Steam Deck ~ PC Switch

[IDtenT]

There hasn't been a single "killer app" for VR. Never anything that's even enticed me to try it out.

Augmented / mixed reality like Hololens makes a whole lot more sense and excites me far more.

 

[Zarniwoop]

very few people care about 3D VR shit, the craze comes around every few years and then goes away again.

This latest "craze" has been around for about 7-8 years now and is showing no sign of going away yet despite the perpetual claims of its impending demise. It may always remain niche, but like racing wheels or flight controls are probably a permanent part of gaming from here on out.

It's been gone a long time. No one cares anymore.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Is Nintendo doomed because of this?

 

[OSK]

Isn't part of the PS4 BSD based? And some part of MacOS? Maybe that are just rumors, I didn't verify that but it seems a viable option if you build a closed console since the BSD licensing is extremely permissive.
Since the open nature of the Steam Deck and their efforts to make Linux gaming more and more accessible I doubt that they would switch.

The Nintendo Switch OS is also BSD based.

You're right. BSD licensing allows you to make modifications to the source code without having to share the modifications. That makes it attractive to private companies that don't want to share their code changes for whatever reason. With Linux, you're legally obligated to make those changes publicly available so everyone can benefit from them. It's why BSD is far behind Linux in terms of features and hardware/software compatibility.

And with the approach Valve has been taking, they have no reason to switch to BSD.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

What's even the point of this gadget? Steam Machines failed, Steam Controller was abandoned, but this somehow is going to succeed because...?

I have to imagine they're trying to compete with the Switch. The system is huge, and since it's debut it's been fucking Steam when it comes to indie games. I'd guess the idea behind this is a Switch where you've got access to your Steam library, but specifically smaller titles, or older games, because this thing sure as shit isn't player newer stuff.

 

[fork]

If it's "plug-and-play" as far as your steam library goes, this could be a huge success.
But I'm pretty sure they'll find a way to fuck it up.

 

[Paul_cz]

Emulator developers are very excited by this

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/emulator-developers-see-tons-of-potential-in-the-steam-deck/

 

[ADL]

https://www.ign.com/articles/steam-deck-openness-superpower-closed-platforms-gabe-newell

Gabe Newell Pushes Back Against Closed Platforms, Says Openness is 'PC's Superpower'
"I don't want to hear that somebody's got some Trojan Horse that's going to try to lock me down."

Gabe Newell describes PC's openness as its 'superpower', and has put the customisable Steam Deck in stark comparison to the closed platforms found on other consoles.

Speaking to IGN in an interview about his company's new console, the Valve co-founder was asked his thoughts about effectively creating a handheld that other platform holders – even those without handhelds like Microsoft – could feasibly make use of freely. Rather than being coy, Newell made clear that this was part of the Deck's philosophy:

"Our view is that the openness of the PC ecosystem is the superpower that we all collectively benefit from. So if you want to install the Epic Games Store on here, if you want to, run an Oculus Quest on it, those things are, those are all great. Those are features, right? That's what I want to hear as a gamer."

Newell continued by comparing that to the closed platforms found on Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation: "I don't want to hear that somebody's got some Trojan Horse that's going to try to lock me down. I want to hear whatever I want to do. If there's hardware, I want to attach to it. If there's software, I want to install. I can just go and do it. And you know, we think that's great."

He went on to describe that openness as one of the guiding principles for the console: "I mean the most fundamental one was great performance on your entire Steam library, right? That's the fundamental thing that needed – and it had to be open. [...] It was just like, I want to be a gamer who's used to playing PC games. I want to pick this up and says, 'oh, it all works. It's all fast.'"

With regard to handheld gaming in particular, Newell clearly sees Steam Deck's openness as an improvement: "I mean, there've been attempts to provide mobile gaming platforms for a really long time. And for me, as somebody who's used to sort of high-end desktop, PC gaming and console gaming, that always felt like they were compromises." Of course, Newell recognises that Steam Deck has had to make its own compromises to hit a realistic price point: "We'll just have to find out whether or not we've made the right trade-offs. [...] And we're going to find out pretty soon whether those choices that we've made are correct. But I think they are."

Announced earlier this month, Steam Deck is a handheld gaming PC in the truest sense – it has the body of a console, but the ability for full customisation, including uninstalling the operating system. With that said, the included SteamOS attempts to meld the two worlds of console and PC, so you hopefully won't feel too much of a need to go uninstalling it for something else.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.ign.com/articles/steam-deck-valve-explains-how-it-learned-from-past-mistakes

Valve Explains How The Failure of Steam Machines Helped Build The Steam Deck
"I don't think we would've made as much progress on Steam Deck if we hadn't had that experience."

When the Steam Deck was first announced, some were understandably skeptical. While Valve has had recent hardware success in the VR space, the last time it attempted to make a full PC product didn't go so well. But Valve tells us the Steam Deck is a culmination of its work on many of its past projects, both the successful ones and even the less fondly remembered initiatives.

The failure of Steam Machines sticks out in many peoples' minds, and Valve was well aware of that fact when it was getting ready to announce the Steam Deck. "We've looked at a lot of what we learned as boxes that we needed to check if we were ever going to talk to customers again about that category," says Valve designer Greg Coomer. "We didn't really want to bring this device to customers until we felt it was ready and that all those boxes were checked essentially. But definitely doing that... I don't think we would've made as much progress on Steam Deck if we hadn't had that experience."

"There was always kind of this classic chicken and egg problem with the Steam Machine," explains designer Scott Dalton, referring to the issue of trying to build a Linux-based PC before enough games could easily run on Linux. That resulted in there not being enough games for users to have interest, which in turn meant there wasn't enough interest to get more games working, and so on. "That led us down this path of Proton, where now there's all these games that actually run."

The Steam Deck benefitted from the Valve's experience with more than just Steam Machines and the Proton accessibility layer it eventually developed for Linux as a result of that failure too. Its work on game streaming with the Steam Link, audio quality with the Index over-ear headphones, controller design with the Steam Controller (and the knowledge that future controllers needed to have a lower learning curve), and capacitive touch options across multiple controllers all culminated in the Steam Deck.

"When we say culmination, we really mean it's not only the combination of the hardware that we built, but also the experience that our team members gained while making hardware products," says design Lawrence Yang. "All of it is stuff that we've done before, and we're just drawing on all that prior experience to make this device as good as we can make it."

Valve even had ideas that resembled the Steam Deck back when it was working on the Steam Link and Controller. "Very early versions of the Steam Controller had a small screen in the middle of it, with the idea that it would be a programmable screen," Dalton says. While that plan had some technical hurdles and other reasons it didn't pan out, he explains that "at the time we were like, we could just take Steam Link hardware, put it in a Steam Controller, and make the screen show the link thing."

That shows Valve has been thinking about how to make Steam portable for quite a while. "Very early on, we were talking with hardware partners, wondering if they were going to fill some part of this," Dalton explains. "More and more it just became kind of clear, the more of this we are doing internally, the more we can kind of make a complete package." Yang echoes the same sentiment, saying "By having all of those people under the same roof talking to each other, collaborating, it just makes all of the products better."

For more on the Steam Deck, you can check out our full month of IGN First exclusive coverage, including an interview with Gabe Newell and our hands-on impressions.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Steam Dick is and awful name - why don't we call it GabeBoy?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Steamy Boy

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/steam-deck-hands-on-preview/

 

[ferratilis]

This Canadian manboy also got early access, it's a pretty good coverage tbh

 

[Naraya]

Hmm, 50 degrees C, isn't it a bit too hot?

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Paul_cz]

I pity Linus for having to use dumbfuck thumbnails to serve The Algorithm. The video was great though, by far most informative of the ones done today.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Hmm, 50 degrees C, isn't it a bit too hot?

Steamy Boy

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Hmm, 50 degrees C, isn't it a bit too hot?

They're just demo units, who knows what the cooling will be like in the real product

 

[Maxie]

https://dtf.ru/hard/821574-valve-ra...ystro-optimizirovat-svoi-igry-dlya-steam-deck

very good information

 

[Villagkouras]

Any summary for those of us who don't speak Russian?

 

[Ebonsword]

Wow, I haven't seen a photo of Gabe in a while. Dude is 58 and looks like he's in his 70s.

 

[Naraya]

Wow, I haven't seen a photo of Gabe in a while. Dude is 58 and looks like he's in his 70s.

He reminds me either of Santa Claus or The Groke.

 

[Naraya]

Some technical info for those interested:

This is why Valve is switching from Debian to Arch for Steam Deck's Linux OS

Valve is working with AMD to make the Steam Deck Windows 11-ready

 

[ZVERMIX]

https://dtf.ru/hard/821574-valve-ra...ystro-optimizirovat-svoi-igry-dlya-steam-deck

very good information

It's just a translation and thoughts on a PC Gamer article.

https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-steam-deck-api-optimisation/

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/va...t-the-steam-deck-will-be-your-next-pc-upgrade

Valve are "fairly confident" the Steam Deck will be your next PC upgrade
Steam Deck's designers don't foresee people choosing it as their first PC, but it's "a viable choice" for would-be upgraders




So far, Valve's Steam Deck has been positioned as a 'high-end' portable gaming device, with Valve boss Gabe Newell saying they're targeting a different kind of audience to prospective Nintendo Switch players. But with the base Steam Deck model starting at £349 / $399 and the option to connect it up to a monitor using a dock accessory, part of me wonders whether Valve also see the Deck as a potential first-time PC for people as well. It's a good price for a budget PC, and you'd be hard-pushed to find or build a similar system yourself from traditional PC builders.

So I put the question to Steam Deck designers Greg Coomer and Lawrence Yang when I spoke to them last week, and while they don't think people will buy it as their first PC, they do expect it will be a good upgrade option for existing PC players looking for a new rig.

"We don't have a strong prediction that a bunch of people are going to choose it as their first PC, but as a lot of people choose to upgrade their existing PCs, we feel fairly confident that Steam Deck will be a choice that they make," Coomer tells me.

Yang agrees. "Yes, I definitely think it's a viable choice. You can do everything you'd do on a PC with it, and it's just a little PC that you can plug stuff into."

Admittedly, we don't know how much the dock is going to cost on top of the Steam Deck yet, as it's currently set to arrive later on after the Steam Deck launches at the end of the year. As such, it's possible the whole package could end up being less budget-friendly than initially expected, but Yang says you don't technically need the dock to start using the Deck like a traditional PC.

"It's not the dock specifically that lets it output at a higher resolution," he says. "You can plug any HDMI to USB-C adapter into this and it can output at 4K."

"That's right," Coomer adds. "Any device that can convert directly from this unit will output and display at a higher resolution. It delivers both DisplayPort and HDMI, and the resolution goes quite a bit higher [than the Deck's native screen resolution of 1280x800]."

How games will actually run at 1920x1080 or above remains to be seen, however. The Steam Deck only has one of AMD's APUs under the hood rather than a discrete graphics solution like you'd have in a more traditional PC setup, so it may struggle to play the very latest games at a good frame rate at higher resolutions. This is partly why I was so surprised that Coomer and Yang said they expect the Steam Deck to appeal to would-be upgraders, rather than first-time PC buyers.

"It definitely depends on the game once you go to a really high resolution," Coomer tells me. "It's like any other PC in that way where if you push it hard in that direction, there are many games that would start to go way below our target frame rate of even 30fps."

"And just like any other PC and other PC games, you can tweak settings," says Yang. "If you want to output to a 4K monitor and lower the textures, it will probably run fine."

It's going to be interesting to see exactly how well the Steam Deck performs when connected to an external monitor. So far, other hands-on reports have all been pretty positive, but there's a part of me that remains skeptical about just how attractive it's going to be to those expecting a truly 'high-end' PC gaming experience. Personally, I'm looking forward to using the Steam Deck to play all those visual novels and smaller games I've got in my library that I don't really want to sit up at a desk for, but I'm also keen to see exactly what its outer limits are, too. We'll find out for sure when the first wave of Steam Decks arrive at the end of this year.