Spec Analysis: Steam Deck - can it really handle triple-A PC gaming?
There had been rumours, rumblings and actual, solid reporting of a handheld from Valve for some time now, but the hardw…
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Digital Foundry | Valve Steam Deck Spec Analysis: Can It Really Handle AAA PC Gaming?
- Thread starter Dancrane212
- Start date
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EDIT:
What i tried to say:
I would have liked it, if DF would have been given the chance for an early technical review.
It would have been interesting.
That IGN stuff was neat, but i'm personally more interested in technical reviews of hardware that is sold.
It was a great thing that Microsoft had chosen DF for the series x/s early reviews, i would love if DF would get more chances like that.
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That could be a very bad omen/sign if you want to interpret it as one.
I don't understand this either.
I don't think its that big of a conundrum.
IGN has 15 million subscribers.
Digital Foundry has 1.3 million subscribers.
Ordered one, but I have expectations set. This will primarily be an indie and emulator machine for me.
Simple. IGN is far bigger and thus gives Valve more mindshare/marketing than DF ever could at this stage.
Sure thing.
Marketing wise IGN is the place to go.
I just would have liked it if DF would have had a real chance for a technical review.
I mean, cool and so, but now we have the situation that everyone after only a few minutes of the pre order start is already in Q2 22.
And the regular pre-order is only about to start 2 days, lol.
This was kinda a bad move, tell me what you want.
For me, the biggest thing is compatibility like they said. Gleaning over the steamOS compatibility list, and it's not great. Protondb is all user-reported, so I have no real way of saying how good the support will be in 6mo. I know you can install Windows on it, but imo half the point of this machine is to not have to think about all that stuff. If I have to maintain a mental note of compatibility or custom installation quirks, that's a meh.
I'm in the wait and see camp.
I'm in the wait and see camp.
Valve wants to sell a ton of them to get them into more homes and the past year of constant GPU and console shortages has shown people are willing to wait for awhile for hot items.
Yea, there's definitely going to be a point when full AAA are no longer viable. But the existence of the Xbox Series S target probably helps keep the Deck in the mix longer than normal. Also it's going to be a really long time until Supergiant and Team Cherry games are too advanced for the Deck.
I still think games like Spelunky 2 or Hades could be playable on Vita if it made any business sense to port them. Deck doesn't need to make business sense lol
Also, Valve didn't get this thing down to $399 just to market it to people who salivate over framerate videos on Digital Foundry. Clearly they're going for a much broader market here. Giving the reveal to DF over IGN makes no sense, it's not like they're only selling it to Era.
If FSR improves significantly, people will no doubt be able to squeeze more life out of it.
Why not both ?
... and what is wrong with being interested in the hardware that is sold ?
I've been using the various Vega-based APUs over the last few years and they're impressive tech, but you've really got to set your expectations appropriately. Really interested to see what the move to RDNA2 brings to the table.
Why not both what? Get the exclusive reveal? Because then it's not an exclusive reveal anymore, and IGN suddenly cares a lot less.
And I never said it was wrong to be interested, did I? How did you get that from the post I responded to
Who gives a shit, really. In today's world of having a new phone version with the costs of 1k plus every single year, I would be surprised if this thing hasn't a V2 announced one year from now (at least till end of 2022). I would actually bet something on it.
As a PC thing, this will get upgraded versions like there's no morning, nobody cares what runs on an iPhone 1 or iPhone 3G, or the first gen of the Amazon Kindle today and nobody will in 7 years when it comes the Deck V1.
You didn't say it is wrong.
Maybe i took that " people who salivate over framerate videos " wrong, sorry.
Seemed like a very reasonable perspective to me. He hasn't had any hands-on time with it to say anything concrete.
I agree. This is going to be an iterative game for sure. It's not a console.
Besides, if it turns out to be a big hit, literally anybody can release their own Steam OS handheld and jump in.
I think this was a pretty poor video. Stating "it's all about performance" for a device like this is just plain... odd. Doing it do it while pointing to AAA multiplatform titles ported to the Switch of all things sure is a thing. Remind me, how do those perform again?
Worrying about the "future proofness" of a ~$500 budget PC that plays 15000+ titles day one? Okay.
How to set this device up for failure? Focus on AAA performance, where weaknesses like limited storage capacity and battery life are hit the hardest.
(Besides, this should be able to run Crysis, Control, AND Metro, neither of which run on the Switch to my knowledge, so that alone should give it a 100/100 on the DF-compatibility scale)
Worrying about the "future proofness" of a ~$500 budget PC that plays 15000+ titles day one? Okay.
How to set this device up for failure? Focus on AAA performance, where weaknesses like limited storage capacity and battery life are hit the hardest.
(Besides, this should be able to run Crysis, Control, AND Metro, neither of which run on the Switch to my knowledge, so that alone should give it a 100/100 on the DF-compatibility scale)
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I really don't see this as a Switch competitor. I just struggle to see people paying for this when the Switch is there and on first glance it's a lot friendlier to the average joe.
On the other hand, in a world where gaming laptops are expensive and heavy space heaters with absolutely terrible design, getting this and a MacBook Air might be the perfect solution to those who want to game but would rather buy an ultrabook for work.
On the other hand, in a world where gaming laptops are expensive and heavy space heaters with absolutely terrible design, getting this and a MacBook Air might be the perfect solution to those who want to game but would rather buy an ultrabook for work.
Exposure, DF is visited by people that care about technology behind games, IGN is visited by people who follows all kind of media. Nothing sad about that.
Gaming laptops are none of those things these days and haven't been for a few years now.
On the subject of specs, there's no way this thing doesn't "support" Windows 11 properly, right? My current PC supposedly doesn't support Windows 11 because of my CPU, but I have to assume that any modern CPU/GPU/APU coming from AMD will support Windows 11 properly.
I feel like this video really needed Alex and John's input. Hopefully we might get more in-depth initial thoughts on the SoC on DF Direct?
Wel if it doesn't support firmware TPM than you can't install Windows 11 I believe. But I also hope that Win 11 will work on it.
The one that questioned it's ergonomics, battery life, whether devs would tailor their games to it, and pointed out that Steam's compatibility layer thing would not only hurt game performance, but that a lot of games (as of now) just straight up don't work.
I mean, maybe their full-review will come back and they'll say all the questions he raised turn out to be fine. But that's not the sense I got from this. I read these as warnings to potential buyers. But maybe I'm just overly cautious. We'll see.
Of course this thing might get numerous changes/upgrades over the years, but I don't see Joe Average dropping 400-600 bucks consecutively in a short period of time to keep up with the AAA gaming space.
Nah, not really.
As someone using linux as a daily driver, I would say one reason not to show it to digital foundry is that proton compatibility needs to get further before doing a<=>b comparisons. They will probably send them one in december when they send out press kits.
If it does well enough, I could see developers creating specific "Steam Deck" profiles in their games to squeeze out as much performance as possible.
Looking at 1050TI and RX 560 benchmarks, this thing should be able to run Warzone at 800p60 locked with low settings.
Isn't that the usual hardware cycle for a console? In 7 years if this thing is successful you'd see a Steam Deck 2.
That said even then it'll be fine for any indie games you can throw at it. It might not do well on Halo Infiniter Or Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part-2 but having access to a platform that'll technically never die is a pretty good deal.
I found that Xbox Series S comparison is useful.
I kind of expect that the Steam Deck will end up as a 'Oculus Quest' to a 'Oculus Quest 2' style sequel handheld ~2 years from now.
By the time its limitations show as far as keeping up with the current generation it will be outdated as hardware.
I kind of expect that the Steam Deck will end up as a 'Oculus Quest' to a 'Oculus Quest 2' style sequel handheld ~2 years from now.
By the time its limitations show as far as keeping up with the current generation it will be outdated as hardware.
I definitely considered it as being able to play everything available now (which is my Steam library, of course) and not as much what it will play 4-6 years from now. I'll have a console for that.
I mean, I'm expecting the first thing I install to be Trails in the Sky, so I'm not terribly worried about cutting edge performance.
I mean, I'm expecting the first thing I install to be Trails in the Sky, so I'm not terribly worried about cutting edge performance.