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Latest Comments by const
Steam Deck reservations continue to grow, now at its highest point
26 Aug 2022 at 3:41 pm UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: Mohandevir
Quoting: NerdNoiseRadioBased on what I see in Steam Deck groups on social media, I would have no trouble believing that it could be as many as 40% of Steam Decks have Redmondsoft on them.
The Steam hardware survey seem to contradict that theory. Thing is, my experience is that the Windows fanboys in the facebook groups I follow are really vocal, but few are actually doing the move and many regret it aftward. It feels more like a vocal minority, imo, but I do not have any proof of that either.

Windows is just unfit for the task. Too much heat, drains the battery much faster and there is a lot more fan noise. On top of that, a desktop OS on a handheld... It's awkward, at best. SteamOS is a big part of it's best aspects. Users love it. Removing it makes the SteamDeck another boring PC... Or "How to transform a handheld into a laptop".

Edit: Not saying you are wrong, there might be a lot of dualbooting though, from what I read: "Xbox gamepass, Destiny 2, COD Warzone..." but since SteamOS doesn't support that, it's not a trek for the faint of hearts... Non techy users might not be really enticed by that solution.
Judging from r/SteamDeck I'd say it's very very small minority. The few people using Windows need to specifically state it all the time. SteamOS is undisputed default.

Steam Deck has a new Client Beta with more Steam Input improvements (updated)
26 Aug 2022 at 3:37 pm UTC Likes: 1

Replaced the Big Picture configurator in desktop mode with a windowed view of the new Configurator. This currently only applies to desktop mode on Steam Deck.
not sure if that's a good idea. AFAIK, some creators used it to use features not currently present in the new configurator (e.g. icons?)

Steam Deck 2 is absolutely coming, new booklet from Valve confirms
26 Aug 2022 at 1:42 pm UTC

Quoting: elmapul
Quoting: constthe wii u showed them that they can't build another generation on gimmicks
..but think about it, if motion sensors were invented before gamepads with buttons and joysticks, how the industry would be nowadays? most games would be made for motion, they would have nailed the motion controls, polished it, perfected it, they would know what work and what dont with this type of controls, and when someone made an controller with buttons and an stick, that would be the one seeing as gimiick.
I highly doubt that and the reason is simple: With traditional controllers you can play action packed games and get cozy with minimal action. While motion controls aren't exactly sports, they can't deliver the layed back, cozy feeling of traditional controls by miles. They are also not compatible with handheld gaming at all, people have tried.
Also, motion controls are damn old, there were home consoles with motion controls (even predating duck hunt) in the early 80s, maybe even earlier. Nintendo generalized them a little more with the wii and I don't say it was bad, it's just not a full alternative.
The future of motion controls clearly lies in VR, no doubt it is necessary there.

Steam Deck reservations continue to grow, now at its highest point
26 Aug 2022 at 11:00 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: tfk
Quoting: Mohandevir
Quoting: constI wouldn't put witcher3 or gta on that :D
Oups! Currently, I'm running Rise of the Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, The Outer Worlds and Resident Evil Village on my MicroSD Sandisk Pro... The loading times are a little longer, but for my part, it's not a deal breaker... It runs great... Am I doing a mistake? :wink:
Neh. I put guardians of the galaxy on it. It's a bit slower in terms of load times but other then that, no issues. And you can always move the games back to the ssd.
That's absolutely true.
Moving big games from internal to sd when I don't feel like playing them for a while and back to internal on demand is really comfy. And chances are you won't feel any difference, anyway. I specifically named GTA and witcher3 since those are the only two games so far where I think the experience was a little improved from internal, though I can't back up that claim :D

Steam Deck reservations continue to grow, now at its highest point
26 Aug 2022 at 10:22 am UTC

Quoting: BlackBloodRum
Quoting: const
Quoting: PixelDrop
Quoting: BlackBloodRum
Quoting: PixelDropSweet, mine got moved from Q4 to Q3 too. I'm a 64GB model since I'm okay with slower load times off SD cards.
Don't worry! If you get a good SD card you won't even notice that you're running off an SD card. Certainly not to the point of feeling "slower load times" :grin:

I have two SD Cards and use them for games without any performance degradation, despite having the 512GB model :grin:

So no worries! :grin:
That's what I'm hoping. Of course at this point anything better than the switch will be like lighting. Switch games tend to take forever to load, especially if they're off a cart. Baffles me to no end why they made the game carts slower than reading of an SD card.
Especially with my A2 V30 (sandisk extreme pro, samsung pro plus) cards, I really don't feel a difference. Have an additional 1TB A1 for emulation (sandisk ultra) and while I don't feel a difference for emulation, I wouldn't put witcher3 or gta on that :D
Yup. I myself have two modest Samsung 512GB Pro Plus cards and have run games like God of War on them with no problems!

So long as your card is legit (not a fake from amazon) you should be golden!
I'd suggest watching for deals on the western digital store by now. Got some cards really cheap there and it's probably the safest way to get a legit card.

Steam Deck 2 is absolutely coming, new booklet from Valve confirms
26 Aug 2022 at 10:18 am UTC

Quoting: elmapul" I'm not sure how they plan to improve on that"
they can make steam open source, but i doubt they will.
they can also improve the modularity of the hardware making it easier to repair/upgrade, but i doubt its easy to do, maybe its not even possible.

interesting notes:
1)they said that steam and steam games will be avaliable for all chromebook users, are they serious? i think that was a miss comunication, i doubt they can make it work in the first chromebooks launched.
2)they said they will learn from the users, but there are a few negative aspects with that aproach, for example, wii and ds would never have being invented if nintendo just relied on "telemetry" on seeing what already is popular, what already work.
i saw an video from valve channel for developers, where they said they used telemetry to see how people are playing their games and noticed that many people mute the music on their fps to better listen to the sound of fire arms and figure out where the shooting is coming from, or because they got tired of listening to the same song over and over again, their conclusion was that they shouldnt make more musics, because people will mute then anyway, honestly i think that is a bad aproach, as someone who listen to basically anime/game sounds, i would hate to see more companies follow that trend, instead they should make more/better music so people wouldnt mute then, i can understand that this isnt possible for some competitive games like fps, but imagine if they followed that trend on all their games?

3)holyshit, look at page 20, they did an great job at highlighting some of the games you can play, i mean, not only things that are popular in general, like cyberpunk2077 but specifically things that are popular on asia.

Resident evil, yugioh, final fantasy, guilty gear, project diva (vocaloid/hatsune miku), tales of, sekiro, eldenring, ace combat, Dragon Quest, code vein, musedash, scarlet nexus, meltblood, something i cant read, persona, yakuza, king of fighters, atelier, metal gear, devil may cry, nier, and maybe klonoa, im not sure
1) no idea, really. Maybe they can make Steam run and some pure 2D games will work well?

2) Well, I'd argue if any company but Nintendo came out with Wii and DS, they would have failed. And there is a reason Switch is actually a lot more traditional again - the wii u showed them that they can't build another generation on gimmicks. Also, it's not like Valve are ONLY driven by telemetry. Their VR Headsets, the SteamController AND the Deck show they start with their own vision and then improve based on testing and feedback. That's a lot better then Nintendos *eat what we serve*-approach from my book.

3) agreed

Steam Deck 2 is absolutely coming, new booklet from Valve confirms
26 Aug 2022 at 10:06 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: LinasWhile it technically may be true that they are continuing to do R&D on something that may eventually become Steam Deck 2, that can be many years away. This kind of stuff takes a long time to develop, and Valve tend to take their time.

What is more likely in the near future is that they will replace the existing models with a new generation of upgraded/tweaked hardware. I am talking about stuff like a different fan, or better buttons. Not a completely different device in a different form factor.
Already happening. Current SteamDecks are already a little different from spring release ones. The model in the presentations when announcing availability in Asia are also looking a little different.

Steam Deck production better than expected, Q4 emails already going out
25 Aug 2022 at 8:28 am UTC

Quoting: gradyvuckovic
Quoting: BlackBloodRumSo my guess is the delay was "somewhat" intentional.
I also suspected the delay might be slightly desirable if not intentional on Valve's side..
The Deck didn't exactly launch in a perfect state. There were software issues, hardware quality control issues, and not to mention plenty of games that weren't compatible at launch that are now.

I suspect the first couple of months were 'an unofficial launch delay'. Rather than an actual delay, just ship a very small number of units, get lots of feedback, make fixes, treat it like early access basically.. Then once the issues are largely resolved? Ramp up production!

It's only a conspiracy theory but I could imagine someone at Valve considering it. I wouldn't hate them for it either, if it was on purpose, it wasn't a bad idea and has certainly worked out well in the long run.
I'd say there are still quite some things to do for them regarding both software and QA :)

Remember that setting up a workshop for such complicated devices is also a hefty optimization goal with room for experiments and failures... They probably started with 1-3 lanes and now that they have a blueprint, they can scale by adding more lanes. I'd guess that setting up new lanes worked much quicker then they expected and that enabled the explosion in production. Among other things. :)

Anyway, the fact that demand on this incredible piece of tech is still rising is my news of the month, maybe year. This is so huge for Linux Gaming and existing SteamDeck users. *party*

Steam Deck reservations continue to grow, now at its highest point
25 Aug 2022 at 8:06 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: PixelDrop
Quoting: BlackBloodRum
Quoting: PixelDropSweet, mine got moved from Q4 to Q3 too. I'm a 64GB model since I'm okay with slower load times off SD cards.
Don't worry! If you get a good SD card you won't even notice that you're running off an SD card. Certainly not to the point of feeling "slower load times" :grin:

I have two SD Cards and use them for games without any performance degradation, despite having the 512GB model :grin:

So no worries! :grin:
That's what I'm hoping. Of course at this point anything better than the switch will be like lighting. Switch games tend to take forever to load, especially if they're off a cart. Baffles me to no end why they made the game carts slower than reading of an SD card.
Especially with my A2 V30 (sandisk extreme pro, samsung pro plus) cards, I really don't feel a difference. Have an additional 1TB A1 for emulation (sandisk ultra) and while I don't feel a difference for emulation, I wouldn't put witcher3 or gta on that :D

Steam Deck reservations continue to grow, now at its highest point
25 Aug 2022 at 8:01 am UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: elmapulsteam deck is doing everything i wished android did back in the days it was a newthing.
i mean, android support gamepad, good luck finding good games on playstore to use it.
not to mention the contribution its doing to the linux ecosystem.
No doubt I'd take a SteamPhone