Steam Deck ~ PC Switch

[Zarniwoop]

Do these batteries get overcharged and weaker over time rather quickly. Example is my greenworks batteries for my string trimmers. When I bought them about an hour each. Now, barely 20 minutes if lucky.

I have heard that you shouldn't leave the Deck plugged in all the time to avoid battery degradation, which is absurd for a device that is intended to function as a desktop replacement. Do they expect people to plug it in while in desktop mode then unplug it when you're finished?

Good thing the Steam Dick isn't intended as a desktop replacement then.

 

[Zarniwoop]

I think all such battery chargers should have a mandatory shut off. If the device loses some % after shut off oh well but overcharging is a god damn sin to the electronic gods. I had a few mp3 player end up as such.

They do. But leaving the battery fully charged all the time, combined with heat is what causes it to degrade faster.

Thats why some laptops have an option to stop charging at 60% or so if you intend to use them mostly plugged in - the battery lasts much much longer.

 

[ind33d]

I think all such battery chargers should have a mandatory shut off. If the device loses some % after shut off oh well but overcharging is a god damn sin to the electronic gods. I had a few mp3 player end up as such.

As to screen protectors, I hadn't initially thought on a SteamDeck protector. They make adhesive glass ones for the deck right? Even those can get a bubble.

yes, i use a screen protector. also note that if you get a case, make sure it has a kickstand in case you end up using desktop mode

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I'm just contemplating hobo under tree mode and if I need a better power brick.

 

[The Decline]

Do these batteries get overcharged and weaker over time rather quickly. Example is my greenworks batteries for my string trimmers. When I bought them about an hour each. Now, barely 20 minutes if lucky.

I have heard that you shouldn't leave the Deck plugged in all the time to avoid battery degradation, which is absurd for a device that is intended to function as a desktop replacement. Do they expect people to plug it in while in desktop mode then unplug it when you're finished?

It has usb c power passthrough so it doesn't keep charging the battery once it's full. You can also install a utility program to limit the charge level.

 

[Lyric Suite]

So i almost dropped the thing so went out and got a cover, something rugged armor by Spigen, and turns out it actually blocks the shoulder triggers, R1 and L1. I mean it's usable but i tried Dark Souls and the cover is definitely in the way, making it annoying to use those buttons. Nice how nobody mentioned this in the dozens of reviews i read about this thing, how great it was, how it fit into the original carrying case (which it does, thank God for that at least).

Anyway i'm still playing Doom and without vertical aim it seems the gyro is pointless, so i'm playing it as if it was a console shooter, just with the triggers. I think i'm gonna try Quake next so i can see how i can adjust to something with true mouse look.

I invited my friend over and he explained the kind of set up he had for RTS games i'll say it's impressive how hard they tried making sure this thing can actually play PC games. They honestly tried every which way possible given the nature of handheld design.

I'm getting used to the thing now but i still think the screen is a bit small.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Maybe custom covers will be constructed to address such issues.

 

[ind33d]

Has anyone found a good stand for the Deck to use on a desk with a mouse and keyboard?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Just get a slave to hold it or a huge african bitch ass. They balance barrels on those massive butts.

 

[ind33d]

JSAUX, got it

 

[Lyric Suite]

So i just noticed that my internal drive is already below 20GB. I still have 100GB left out of my 256GB card, with 64 installed games total. So the cache has already eaten up my internal drive, though apparently you can just move it out onto the SD card and make a symbolic link back into the internal drive. This means i can hold off in buying an internal drive (saw a 1TB one for like 90 euros which is a bit steep for now).

I think i'll hold off in tinkering further until i get a dock. Really hard using the desktop like this.

What's in that cache? If it's mainly shaders and shit then probably less than ideal to shift that off to an sd card

Probably.

60GB of free space left on my memory card, around 11GB left on the internal drive.

There's utilities out there that supposedly will clear your cache folder wonder if they can just clean the cache of stuff from games i haven't even loaded up yet. If i'm playing a game at a time there's no reason the thing should already be pre-loaded like this.

I'm finally starting to notice some compatibility now. I tried C&C with the cnc-ddraw and the audio is glitchy, skipping and crackling. Same thing on the Devil May Cry collection during the intro video.

 

[Morgoth]

Valve says its 'not really fair to your customers' to create yearly iterations of something like the Steam Deck, instead it's waiting 'for a generational leap in compute without sacrificing battery life'​

By Dave James
published 47 minutes ago

Valve may not be creating yearly iterations of the Steam Deck, but it's having to give the same answer every year.

Valve Deck duo, Lawrence Yang and Yazan Aldehayyat, have been doing the press rounds recently as Australia is finally getting itself a proper Steam Deck release in that territory. As part of that, Yang and Aldehayyat have had to field the now-standard questions about a potential Steam Deck 2.

Unsurprisingly, their answer in an interview with Reviews.org (via Eurogamer) remains the same as last year, namely that Valve wants to wait until there is a tangible improvement in the technological ecosystem around handheld gaming PCs before even thinking about a new version.


Obviously the release of the Steam Deck OLED, the year after the original came out, might have led some folk to expect some sort of yearly cadence of Valve-y handheld tech updates. Though, probably not anyone who has had anything to do with Valve and PC hardware releases...

You only have to look at the Valve Index VR headset, and all the noises about a second version or sequel to that smart bit of tech, to see that Gabe's gang isn't about to spit out new, barely iterative hardware just for the sake of tacking a '2' onto the box. And if we want to talk about long-lost sequels, you could make a nod to Valve's software devs and a certain Freeman-related series.

And Valve's Deck team was also determined to make it clear when the OLED device came out that it absolutely wasn't a sequel. All of which means no-one should have expected it to be repeated this year.

For reference, Yang said in this latest interview that: "It is important to us, and we've tried to be really clear, we are not doing the yearly cadence."

"We're not going to do a bump every year," he continues. "There's no reason to do that. And, honestly, from our perspective, that's kind of not really fair to your customers to come out with something so soon that's only incrementally better. So, we really do want to wait for a generational leap in compute without sacrificing battery life before we ship the real second generation of Steam Deck. But it is something that we're excited about and we're working on."

This almost precisely echoes what Yang told me around the launch of the OLED version last year: "It needs to be the right time," he tells me. "And we have to have the right parts for it. So we really want there to be a generational leap in performance for us to be able to comfortably call it a Steam Deck 2.

"We're keeping an eye on chips and APU that are available. The things that are available right now are not right yet. But maybe in two to three years, there will be something that is good in the same way that our current APU is, in terms of the power envelope, with performance, with battery draw. All of those things have to be in the sweet spot for a real move to a new chip."

"For us to make a second version," Aldehayyat then chimes in, "we will be able to have a substantial performance improvement while sticking to a similar kind of power range and weight to battery life. And that's not going to happen next year or the year after that. It's probably going to be more than that."

So, don't expect even some nominal update to the Steam Deck this year or even next year. I also asked the question about a Steam Deck Lite, and was told that wasn't something it was looking at. "I think that the next thing that we're working on moving forward is Steam Deck 2," Yang tells me.

I mean, at least we can be sure one is coming, just don't expect it anytime soon. And nor should you have.

 

[FreshCorpse]

Valve says its 'not really fair to your customers' to create yearly iterations of something like the Steam Deck, instead it's waiting 'for a generational leap in compute without sacrificing battery life'​

By Dave James
published 47 minutes ago

Valve may not be creating yearly iterations of the Steam Deck, but it's having to give the same answer every year.

Valve Deck duo, Lawrence Yang and Yazan Aldehayyat, have been doing the press rounds recently as Australia is finally getting itself a proper Steam Deck release in that territory. As part of that, Yang and Aldehayyat have had to field the now-standard questions about a potential Steam Deck 2.

Unsurprisingly, their answer in an interview with Reviews.org (via Eurogamer) remains the same as last year, namely that Valve wants to wait until there is a tangible improvement in the technological ecosystem around handheld gaming PCs before even thinking about a new version.


Obviously the release of the Steam Deck OLED, the year after the original came out, might have led some folk to expect some sort of yearly cadence of Valve-y handheld tech updates. Though, probably not anyone who has had anything to do with Valve and PC hardware releases...

You only have to look at the Valve Index VR headset, and all the noises about a second version or sequel to that smart bit of tech, to see that Gabe's gang isn't about to spit out new, barely iterative hardware just for the sake of tacking a '2' onto the box. And if we want to talk about long-lost sequels, you could make a nod to Valve's software devs and a certain Freeman-related series.

And Valve's Deck team was also determined to make it clear when the OLED device came out that it absolutely wasn't a sequel. All of which means no-one should have expected it to be repeated this year.

For reference, Yang said in this latest interview that: "It is important to us, and we've tried to be really clear, we are not doing the yearly cadence."

"We're not going to do a bump every year," he continues. "There's no reason to do that. And, honestly, from our perspective, that's kind of not really fair to your customers to come out with something so soon that's only incrementally better. So, we really do want to wait for a generational leap in compute without sacrificing battery life before we ship the real second generation of Steam Deck. But it is something that we're excited about and we're working on."

This almost precisely echoes what Yang told me around the launch of the OLED version last year: "It needs to be the right time," he tells me. "And we have to have the right parts for it. So we really want there to be a generational leap in performance for us to be able to comfortably call it a Steam Deck 2.

"We're keeping an eye on chips and APU that are available. The things that are available right now are not right yet. But maybe in two to three years, there will be something that is good in the same way that our current APU is, in terms of the power envelope, with performance, with battery draw. All of those things have to be in the sweet spot for a real move to a new chip."

"For us to make a second version," Aldehayyat then chimes in, "we will be able to have a substantial performance improvement while sticking to a similar kind of power range and weight to battery life. And that's not going to happen next year or the year after that. It's probably going to be more than that."

So, don't expect even some nominal update to the Steam Deck this year or even next year. I also asked the question about a Steam Deck Lite, and was told that wasn't something it was looking at. "I think that the next thing that we're working on moving forward is Steam Deck 2," Yang tells me.

I mean, at least we can be sure one is coming, just don't expect it anytime soon. And nor should you have.

Same reason that console makers don't put out a new Playstation each year: a hardware/software monoculture is a strength

 

[Morgoth]

Yeah it's a no-brainer. But gamers are retarded/greedy so devs have to remind them constantly.

 

[Ol' Willy]

A portable device that could be used as a desktop as well?

Wow

Almost like a laptop

 

[Lyric Suite]

Deck is an handheld, it's not the same thing.

Also I don't know why you would use it as a desktop. The only reason i'm getting a dock is to make customization easier.

Anyway, i'm on to Doom 2 now and i'm actually starting to get used to the screen now. I was worried since it just felt too small and i thought maybe it was a mistake to get this thing but it's starting to feel normal now.

 

[ind33d]

Someone should make a compatibility layer to run 3D games in Mode 7 fake 3D to increase performance the same way other people have modded games to run in VR. Has anyone looked at how Mode 7 looks on a high DPI OLED screen? The deck doesn't need better performance: It can run Red Dead Redemption 2 off a battery. It needs software with better optimization. What would Daggerfall look like in 4k? I'm very curious.

 

[PlayerEmers]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1675200/announcements/detail/4676514574283544995

SteamOS 3.6.19 has been released to the Stable channel for Deck with the following changes:

General

• Updated to a more recent Arch Linux base, and updated Linux kernel to version 6.5
  • These updates improve hardware compatibility, system performance, security, and overall system stability
• Improved speed of subsequent OS updates
• Improved reliability of certain microSD card usage scenarios
• Worked around misdetection of some SanDisk microSD cards
• Improved responsiveness of session restart in case of session crashes caused by certain GPU errors
• Fixed an issue where certain games could crash with a 'page allocation failure' after a long play session
• Improved recovery from situations where the Steam installation could get corrupted
• Fixed some connectivity failures with access points supporting WPA3 security
• Fixed a problem where Steam Deck would be unable to connect to certain Wi-Fi 7 access points
• Fixed game session cursor offset alignment
• Fixed an issue where a thin grey line could appear at the bottom of the screen during boot in some situations
• Fixed an issue where the Performance Overlay would spuriously enable itself under certain conditions
• Fixed an issue preventing sleep on some types of aftermarket SSDs
• Fixed an issue preventing update checks from working properly on networks with an invalid IPv6 configuration
• Fixed an issue where touching the left trackpad after sleep could result in a spurious haptic click
• Fixed a general issue affecting OLED units on 3.5, causing a slow memory leak during gameplay
• Fixed an issue causing a "Update Error" message when attempting to interact with the update menu on the 'Preview' update channel.
• Fixed the frame limiter not properly applying in certain situations
• Fixed an issue where block corruption could appear on screen on certain state transitions
• Fixed an issue where updating the built-in controller firmware could result in a blank screen during boot
• Fixed a rare issue where sound output could be corrupted on certain boots
• Fixed a rare issue where 3.5mm headphones could produce elevated background noise on reconnection until next sleep/resume
• Fixed an issue where updates would sometimes be applied incorrectly if the unit was powered off abruptly near the end of an OS update
• Fixed an issue with copy-pasting UTF-8 text across applications
• Fixed a problem where a Game Recording capture failing could cause subsequent captures to also fail
• Fixed a crash when using the magnifier tool while game recording is active
• Fixed colorspace for Game Recording
• Fixed an issue where colors could appear washed out when using Steam Remote Play as a client
• Fixed a possible crash when using Steam Deck as the Remote Play host
• Fixed an issue that could cause videos to stutter in titles such as BlazBlue Centralfiction
• Fixed an issue with a rare session crash during early startup of ELDEN RING
• Fixed display regressions with certain titles such as Warriors All-Stars, Disgaea 5 Complete, Vampire: The Masquerade - Reckoning of New York
• Worked around a bug where HDR couldn't be selected in Halo Infinite
• Fixed an issue causing temporary files to accrue when using Flatpak
• Security fix for Flatpak (CVE-2024-42472)

Graphics and Performance

• Updated graphics driver to Mesa 24.1, with many performance and other improvements
• Improved responsiveness of the Steam UI
• Improved performance and stability in memory pressure situations
• Slightly improved cold boot time

Display

• Improved display uniformity, under some conditions (Mura Compensation)
• Improved display color balance (reduced green tint) at lower brightness levels, under some conditions
• Improved gamma uniformity (yellow tint), under some conditions
• Fixed certain specific refresh rates failing to apply on the OLED Limited Edition model
• Fixed an issue where the internal display could remain blank after disconnecting an external display
• Fixed an issue where internal display could be abnormally limited to a lower frame rate after disconnecting an external display with VRR enabled
• Fixed rare situations where switching to Desktop Mode or back could result in a blank screen, or wrong colors

External Display

• Fixed several issues where an external display could remain blank after resuming
• Fixed an issue where an external display could remain blank if its mode required chroma subsampling
• Fixed an issue where the system could crash on wakeup if an external DisplayPort monitor was connected
• Fixed a system crash when hotplugging a second display in Desktop mode
• Improved frame pacing with VRR on external displays

Bluetooth

• Improved pairing experience with Apple AirPods
• Enabled support for Bluetooth HFP and BAP profiles
• Added mechanism to configure which Bluetooth device categories are allowed to wake the system from suspend
  • By default, controllers are the only devices that can wake the system from sleep
  • Finer-grained UI configuration options will be available as part of a future update
• Improved connection speed of some Bluetooth devices
• Fixed an issue where Bluetooth peripherals would disconnect on session switch

Input

• Added support for extra ROG Ally keys
• Added support for the ASUS ROG Raikiri Pro controller
• Added support for the Machenike G5 Pro controller
• Added support for the Steam Deck motion sensors to the built-in non-Steam kernel driver
• Fixed an issue where scroll wheel Steam Input bindings weren't functional
• Fixed an issue where DualShock 4 and DualSense controllers would sometimes not function properly on their first connection
• Fixed calibration on some third-party DualShock 4 controllers

Desktop Mode

• Updated to KDE Plasma 5.27.10
• Enabled thumbnail previews for videos in the file browser
• Fixed an issue with desktop use that could cause subsequent microSD card auto-mount to fail
• Fixed Zenity dialog boxes
• Fixed nested desktop crashing on launch

BIOS / Firmware

• Adjusted power LED slow charging threshold
• Fixed not being able to set the SDCard as default boot device
• Fixed spurious power LED blinking in S5
• Steam Deck OLED only
  • Added support for the Windows Bluetooth driver (LCD models already have Windows Bluetooth support)
• Steam Deck LCD only
  • Improved battery life by up to 10% in light load situations
  • Added overclocking controls

Steam Deck Docking Station

• Added support for some HDMI CEC features:
  • TV remote input
  • TV wake up
  • TV input switching
• Updated Dock firmware, with compatibility fixes for high-refresh-rate VRR displays, and fixing several issues where displays could remain blank

Development and Modding

• Modified files in /etc are now migrated to new OS versions based on a whitelist
  • Fixes numerous issues with incidentally touched /etc files becoming 'sticky' and persisting unexpectedly
  • Additional whitelist entries can be added via config fragments
  • See /etc/atomic-update.conf.d/example-additional-keep-list.conf
  • Added /etc/previous/ containing modifications from the previous update to prevent unexpected data loss
  • Up to five previous snaphots of /etc modifications will additionally be retained in /var/lib/steamos-atomupd/etc_backup/
• Added support for {ssh,sshd}_config fragments
• Split package reinstallation step out of `steamos-devmode` command and into new `steamos-unminimize` command. `steamos-devmode` now simply enters read-write mode and initializes the pacman keyring for use, and is much quicker.
• openssh: Fix remote code execution bug (CVE-2024-6387)

 

[The Decline]

Also I don't know why you would use it as a desktop.

There are edge cases, but it speaks to the device's versatility that it can work as pretty good desktop replacement.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Well, i took advantage of Nigger Friday to get a 1TB drive (the Corsair 600 whatever it's called) and a Jsaux Dock. I was putting off getting into any heavy customization since i'll have to reset the whole thing while changing the drive plus without keyboard and mouse and a full screen it was near impossible to do any heavy tinkering but as soon as my stuff arrives i should be good to go.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

I barely use my Deck at all, any real PC game feels like a compromise to play. Great if you travel or away from a PC a lot but if you aren't it's kind of useless (at least to me).

 

[Melcar]

It's a mobile gaming device, not a desktop replacement. People use it as a desktop because they can, and for some it *can* be a replacement (just like smart phone can do all their computing).

 

[whydoibother]

I barely use my Deck at all, any real PC game feels like a compromise to play. Great if you travel or away from a PC a lot but if you aren't it's kind of useless (at least to me).

Its become a Vampire Survivors/Backpack Battles device for me, doing a sleepy 30 minutes of gaming in bed in the morning.
Turns out I just don't play many gamepad games, and despite Valve's best efforts, its really not a mouse&keyboard device. Especially in games with much UI, text on the UI, and where you can input text to search or drag&drop items or w/e.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Well, the set up i'm planning would make it super easy to use as desktop since all i have to do is unplug my keyboard and mouse from my PC and plug it into the dock, switch monitor input and done (my speakers have bluetooth input so i can even use those).

That said, there's no point unless you want to do some light Linux tinkering.

For the most part, the use for me is to customize the system. Last time for instance i installed all the other game platforms (Epic, Battle.net, Galaxy etc), just to see how that works and it was a pain in the ass to do from the Deck itself. And all i had to do is download a script imagine if i have to type anything in the terminal no way.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I barely use my Deck at all, any real PC game feels like a compromise to play. Great if you travel or away from a PC a lot but if you aren't it's kind of useless (at least to me).

I don't travel super often but it does happen.

But another use is that i have a room with isolated eating i can use so i don't have to heat up the whole house just to use my PC.