Valve introduces Steam Deck

Steamdeck is going to kill Valve and they'll be forced to be bought out by Facebook or Google.

Steam will be assimilated into The Metaverse™ and you'll only have access to your library once you adorn and log into your Oculus headset. From the The Metaverse™ you will have to join one of the many computer rooms where you will be transported to a fully functional digital room where you will move about and access in game computer where you will finally be able to log on to your steam account and play your games while in the The Metaverse™.

 
  • Agree
  • Thunk-Provoking
  • Like
Reactions: Buttigieg2020, Slap47, 820㎌Cap and 10 others
Back me up! said:
I also have to believe there is a fairly large subset of older gamers that has some money, not as much time/dealing with kids , that also loved playing 2d/sprite based games (dear god there are a lot of them on Steam) and just wants to something to drag around to play the stuff they already own any where.

Like a 15 min run of Dead Cells before bed, a quick game of Slay the Spire while waiting for your kids soccer game to start, etc.
Click to expand...
This is me in a nutshell. 30s, married with young kid. Loved PC gaming in the 90s but haven't had a gaming PC for the last 20 years. I travel a lot for business, and a handheld where I can play the huge backlog of the PC games I've missed out on over the years sounds great. I don't get the hate really.
 
  • Feels
  • Like
  • TMI
Reactions: Slap47, 820㎌Cap, BananaSplit and 4 others
Clem Fandango said:
This is me in a nutshell. 30s, married with young kid. Loved PC gaming in the 90s but haven't had a gaming PC for the last 20 years. I travel a lot for business, and a handheld where I can play the huge backlog of the PC games I've missed out on over the years sounds great. I don't get the hate really.
Click to expand...
Yeah...I really want companies to try new things like this. I do have to wonder if Steam saw the explosion of Android based similar handheld going after the retro game market and realized they could do the same with their already massive backlog of games that really don't need that much modern hardware. Turning even just 50% of the Steam available games mobile would be HUGE for their profits and the Steam platform.

Steam is already a great ecosystem for games with all the benefits it offers to consumers and developers so making Steam mobile would really be taking it to the next level. I just personally want to wait for the more stripped down version focusing on 2d platformers style games.
 
  • Agree
  • Like
Reactions: José Mourinho, Kane Lives and 820㎌Cap
If anyone's following the deck more closely than I am, if anyone finds out the following 2 questions I'd really appreciate it:

1. How bright does the screen get, in terms of nits?
2. Are the face buttons mechanical or membrane?
 
  • Thunk-Provoking
Reactions: 820㎌Cap
1644190288389.png
Tech Jesus has a review unit, and word on the street is that a limited scope video should come out tomorrow. There's still a review embargo until the 25th.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: Jonah Hill poster, 820㎌Cap, Kane Lives and 1 other person
Dr. Geronimo said:
View attachment 2962303
Tech Jesus has a review unit, and word on the street is that a limited scope video should come out tomorrow. There's still a review embargo until the 25th.
Click to expand...
I'll be interested to see what GN finds. His content is super informative (sometimes to the point that I'm too lazy to watch a vid of his cause there's so much raw condensed info and numbers and data).

I've got a reservation down, but I made sure it was a later one. I'm pretty hopeful about the console but if it ends up being a steaming pile of shit, then I'll at least have time to cancel my pre-order before they send mine out.

I would wait but scalpers are a pain in the ass. If you don't get stuff as soon as they're available, you might have to be waiting in excess of a year.
 
  • Agree
  • Feels
  • Optimistic
Reactions: Jonah Hill poster, 820㎌Cap and Dr. Geronimo
Welsh Catgirl Enjoyer said:
I'll be interested to see what GN finds. His content is super informative (sometimes to the point that I'm too lazy to watch a vid of his cause there's so much raw condensed info and numbers and data).

I've got a reservation down, but I made sure it was a later one. I'm pretty hopeful about the console but if it ends up being a steaming pile of shit, then I'll at least have time to cancel my pre-order before they send mine out.

I would wait but scalpers are a pain in the ass. If you don't get stuff as soon as they're available, you might have to be waiting in excess of a year.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. I'm a Q1->Q2 guy myself so I'm optimistic for April right now.

Honestly the only thing that can make me cancel is the screen brightness. 90% of my playtime on the device will be in my work truck during downtime,and the sun is the main reason why I'm limited to my phone at this point. Still salty the anti glare coating is only on the most expensive version.

What I want to hear more about is the dock. They've advertised one where you sit the deck on but how does that work if the port is at the top?
 
Last edited:
  • Feels
  • Like
Reactions: 820㎌Cap, Slap47 and Welsh Catgirl Enjoyer
The battery life's about what I expected, and I was impressed that DMC5 ran pretty well, but then checked on the requirements and they're lower than I figured:

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS​

  • MINIMUM:
    • OS: WINDOWS® 7, 8.1, 10 (64-BIT Required)
    • Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-4460, AMD FX™-6300, or better
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 760 or AMD Radeon™ R7 260x with 2GB Video RAM, or better
    • DirectX: Version 11
    • Storage: 35 GB available space
    • Additional Notes: *Xinput support Controllers recommended *Internet connection required for game activation. (Network connectivity uses Steam® developed by Valve® Corporation.)
  • RECOMMENDED:
    • OS: WINDOWS® 7, 8.1, 10 (64-BIT Required)
    • Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-3770, AMD FX™-9590, or better
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 with 6GB VRAM, AMD Radeon™ RX 480 with 8GB VRAM, or better
    • DirectX: Version 11
    • Storage: 35 GB available space
    • Additional Notes: *Xinput support Controllers recommended *Internet connection required for game activation. (Network connectivity uses Steam® developed by Valve® Corporation.)

I get why channels like Gamers Nexus won't touch on emulation performance, but when I get mine, I'm gonna be trying out some PS3 games, like Persona 5 via RPCS3, and I'll post my results. Correct me if I'm wrong (@Smaug's Smokey Hole do you know?), but I think PS3 emulation is much more CPU-reliant than GPU, so, that'll be interesting to see.
 
  • Informative
  • Like
Reactions: Jonah Hill poster, SSj_Ness (Yiffed) and 820㎌Cap
Pissmaster said:
I get why channels like Gamers Nexus won't touch on emulation performance, but when I get mine, I'm gonna be trying out some PS3 games, like Persona 5 via RPCS3, and I'll post my results. Correct me if I'm wrong (@Smaug's Smokey Hole do you know?), but I think PS3 emulation is much more CPU-reliant than GPU, so, that'll be interesting to see.
Click to expand...
Yeh I'm pretty sure PS3 emu is way more CPU reliant than GPU. I am slightly sceptical about the deck's emulation performance, I have a laptop with a Ryzen 7 which from what I can tell is close in spec to what is in this thing and it struggles with some of the more demanding games on PCSX2, never mind RPCS3. Saying that, its a custom chip from what I understand so fuck knows, maybe it blows my dinky laptop out of the water and will perform well.

I have no interest in it as a steam machine, mostly because I have maybe a couple of dozen games on steam. If it turns out to be a capable emulation machine and can be easily set up to run games outside of the steam ecosystem then I'll probably try to get one.
 
  • Agree
  • Informative
Reactions: winterfag and 820㎌Cap
Stasi said:
Yeh I'm pretty sure PS3 emu is way more CPU reliant than GPU. I am slightly sceptical about the deck's emulation performance, I have a laptop with a Ryzen 7 which from what I can tell is close in spec to what is in this thing and it struggles with some of the more demanding games on PCSX2, never mind RPCS3. Saying that, its a custom chip from what I understand so fuck knows, maybe it blows my dinky laptop out of the water and will perform well.

I have no interest in it as a steam machine, mostly because I have maybe a couple of dozen games on steam. If it turns out to be a capable emulation machine and can be easily set up to run games outside of the steam ecosystem then I'll probably try to get one.
Click to expand...
I got a 2400G and can play Demon Souls with RPCS3 on it.

PCSX2 doesn't need to work flawlessly on your machine for RPCS3 to run well.
 
  • Informative
  • Like
Reactions: winterfag, Jonah Hill poster, Kane Lives and 3 others
Dr. Geronimo said:
Just pray the tranny devs of your emulator of choice is willing to optimize for the deck.
Click to expand...
I could be wrong on this, but I generally don't think modern emulators target specific platforms, so it's mostly down to that modified frequency-curve AMD x86_64 chip they have in the Steam Deck on how emulators will do(same as any other AMD chip, is what I'm saying). The only exception I could see is for stuff like the UI and control mapping to the built-in stick and buttons, instead of plugging a (USB-C?) keyboard and mouse in. Come to think of it, how do they control the Linux desktop, if they escape SteamOS' UI? Has any reviewer explained that yet, or is it ostensibly covered by the embargo? I remember reading about how you could escape it using the calculator on Steam Link, but that was years ago, and a very different situation.
 
  • Mad at the Internet
Reactions: Waffle Stompin' Waffen
Dr. Geronimo said:
Trying to benchmark emulators is a joke. My phone can run PSP games better than some PS1 games.

Just pray the tranny devs of your emulator of choice is willing to optimize for the deck.
Click to expand...
I attest that some games can have emulation problems much later into playtime than the first 30mins-1hour that benchmark videos on Youtube will usually cover.
I've been playing Super Robot Wars Z2 (a turn-based strategy game and massive nippon mecha crossover) on my phone lately through PPSSPP and it has shown a couple of issues after 10-20 hours of gameplay, such as black squares popping up when attack animations hit an enemy's D-shield, a text cutscene not properly rendered, and emulator crashing if I allow to display attack animations for the dimensional rhinoceros monster (when its charge connects my unit specifically) and the big bad guy Gaioh. On my desktop computer, those problems do not arise however.

I'd be cautious to praise Switch emulators for the moment, mainly depending of what you want to run. Both of them failed to run anything I wanted to test/play in 2020 and 2021 (the arcade rhythm game Taiko Tatsujin with its screeching sounds for example). Better to keep expectations in moderation imo.
 
Last edited:
  • Informative
Reactions: SSj_Ness (Yiffed) and 820㎌Cap
Tour of Italy said:
Kids asleep.

Spouse wants to watch project runway or sports or some other dumb shit.

Want to spend time with them and would much rather play actual video games than just dick around on my phone.

How is this so hard for people to understand?
Click to expand...
People saying "just get a pc" or "just get a laptop" are either retarded or are deliberately ignoring the use case for such a product.

You can get better specs with either a PC or a laptop. But I want a companion device I use on the shitter, chuck in my bag, and then use on the bus to work. It's not going to be as good as being on my PC, but it's a companion device.

Good luck trying to play something like GG Strive on the bus with a laptop.
 
  • Like
  • Informative
  • Agree
Reactions: BlazikenLover, Jonah Hill poster, Caligura and 2 others
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back