43 of the Top 50 most highly-reviewed Steam games are Steam Deck Playable

Quoting: ElectricPrismThis talk of VR makes me curious. It would make a great Linux video to learn if someone using a dGPU over USB could theoretically run VR.

Obviously the software stack is fine for it.

Here is where things get tricky/annoying...

I believe (not sure if this is the exact reason) that AMD doesn't have a license to use Thunderbolt, which is why it's so rare to find an AMD based system with TB. If the Steam Deck had a TB3/4 port on it, using a external GPU would definitely be an option. Not only that we could get a very cool dock that'd boost it's power in a similar fashion to how the Switch actually works.

Now step into bizzarro land; people have connected nvidia cards to the Atari VCS via a pcie -> NVME/SATA bridge. Something similar should be possible on the Steam Deck.

Quoting: tfkWhy is OneShot native but unsupported?

On ProtonDB is mentioned problem with bundled library librt.so.1. Solution is easy, you just need remove it, so game is forced to use one from system. I thing this is probable reason for unsuported.

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: ElectricPrismThis talk of VR makes me curious. It would make a great Linux video to learn if someone using a dGPU over USB could theoretically run VR.

Obviously the software stack is fine for it.

Here is where things get tricky/annoying...

I believe (not sure if this is the exact reason) that AMD doesn't have a license to use Thunderbolt, which is why it's so rare to find an AMD based system with TB. If the Steam Deck had a TB3/4 port on it, using a external GPU would definitely be an option. Not only that we could get a very cool dock that'd boost it's power in a similar fashion to how the Switch actually works.

Now step into bizzarro land; people have connected nvidia cards to the Atari VCS via a pcie -> NVME/SATA bridge. Something similar should be possible on the Steam Deck.

Well thunderbolt doesn't mean much anymore with USB4 coming on devices now as a few AMD laptops with USB4 now and eGPUs work on them now and a bunch of thunderbolt devices. at some point USB4 will come to AMD's other devices so maybe a future deck will have it also.

Quoting: tohur

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: ElectricPrismThis talk of VR makes me curious. It would make a great Linux video to learn if someone using a dGPU over USB could theoretically run VR.

Obviously the software stack is fine for it.

Here is where things get tricky/annoying...

I believe (not sure if this is the exact reason) that AMD doesn't have a license to use Thunderbolt, which is why it's so rare to find an AMD based system with TB. If the Steam Deck had a TB3/4 port on it, using a external GPU would definitely be an option. Not only that we could get a very cool dock that'd boost it's power in a similar fashion to how the Switch actually works.

Now step into bizzarro land; people have connected nvidia cards to the Atari VCS via a pcie -> NVME/SATA bridge. Something similar should be possible on the Steam Deck.

Well thunderbolt doesn't mean much anymore with USB4 coming on devices now as a few AMD laptops with USB4 now and eGPUs work on them now and a bunch of thunderbolt devices. at some point USB4 will come to AMD's other devices so maybe a future deck will have it also.

Unless they make them compatible 100%, which knowing the USB consortium, they will not, then they'll still matter for the next few years. I'm convinced at this point it's just so they can continually make everyone throw out their peripherals and force people to buy the new ones. Then again, those who don't throw them out will make tons of money on eBay when people 30 years from now want a 'retro' system, because cables are cool! (I'm guessing in 30 yeras everything will be wireless. At least one would hope so).

https://www.tomsguide.com/features/thunderbolt-4-vs-usb4-whats-the-difference

Kind of sounds to me that overall TB4 have higher minimum requirements, supports dual monitors, and is also currently in far more use.

Ugh, this annoyance should stop. It is even worse than everyone using USB-c except Apple, because at least those ports looked different. Unless the cables were wired the same between the two... is everyone going to have a drawer full of USB-C cables to have to sort through to find which are rated for which port...

Even if that isn't the case, it is another AMD vs Intel fight we don't need or want...


Last edited by slaapliedje on 12 July 2022 at 11:38 pm UTC

Quoting: tfkWhy is OneShot native but unsupported?

With just having played a little bit of that game I can tell it's that type of game that have you interact with the gamefiles and other stuff like using your login name to 4th wall breaking talking to you and stuff.

So it basically needs a full deskop environment as part of it's gameplay. Which doesn't work in the deck UI. It will work just fine in desktop mode.

Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: fenglengshunHi, while this is quite interesting, perhaps for the next lists we could also add a column for their ProtonDB rating? As someone who can't purchase the Deck, it would still be nice to keep track a comparison of the Deck Verification ratings and the ProtonDB ratings.

On it. Edit: done.

Thank you! That's actually pretty illuminating. Only Alyx is Silver, and that's a VR game (even if it has Native release) so that's not a surprise. A few "Playable" also have "Platinum" rating which is interesting - I'm not sure what Deep Rock can do about its texts, but DDLC I'm pretty sure could be tweaked to have an in-game keyboard if the creator is motivated enough (assuming he doesn't just support auto-invoke On-Screen Keyboard) and Tomb Rider is more of a 'willingness' issue with Launchers and stuff.

It's quite interesting to see that all of them has very good Proton ratings, and generally pretty good Deck ratings. I suppose if they're the type to get high ratings, they're also the type to listen to player requests and thus more likely to pay some attention to Linux support.

Quoting: ElectricPrismThis talk of VR makes me curious. It would make a great Linux video to learn if someone using a dGPU over USB could theoretically run VR.

Obviously the software stack is fine for it.

It's silly and a ridiculous use-case that would never be practical in its current iteration but I do wonder.

That would require TB3/4 or USB4, which have PCIe access. Unfortunately, the SD only has USB 3.2 which lacks such a connection. The only way to use an eGPU on the SD would be via an M.2 adapter, which you can find videos of people testing on YouTube. The problem with this is that it requires opening up the SD, and removing the SSD. So not only is it not convenient, you have to get an OS installed into a MicroSD card or USB drive. Not a practical solution for most use cases.

Quoting: japzone

Quoting: ElectricPrismThis talk of VR makes me curious. It would make a great Linux video to learn if someone using a dGPU over USB could theoretically run VR.

Obviously the software stack is fine for it.

It's silly and a ridiculous use-case that would never be practical in its current iteration but I do wonder.

That would require TB3/4 or USB4, which have PCIe access. Unfortunately, the SD only has USB 3.2 which lacks such a connection. The only way to use an eGPU on the SD would be via an M.2 adapter, which you can find videos of people testing on YouTube. The problem with this is that it requires opening up the SD, and removing the SSD. So not only is it not convenient, you have to get an OS installed into a MicroSD card or USB drive. Not a practical solution for most use cases.

I mean you'd still be strapping a graphics card and then the VR headset to it, so of course it's not practical. Just like buying 40 year old hardware to play games that can easily be covered via FPGA or Emulation... but where's the 'fun' in that?? :)