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Thread: Steam Deck

  1. #21
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    I tested a few more games out this evening and tried a few older titles to see how they handle.

    Skyrim is now nearly 10 years old so it's hardware requirements are not so high by today's standards. Steam shows it as playable with issues. I played it for over an hour and had no problems. And running the game on ultra graphics settings it held solid at 60fps and looked very nice. The controls map nicely to the Deck's controls and it played really well. No issues and I might actually play through the whole game again on it.

    I know Skyrim is not quite a few years old. But for me it's still a bit mind blowing to see a game that only a few years ago was a showcase game pushing systems and GPUs to there limit. And now a handheld system costing less then a cheap PC build can run the game perfectly on high settings with no issues. And more impressive is the fact such games were never designed or intended to work like this. And thr fact this is running a 9+ year old Windows game in Linux using an abstraction layer.

    It has got me thinking. Steam OS is now reaching a maturity, with so much work Valve are devoting to it, with the success of the Steam Deck helping to quickly bug fix and improve it, and the speed and level of support and development it's currently being seen. There are only a few areas of Steam OS that still need a bit of work. The knscreen keyboard being the Meon one that still needs a few tweaks. But in the whole in game mode Steam OS doesn't need any real experience of computers. You can literally install and play PC games exactly as you would on a Playstation. Therfore Valve could attempt another console in the future with a seperate controller to play Windows games as a console in your TV just like an Xbox or PS5. The issue when they tried it originally was the OS. The first versions of Steam OS were just a Linux OS with a Linux copy of Steam, and it could only run native Kinux games. So very limiting and a bit pointless. But that led to where we are now. Steam OS seemlessly running Windows games like a console. That would work as a console, not just as a handheld. If they used the same hardware as the Deck they could produce thrm even cheaper. Say the £299 price point.

    I also think the real success of the Steam Deck and Steam OS is also the fact it's not running Windows. Windows is so bloated and resource heavy because it has to be so compatible for such a range of hardware setups. Steam OS on the Steam Deck basically makes it a fixed platform just like a console. They can develop the OS knowing all hardware is identical, so can optimise it knowing every device will function and perform the same. They can just concentrate on getting games working.
    Last edited by Harrison; 20th August 2022 at 12:20.

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  2. #22
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    https://www.emudeck.com/

    This is such a polished Emulation solution for the Steamdeck. With all the features of Emulation Station built in to manage your roms, including scraping box art, bezels and game info you can manage the rom set you add on the Steam Deck itself easily, but you can also mirror an existing EmulationStation setup you already have onto the system too.

    You can also pick for EmuDeck to use the Steam library itself to manage your roms, or use EmulationStation and just launch it from the Steam Library.

    If you haven't played a classic game in years, it's never too late to start!


  3. #23
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    Not tried it yet, but you can even install the Epic library and the GOG Galaxy library launcher applications on the Steam Deck and launch them from within Steam.

    I've not tried it yet because it involves a bit of fiddling and you need a keyboard and mouse to do it easily, so I will be doing this next week once the holidays are over.

    Here's a video showing the process of installing both launchers:

    https://youtu.be/jaHRKdr1owc

    The Syram Deck just keeps being better and better. Just bring able to install non Steam Windows applications, and thanks to the magic of Proton they just work. Mad.

    If you haven't played a classic game in years, it's never too late to start!


  4. #24
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    This is getting mad now. I've just found some tutorials on getting Playstation Plus Premium cloud streaming working on the Steam Deck. I've not tried it but I'm going to be seeing if I can get it working over the weekend. And tgere are some other tutorials on getting remote play working, so I could access my PS5 or PS4 and remote play them on the Deck. But the cloud game streaming (similar to Gamepass streaming) is the more interesting to me, because it offers a lot of PS3 games, a well a quite a few PS2 and PS1.

    If you haven't played a classic game in years, it's never too late to start!


  5. #25
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    Crikey, I only just realised that PS games were available on PC through that service. Wowzers.

  6. #26
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    Yes. You need a real Playstation 4 or 5 controller connected via Bluetooth or usb to play them on PC, but it works well if your broadband is good enough.

    Before recently you needed the PS Now subscription to access Playstation cloud gaming. Now they have combined PS Plus and Now together and the top tier Plus Premium has cloud streaming included. Works really well for PS3 games too. That's the only way to play those on a PS4 or 5 at the moment too.

    If you haven't played a classic game in years, it's never too late to start!


  7. #27
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    Getting a joypad is easy.

    Is running this stuff taxing on the computer itself? I have pretty good broadband now but I don't have any modern computers (other than a work laptop)

  8. #28
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    Not at all because you are not actually running the games on your own computer. Just using it like a terminal. Minimum PSPlus streaming spec states i3 2GHz, 2GB Ram, 300MB storage, and Windows 7. So pretty much any system built in the last 8+ years should cope fine.

    And as long as your broudband can manage 20Mbps it should be ok. I used to stream games on a 37Mbit connection with no issues with PS. But a few buffering issues with Xbox Gamepass.

    If you haven't played a classic game in years, it's never too late to start!


  9. #29
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    I have to say that Valve are showing up every other hardware and software commany at the moment in terms of communications, support and speed to reply and action.

    When the Steam Deck was first previewed Valve stated that games on Steam would show a compatibility level to aid gamers in knowing if a game would run on the Steam Deck. And this information would appear as each game was tested. The handheld obviously had a massive advantage over any other new platform launch because it runs Steam and has access to the whole Steam catalogue that has been going for around 20 years now. It's cornered the whole market in digital PC gaming and try as they might no alternative has ever come close. This access to thousands of games does however being with it the headache of compatibility. Now it's all very well saying they will show game compatibility as games are tested, but with so many games?

    Today Valve have treated that they have just passed the millstone of 5000 Steam games tested and Verified and Playable titles on Steam Deck.

    5000 games verified as fully compatible and working. That's a huge number that most consoles will never reach. And that's only going to increase as they test more games. I know Steam went over 20000 games in total in the library a while ago but don't know the current figure.

    I'm still seeing quite a few games in my library that are currently flagged as unsupported, but more often than not these games are just not yet tested when you look at the details. And mostly these are older games. So many more will be flagged verified soon.

    Verified games are 100% compatible with full Deck control compatibility. Playable means that p they run perfectly well, but with a few issues. All games I item that show playable have normally just listed issues with text input needing the on-screen keyboard. IMO that's not really an issue and running the games they work perfectly such as Skyrim. It just means when text is needed you have to press Steam key + X to bring up the keyboard. No issue.

    In other news Valve have announced work is underway in a Steam Deck 2. I would be more worried if there wasn't because it would mean the first one wasn't successful. It is very much so and as technology progresses the price of more powerful components will be available at the same price point. So in maybe 2 years we might see the second version. But being a full PC the current Deck won't suddenly be out of date and obsolete. It will just mean any new one will run games better. So all good.

    If you haven't played a classic game in years, it's never too late to start!


  10. #30
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    There has been a Steam OS update in the last few days that has added some nice new features and updated some existing things such as the onscreen keyboard to fix a few issues it had.

    The biggest update is to virtual menus. For any game you can create popup menu systems atteched to the left and right trackpads. You touch the centre of the pad and the onscreen icon menu appears within the game where you have set it to appear. You can cinfigure each icon in the menu to perform any action within the game, such as keyboard button press or a function within the game such as bringing up your inventory or character profile.

    You can make a menu circularv with asx many options as you like in a wheel cinfiguration, or make it square with the icons like a keypad. You can select unique icons to each, and change their colour. And can getv the menu opacity and location in case you need to still be able to see something in game whilst the menu is open.

    These new virtual menus are a genius idea by Valve. Many older PC games were never designed for controllers and have more keyboard commands or options then you can fit in controller buttons easily. You can also assign a combination of keys to an icon of needed to, such as if some commands were Shift+A f.ex. You can also have more virtual menus by assigning them with a toggle. So if the right trigger is held a different menu could appear when you touch the left trackpad f.ex. That could be useful for weapon selection or car settings.

    Or in a game like Elite Dangerous you could create virtual menus for things vkike docking and landing controls, and another for camera viewing angles.

    It's a very powerful addition to the Steam Decks already huge range of controls.

    If you haven't played a classic game in years, it's never too late to start!


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