Discussion Steam Deck

[GodisanAtheist]

Just wondering what the adult use case is for a device like this. I assumed most Switch (and thus similar device) users were kids/adolescents.

I can't think of single reason I would own a dedicated handheld game machine (when I was kid still in school sure, but they didn't exist then). If I am home I can can game with nice big screen either KB/Mouse or XB Controller. I don't currently own a game console, but I can at least see that as a similar big screen experience.

So is the main use case outside the home, but again, I am at a loss to think where? I wouldn't bring it to work, or social outings with friends (when those happen again), or hikes in the woods, or on errands...

How does this fit into an adults life? No insult to Adults buying this, just trying to understand the use case.

-I guess it's all that sweet stimulus/EITC money finding a new home.

Could also just be redirected GPU money that, you know, never actually made it to a GPU because reasons.

 

[DeathReborn]

The M.2 2230 NVMe SSD slot (in all models I believe) is user upgradeable although they don't recommend it. Newegg has 128GB ones for $26, in the UK 128GB & 256GB are both £65 with 512GB £110 & 1TB £210. I have a 512GB SteamDeck on order myself.

 

[Justinus]

I feel like the microsd card slot is DOA being UHS-I only. Max 100MB/s is absolutely not sufficient for any larger/resource heavy PC games.

Who wants to have slower than hard drive speeds for PC gaming in 2022?

They really needed it to be UHS-II, UHS-III, or MicroSD Express for it to be useful.

Some people are claiming the pro move is to move games to the MicroSD when not playing them and move them to the internal storage for playing, but at 100MB/s it's gonna take a while to move any modern game over more than a few gigabytes. It would take 15-20 minutes to move a large 100+GB AAA title.

Not to mention it will exhaust a MicroSD card's nand pretty fast if you're always moving games to it, writing a shit ton.

I wish more people were complaining about UHS-I in hopes they would opt to upgrade it to a higher standard, but instead the majority of what I see is people congratulating them for adding the slot in the first place.

Even just upgrading to UHS-II would close to triple the speed, which would make it significantly more usable to run games directly on.

 

[DeathReborn]

I feel like the microsd card slot is DOA being UHS-I only. Max 100MB/s is absolutely not sufficient for any larger/resource heavy PC games.

Who wants to have slower than hard drive speeds for PC gaming in 2022?

They really needed it to be UHS-II, UHS-III, or MicroSD Express for it to be useful.

Some people are claiming the pro move is to move games to the MicroSD when not playing them and move them to the internal storage for playing, but at 100MB/s it's gonna take a while to move any modern game over more than a few gigabytes. It would take 15-20 minutes to move a large 100+GB AAA title.

Not to mention it will exhaust a MicroSD card's nand pretty fast if you're always moving games to it, writing a shit ton.

I wish more people were complaining about UHS-I in hopes they would opt to upgrade it to a higher standard, but instead the majority of what I see is people congratulating them for adding the slot in the first place.

Even just upgrading to UHS-II would close to triple the speed, which would make it significantly more usable to run games directly on.

There will be third party mods/addons to use the Type C port for a rear mounted external SSD I reckon, but I do agree that SD Express should have been on there.

 

[Justinus]

There will be third party mods/addons to use the Type C port for a rear mounted external SSD I reckon, but I do agree that SD Express should have been on there.

Adding an external SSD may severely hamper battery life, which is not a great compromise.

 

[Naer]

Do I really want a steam deck as a nintendo switch lite AND a decent desktop PC, owner?

 

[paperfist]

Do I really want a steam deck as a nintendo switch lite AND a decent desktop PC, owner?

I was kinda hoping I could use it as a sort of portable and connect my own monitor/KB/Mouse, but to do that it seems you need the dock as well. I'm not sure I could play Civilization or similar games on it the way it is.

 

[wahdangun]

The difference is that Switch has games specifically coded and optimized for it's light HW, and Steam Deck, is just a gaming PC.

So regardless of form factor it still has to run full fat PC games, and it's HW is anything but kick ass for that.

but you can play switch game, since aya neo can emulate switch decent enough, and this thing is way faster than that

 

[Timorous]

Just wondering what the adult use case is for a device like this. I assumed most Switch (and thus similar device) users were kids/adolescents.

I can't think of single reason I would own a dedicated handheld game machine (when I was kid still in school sure, but they didn't exist then). If I am home I can can game with nice big screen either KB/Mouse or XB Controller. I don't currently own a game console, but I can at least see that as a similar big screen experience.

So is the main use case outside the home, but again, I am at a loss to think where? I wouldn't bring it to work, or social outings with friends (when those happen again), or hikes in the woods, or on errands...

How does this fit into an adults life? No insult to Adults buying this, just trying to understand the use case.

It is more powerful than my 2200G computer. If the dock is a reasonable price I could grab one and make a very minimalist pc setup that has the option to go portable when required.

Edit to add: Another use case is emulation on the go and yet another is ripping the internals out of the chassis and overclocking the crap out of it since 1.6Ghz RDNA2 is pretty damn low and with enough power and cooling 2.5+ Ghz should be doable.

 

[Heartbreaker]

It is more powerful than my 2200G computer. If the dock is a reasonable price I could grab one and make a very minimalist pc setup that has the option to go portable when required.

Edit to add: Another use case is emulation on the go and yet another is ripping the internals out of the chassis and overclocking the crap out of it since 1.6Ghz RDNA2 is pretty damn low and with enough power and cooling 2.5+ Ghz should be doable.

I'd be interested in a desktop version. But in that case I'll just wait. This is likely the next generation APU from AMD and it will show up in multiple form factors in the future. For a desktop, I'd want a full NVME slot, and more ports than a single USB3.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I suspect steam has a trick up their sleeve regarding VR with the deck
That alone could solve the small screen problem

 

[TheELF]

I feel like the microsd card slot is DOA being UHS-I only. Max 100MB/s is absolutely not sufficient for any larger/resource heavy PC games.

Who wants to have slower than hard drive speeds for PC gaming in 2022?

Yeah because the rest of it is going to be bottlenecked by that, right?!
Keep your expectations in check here, this will be fine for the resolution it targets but it's not going to be a high end desktop gaming PC.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Yeah because the rest of it is going to be bottlenecked by that, right?!
Keep your expectations in check here, this will be fine for the resolution it targets but it's not going to be a high end desktop gaming PC.

Yeah this is where it will fail and valve is already setting it up for unrealistic expectations by saying “it will run every AAA game on steam”
that statement is sneaky because yeah it runs everything but at what resolution?
When People are left to fill in the gaps they always go unrealistic.

 

[blckgrffn]

Yeah this is where it will fail and valve is already setting it up for unrealistic expectations by saying “it will run every AAA game on steam”
that statement is sneaky because yeah it runs everything but at what resolution?
When People are left to fill in the gaps they always go unrealistic.

I suspect 1280*800

I've played a number of AAA games at 720p with a 3400G for testing purposes. I think with this pixel density and resolution it'll be pretty darn solid.

Hooking it up to your 4K TV and expecting to get the same frame rates? Ha.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I suspect 1280*800

I've played a number of AAA games at 720p with a 3400G for testing purposes. I think with this pixel density and resolution it'll be pretty darn solid.

Hooking it up to your 4K TV and expecting to get the same frame rates? Ha.

That’s my point, we all know someone will do that and expect an awesome experience. I also suspect someone will buy it as a desktop replacement and will expect the same life changing result.

 

[blckgrffn]

That’s my point, we all know someone will do that and expect an awesome experience. I also suspect someone will buy it as a desktop replacement and will expect the same life changing result.

I mean, at 1920*1080 it will probably be OK'ish. Don't underestimate how many people are good with slow and ugly if they get to play. I know it always surprises me!

That said, if people have 2k or 4k monitors they should rub a couple of braincells together and figure out they are using scaling (FSR! WOOO! lol) to get native res @ 30 fps+.

 

[PingSpike]

I suspect 1280*800

I've played a number of AAA games at 720p with a 3400G for testing purposes. I think with this pixel density and resolution it'll be pretty darn solid.

Hooking it up to your 4K TV and expecting to get the same frame rates? Ha.

Good news, 4K is 3 x 1280 so there shouldn't be any scaling artifacts at similar resolution!

 

[Heartbreaker]

Just a few graphic tweaks away from from Running RDR2 at playable frame rates:

 

[aigomorla]

Just a few graphic tweaks away from from Running RDR2 at playable frame rates:

that would still be more playable then the ps4 version.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Actually, I don't think the HW is quite to PS4 levels. I expect it has about half the memory bus, and thus about half the bandwidth or less.

 

[blckgrffn]

Actually, I don't think the HW is quite to PS4 levels. I expect it has about half the memory bus, and thus about half the bandwidth or less.

That’s true, but the CPU is what, 300% faster? I mean that’s barely hyperbole.

A straight comparison is hard but for sure single threaded cpu performance - and likely storage performance - is on a completely different level.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Lets not forget PC games are designed to run on a wide range of hardware whether it is a spinning disk or a fast nvme.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Lets not forget PC games are designed to run on a wide range of hardware whether it is a spinning disk or a fast nvme.

That isn't as much of an advantage as Console games that are designed precisely for the HW they run on.

 

[aigomorla]

That isn't as much of an advantage as Console games that are designed precisely for the HW they run on.

Id say consoles have a better advantage in this point, as its a paper cutter template.
You don't need drivers playing nice with other drives, as the console was designed from the getgo to work on customized drivers.

This is why some game makes do not want a PC port, because it opens a icebox of worms in ever custom PC build running specialized parts for something.

 

[PingSpike]

I'm curious how the game pause/suspend works. That is actually a really nice feature on a handheld. Its a nice feature on a standard console actually but really nice on a handheld. I would have thought there would be a need for the games to be aware of it but even dosbox has a rogue build with save states so maybe its not that hard.

I'm talking about this: https://gamingbolt.com/steam-deck-features-fast-suspend-resume-works-similar-to-quick-resume