so exciting- consoles, TVs, phones, the works- anything before ~2015 felt like an upgrade. Mostly that feeling has completely evaporated. New hardware+software instills dread, frustration, mistrust and fatigue.

The Steam Deck feels like what it used to be: joyful and fun, a total lack of cynicism.

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

still, having n things cobbled together in a backpack are always less convenient than a flattiah device like a laptop. Not sure why the op never went with the usb drive solution. My work environment lives in a linux fedora installed on an nvme drive in a usb enclosure. It is secured with velcro tape to my different laptops and allow me to boot my pro environment on any of my computers by booting to usb and is left un…

It must be relatively slow to run your work environment like that, no? Modern NVMes grab like 7GB/s+ -- The best my external gets over Thunderbolt 3 is like 1.5GB/s -- not to mention the enormous latency difference.

relatively is the correct word.

If I do benchmarks, yes it will be slower. Do I notice it when working? Or does it slows my actual work? No.

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#253

Having used one a lot, I can say that the ergonomics of the Steam Deck aren't there. I could lay in my bed and play switch games for hours without issue, but with the deck, I need to introduce some resting device to not lose feeling in my hands. Also, its awkward for me compared to any other contoller in terms of trigger reach. Other than that, I still enjoy using it quite a bit.

Never had that issue, but my out of shape buddy had the exact same complaint. Might take it as a cue to evaluate your fitness.

I don't think it has anything to do with fitness level, but thanks for your concern.

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#254

I find the killer feature to be the ability to pause games. Sure, I could do that on my PC, but since this whole Deck is dedicated to just running the game, and I can set it aside, do the thing I need to do (maybe on my PC) and come back and start right where I left off, it feels different, more integrated, because for a little while, the game state and the deck state are the same. It is less like the Deck is running…

My Deck is pretty much never not running a game. It's the complete opposite of what most PCs do, in that sense. It's only out of a game if I left it to restart for a system upgrade.

The only way one could improve from that would be instant swap between different games, and that's just technologically impossible at this time.

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#255
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many games have a console-like experience where it just works, no settings, just go into the game. The resolution, and all other settings will have been preselected for best experience on the deck. Steam exposes that in the UI with a "Verified for steam deck" logo. Other games have a "partial compatibility logo". Steam further automatically exposes a "great on deck" collection of my existing steam library, which is a…

This and all the other similar responses are awesome. Valve clearly learnt a lot - Steam Controller had no support in the actual store (no 'made for steam controller' program) and half the time you'd be staring at 'press z' holding a controller in your hand trying to remember that x was z right now.

One of the criteria for the "verified" badge seems to be that the game UI has correct button labels for actions, and everything needed for a normal game experience is available on the controller.

For the 2nd tier (I think they called it "supported"), the defaults may not expose everything (e.g. in-game text chat kinda implies keyboard), but what is exposed tends to be good. If your eyesight is less than stellar, the built-in screen can be tiny for "PC-style" game text, but plugging into a monitor fixes that.

And then there's community control schemes, on top of that. E.g. the default bindings generally don't use the back buttons, and community bindings can be more comfortable and productive for a non-novice player.

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#256
post #229
post #170

I'm catching up on the last 20 years of gaming I've missed for not having a Windows machine :) Bonus points for most of the old games being super cheap now. I'm really happy with mine. Games just work, no tweaking or weird configurations necessary, gamepads and other controller schemes work well, and; it's running Linux in the back! Once you configure something like Syncthing in desktop mode, it carries on working in…

> I'm catching up on the last 20 years of gaming I've missed for not having a Windows machine :) What are your top 10 games that you have caught up on so far? (please exclude any recent blockbusters from this list)

When you're catching up on all the games you couldn't even consider before, a bonus side effect is all the chaff has gone through the sift of time ;) So there are many games that got struck off my list as time went on.

The only ones that remained, I bought, and were actually _good_: Uncharted, Resident Evil 2 (Remake), South Park The Stick of Truth.

Ones I bought still thinking they should be good, and was disappointed: Horizon Zero Dawn, Borderlands 3, Brutal Legend, Yakuza 0, Metal Gear Rising. They're not bad games, just not worth my very limited time. I probably would have loved them when I was younger though.

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#257
post #49

Does anyone use their deck as a steam link box? I've had mixed success with apple tv (including newest model) when feeding a 4K TV (no 120 Hz support, decoding chokes on resolutions above 1440p regardless of encoded bitrate). I have a 13700k+3070, so it's not for want of encoding horsepower. The most common use case of the deck is similar to mine of the link: couch gaming. It might be nice to free up the living room…

Have you looked into Moonlight? Nvidia is sunsetting GeForce Experience which would be a convenient streaming server, but Sunshine seems to be almost on par now, latency wise. So you‘d run Sunshine on your host machine, and Moonlight on the Steam Deck. I’ve seen people report a minimal input lag of just 1 frame @ 4k60 (with most recent Sunshine versions, there was a big leap recently) but haven’t tried it myself yet.…

Okay I've tried to use Moonlight today. It appears much more broken than Steam Link. There is no working autostart (but there is a broken service option), audio doesn't work, credentials sometimes just break to the point that a fresh start is needed, there is no way to elegantly exit the app, and it doesn't add the ability to unlock the PC (in fact, it even is so fragile that it requires a restart of the host program if the computer's primary display has turned off).

The options are nice and it sounds great on paper, but Steam Link is a better solution right now.

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price argument is completely reversed if you factor in that you need to buy games to play. Nintendo games prices are horrendous even for very patient gamers while Steam has big discounts on the regular. The same game on Switch vs Deck will routinely be 4-5x more expensive.

Not really. Nintendo first party titles hold their value well but you're not playing those on Steam either. 3rd party titles will often be the same price or close enough with the exception of super recent ports of old PC games. Definitely NOT 4-5x more expensive unless you're only comparing to full price not on sale eShop titles to best possible discount on Steam.

Yeah that's the point, why would I not take the best price on Steam? eShop sales are like 20% off max, with a base price already often higher than the pc version. With a wishlist on steam you will build your collection at 4-5x lower cost than Steam if you are a bit patient (or go to key resellers if you're not).
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