A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.
Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.
Some more Steam Deck specific flairs:
[Boot Screen] - Custom boot screens/videos.
[Selling] - If you are selling your deck.
These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.
Rules:
My biggest concern with SteamDeck was that it would become a 1-2 year upgrade cycle device. I don’t expect the hardware to last 7+ years like normal console lifecycles but I’m very glad to hear they’re being patient and aggressively supporting the software side.
It's kind of just becoming an indie or old game portable pc to me. Don't personally have much interest in playing modern graphically demanding titles on it.
I'm the same. I play retro and indie titles on the Deck, and more modern and demanding games on the desktop.
I was really surprised how well Hellblade 2 ran on mine. And supposedly Until Dawn also runs well now. When you can live with 30fps I suspect that well crafted games will be playable for a few more years.
Was it ever intended or fit for that? It's 2.5 years old, where modern games 2.5 years ago that much less demanding than modern games today?
I think the goal was to be able to physically run some version of modern AAA titles when it came out. Although generally, those titles would be downgraded graphically and run at a low frame rate, making it a less than ideal situation for those with alternative options.
2.5 years ago there were a lot more games still targeting last gen consoles as their minimum baseline. Newer games that are current gen consoles only tend to fare a lot worse on steam deck.
I dunno, I expect the Deck to last far longer than the average console if anything. It's a PC, so the games are pretty much guaranteed to keep coming for decades to come, as they have for decades past.
The hardware will fall behind, so I think the point where the newest Triple A games won't be playable will come within a few years, but I bet whatever visual novels or pixelated indie games release in 2035 will still run just fine on it.
Plus, it's designed to be repairable, unlike most consoles. And even if Valve stops maintaining SteamOS for the Steam Deck, you'll still be able to install other distros, so software support isn't something I'm very concerned about either.
Shoot. My back log on games is so big, I can be happy with this one for another 5 years before I'd need something with more power.
Yeah same. I got a steam deck maybe six months ago, my backlog is so big I've only recently finished bioshock. Seems like a nifty little device and it seems to handle contemporary stuff okay too.
There are a ton of PC gamers who think the only way to play a video game is 1440p 60-144fps and anything below that is unplayable. The reality is the steam deck is a 720p 30fps handheld device that can occasionally make it to 60fps if pushed far enough.
IMHO a device that can run a game like God of war Ragnarok at 30fps in handheld mode and still play fine when docked is succeeding on the performance front in several aspects. In comparison, the switch version of Wolfenstein the new Colossus had to remove entire sets of geometry to even hit 30fps where the deck can hit that easily with the same settings without removing geometry and using AMD FSR. I think the deck has at least 3 more years in it before we even start to see any needed upgrades at that performance. Only time will tell.
The steamdeck seriously changed my perspective of what power I need for a computer and convinced me that I can continue to run my 1080ti for at least a few more years.
1080'ties really were legendary cards. Back then I only had a 1060ti as my prior card broke unexpectedly and that was all the money I could spare.
Yeah, this is my take at it as well. Sure, your big beefy PC looks better, but can you play CP2077 at 30,000 feet on a transatlantic flight? Because I have!
Performance could definitely be better. It would be great if the deck could reliably push 720p 60fps all the time, and maybe some day we'll get there. But for the moment my deck can push most of the games I throw at it to at least 40 fps, and it can hold 45 decently enough, and that's good enough for me.
I play during lunch at work, when I go shopping with the wife, family holiday when nothing is going on, busses, waiting for Dr. appointments, the train, all kinds of places. My steam deck opened up gaming to me by making it available in small pockets of otherwise unused time.
It 100% could, everyone thinks they need to be able to generate kratos' abs, Cloud's spikes and Keanu....but they don't. (Removed an extra an)
Agreed. FSR 3 really is amazing and I'd gladly use that to pull a few more years of playing my favorite games on 720p low.
Upscalers are great for portables I just hope it's not used to excuse poor optimization.
That said I only play fps on my desktop, the steam deck opens up an entirely different class of games for me.
Good. Keeping it the same means that the original Steam Deck will remain a target device for game developers for longer.
A desperately needed view in an industry of fashionable e-waste. Apple, Google and now Microsoft: I'm looking at you
Number must go up
Presumably this will mean a high-performance ARM CPU (comparable to the Apple M series), along with the dynamic recompilation technology Steam have been experimenting with. (It’s unlikely that Intel or AMD will deliver the generational leap they’re talking about.)
This reminds me of an old thread on a random forum. Just when Sims 2 was released they were speculating what Sims 3 would look like.
Someone suggested that the next game will surely be in the source engine!
While your point is more realistic than that I still don't think valve could pull this off in reasonable time. Translation for games is extremely hard to do right. I think if at all there will be another generation of decks before we see something like this.
Also honestly, proton being basically a public beta on the decks launch was one thing, But that's going to create even more issues on launch for the newer device unless they have it practically perfect before it comes out.
I wouldn't count AMD out. The whole reason the Steam Deck is so successful is because of AMDs Mobile GPU, not necessarily it's CPU. AMD has been able to make some very efficient GPUs lately, so I do belive with a couple new architectures and die shrinks we will get the generational leap they're talking about.
ARM sounds nice, and it might one day be, but getting x86 translation working flawlessly WITHOUT performance/battery costs at the same time as proton is just asking a heck of a lot.
ARM does best when it's doing ARM things. Since all games are built for x86 with nobody having any intention of compiling for native ARM, I don't really see the point. The whole reason i like the Steam Deck is to play older back catalog games, and those are all x86. Apple pulls it off because they only translate x86 when they have to.
Dynamic recompilation technology?
It's "FEX", Valve have apparently been testing it with Proton.
The Asahi Linux team have their own packaging/tooling around it, but theirs is slower at runtime because they have to run the games inside a VM as well.
Their stack is so brutal. It's incredible how they overcame it all.
ARM instruction set, wrong page size, GPU without documentation for which they reverse engineered a Vulkan and OpenGL driver.
I honestly think (hope) valve should take a shot at a genuine console. I would absolutely love something that just WORKS like steam deck, but unlike my PS5 syncs with my steam library and can easily transition to my deck with no fuss. Library compatibility, graphic customization, capable of functioning as a one stop media device for the TV room. I feel like the steam machines were too early and too short sighted/compartmentalized, but now that so many games are coming to PC, valve could take everything the PlayStation 5 did right, while removing all the bullshit that drives people nuts.
A new take on the Steam Machine could potentially knock Xbox out of the market in their current state, and I'm okay with that.
Steam machines were a great idea that the market wasn't quite ready for, and were too niche at the time. The steam deck has proved people of all technical levels are ready and willing to embrace a non-windows OS, and don't care what it is as long as it can easily give them access to their content. I have an Nvidia shield, a PS5, a steam deck and a desktop PC. My game library is disjointed and I rarely play anything on the PC, because there is no good way to make it convenient. The vast majority of the time I use my steam deck, I'm sitting on my couch, just like my PS5 .
A steam console could unify everything, cut my devices while simplifying my experience and giving me way more control over the invasive bullshit that comes with streaming and android devices. That has so much upside and value to me, it's hard to even put a price tag on it tbh.
I really think we've already eclipsed that "generational gap" with all the massive increases in efficiency in the last year or so. But I'm glad they're not updating nonetheless. For a variety of reasons.
Nothing yet surpassed Zen2 low power efficiency in the SD. And by low power I mean under 10W power/performance.
New chips scale quite a bit better above 10W though.
Also I'm not sure if that's actually the HW limitation or just Valve tuning of the power behaviour. It's possible they can throw in Zen5 and tune it to that efficiency level while getting significant performance uplift over Zen2 at the same power.
Regarding GPU we will need much faster memory support to get any significant advantages even with RDNA4 as most iGPUs are starved for memory bandwidth anyways, not saying that RDNA4 wouldn't be an improvement, just that it won't be as big as a leap as it could be with faster memory.
I just sold my 4090 after playing some latest hit AAA games I didn’t like at all and I play only indies on deck, it’s the best gaming device ever
Also it seems the only games I liked from hundreds of aaa graphics eye candies from recent years are rdr2 and cyberpunk and bg3. I unironically think there are fewer great big aaa games nowadays cmv and I am not planning another xx90 card any time soon
I’d like to get a Steam Deck but was wondering if it’s getting close to a newer, better version coming soon. This makes me feel more comfortable, not that I have the budget for one right now anyway.
It's not what makes them money so they don't really have the business incentive for maximizing hardware sales that leads to a relentless pushing out of new versions of their hardware that are barely better than the last one and all manner of tricks for early obsolescence of older devices (things like purposeful OS and App under-performance and even incompatibility with older versions of the hardware).
Also in the big picture of gaming the Steam Deck is tiny and in its early stages, so business-wise is not the time to go down a strategy of relentless new hardware versions and enshittification, quite the opposite.
Absolutely, they're doing the right thing and as the right thing aligns with their business objectives it's a bit wishful thinking to claim its because they care so much about their customers as people.
The one "generational leap" I want, and have wanted for decades, is the ability to upgrade hardware, like modular laptops can. It's great that they aren't doing little incremental upgrades, but between generations, games come out that would work but need a little more RAM or something, and instead of having to wait another 2 years and spending $1000 on a new console when it comes out, you could just shove more RAM in it in the meantime.
Never in my life have I regretted putting more RAM into my computers. When faced with deciding between similarly priced graphics cards going with the higher RAM option was always the right choice in the long run. Because higher resolution textures always make an otherwise low game look great.
If I knew an adventurous spirit with great soldering skills and greater insurance I would go for the 32 GB upgrade on my Deck.
Main downside is that having swappable components adds size and cost, which is why laptops are so much less modular than full size PCs. For something like the Deck, which is trying to be as small and cheap as possible, I doubt we'll see anything modular for a long time.
Valve could possibly sell upgraded motherboards that you could use with your original screen/etc. However before ifixit sold deck parts, there was a leak of the upcoming parts and prices. At the time, replacement motherboards were planned to be sold, but they planned to sell the motherboard for $350 (when the cheapest deck was $400). Ultimately they ended up never selling the motherboard, which makes sense when considering how expensive it was compared to the overall price of the unit.