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Valve’s Steam Deck in our hands

Switch-like Steam portable is coming this December


two people playing co-op with two Steam Deck units



The Steam Deck is a new handheld device from Valve for playing PC games on the go, the company announced Thursday. The Nintendo Switch-like device is set for release in December starting at $399.

Previously rumored as the “SteamPal,” the Steam Deck is a portable PC that’s slightly larger than the Nintendo Switch. It features a 7-inch touchscreen, two thumbsticks, a D-pad, and a four-button layout. There are also two trackpads — one on either side of the machine, under the thumbsticks — to allow for increased precision. The Steam Deck has eight triggers on its back: four on the device’s shoulders and four more where the ring and pinky fingers rest.

The Steam Deck will run games from players’ existing Steam libraries. Players will simply log into their account, and their friends and catalog should follow them onto the handheld. The Steam Deck is capable of running PC games on its own hardware, without the power of the cloud. Videos released by Valve show people using the Steam Deck to natively play games such as Baldur’s Gate 3, Crusader Kings 3, Disco Elysium, Hades, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Players can also purchase a dock that allows the Steam Deck to run on a TV.



Inside, the Steam Deck boasts an accelerated processing unit (APU) built by AMD. Its CPU is based on the company’s Zen 2 microarchitecture and tops out at 3.5 GHz. The GPU contains eight RDNA 2 compute units running at up to 1.6 GHz, delivering peak performance of 1.6 teraflops. The system packs 16 GB of RAM and a microSD card slot, allowing users to expand upon the built-in storage. The Steam Deck’s 7-inch screen is an LCD with a 16:10 aspect ratio and a 60 Hz refresh rate at a 720p resolution of 1280x800. The Steam Deck also features a dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi radio — it’s compatible with 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks — and Bluetooth 5.0 for controllers, accessories, and (unlike the Switch) audio.


At launch, the Steam Deck will be available in three models with different storage options. Valve says there are no performance differences between the three versions — aside from the speed of the flash memory, which will provide varying read and write speeds.

The $399 base model offers 64 GB of storage in the eMMC format. The next model up costs $529, and packs faster storage courtesy of a 256 GB PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD; it also comes with an “exclusive Steam Community profile bundle.” The top-tier Steam Deck, at $649, includes a 512 GB NVMe SSD that Valve refers to as “high-speed,” although it is still a PCIe 3.0 drive. In addition, this model’s screen features “premium anti-glare etched glass.” The unit comes with an exclusive carrying case and exclusive virtual keyboard theme, on top of the cheaper models’ bonuses.

Steam users will be able to reserve any of the three Steam Deck models (for a fee) starting at 1 p.m. EDT on Friday, July 16 — as long as they made a purchase on the Steam Store at some point before June 2021. If not, they’ll have to wait until 48 hours later.
 
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CerebralTiger

Expert
Apr 12, 2007
19,839
5,868
129
Islamabad
People primarily buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games 🥴

Rahi baat indie games ki, the Switch is simply a better option even in that domain. The Steam Deck:

- runs louder
- runs hotter
- is bulkier, non-pocketable
- isn't modular in design
- has a worse display that certainly isn't Necrokiller certified oled based

Even Gaben couldn't resist putting Portal 2 on the Switch. Baat yaheen pe aa ke khatam hou jaati hai 🤣
 

iampasha

Seasoned
Apr 4, 2013
2,749
1,474
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28
Karachi
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Exabyte999

Newbie
Mar 29, 2022
19
23
4
I’m becoming more and more desperate to get it! Lol. I can’t believe it’s running at 40FPS in all those pictures. What setting preset are you on?
I guess I am lucky that I’m not getting it so soon because there have been some reports of it being defective on Reddit and they had to RMA. By the time I will get it they should have fixed those issues.
But still, my cousin who lives in UK could test it for a few days since he has a steam account and he actually has also preordered one and he’s in Q2.
 

Exabyte999

Newbie
Mar 29, 2022
19
23
4
@CerebralTiger
I also would like to point out that it’s very hard to pirate on the switch(from what I’ve heard) and each switch game costs like $50. If you buy just 4 or 5 switch games you’ve already bought switch lite. On the other hand, many of those same games cost half the price on steam and you can get them even cheaper in sales! I don’t think I’ve gotten a steam game without buying it on a sale lol.
 

Exabyte999

Newbie
Mar 29, 2022
19
23
4
If this thing keeps running games like this no portable will ever even come close to it
Nothing will come close to it other than Valves own upgraded model!! I think they should patent the touchpad design if they can do that lol. It would stop some of the competition.
 

NaNoW

Administrator
ADMIN
Feb 5, 2008
11,350
433
89
Karachi, Pakistan
~ 10 hours of usage since last Friday


+ Thumbstick are great. The texture can be improved on though - Xbox gamepad does it better
+ Weight is nice in hand, almost impressive, I can play games for a couple of hours. Lighter would be better.
+ Screen is very reasonable for the performance/size/price. Easy improvements to be called out are in terms of resolution and smaller bezels.
+ Buttons are nice to use, maybe a tiny-bit "mushy" could be improved with more tactile clickily feel.
+ Trackpad with haptic feedback are a nice addition, best "mouse replacement" on a handheld for using OS and Navigation. However they are not a replacement of a mouse for gaming though.
+ The audio speaker is punchy, loud and quite nice.
+ Its really almost a PC.


+/- Using Heroic Games Launcher for Epic Games Store was painless, It would be great if we have a similar solution directly. Epic Library worked nicely, but no social features were accessible from the heroic launcher.

+/- Similarly adding Xbox Live / gamepass app was not the most intuitive. The bigger issue was getting to play Xcloud accessible games (meaning it came with its Pros/Cons. No need to install games, play from cloud, but small amount of lag)

+/- Quite a bit of customization possible. But there are too many menus and settings, and is inconsistent places. Ingame, Steam overlay, steamdeck's Overlay, linux, steam settings..


- Really needs another USB-C slot. One is not enough.
- Battery life while gaming needs to be better
- Need to learn to work around software quirks. This is not a super friendly beginner device.


TLDR: Nice piece of kit. Price/Performance/"fun" Experience for me was really great.


20220508-233224


20220509-094731


20220508-233212


20220509-094744-1
 

NaNoW

Administrator
ADMIN
Feb 5, 2008
11,350
433
89
Karachi, Pakistan
okay, I am installing Emulators on this, and the support seems fantastic. From Ps3, ps2, n64, etc..most emulators for PC seems to run..will report on games later.
 
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NaNoW

Administrator
ADMIN
Feb 5, 2008
11,350
433
89
Karachi, Pakistan
so started to go into emulation - some thoughts

Installing emulators is super easy, really like that we can add them to steam library and just play games from steam OS.

Older consoles (GameboyColor, Nintendo DS, N64, Ps1, PS2 ) works great, almost all worked.

Gamepad defaulted to Xbox 360 pad, and that automatically worked nicely with steamdeck controls.

PS3 titles were hit and a miss. Most work, but some didnt work properly..

Gonna try more.

and here is Smackdown vs Raw 2011 :D

20220510-001641-1
 

NaNoW

Administrator
ADMIN
Feb 5, 2008
11,350
433
89
Karachi, Pakistan
So the more I am handling this device, the more I am learning. Mostly highlights, but a couple of frustrations.


+ Performance overlay is quite nifty - I hope more devices allow this level of hardware optimization in user's hand going forward - you can tweak framerate, thermal design power, screen refresh rate.....while this is pretty cool.
- the sad thing is that you NEED to know about all these features and use this to prolong the horrible battery life. I am too used to chargeable smartphones, headphones, tablets, mouse, etc lasting a day atleast - so this thing gives me anxiety at the rate this discharges.

+The deck almost asks for users to install emulators and try running older games. Quite a few games worked nicely without any complication, few didnt. PS3 emulation is where the deck is running into problems for me. Everything earlier is perfect, for some reason PS3 games are failing to load, emulator keeps crashing and quite games

- Difficult to search for steam verified titles on store.

+ / - Quite fun to play on it, I like the weight. Its actually not too heavy. Having said that, NEXT GEN Steamdeck needs to be smaller for me to travel with it. You need a bag to carry this and will look too big on a plane. And those fugly bezel needs to be much smaller for me. Also the plastic is too "cheap platistic" feeling, though nicely engraved for grip.

- The touch need to be 1cms lower, the thumbstick need to be 1cm lower :) to fit MY hands nicely

- R1/ L1 arent great as buttons. Feel too soft/mushy until the end. R2/L2 is are great though.

+ Steam remote play is quite nice. First "steaming" / remote play where I think its actually viable to play a game on second screen, while PC does the hardwork. Very very nicely done.

+/- HDMI out works flawlessly with the store and OS / Linux nicely. However games dont scale well. Almost anything with semi decent graphics will struggle to run.

+ / - I have had couple of crashes per day, however to me, it was just a minor inconvenience, not much more.

+ Speakers keep on impressing

Overall part 2 :
Steamdeck is awesome. Like I wish I had this growing up during loadshedding. I am totally sold on this.


Next 2 things I wanna do :

1. Install windows + make powerpoint presentations + use excel and use it as a portable PC :D
2. Use it as a Netflix, Youtube, etc TV media hub
 
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