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

[Gotters]

I know it's an older optimised game now but how the hell is Wreckfest running on high settings and hitting such a good framerate on this - various Youtubes show a pretty decent 60fps maintained with odd drops down when some major chaos happens.

 

I've only tweaked in game settings so far, not touched any of the OS refresh stuff.

 

It feels superb to play still, was always a favourite racing game back from launch on PS4.

[Siri]

1 hour ago, Gotters said:

I know it's an older optimised game now but how the hell is Wreckfest running on high settings and hitting such a good framerate on this 

 

Quote

a favourite racing game back from launch on PS4.

 

I mean, people who were regularly playing on PC weren't joking when they said that the Jaguar APU cores in the PS4 and XBone were bunk, even when being fed power from the mains.

 

Heck, even the APU generation before what's in the Steam Deck now wasn't that great - the most popular Ryzen APU that I (still) have, the 2400g which was released in 2018, is just about capable for games in 2013 at 1080p but struggles with more intensive stuff. (It is, however, still great for light 3D indie games and 2D. I played the demo for Neon White on it in 720p!)

 

But yeah, less of a miracle, and more 'hey, here's a handheld with actual modern graphics guts'. It didn't even need to be highly clocked, just following the new architecture was enough.

[earlymodernsteve]

Sold a few bits over the weekend and pushed my Deck fund into credit so ordered mine yesterday. Hyped already to fiddle with PS2/GC emulation and a bunch of stuff from my embarrassment of riches in my Steam library. Now I just need to distract myself whilst I wait. Actually looking forward to marking student essays after tonight's submission deadline so that they are all done before it arrives...

[bradigor]

Welcome... One of us. One of us!

[Popo]

#DeckedOut

[T Pot]

39 minutes ago, Popo said:

#DeckedOut

 

#DeckHeads

[Gotters]

1 hour ago, Siri said:

 

 

I mean, people who were regularly playing on PC weren't joking when they said that the Jaguar APU cores in the PS4 and XBone were bunk, even when being fed power from the mains.

 

Heck, even the APU generation before what's in the Steam Deck now wasn't that great - the most popular Ryzen APU that I (still) have, the 2400g which was released in 2018, is just about capable for games in 2013 at 1080p but struggles with more intensive stuff. (It is, however, still great for light 3D indie games and 2D. I played the demo for Neon White on it in 720p!)

 

But yeah, less of a miracle, and more 'hey, here's a handheld with actual modern graphics guts'. It didn't even need to be highly clocked, just following the new architecture was enough.

 

it may not be a surprise to the tech minded that are into the guts of machines - I guess I always just tuned out the chatter from PC gaming about consoles not being that good as I was all about the convenience at the time and had no interest in the PC side of things - I didn't doubt it, just didn't bother me.

 

that is the surprise, just how capable a handheld can be when utilising some well designed architecture

[Stanley]

I was asking in, ahem, another thread about playing Game Pass titles on the Deck, is this easy or does it require some workarounds?

 

And as if my resolve wasn’t weakened enough I’ve just got into Vampire Survivors on Xbox. Jesus Christ that game is insane. I need it on a handheld. 

[Hawklord]

19 minutes ago, Stanley said:

I was asking in, ahem, another thread about playing Game Pass titles on the Deck, is this easy or does it require some workarounds?

 

And as if my resolve wasn’t weakened enough I’ve just got into Vampire Survivors on Xbox. Jesus Christ that game is insane. I need it on a handheld. 

 

You can easily play Cloud games via Edge

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/topic/xbox-cloud-gaming-in-microsoft-edge-with-steam-deck-43dd011b-0ce8-4810-8302-965be6d53296

 

Or you can install Windows if you want natively play PC Game Pass games

 

You can also remote play/stream games directly from the XBox

 

 

[HarryBizzle]

I ordered mine last Tue and it's arrived today. Have got a month or two before my brother'll take it off me and excited to mess about with some new hardware.

 

First up will be Arkham Asylum and Elechead, I think.

 

And there's a Linux version of the Epic games launcher (called Heroic or something), right?  So I can hopefully get Hades on there?

[Siri]

4 minutes ago, HarryBizzle said:

And there's a Linux version of the Epic games launcher (called Heroic or something), right?  So I can hopefully get Hades on there?

 

It's how I played it!

[HarryBizzle]

So I’ve installed Arkham Asylum but it won’t run. I’ve installed GE-proton via the protonup-qt but it doesn’t appear in the comparability tools in Steam. Anyone know what I’m doing wrong?

[Lorfarius]

Just now, HarryBizzle said:

So I’ve installed Arkham Asylum but it won’t run. I’ve installed GE-proton via the protonup-qt but it doesn’t appear in the comparability tools in Steam. Anyone know what I’m doing wrong?

 

Have you tried changing the proton in Steam/Settings for the game?

[HarryBizzle]

1 minute ago, Lorfarius said:

 

Have you tried changing the proton in Steam/Settings for the game?

Turns out I needed to close steam and restart it. 
 

Is GE-proton generally the best for unruly games or do I have to check Protondb on a game by game basis?

 

 

Also, I haven’t owned a Switch since 2020 but can’t stop trying to use B to select and A to cancel. 

[Lorfarius]

11 minutes ago, HarryBizzle said:

Turns out I needed to close steam and restart it. 
 

Is GE-proton generally the best for unruly games or do I have to check Protondb on a game by game basis?

 

 

Also, I haven’t owned a Switch since 2020 but can’t stop trying to use B to select and A to cancel. 

 

Yep but I sometimes mix it up with the experimental and default one if something plays up. It always seems to improve with every update so even if its buggered now might be fine at the next update.

[Siri]

1 hour ago, HarryBizzle said:

Is GE-proton generally the best for unruly games or do I have to check Protondb on a game by game basis?

 

If you like or own a lot of Japanese games that use odd FMV codecs, it's worth keeping a copy of Proton GE around, maybe keep it as default if they're the only games you play.

 

But generally, I just keep to Proton Experimental by default as workarounds for games will land there first, and unless things break it doesn't really matter much.

[HarryBizzle]

I’ve been mucking around for about an hour trying to get Arkham Asylum to run and it doesn’t even launch. This is with various proton versions and trying to manually install the dependencies via protontricks and mucking around in konsole. 
 

No idea what I’mdoing wrong but when I try to launch it even in Desktop mode, it just says running for a bit and then the button changes back to “play”. Nothing opens or runs at all. 

[HarryBizzle]

Success! 
 

 

Turns out I had to manually install Steamworks Common Distributables, which the game is supposed to do on its own. 

[Gotters]

On 08/01/2023 at 20:15, Strafe said:

The steam deck haptics are pretty bad. I’m not sure why they are, unless it’s a battery thing though given you can get your steam deck to batter the battery in a multitude of other ways it seems odd that haptics would be limited.

 

PSA, if you keep the haptic level high and then use an Xbox controller without putting them back Dow  you’ll probably get carpel tunnel syndrome in short order.

 

I did a few searches on this and apparently the only haptics in the machine are the ones under the trackpads - it's the only thing to me that feels disappointing in the machine. I almost feel bad typing that I love it so much.

 

[Strafe]

That makes sense. I thought they just had some weak motors in the handle bit.

[HarryBizzle]

So despite 200-odd pages of everyone loving this thing, I'm sure you're all dying to hear what I think of it.

 

It's quite the little marvel, isn't it? It's a proper PC and yet so light, the construction seems excellent and the screen is brilliant. Feels much nicer than a Switch (I haven't used an OLED model), and the screen is surprisingly sharp. Arkham Asylum looks incredible on it. It feels like quite the leap from the Switch, but I think the resolution of the screen is almost the same? (720p vs 800p).

 

I plugged it into my monitor and got my mouse and keyboard working easily enough, and was amazed at how well it works. Might try it a bit more and see if I can replace my desktop tower (which is old) with it for the purposes of browsing on a monitor.

 

I'm impressed at how polished a lot of the experience is, but at the same time frustrated by bits of it. 5Ghz wifi sleeping still seems to be causing lots of people (including me) issues, the wifi seems a bit spotty at times (random disconnects in desktop mode), it not installing the right redistributables for games is very annoying, etc.

 

Still, when it works, it's magic. I found a 128GB SD card and chucked it in and now have plenty of storage space. Elechead is lovely and I plan to give Aperture deskjob a go. I also never finished Fez, so will probably give that another go, too.

[Siri]

The screen is good enough when placed against what I've got in the house by default, although it's capable of much more with either bumping the saturation or removing the blue cast with VibrantDeck. Same story as everything else with the Deck, really - it's good enough when it's just dropped in your hands, but a little nip and tuck would make it sing.

 

Thumb's a little tender, so I've only played a little more of Tiny Rogues over the weekend. I'm hoping when it's better I can get cracking on Mothmen 1966 and Toem. I've completed my first proper route in Clannad, but it took nearly 20 hours so I need a fucking break from it 

[Opinionated Ham Scarecrow]

After 16 hours I finally beat 

Spoiler

Mega Death

in Tiny Rogues. It's such a lovely little no fat game. Addictive as hell too.

 

Anyone know how you 

Spoiler

Unlock the 2 doors at the end?

 

[ChewMagma]

Here if you were going to get a wireless mouse and kb to use with your steam deck, what would you go with?

 

Thinking I might get a dock and then I can play some strategy games on it on my tv.

 

Not my original intended use case but this is swiftly becoming my main gaming machine now. I reconciled my Switch and Steam wishlists today and where there was overlap, decided if it was verified (or playable with minor issues) I'd rather have it on Steam Deck. A big deal for me because until now I was a big, big Switch guy.

[thesnwmn]

7 minutes ago, ChewMagma said:

Here if you were going to get a wireless mouse and kb to use with your steam deck, what would you go with?

 

Thinking I might get a dock and then I can play some strategy games on it on my tv.

 

Not my original intended use case but this is swiftly becoming my main gaming machine now. I reconciled my Switch and Steam wishlists today and where there was overlap, decided if it was verified (or playable with minor issues) I'd rather have it on Steam Deck. A big deal for me because until now I was a big, big Switch guy.

 

I don't have any direct recommendations for hardware... I have a combined Logitech wireless keyboard and trackpad I use for doing desktop stuff on the Deck (installing things which are a bit fiddly, i.e. using the console).

 

But I'd also consider what type of strategy games you're thinking about for this setup. They'll likely play fine but consider where you're sitting in relation to the screen, it's size and the size of UI elements and text in some strategy games. I'm sure some will be excellent but others might be fine on the handheld deck or a PC but not really workable on a TV if you're not close enough to it.

 

I'd love to use my Steam Deck docked more but without a good controller I sort of refuse. I've grown very accustomed to the Deck's inputs. Trackpads and back buttons are just so good in so many games of the type I like to play. Even those with full controller support are often better with a hybrid setup. I really need Valve to put out a Steam Controller 2 which is basically a Steam Deck without the screen and innards.

[ChewMagma]

Interesting, thanks.

 

I was looking at Civ and the Paradox grand strategy games, most of which I already own as well as some more involved tactics games like Battle Brothers and Unity of Command 2.

 

Personally I find the trackpads for mouse control slightly awkward to use depending on the game and tire my hands out.

[Siri]

9 minutes ago, ChewMagma said:

Personally I find the trackpads for mouse control slightly awkward to use depending on the game and tire my hands out.

 

I feel the same about using them, at least in trackball mode.

 

Using mouse region as the sub-setting for the trackpad helps if the image is slow or static for me, like VNs or RPGs.

 

As for recommendations, I'd probably go Bluetooth to keep the amount of dongles attached to the unit sane, but I wouldn't know what to actually go for I'm afraid.

[Siri]

Neat, Sharedeck now has a plugin that detects the game you're playing and presents a list of settings you can punch in.

 

It's not quite Geforce Experience where it fudges .ini files for you, but being able to check and send reports on the fly is A-OK.

 

https://steamdecklife.com/2023/01/10/sharedeck-y-steam-deck-game-settings/

[Gotters]

It’s so hard to resist things like this, few on here look interesting and all deck verified

 

https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-play-on-the-go-bundle-new-year-edition?aff_track=CJ&CJEVENT=a86a13e8911611ed802405210a18b8f6&utm_source=CJ&cj_pid=100721639&cj_aid=13797872

[deerokus]

I've been wiped out with something vaguely similar to COVID for over a week now and this thing is my saviour.