Steam Deck (handheld from Valve) - shipping is 4-8 days from NL to UK

[Siri]

8 hours ago, Cootinho said:

I was planning on checking this out. I'm guessing performance is awful using the sd card for windows? How is the battery with windows?

 

Once you're in a game, it's generally okay as it's just relying on reading data - the real problem is doing anything while it's attempting to write something to the disk, as it will just completely bung up and take several seconds to manage anything - like opening anything in the system tray while games are downloading, saving a game, or doing anything while Windows is doing background updates. Most Linux distributions have less I/O bloat and/or are loaded entirely into RAM, so they don't have that issue really (hence why so many of them can be ran directly from a USB drive).

 

Battery seems okay for something that's doing whatever it wants in terms of TDP. I definitely would recommend Steam Deck Tools to get those controls back, along with everything else it offers (controller input modes and macros, fan speed, and enhanced LCD colours).

[Lorfarius]

19 hours ago, Siri said:

Urgh, downloaded 100gb of Forza 7 on the Windows 11 card, and it doesn't load. It seems to be more a thing with Forza 7, though - It's not maintained after being delisted, and it's just closing itself after opening the UWP splash screen. Something something UWP is a mistake
 

 

Does it work through the browser instead?

[Siri]

11 minutes ago, Lorfarius said:

 

Does it work through the browser instead?

 

I tried both the XBox App and Microsoft Store, and done the following along with subsequent attempts:

 

- Deleted all the pre-installed DLC

- Repaired the game through the Advanced Options

- Reset the game through the Advanced Options

- Turned on some random service linked to Microsoft Store authentication that's turned off by default

 

Nothing worked, so I just chalked it up to a bodged install and deleted the entire thing.

[Gotters]

oh no, this stupid handheld has made me re-evaluate one of my most strongly held of gaming beliefs, namely that Just Cause 2 was far superior to Just Cause 3.

 

I'll whisper this but I'm enjoying 3 more, it's brilliant, the sandbox sense of freedom is amazing in both but 3 has more variety in everything and you can blow up petrol stations & oil rigs.. 

[Tequlia]

Bit of an annoying one last night - playing Phantasy Star Online (offline) with it docked and using a PS4 controller.  The battery went on the dualshock which meant the game's controls completely died - the decks's own buttons wouldn't work with it, and even though the dualshock reconnected ok once I started charging it, again it wouldn't work with the game anymore. 

 

No amount of playing around with the controller config would work, so I just had to exit the game.  PSO is tight on saves so I lost whole the evenings progress 😕 Still on the plus side - excuse to play more PSO  

[Lorfarius]

Looks like the next Steam Sale is on the 22nd. I've got about £80 to spend in gift vouchers so I'm holding off.. bit of a struggle mind but just have to keep plugging away at Sonic Mania 🤣

[sbrandon111]

I have a weird issue with Gotham Knights on the Deck. I've playing Gotham Knight's between the Deck and my Gaming Laptop but today the deck is showing the cloud save as out of sync and the game needing a 2gb update. But the cloud sync wont sync properly presumably until i update the game, but the game wont update for some reason. It starts but then just stops the update. I've validated the files and have enough storage for the update. The game works fine on my laptop and save has uploaded to the cloud.

Any ideas?

 

Update - a reinstall fixed it. Steady 40fps using default settings now too.

[thesnwmn]

Got Ubisoft Connect installed so I could dipped into Trackmania. Not being stuck at a desk on the PC should suit this better (even if it is coming to consoles next year). The quick restart nature of TM means it's perfect handheld fodder imo.

 

Next up will be to see if I can get mods installed.

[BubbleFish]

Does anyone have a go to resource to look up the best settings for a game? I assumed that most game community pages would have a pinned or at least popular thread with what settings seem to get the best balance.

 

Also, FSR 2.0. Does the game need to run in full screen or window mode to use that? I’ve read conflicting statements.

[Siri]

On 26/08/2022 at 06:22, Siri said:

There's a couple:

 

https://steamdeckhq.com/

https://sharedeck.games/

 

And ofc ProtonDB, even with it being more for compatibility/fixes, posts will probably mention settings too.

 

As for FSR 2.0, screen mode shouldn't matter as the scaling is done within the game.

 

The Fullscreen/Borderless arguement probably relates to SteamOS' FSR 1.0 scaling, which is a universal thing and works differently (and worse).

[Lorfarius]

13 hours ago, BubbleFish said:

Does anyone have a go to resource to look up the best settings for a game? I assumed that most game community pages would have a pinned or at least popular thread with what settings seem to get the best balance.

 

Also, FSR 2.0. Does the game need to run in full screen or window mode to use that? I’ve read conflicting statements.

 

I just use the community page on my Deck but if its something really hard to find (like Bionic Commando Rearmed I go off hunting on Google.

[Gotters]

yeah 'best' is so subjective with some people preferring fidelity, others frame rate

 

youtube and reddit are good places to see how people are running certain games, as said proton DB gives an idea if it runs at all but even that can be out of date as new proton releases come out all the time.

[Simmy]

Got a few questions!

 

1. Anyone have the official dock? How you finding it? I know it is pricey but thinking of grabbing it - I have a Thinkpad one from work that works fine but I don't like that it doesn't have a stand and, well - I just want the official one.

 

2. Is there any controllers that work with a dongle? I know the xbox controller has bluetooth connectivity but I have felt the input delay at times - wondering if anyone has had success with the official dongle for it or another controller with dongle?

 

3. Is it looking like Valve will implement any official way to dual boot Windows any time soon? I would try the SD Card method but would much prefer it on the internal SSD.

 

4. I have quite a lot of games on Epic - I know I can install them via Heroic launcher but are they still shit without the shader cache from Steam or is there a way to smooth that out, somehow?

 

This machine is fucking brilliant btw - I absolutely LOVE it. Just started Divinity: Original Sin 2 (never played it before never knew anything about it really) and I am only an hour in but it is so cool playing it handheld - similarly it is so cool to be playing Among Us and chatting on Discord at the same time on a handheld.

 

I am in love with this thing.

[Lorfarius]

11 minutes ago, Simmy said:

Got a few questions!

 

1. Anyone have the official dock? How you finding it? I know it is pricey but thinking of grabbing it - I have a Thinkpad one from work that works fine but I don't like that it doesn't have a stand and, well - I just want the official one.

 

 

 

I bought this dock and its amazing. Works with newer HDMI and bar a missing ethernet port it does the job well. No complaints after a couple of weeks hard use, official dock is way over priced.

[Popo]

47 minutes ago, Simmy said:

Anyone have the official dock? How you finding it? I know it is pricey but thinking of grabbing it - I have a Thinkpad one from work that works fine but I don't like that it doesn't have a stand and, well - I just want the official one.

I have it; it’s absolutely overpriced, but it gets firmware updates which differentiates it from the others. 
 

Pure speculation as to what those updates may contain going into the future, but clearly it’s in Valve’s power to develop the dock alongside the Deck in a way that third party docks can’t necessarily. 
 

I’m not a huge fan of the way it just kinda sits on a ledge, and you have to fiddle with putting the USB C connector in and out. I much prefer Nintendo’s approach. It is what it is. 

[Siri]

1 hour ago, Simmy said:

4. I have quite a lot of games on Epic - I know I can install them via Heroic launcher but are they still shit without the shader cache from Steam or is there a way to smooth that out, somehow?

 

The closest possible thing is to force a game to use DXVK Async via Proton/WineGE, although that will only work on games using DX9 to DX11. That does cover pretty much everything except the latest cutting edge games, however.

 

It works quite well, but it's not perfect like how valve regurgitates shaders into everyone's Linux distribution like a baby bird. It also inflates the shader cache a little, roughly 10% in comparison.

 

If you're interested and you can't find any further information about it online, I'll put a reminder on my phone to dig out what I clicked on Heroic and what I put in the command line to enable it on Tony Hawk 1 & 2 (which was DX11).

[Wiper]

People in here were talking about playing Civilization V and VI on Deck, and they do seem a natural fit, but I've not been able to get V to run — it just loads interminably. VI works fine (though it clearly pushes the Deck a bit, even at low settings, judging by the fan), but I generally prefer V, so would ideally be able to get it up and running. Anyone got any pointers? 

 

(I did have a glance through the Steam forums, but that seemed to solely be people complaining about it not working, no solutions that I could find. Relatedly: I'm surprised Valve haven't implemented a Stack Overflow-style Deck community support Q&A section, or at the very least Deck-focussed forums for each game. Seems like an obvious, easy way to crowd-source solutions)

[Siri]

11 hours ago, Wiper said:

People in here were talking about playing Civilization V and VI on Deck, and they do seem a natural fit, but I've not been able to get V to run — it just loads interminably. VI works fine (though it clearly pushes the Deck a bit, even at low settings, judging by the fan), but I generally prefer V, so would ideally be able to get it up and running. Anyone got any pointers? 

 

 

Immediate thoughts -

 

- Has 2K shitted up the game with their crummy launcher?

- Is the game set to the (likely outdated) native Linux version?

 

I've got the game so I can try it, but those are normally red flags for 2K stuff.

 

Edit: @Wiper, put this command in the launcher options for the game's properties:

 

Quote

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libopenal.so.1 %command%

 

It'll then actually install the shit it needs to do and then the game works. I read it might be fixed in Proton Experimental as well, but I just went with default.

[Isaac]

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/holiday-encore-best-boomer-shooters-bundle

 

This is a fantastic bundle of shooters, many of which are great on the Deck.

[Wiper]

15 hours ago, Siri said:

Edit: @Wiper, put this command in the launcher options for the game's properties:

 

 

It'll then actually install the shit it needs to do and then the game works. I read it might be fixed in Proton Experimental as well, but I just went with default.

 

Alas, that command didn't work for me (I'd seen it advised on Reddit previously, but no dice). Good news: forcing the game into the previous Proton version via compatibility did work! Bad news: it's now almost 4am and I have work in the morning, and the "good" news is entirely to blame for it.

[disperse and recoagulate]

After pre-ordering one and selling it to CeX for profit, I've now got the itch again and ordered a 512gb version yesterday. Looking forward to going down the tutorial rabbit hole, setting everything up and then it sitting in a case like my Switch.  Strange as it sounds, the urge to play Counter-Strike Condition Zero on the easiest setting was what swayed me.

 

Times like these I wish my TV had like two more HDMI slots. 

[Stejay]

1 minute ago, disperse and recoagulate said:

Times like these I wish my TV had like two more HDMI slots. 

 

What's stopping you getting a cheap HDMI switch from Amazon?

[monkeydog]

51 minutes ago, Stejay said:

 

What's stopping you getting a cheap HDMI switch from Amazon?

 

That's no way to justify new TV. 

[disperse and recoagulate]

1 hour ago, Stejay said:

 

What's stopping you getting a cheap HDMI switch from Amazon?

I don't know...

 

My TV is wall mounted will all kinds of cable tied chaos going on behind it, so I don't wanna even contemplate changing what's going on there.

 

Could a HDMI switch sit on top of my living room PC and I'd just take, say, the HDMI cable from my Series X and instead feed it into the HDMI switch. And then have two short HDMI leads coming out of the HDMI switch, one into my Xbox and one into the Steam Deck dock? Then call the 'source' of that HDMI slot on my TV 'Games' and it would just display whichever device was on?

 

If so, any recommended brands?

Edited December 20, 2022 by disperse and recoagulate

[thesnwmn]

30 minutes ago, disperse and recoagulate said:

I don't know...

 

My TV is wall mounted will all kinds of cable tied chaos going on behind it, so I don't wanna even contemplate changing what's going on there.

 

Could a HDMI switch sit on top of my living room PC and I'd just take, say, the HDMI cable from my Series X and instead feed it into the HDMI switch. And then have two short HDMI leads coming out of the HDMI switch, one into my Xbox and one into the Steam Deck dock? Then call the 'source' of that HDMI slot on my TV 'Games' and it would just display whichever device was on?

 

If so, any recommended brands?

 

Yes. That's what an HDMI switch is. Take multiple inputs and switch the right one to the TV output.

 

As for good ones, I'll be keeping an eye. I've had two cheap ones which were good but not so good at high resolution or refresh rate. Need to find a better one.

[SozzlyJoe]

I got this and it works:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09CL5WQC3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Cheap enough to be worth a punt! It's not an auto switcher though, few more quid will get you one of those. You basically just need to take the TV HDMI lead out of the back of your XBOX and put it into this, then the a new lead from XBOX and whatever else into the other side. Simple, no need to go round the back of the TV at all.

[yakumo]

Does the new Witcher update run on the deck and well?.

[amc]

If anyone needs a fully functioning HDMI switch I can recommend this one-

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08PKJZ7QB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

It does the lot. 120Hz, VRR, Atmos, HDR yadda yadda. Bit overkill for the Deck, mind.

[Jamie John]

I think the rumble and haptics features on my 512gb model have stopped working properly. I can't feel the touchpad vibrations at in Gaming mode, and then only slightly when I switch to desktop and move the mouse around. I can't feel any rumble in-game at all, including when playing LA Noire, which is very rumble-heavy as it's how the game tells you that you're onto something.

 

Can someone do a quick check for me: when you enable and disable the rumble option in the settings menu, does the Deck actually rumble briefly to confirm it's switched on, like the Switch does? I'm not getting anything from the Deck. I may have to reset it.

[Rorschach]

On 19/12/2022 at 09:31, Simmy said:

2. Is there any controllers that work with a dongle? I know the xbox controller has bluetooth connectivity but I have felt the input delay at times - wondering if anyone has had success with the official dongle for it or another controller with dongle?

 

The lag on bluetooth is okay I've found, not noticeable at all. I think the bluetooth stack is better than on Windows as I've had problems there. The dongle does not work, and to get it to work you'd need to mess with system files, which isn't worth it imo.

 

I'm sure a Steam Controller and its dongle would work! But I prefer a Xbox controller for the vast majority of games.

 

On 19/12/2022 at 09:31, Simmy said:

4. I have quite a lot of games on Epic - I know I can install them via Heroic launcher but are they still shit without the shader cache from Steam or is there a way to smooth that out, somehow?

 

No, there's no way to get the shader pre-cache downloads to work with non steam games. Even if Valve wanted to make it work, I don't see how they could because the builds of games on different stores may be subtly different.

 

I've found stuttering etc isn't that bad, haven't noticed drops in performance when entering new areas and such, although I've mostly played older / lower end titles (but that's most of the games that Epic have given out for free anyway).

 

19 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

Can someone do a quick check for me: when you enable and disable the rumble option in the settings menu, does the Deck actually rumble briefly to confirm it's switched on, like the Switch does? I'm not getting anything from the Deck. I may have to reset it.

 

No, it doesn't give any such feedback. You can test the haptics by going into "Calibration and advanced settings" and adjusting the strength. The left haptics are far stronger than the right for me. They are kind of terrible even when they work imo. They're basically good for trackball style feedback when flicking a cursor around and that's it.