Steam Deck

2022 - 2 - 25

Post cover — Image courtesy of "Tom's Hardware"

Steam Deck Review: Valve's Handheld Has Big PC Energy (Tom's Hardware)

Valve's Steam Deck is a powerful, flexible gaming handheld that feels great and lets you take your games on the go. Just don't expect it to last too long, and know that some games may not work perfectly out of the box.

You can also take the applications you download on the desktop and make them available through SteamOS. It involves opening the desktop Steam client, adding the software as a non-Steam game, and then resetting into SteamOS. It's a lot of running around, but it can be helpful. Most of the time, I found things just worked, but when they don't, you remember that the Steam Deck, as much as it looks like a pumped-up Switch, is still deeply enmeshed in its PC gaming lineage. On the one hand, the Steam Deck provides access to your Steam library just about anywhere, as long as those games work well enough and you don't mind playing them on low or medium settings. The performance section will be of interest to those who like to tinker, as it has options for a Performance Overlay that shows CPU and GPU load, VRAM and memory usage, as well as frame times. Pressing the Steam menu button while in a game brings up more specific options for it, including letting you scroll over to a map of the controls, in case you need a quick reminder. To get elsewhere in the OS, you can press the Steam button to open a menu. I appreciate that they extended the verification system to the store, so that you can get an idea of how a game will work before you buy it. When I tried Splitgate, the game was a bit confused: It knew I had a controller connected, but wanted me to go to the settings and change it away from the keyboard and mouse setting. I've been playing a lot of Guardians of the Galaxy recently, and it happens to have a built-in benchmark. It was just shy of 60 frames per second on the very low preset, dropping to 51 fps on the low preset and 42 fps at medium. To test the Steam Deck, I played some games on my own, but I also ran some benchmarks. I mostly used the touchpads in games where a mouse would be better than a joystick (or as the mouse on the KDE Plasma desktop), but at least it gave me a small sense of where the cursor was moving.

Here's when you'll be getting your Steam Deck email (Rock Paper Shotgun)

So, James' Steam Deck review suggests the new handheld PC is pretty good. Good news for Valve, bad news for my wallet. I've apparently got a month before I ...

Which Deck you chose should have text on it telling you your reservation window. The Steam Deck was originally meant to ship late last year but was delayed - which is hardly a surprise given the worldwide chip shortage effecting the manufacturing of basically all electronics. "We’re working through our production schedules, and will have news soon for folks in the After-Q2 bucket."

Steam Deck review: the handheld PC capable of console quality ... (Eurogamer.net)

PS4-quality gaming in the palm of your hand. Imagine PlayStation 4-level performance at Nintendo Switch mobile resolution or better and you have some idea of ...

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the Steam Deck experience is that you gain a greater appreciation for how developers and publishers do so much of the hard work for you - a situation that may improve as more games receive Deck-specific profiles. I mentioned earlier that many titles don't work yet and you can face a situation where a game that used to work receives an update that takes the game out of commission on Steam Deck - Cyberpunk 2077 used to run, but the latest 1.5 update changes that, crashing on boot. Coming to the Deck after say, using a Switch, you realise how much developers and platform holders look after you in getting the most out of a resource-constrained piece of hardware. It's still very much a PC. Right now at least, there's not much in the way of hand-holding with the Deck and getting stuff to run well is usually down to the user to sort out. My general rule of thumb in playing the latest games on Steam Deck is to check out whether they ran at 30fps or 60fps on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, then I adjusted settings accordingly on Steam Deck - but it helps that I have console-equivalent or optimised settings for the PC titles Alex Battaglia has covered for us. RDNA 2's performance uplift is the key to the Deck being so impressive - it's how we're able to run PC ports of console games at console equivalent settings on the handheld. It's the only way that 30fps can look smooth and consistent on a 60fps screen and Valve understands this and has implemented it. Sit Steam Deck side-by-side with Switch OLED and it's a night and day difference in favour of the Nintendo machine and I think I even prefer the original Switch LCD display. Pressing the power button again brings the system back to life, exactly where you were in-game - and it does so in just a couple of seconds. On the one hand, it's definitely overwhelming compared to a standard console UI and it's also somewhat sluggish to navigate - especially on the store pages. Potentially, Steam Deck can do all of these things and as soon as you've sunk a couple of hours into the system, you get some idea of what it's actually capable of - and from there, the possibilities seem endless. There's the sense that there's still a long road ahead until Steam Deck compatibility is absolutely where it needs to be.

Steam Deck Is Running PS4 Games Like God of War, Horizon Zero ... (Push Square)

Next-gen PS Vita - Always dreamed of a next-gen PS Vita handheld? Well, it's beginning to sound like Valve's super-pow...

The system gives you unprecedented freedom to tinker, but if you’re a “plug-and-play” gamer, then this may not be the portable for you. Remove the framerate cap and you can reach highs of 45 frames-per-second, which is impressive to say the least. With Sony’s recent strategy of porting tentpole PlayStation 4 titles to storefronts like Steam, games like Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War are proving interesting benchmarks for the handheld.

Steam Deck (TrustedReviews)

The Steam Deck is a more powerful alternative to the Nintendo Switch, capable of playing virtually any PC game on the go. Performance is excellent for a ...

The Steam Deck is able to access games on Steam and other PC storefronts. About 11GB of memory is currently taken up by necessary Steam software, and when games such as Horizon Zero Dawn take up a whopping 73GB of space, it won’t take long for you to fill up the SSD. The Steam Deck is a game-changer. Fortunately, it was able to last a lot longer playing the likes of Football Manager and Stardew Valley. In these instances easily lasting around 4 to 5 hours with maximum brightness and graphics settings. Sometimes this is a necessity to achieve a playable performance, as the Steam Deck only managed to hit a 20fps performance for Dying Light when set to ‘High’ graphics settings, resulting in an unplayable, juddering experience. The visuals looked stunning too, as the Deck was able to handle the game running with ultra graphics settings at an average of 31fps. But of course, it’s gaming where the Steam Deck truly excels, with enough power to play the likes of Horizon Zero Dawn and Hitman 2 with a smooth performance. But given the cost of the specs inside the Steam Deck, I can understand why Valve was reluctant to add an OLED panel and drive up the price even further. Portable mode is undoubtedly the optimum way to play, so it’s a relief that the Deck has a great screen. The Steam Deck is a more powerful alternative to the Nintendo Switch, capable of playing virtually any PC game on the go. Look to the top, and you’ll find a power button, a USB-C port for charging, a headphone jack and volume buttons. While playing games is its bread and butter, it’s also capable of loading up a web browser, streaming Netflix or even enabling you to crack on with office work once plugged into a monitor and keyboard.

Factorio is experimenting with controller support and Steam Deck ... (PC Gamer)

When Valve first showed off the Steam Deck, elaborate and top 100 games worthy Factorio was right there. That makes sense: The Steam Deck runs Linux, ...

For now, Wube is working on a few other small fixes like UI tweaks to get sizing working better on the smaller Steam Deck screen. "We are experimenting with bringing proper controller support to Factorio; this will not only benefit the Steam Deck but also those who want to play the game more casually with a controller. That makes sense: The Steam Deck runs Linux, Factorio has a native Linux build.