Valve: Install whatever you want from wherever you want - hardware, software, operating system.
And they provide you parts and schematics in case you need to repair/mod your device.
Never thought I'd see a day when linux gaming would be as good as what I get via my steam deck these days.
Kudos to Valve for embracing such an open approach to gaming/portable devices in general.
Valve isn’t taking some moral high ground here, they are just trying to commoditize hardware and OS platforms. It isn’t a new idea: https://gwern.net/complement
The already have most of online PC games sales through their platform and take a very healthy chunky cut off it, they don't have any financial incentive to close their platform. I also doubt they sell Steam deck at a loss like console companies do.
albeit in software, but valve got a lot of success built on top of video game mods (see counter-strike and dota series).
they are far from saints if you zoom out (from lootboxes and fostering an official means to trade virtual items for money), but being an independent company still driven by gaming helps.
The upgrade to 90 Hertz is really good for a non-obvious reason:
In the Steam Deck userbase, the "Golden 40", playing games at 40fps and the screen at 40 hertz, is a pretty well-liked trick for getting the frame time right in between 30 and 60fps at 25ms while "only" needing power to render 10 more frames per second than 30, making for a much better experience than 30.
The only problem with this is if a frame is slightly late at 40 hertz, you're waiting the full 25 ms for the next one instead of 16.6ms at 60hz.
Being able to run the screen at 80 hz for 40fps games cuts that stutter time on a missed frame in half to 12.5ms, and will make a huge difference!
So does the Steam Deck not support VRR for the onboard display? I see articles saying support was added for external displays, but it’s not clear whether the onboard one has it. If it does, then it seems like it shouldn't be a problem for a frame to be slightly late.
Edit: I read some other comments that explain the situation. It sounds like there is no VRR for the internal display unfortunately.
I’m a first gen deck owner and am constantly impressed by the quality of the product. The hardware is good, more than good enough, but the fact that it is running windows games mostly seemlessly is incredible. Yes, I know wine has been around forever, but with the deck you barely even notice that you’re running through a compatibility layer. Performance and battery life in all but the last few years of AAA games is also great. The improvements here are marginal, but it’s great to see them making smart, incremental updates.
I’d love to see how the market would react to a deck in a console form factor, with similar input options to the deck (pad plus touchpads) and an APU comparable to modern consoles.
> And... Is the OLED not VRR? That was my #1 wish for the original Deck (with #2 being an OLED)
According to LTT it is due to the physical connection. Basically the panel is the same as Switch OLED and thus uses whatever it uses which is MIPI and thus no VRR (need eDP for that). The hardware clearly supports it (just plug an external display with VRR support into the deck and it works)
Judging from the Digital Foundry video[0], it appears to have a limited form of VRR that will sample the refresh rate closest to whatever you're limiting for (eg. 40fps -> 80hz). It's not a complete solution, but it should effectively "solve" frame timing issues if your framerate is high enough.
For what it's worth too, my experience gaming on Wayland has been great from a consistency perspective. Once you dial in settings that work, the only performance blips you can notice are related to shader compilation. 144hz feels like 144hz, which has not always been the case on Linux.
The 7->6 move is also behind the modest shrinkage of the PS5 that preceded its new "somewhat slim" variant. (They did the shrink first with an unchanged case a little while ago).
As a Ally user, still not enough to get me to switch but I love the competition that Steam ignited with the handheld PC gaming market. Ally, Legion Go, Steamdeck, Ayaneo Kun, etc. A lot of great devices on the market.
I've played more PC games now than I have in the last 10 years.
US and Canada only.. guess it's more wait time for me.
> Why isn’t the Limited Edition Steam Deck OLED available in my region?
> Steam Deck Limited Edition is an experiment for our team, and we were only able to make a small quantity. That said, we hope this is a successful experiment and customers are excited – if we see there is a large demand for this kind of product, we will definitely continue to explore more colorways in the future.
I am mildly tempted to upgrade to this, it seems kinda weird that the OLED is the same resolution? Doesn't it? Maybe I am just out of touch. But I guess at least that means it won't have a performance impact.
As much as I love my steam deck, it kinda sucks to use after using my OLED Switch after a while. That screen is just beautiful (especially for Mario Wonder).
I have been looking for alternatives for a while now, with the Asus Rog Ally or the Legion Go but the lack of the 4 back controls being vertical have made both of those a no go for me.
Kinda wish it was beefed up a little bit (technically it looks like it is, the GPU is no longer listed as a range if you scroll down, but I am not sure why that is).
I just want official word that the drivers and everything still work on Windows. I assume it will
A bit disappointing that you cannot purchase just the new OLED screen and replace it in the LCD model, considering the dimensions are the same.
I wonder what the true limiting factor for this is? I'd love to upgrade, but ~$500 feels like a little too much for the usage I currently get out of my Deck.
Selling the unit as a whole almost certainly is a loss for them, but they make money by having people buying games from them. Selling parts like that would be unlikely to have a similar effect, so they might not be able to sell it at a price point that makes sense.
deckhd [1] creators (third-party 1200p screen for deck) said it's not possible, as it will require modifying main board (something about voltage regulation, if i recall correctly)
Also with the MMC option gone (so the PCB area can be reclaimed), thicker fans and cooling solution, different internal size battery and screen, I wonder if the entire mainboard has been redesigned.
With a lot of changes that probably can't be retrofit into a launch Deck, I see this as trying to attract new customers instead of old ones. Probably worth waiting on the next release with an actual spec bump in a few more years.
Does anybody here have experience using a Deck booted into Windows with VR headset connected for playing Beat Saber? How well does it work for this purpose? Not finding too much info on that particular setup online.
This revision appears to fix my main gripes with the original model so I’d like to buy one, but if I could use it as an ultraportable Beat Saber machine it’d make the purchase more justifiable. While my Quest 2 can technically run Beat Saber natively, the Steam version is vastly more mod-friendly and PCs generally don’t choke as badly on complex custom maps as the middling smartphone hardware in the Quest 2 does.
HN folks, I feel a FOMO for this OLED version because it's just so cool, but I already own a Deck. Would you say there would be an OLED version again, even if limited in stock, in the future?
FYI 2023 is the year of the linux desktop. Its going to be about 4 years before anyone noticed that was it:
>Microsoft flops on Win 11, anti-consumer features force a few casual users to try Linux Desktop again. They find Linux Desktop is robust AF, way less downtime than Windows their constant updates and their pestering. They shout the news from the roof: "The future is here"
>Steam Deck making it mainstream. More resources, more users, high quality linux rather than cheap chromebooks/raspi. (Love my raspi thou)
>Linux desktop being so solid. Fedora take my breath away. I cannot believe this is Linux. I can't believe Linux is literally better than Windows.
My biggest complaint about my Steam Deck is the contrast ratio on the LCD screen. The backlight bleed bothers me more than it should, but I think I've gotten used to LCDs with very good contrast ratios over the last ten years. I'm considering upgrading, but wondering how much my current 512GB would sell for.
Really tempted to replace my current Steam Deck with one. Got one in January and I've put 215 hours on it so far. It's a fantastic piece of kit and the improvements sound like they could be worth the expense.
The one thing that I am wondering though is if the Wi-Fi 6E alone can boost download speeds. Seemed to me like the poor download speeds were also because of the storage bottlenecking. Although the Wi-Fi is definitely the weakest part of the current Steam Deck hardware, being quite unreliable at times, so any improvements on that front are welcome.
I actually use my Deck almost exclusively in docked mode. If you just want a low-cost alternative to a PC for gaming, consider picking up one of the now-discounted LCD models.
I thought I would use mine docked more than I do, but the hardware shows its weaknesses when you try to drive too many more pixels than the built-in display.
I want a small, inexpensive gaming computer to connect to my TV and have been thinking about the Steam Deck or a mini pc like the Minisforum HX99G (Ryzen 9 6900HX). Would the two computers be roughly comparable?
I'm looking for something small because I don't have room for anything bigger. The Steam Deck is appealing because it doesn't seem very computer-y. What I want is a console that plays PC games. I've tried SteamLink between my desktop computer and AppleTV but it was a terrible experience.
Is there something better than the Steam Deck that isn't expensive (ie not more than $2000).
SteamOS is a controller-first environment, which will give you that console feel. It's just so well done.
I can't speak to performance but I've heard game streaming works really well on the Deck.
I play a lot of "couch co-op" games with my kids while docked to a TV. Low requirements and very console-oriented. Compared to the Switch, here are some things that I bump into:
1. If you have 4 identical controllers, figuring out which is "1", "2", etc is hard. The Switch uses colors and LEDs to make this easy.
2. You need to walk over to wake it up. A controller can't wake it up if it's sleeping.
3. If you pair one of your identical controllers to something else, pairing it back is clunky since you don't know which one needs reconnecting.
But on the positive side, my young kids aren't put off by the leaky abstraction over PC gaming. They actually kind of marvel at the wide range the little device has but admit the advanced wizardry (game mods, desktop mode) can only be wielded effectively by Dad.
There are a very wide variety of Windows based handhelds more powerful than the Steam Deck. AyaNeo seems to crank a new one out every 4 months!
I came across a google doc a while back where people were obsessively cataloging them. There are many which have come out in the last 2 years. You have your pick of options. They usually run from 400 - 1200.
No, the minisforum will be much more powerful. I think that CPU will be roughly twice as powerful and the GPU included (6600M) similarly roughly twice as powerful.
As the other commenter said, there are other handhelds, some getting better chips. But for your use case, you could also choose a small gaming pc or a laptop.
If you would get use out of a gaming laptop separate from attaching to your TV then that's pretty attractive choice because it does everything the mini PC does without that much more space.
The 6900HX has an RDNA2 GPU with 12xCU, compared to the Deck's RDNA2 with 8xCU. The Steam Deck is also limited by the power usage, the TDP is hard capped at 15W, while the 6900HX gets 45W TDP.
My issue with using the Deck as the benchmark is that it is designed for 720p. Even connected to a 4K TV, the Steam Deck by default will force the game to run at 720p, and upscale it to 4K.
If you're okay with a bit bigger, AM5 APUs are rumored to be coming out soon with BIOS updates that added support recently. I expect those to have RDNA3 like the laptop 7840HS and other chips. It'll be the first GPU update to desktop APUs since the 5600G. I'm excited and might build a new mITX to replace my own HTPC
Guys, c'mon, I know that you have to have a longer bullet point list for the premium, more expensive option, but you're making your actual advantages sound stupid by including this one.
Pretty sure you can mod in any startup movie of your choice these days. The startup movies just seem to be a way to get me to waste steam points I don't have any use for on some variety of startup visual without any effort. You're not wrong.
I have the current 512. I won't be upgrading as I can't afford right before Christmas (got to get the kids things) But I will say I love love love my steam deck and I've bought so many more games because of it. Esp indie games. I think it's been great for everyone involved the gamer, the small developer and Valve. I really hope we see them continue to innovate. They're killing it. I honestly think they could make a tablet with SteamOS that just lets you use Bluetooth controls my kids and I would freak out.
[+] [-] rlex|2 years ago|reply
Rear cover screws now thread into metal
Adjusted rear cover screw heads to Torx™, as well as other materials and geometry tweaks on the heads to reduce stripping risk
Lowered number of screw types throughout system
Reduced step count required for common repairs
Improved bumper switch mechanism drop reliability
Moved bumper switch to joystick board for easier repair
Improved display repair/replacement to not require taking rear cover off
[+] [-] saidinesh5|2 years ago|reply
And they provide you parts and schematics in case you need to repair/mod your device. Never thought I'd see a day when linux gaming would be as good as what I get via my steam deck these days.
Kudos to Valve for embracing such an open approach to gaming/portable devices in general.
[+] [-] ren_engineer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sho_hn|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] __turbobrew__|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vanchor3|2 years ago|reply
Where are the schematics? I was trying to do a repair on an unusually common failure and couldn't find anything.
[+] [-] amstan|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] golergka|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rldjbpin|2 years ago|reply
they are far from saints if you zoom out (from lootboxes and fostering an official means to trade virtual items for money), but being an independent company still driven by gaming helps.
[+] [-] schmorptron|2 years ago|reply
The only problem with this is if a frame is slightly late at 40 hertz, you're waiting the full 25 ms for the next one instead of 16.6ms at 60hz. Being able to run the screen at 80 hz for 40fps games cuts that stutter time on a missed frame in half to 12.5ms, and will make a huge difference!
[+] [-] brokencode|2 years ago|reply
Edit: I read some other comments that explain the situation. It sounds like there is no VRR for the internal display unfortunately.
[+] [-] nick_|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cowboyscott|2 years ago|reply
I’d love to see how the market would react to a deck in a console form factor, with similar input options to the deck (pad plus touchpads) and an APU comparable to modern consoles.
[+] [-] brucethemoose2|2 years ago|reply
https://www.tsmc.com/english/dedicatedFoundry/technology/pla...
Which is how they could pull the APU shrink off without breaking the bank.
And... Is the OLED not VRR? That was my #1 wish for the original Deck (with #2 being an OLED).
[+] [-] doikor|2 years ago|reply
According to LTT it is due to the physical connection. Basically the panel is the same as Switch OLED and thus uses whatever it uses which is MIPI and thus no VRR (need eDP for that). The hardware clearly supports it (just plug an external display with VRR support into the deck and it works)
https://youtu.be/uCVXqoVi6RE?t=179
Basically Valve doesn't do large enough volume to make proper custom display economical so they have to take whatever they can get.
[+] [-] smoldesu|2 years ago|reply
For what it's worth too, my experience gaming on Wayland has been great from a consistency perspective. Once you dial in settings that work, the only performance blips you can notice are related to shader compilation. 144hz feels like 144hz, which has not always been the case on Linux.
[0] https://youtu.be/Z1KLj06fn2s?t=257
[+] [-] zerocrates|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cma|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hajile|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] angryasian|2 years ago|reply
I've played more PC games now than I have in the last 10 years.
[+] [-] ShamelessC|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pawelduda|2 years ago|reply
> Why isn’t the Limited Edition Steam Deck OLED available in my region? > Steam Deck Limited Edition is an experiment for our team, and we were only able to make a small quantity. That said, we hope this is a successful experiment and customers are excited – if we see there is a large demand for this kind of product, we will definitely continue to explore more colorways in the future.
Please continue Valve
[+] [-] nerdjon|2 years ago|reply
As much as I love my steam deck, it kinda sucks to use after using my OLED Switch after a while. That screen is just beautiful (especially for Mario Wonder).
I have been looking for alternatives for a while now, with the Asus Rog Ally or the Legion Go but the lack of the 4 back controls being vertical have made both of those a no go for me.
Kinda wish it was beefed up a little bit (technically it looks like it is, the GPU is no longer listed as a range if you scroll down, but I am not sure why that is).
I just want official word that the drivers and everything still work on Windows. I assume it will
[+] [-] phartenfeller|2 years ago|reply
OLED version: 6 nm AMD APU CPU: Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz (up to 448 GFlops FP32) GPU: 8 RDNA 2 CUs, 1.6GHz (1.6 TFlops FP32) APU power: 4-15W
LCD (old) version: 7 nm AMD APU CPU: Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz (up to 448 GFlops FP32) GPU: 8 RDNA 2 CUs, 1.0-1.6GHz (up to 1.6 TFlops FP32) APU power: 4-15W
[+] [-] syarb|2 years ago|reply
I wonder what the true limiting factor for this is? I'd love to upgrade, but ~$500 feels like a little too much for the usage I currently get out of my Deck.
[+] [-] kimbernator|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freedomben|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rlex|2 years ago|reply
[1] https://deckhd.com/
[+] [-] kimixa|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] opan|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wvenable|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrdbndndn|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwells89|2 years ago|reply
This revision appears to fix my main gripes with the original model so I’d like to buy one, but if I could use it as an ultraportable Beat Saber machine it’d make the purchase more justifiable. While my Quest 2 can technically run Beat Saber natively, the Steam version is vastly more mod-friendly and PCs generally don’t choke as badly on complex custom maps as the middling smartphone hardware in the Quest 2 does.
[+] [-] intull|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hospitalJail|2 years ago|reply
>Microsoft flops on Win 11, anti-consumer features force a few casual users to try Linux Desktop again. They find Linux Desktop is robust AF, way less downtime than Windows their constant updates and their pestering. They shout the news from the roof: "The future is here"
>Steam Deck making it mainstream. More resources, more users, high quality linux rather than cheap chromebooks/raspi. (Love my raspi thou)
>Linux desktop being so solid. Fedora take my breath away. I cannot believe this is Linux. I can't believe Linux is literally better than Windows.
[+] [-] geoffeg|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Hamuko|2 years ago|reply
(Wrote some thoughts about it after six months of ownership here: https://burakku.com/blog/steam-deck-six-month-update/ )
The one thing that I am wondering though is if the Wi-Fi 6E alone can boost download speeds. Seemed to me like the poor download speeds were also because of the storage bottlenecking. Although the Wi-Fi is definitely the weakest part of the current Steam Deck hardware, being quite unreliable at times, so any improvements on that front are welcome.
[+] [-] kibwen|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kube-system|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] criddell|2 years ago|reply
I'm looking for something small because I don't have room for anything bigger. The Steam Deck is appealing because it doesn't seem very computer-y. What I want is a console that plays PC games. I've tried SteamLink between my desktop computer and AppleTV but it was a terrible experience.
Is there something better than the Steam Deck that isn't expensive (ie not more than $2000).
[+] [-] Steltek|2 years ago|reply
I can't speak to performance but I've heard game streaming works really well on the Deck.
I play a lot of "couch co-op" games with my kids while docked to a TV. Low requirements and very console-oriented. Compared to the Switch, here are some things that I bump into:
1. If you have 4 identical controllers, figuring out which is "1", "2", etc is hard. The Switch uses colors and LEDs to make this easy.
2. You need to walk over to wake it up. A controller can't wake it up if it's sleeping.
3. If you pair one of your identical controllers to something else, pairing it back is clunky since you don't know which one needs reconnecting.
But on the positive side, my young kids aren't put off by the leaky abstraction over PC gaming. They actually kind of marvel at the wide range the little device has but admit the advanced wizardry (game mods, desktop mode) can only be wielded effectively by Dad.
[+] [-] RajT88|2 years ago|reply
I came across a google doc a while back where people were obsessively cataloging them. There are many which have come out in the last 2 years. You have your pick of options. They usually run from 400 - 1200.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1irg60f9qsZOkhp0cwOU7...
ETA: This list has gotten out of hand, lol
[+] [-] lbwtaylor|2 years ago|reply
As the other commenter said, there are other handhelds, some getting better chips. But for your use case, you could also choose a small gaming pc or a laptop.
If you would get use out of a gaming laptop separate from attaching to your TV then that's pretty attractive choice because it does everything the mini PC does without that much more space.
[+] [-] ThatPlayer|2 years ago|reply
My issue with using the Deck as the benchmark is that it is designed for 720p. Even connected to a 4K TV, the Steam Deck by default will force the game to run at 720p, and upscale it to 4K.
If you're okay with a bit bigger, AM5 APUs are rumored to be coming out soon with BIOS updates that added support recently. I expect those to have RDNA3 like the laptop 7840HS and other chips. It'll be the first GPU update to desktop APUs since the 5600G. I'm excited and might build a new mITX to replace my own HTPC
[+] [-] CobrastanJorji|2 years ago|reply
Guys, c'mon, I know that you have to have a longer bullet point list for the premium, more expensive option, but you're making your actual advantages sound stupid by including this one.
[+] [-] LegitShady|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lopis|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baerrie|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xlayn|2 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech [1] https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech/deck
[+] [-] kraig911|2 years ago|reply