Valve introduces Steam Deck

[The_Red_Man]

As for setting up emulation on Steam Deck there is Emudeck.

Eden is a currently maintained fork of Yuzu if you want to do Switch emulation. People complained of other emulators not being able to handle Tears of The Kingdom. On Eden, it's actually playable. There's some additional guides on getting it working right on the Deck, such as PowerTools or adjusting memory clocks in the BIOS. It's not hard, and also hard to break shit on Deck uness you're REALLY trying.

As far as playing really demanding games, Steam Link exists and works well. I honestly use my deck as a companion to that because I can't really stay lashed to my desk, but I'm still at home and might want to play something when I'm on the shitter or settling down for the night in bed. All the PS2 games I've tried work great and RetroAchievements makes things interesting.

All in all I recommend it. Wait for them to go on sale. I got the 512GB OG one for like $350, and micro SD cards are cheap as fuck.

 

[GeorgeFloydFentanylStash]

You guys reckon the Steam Deck is worth it in 2025? I know there's the ASUS Rog Ally X, Legion Go and others but I've been eyeing up the 1TB OLED and getting cold feet knowing there are competitors, but I unironically trust Valve in their quality.

Absolutely yes. I don’t play UE5 games. And i go out of my way to avoid 99% of those games. But i’ve gotten some decent performance out of 2077 by going with the recommended steamdeck settings. Halo MCC ran like a dream. Emulation is great up until you start with PS3/360, then it gets spotty. If you want to see performance, i’d just go to youtube and search whatever game name with Steamdeck at the end.

Even games i’ve pirated like Rebirth and GoT work good on it. However if you get the LED version, you might find out you’re sensitive to PWM. Sometimes it makes my eyes tired and i need to nap. No device has done this to me

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/1337

 

[hog cranking frog]

Anyone looking to improve upon Steam Link give Sunshine/Moonlight a try. https://github.com/FrogTheFrog/moondeck

Uses similar tech under the hood for games steaming but you have a lot more control over the bittate and latency than with vanilla Steam Link. Found it's a lot more reliable.

 

[A pig by Jove!]

Eden is a currently maintained fork of Yuzu if you want to do Switch emulation. People complained of other emulators not being able to handle Tears of The Kingdom. On Eden, it's actually playable. There's some additional guides on getting it working right on the Deck, such as PowerTools or adjusting memory clocks in the BIOS. It's not hard, and also hard to break shit on Deck uness you're REALLY trying.

As far as playing really demanding games, Steam Link exists and works well. I honestly use my deck as a companion to that because I can't really stay lashed to my desk, but I'm still at home and might want to play something when I'm on the shitter or settling down for the night in bed. All the PS2 games I've tried work great and RetroAchievements makes things interesting.

All in all I recommend it. Wait for them to go on sale. I got the 512GB OG one for like $350, and micro SD cards are cheap as fuck.

Never used Eden myself, but I'm pretty sure Emudeck also gives you the option to install a Ryujinx fork called Ryubing, or at least operates on a "bring your own package" principle for it. It's been too long since I installed it. Either way, I use that particular fork to play MHGU with friends. The netplay works great, it still seems to be the most active option at least for emulated GU, and the game itself runs like a dream even after applying a 60FPS patch. I'm guessing that for heavier titles Yuzu forks still hold the crown though.

 

[There Is Light At The End]

So, I have been using steam deck for almost 2 months. It's great so far. Even pirated a few games like cyberpunk and elden ring. They run pretty good. And that's because Valve used common sense in design - you don't need super-duper mega HD resolution with 6 gorillion Hz on such small screen. I'm old enough to remember that lowering resolution improves framerate

 

[Hooked on phobics]

So, I have been using steam deck for almost 2 months. It's great so far. Even pirates a few games like cyberpunk and elden ring. They run pretty good. And that's because Valve used common sense in design - you don't need super-duper mega HD resolution with 6 gorillion Hz on such small screen. I'm old enough to remember that lowering resolution improves framerate

Get a hardshell / screen protector. A few other accessories like a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse go miles

Glad you like it though, and got that and not a switch 2

 

[regalterry]

And that's because Valve used common sense in design

Basically the Gameboy vs Game Gear situation.

Nintendo could have used a better screen for the Gameboy, but they correctly recognized that battery life and price were more important than flashy doodads, and thus basically won the market for the next 20 years.

They only released a version with a better screen and backlight when technology had advanced far enough to make such features energy efficient and cheap to use in manufacture.

Valve too is doing something like this, relying more on the robustness of the hardware and software, than in trying to make it the most powerful portable PC on the market.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Basically the Gameboy vs Game Gear situation.

Nintendo could have used a better screen for the Gameboy, but they correctly recognized that battery life and price were more important than flashy doodads, and thus basically won the market for the next 20 years.

They only released a version with a better screen and backlight when technology had advanced far enough to make such features energy efficient and cheap to use in manufacture.

Valve too is doing something like this, relying more on the robustness of the hardware and software, than in trying to make it the most powerful portable PC on the market.

Nintendo is just greedy, they could've had a backlit screen and still made it affordable. Maybe even color too. The real reason Game Boy win is it had good games. It launched with Mario and Tetris. If anything they'd probably have fared even better than they did, and their competitors worse.

 

[regalterry]

Game Boy win is it had good games.

Game Gear had good games too, it launched back when SEGA was hitting Nintendo where it hurt.

The problem was that it ate batteries, had a much shorter battery life, the better screen made it more expensive and the need to make colored, higher resolution sprites probably increased development costs.

Call them greedy if you want, but I maintain that every design choice during the Gameboy development was deliberate, and the goal was not simply cutting costs.

 

[There Is Light At The End]

Get a hardshell / screen protector. A few other accessories like a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse go miles

Glad you like it though, and got that and not a switch 2

I already have glass screen protector. Since I play on deck in my bed, so kb+m is redundant.
Edit:
It's so easy to use, especially if you have some skills with Linux. I launched OpenMW on it

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

VideoCardz: Steam Deck OLED can now be upgraded to 32GB RAM (archive)

The upgrade process is not simple. First, sourcing the higher-density memory chips for the Steam Deck OLED is required. Then, the system must be physically modified, involving memory removal and resoldering. Finally, a BIOS modification is needed, along with a firmware update block. Without this, any future firmware update will overwrite the settings and revert the system memory to 16GB. For this reason, users who want to stay current with official firmware updates should probably avoid this mod.

SlickBuys Mods and Repairs says the chip alone costs $110, so once the service is offered, the final price will be higher. At this point, one might question whether buying a new official SteamOS device or a Bazzite/SteamOS-modded system with more memory is a better option, especially as 16GB was common in older systems.

 

[Stasi]

I already have glass screen protector. Since I play on deck in my bed, so kb+m is redundant.
Edit:
It's so easy to use, especially if you have some skills with Linux. I launched OpenMW on it
View attachment 7735445

I completed Morrowind beginning to end on the deck. The shop menus were a bit fiddly but after setting custom inputs on the back buttons and using the left touch pad for hotkeys the game was a solid experience.

VideoCardz: Steam Deck OLED can now be upgraded to 32GB RAM (archive)

Is this even necessary? Like is there any game that would take advantage of that much ram given the deck's overall hardware limitations? Seems like pointless epic gaymer autism.

 

[Baraka Obama]

Is this even necessary? Like is there any game that would take advantage of that much ram given the deck's overall hardware limitations? Seems like pointless epic gaymer autism.

IMO no but there are plenty of people that think 8GB of GPU VRAM is a joke and 16GB should be the minimum. Keep in mind that the Steam Deck's RAM is unified so system memory is shared with video memory. From that perspective if a game needs 10GB of system memory and 10GB of VRAM then 16GB would not be enough.

Why any game would be so poorly made that it needs that much memory, and then also runs on the limited 3 year old laptop hardware in the Steam Deck, is beyond me.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Is this even necessary? Like is there any game that would take advantage of that much ram given the deck's overall hardware limitations? Seems like pointless epic gaymer autism.

You would have to research a little, but even at 720p there's probably some games that would run better with over 16 GB, with several gigabytes of that being used by the iGPU.

It's likely that the Steam Deck 2 will ship with a minimum of 24 GB, allowing a straightforward 16 GB RAM + 8 GB VRAM split, which doesn’t preclude dynamic allocation of the VRAM portion to 12 GB for those games that need more. Valve could offer a 32 GB option in the same generation. They are waiting so long to launch it that LPDDR6 could be on the table.

It's worth noting that the modders can add faster memory at the same time, which is likely to improve graphics performance. But I don't know if the guy is going beyond the OLED's LPDDR5-6500.

 

[Baraka Obama]

They are waiting so long to launch it that LPDDR6 could be on the table.

When do we expect that would be?

Some of the newer AMD APUs like the HX 395 have insane performance, but in exchange a high price and high TDP. Steam Deck's APU is an interesting compromise because they went with Zen 2 for better battery life, fewer cores in exchange for a bigger GPU, while pulling in RDNA 2 to make a really compelling offering at a good price. I can't see what comparable compromises they could make right now to pull off the same thing.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

When do we expect that would be?

Some of the newer AMD APUs like the HX 395 have insane performance, but in exchange a high price and high TDP. Steam Deck's APU is an interesting compromise because they went with Zen 2 for better battery life, fewer cores in exchange for a bigger GPU, while pulling in RDNA 2 to make a really compelling offering at a good price. I can't see what comparable compromises they could make right now to pull off the same thing.

Valve supposedly picked up the custom Aerith chip for cheap because Microsoft failed to use it. Most of AMD's off the shelf APUs, even the handheld optimized ones like Z1/Z2 Extreme, offer too much CPU and not enough GPU, or are memory bandwidth starved for the GPU.

Strix Halo is being shoved into handhelds right now. It starts to pull ahead in performance around 20-25W. That isn't too bad but is too high for Valve who are prioritizing battery life. Cost is the other factor. It's debatable whether Strix Halo actually costs much to make. It uses a "big" graphics+I/O chiplet next to small CPU chiplets.

If they go custom, your imagination is the limit so let's do that.

On CPU, they can push to 6-8 cores but use the more compact, lower-clocking variants. There's Zen 6C, but there's allegedly also a Zen 6 "LP", which would be the analogue to Intel's LP E-cores. We don't know if there are any compromises in this core, or even confirmation if it's real. But if it can at least match the low clock speeds of Steam Deck (3.5 GHz turbo), then you could get an improvement from increasing core count to 6-8, higher IPC, and possibly AVX-512 (for some emulators) if that support remains intact. AMD LP cores should have 2-way SMT, no problem there.

An idea MLiD is pushing is that 8 CUs of RDNA4 could outperform 16 CUs of bandwidth-starved RDNA3.5. So if RDNA4, or an RDNA4.5 mobile-focused variant, or RDNA5/UDNA1 are on the table, a low CU count could perform better than you might expect. I think RDNA4 or newer is essential, to ensure FSR4 support which AMD may never backport to RDNA3/3.5. Standard RDNA4 may never be used in an iGPU, but we should have a clearer picture of that within 6-12 months.

On the bandwidth front, LPDDR6 may offer a wider memory bus with fewer chips, but I'm not sure yet. One thing that has been missing from many AMD APUs has been Infinity Cache, which can help to increase the effective bandwidth. As little as 16 MiB could be sufficient for 1080p.

Something similar to the leaked AMD Bumblebee (2x Zen 6 + 2x Zen 6C + 2x Zen 6 LP + 2-4 CUs RDNA4) or AMD Sound Wave (ARM-based with 16 MiB Infinity Cache) is what I'd expect, but with stronger graphics.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Nintendo is just greedy, they could've had a backlit screen and still made it affordable. Maybe even color too. The real reason Game Boy win is it had good games. It launched with Mario and Tetris. If anything they'd probably have fared even better than they did, and their competitors worse.

If you compare the Game Boy to its competitors at the time, the Sega Game Gear and the Atari Lynx, it won on the form factor alone. Both the Lynx and the Game Gear ate up AA batteries like they were going out of style and the screens had a lot of issues with ghosting.

 

[Baraka Obama]

If you compare the Game Boy to its competitors at the time, the Sega Game Gear and the Atari Lynx, it won on the form factor alone. Both the Lynx and the Game Gear ate up AA batteries like they were going out of style and the screens had a lot of issues with ghosting.

I'm sure these were factors but price was probably the main one.

Game Boy was $89 in 1989. Lynx was $179. You could almost buy two game boys for the price of one Lynx.

Game Gear was also expensive at $150, but that also came out in 1991 outside Japan -- two years late. I can't imagine color games really makes up for a weak starting library, and you know friends and siblings already having Game Boy games to share and trade.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Game Gear had good games too, it launched back when SEGA was hitting Nintendo where it hurt.

The problem was that it ate batteries, had a much shorter battery life, the better screen made it more expensive and the need to make colored, higher resolution sprites probably increased development costs.

Call them greedy if you want, but I maintain that every design choice during the Gameboy development was deliberate, and the goal was not simply cutting costs.

N

If you compare the Game Boy to its competitors at the time, the Sega Game Gear and the Atari Lynx, it won on the form factor alone. Both the Lynx and the Game Gear ate up AA batteries like they were going out of style and the screens had a lot of issues with ghosting.

The original Game Boy screen had similarly bad ghosting as Game Gear, though I never used an actual Lynx so I can't say how that screen was.

I'm sure the battery thing helped Nintendo, but it really was the better library that carried it. Lynx has an abysmal library and Game Gear is better but still not amazing. With a cheaper price and better library I don't think anything else mattered as much as that.

 

[hog cranking frog]

Can't explain it but as soon as I had cash for a game system as a kid with some lawn mowing money I bought a Gameboy color. Didn't even consider a Game gear. Didn't cross my mind.

Every kid had a Gameboy. I think it was that simple. It just took over the market first and fast.