With a Nintendo Switch 2 on the way, I hope Valve make a Steam Deck 2

I feel Valve has done pretty much everything they can for anticheat compatibility. The issues that remain are the Hall Of Shame (Epic, Riot, Electronic Arts, Roblox, Bungie, etc.) that refuse to make the AC work because of whatever excuse they made up that day.

The excuse typically is something like "Because Linux users are evil h4xx0rs and because open source is insecure by definition! Only closed-source operating system can ever be trusted."

Which doesn't help my impression of people using rootkit anti-cheat doing so because they're not very competent at coding or game-design. :D

The excuse typically is something like "Because Linux users are evil h4xx0rs and because open source is insecure by definition! Only closed-source operating system can ever be trusted."

I always love it when they say that there aren't enough of us to be worth supporting and that we account for the majority of cheaters in their multi-million-user Windows games, in the exact same breath.

he excuse typically is something like "Because Linux users are evil h4xx0rs and because open source is insecure by definition! Only closed-source operating system can ever be trusted."

Which doesn't help my impression of people using rootkit anti-cheat doing so because they're not very competent at coding or game-design. :D

Absolutely. The "Linux users are haxxors" excuse is so stupid, the people who cheat in video games are all dumbass script kiddies that use Windows. Linux users that are hackers have better things to do than cheat in a game.

Whole thing about open-source being insecure by definition is also dumb as a rock. Microsoft Windows is about as secure as a screen door on a submarine. Kernel level anti-cheat only exists because Windows is insecure enough to let programs meddle with Ring 0.

If, for example, the recent xz debacle happened on Windows, we wouldn't know a single solitary thing about it. Meanwhile, the second the backdoor was found, it was patched out of every distro.


Last edited by pilk on 9 May 2024 at 9:05 pm UTC

What do you think is a good cadence for updates? 3 years? 4 years? more?
The 8 year cadence of the switch is too long as it has definitely been losing developer interest in the last two years as it's too weak to support on multiplatform releases anymore.

It's far too long, the Switch was low-powered even at release and it has missed a fair amount of games as it's just not strong enough.

For the Deck 2, my suggestion there about announcing it late 2026, would mean a release in 2027. Making it about 5 years between Deck and Deck 2 which for a PC platform seems pretty darn reasonable to me, considering the Deck struggles a lot with newer games right now.

If they did this, they could sweeten the deal with a max settings set top box focused on RT at high frame rates and a Steam Controller 2.0.


Last edited by D34VA_ on 9 May 2024 at 9:46 pm UTC

Time to fire up those Amigas, Atari STs or DOS systems and play the loads of games that released for them that you never had time to get to! Or even the loads of new games that have been coming out for them!

With how the industry is going to have to lie in the unsustainable bed that it's made for itself, I'm currently preparing for an emulation-heavy approach to gaming in the future until things right themselves again, so I'll certainly be checking out the new stuff alongside revisiting old favourites and digging into stuff that passed me by!

I don't know if there are newer stats available, but anecdotally I think tablet use peaked around then, and has declined a lot since.

Edit: here's some recent browser stats, which have it at around 2%
https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet

I didn't look exhaustively, but I think it peaked at less than 7%
https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet/worldwide/2014

And was already on the decline when mobile overtook desktop
https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet/worldwide/2016

I struggled to find more recent ones because I didn't know where to look - many thanks for digging those up.

It's still just as sad of a picture, though, since for all intents and purposes "Mobile" and "Tablet" are the same thing here, with people opting to use phones and tablets (all running the same mobile OSes) interchangeably for internet tasks, instead of PCs - when you put the two together, you get 60% of the market in favour of the mobile/tablet side (with an unknown amount of the PCs also being portables themselves, I'm sure).

You should buy one of these! https://www.shop.apollo-computer.com/ Amiga platform, they're currently working hard on getting Atari ST platform supported, and the Amiga side already can outperform emulating a mac classic as well!

You should buy one of these! https://www.shop.apollo-computer.com/ Amiga platform, they're currently working hard on getting Atari ST platform supported, and the Amiga side already can outperform emulating a mac classic as well!

I've never heard of these before! What are they, exactly?

hm, personally i got it b/c its a full pc and its open without any of the hassle you get from sony or nintendo about modding even the software on it , i almost never used it as a handheld its always docked and i almost play it on the big screen, IN FACT, its a very compact portable linux pc and for the rest i call it my "stream"-deck b/c it plays more games than my linux mint pc does (i dont have windows anymore i ditched it after it bricked the firmware on my ssd drive on a fresh install)

So i guess the Oled is somewhat lost on the likes of me, that said : to Valve, i bet its not about how much they make from selling the decks, its how many clients they get who buy more games because they have one, THATS where their money and cash cows are (i think) so eventually they're gonna have to but i think later is better than too soon here, with the new stuff coming out adding on hardware maybe its better to wait until it settles a little and THEN bang out a better hardware config for less money (b/c for aforemention the end-cow is in the cashwaters ... i mean (lol) the main money is made from the games that are sold on it, now also while driving the bus so to speak)

Ofcourse im not a CEO of a billions company that has clout all the way to China and even if Newel doesnt look the part he sure is one sly fox which has been proven over the years and with all the complaints everyone keeps wanting to be published on steam right ?

Maybe hes one of my all-time fav modernday CEOs actually i dont know what decks go for today but they go HERE (in belgium) for like double or more than what i paid when i got one, last time i saw they went for 800-900 (euros) which puts them next to the Asus one and maybe the other too i dont really follow up i been more into mister fpga and home assistant stuff lately tho my streamdeck is still one of my most prized posessions ... i had but one remark on that : COOLING ... i think it gets too hot too fast which probably takes off of the longevity and putting casefans on it helps but not enough since the case doesnt have enough vent-holes to get a decent flow

Couldnt make any other remark on it tho after i took it out of the box and ever since, since i only run it docked i basically have no idea of battery life but having the option to have a spare, ready-charged bat "on the go" which you can replace while you're in the camper or on the bus to school might also not be the worst idea maybe ...

that said ... i should do some #stuff, thanks to Liam and the boys and girls who make this site happen , we loves it !!!!

You should buy one of these! https://www.shop.apollo-computer.com/ Amiga platform, they're currently working hard on getting Atari ST platform supported, and the Amiga side already can outperform emulating a mac classic as well!

I've never heard of these before! What are they, exactly?

The Vampire? I'll try and give a short version of it...

Ages ago, someone came up with an idea for a true successor to the Amiga (since there were AmigaNG systems that required PPC, and otherwise old Amiga's stagnated with AGA). One of the first things they wanted was a Super AGA chipset (SAGA). It was also developed along with an m68k successor, an '68080' CPU. This became the Vampire. The current version of the vampire (version 4) comes in several forms; V4SA (Vampire 4 Stand Alone) and Accelerator boards, A500, A600, A2000, A2000. The A3000/A4000 one is in design stage, I believe.

The V4SA you can kind of think of as sort of a MiST type thing in size, but is dedicated solely to M68k FPGA cores. It started off basically as an all Amiga compatible system. Right now the designers are working hard on getting Atari ST implemented, and of course the Mac side of things is very well emulated already via Shapeshifter on the Amiga side. Fun little device, for sure!

For a "thinksumer"

When I think Sumer, top of mind has to be the epic of Gilgamesh.

Is it weird how much I want to just write an entire thesis on how Gilgamesh and Hercules are so similar that many of the key story points for the two could be assumed that Hercules likely stole a lot of elements from Gilgamesh, or in fact the hero stories of the Greeks just expanded on the original Sumerian?

Just for fun of course...

The Vampire? I'll try and give a short version of it...

Ages ago, someone came up with an idea for a true successor to the Amiga (since there were AmigaNG systems that required PPC, and otherwise old Amiga's stagnated with AGA). One of the first things they wanted was a Super AGA chipset (SAGA). It was also developed along with an m68k successor, an '68080' CPU. This became the Vampire. The current version of the vampire (version 4) comes in several forms; V4SA (Vampire 4 Stand Alone) and Accelerator boards, A500, A600, A2000, A2000. The A3000/A4000 one is in design stage, I believe.

The V4SA you can kind of think of as sort of a MiST type thing in size, but is dedicated solely to M68k FPGA cores. It started off basically as an all Amiga compatible system. Right now the designers are working hard on getting Atari ST implemented, and of course the Mac side of things is very well emulated already via Shapeshifter on the Amiga side. Fun little device, for sure!

Oh that sounds awesome. Not sure I'm enough of an Amiga user to really get the best out of it (I never had one back in the day, but knew people who did, and mainly got into the games library via emulation, starting with titles old friends had introduced me to as a kid), but I can certainly appreciate how cool it is.

Is it weird how much I want to just write an entire thesis on how Gilgamesh and Hercules are so similar that many of the key story points for the two could be assumed that Hercules likely stole a lot of elements from Gilgamesh, or in fact the hero stories of the Greeks just expanded on the original Sumerian?

And why do we assume that Gilgamesh is original, and not simply a collection of earlier myths and stories that were never written down?

* 6-8 cores (no need to go above 8) that's very power optimized

afaik, runing 1 core at 4ghz consume way more power than 2 cores at 2 ghz, so maybe increasing the ammount of cores might be a good idea

Agreed, 4 cores is fine for the current deck, but it would need more for deck2.

Issue is that even with this times of fat multithreading, games still needs a fast single core.

But having 8 zen5c optimized for power, would easily be >3 times as powerful in the same power budget. Note that the zen2 cluster in the Deck is a bit gimped, it doesn't clock well, and due to the memory controller configuration suffers from memory latency issues where the cores just use more power for no performance gain when going over 80% of their rated clockspeed (which is already low).

So I was suggesting to just take that further, as in optimizing for power a little harder would be I think a better solution.

Note the *c cores are basically BIG cores, just power optimized. So don't clock as high. I think currently the 4c cores are about 60% of the area, performs identically clock-for-clock, but delivers only 80% of the clock-speed. All whilst pulling less power at every performance point.
So Assuming they use a core optimized in the same way, you could get a significant speedup in the same low power budget that a handheld would have.

Is it weird how much I want to just write an entire thesis on how Gilgamesh and Hercules are so similar that many of the key story points for the two could be assumed that Hercules likely stole a lot of elements from Gilgamesh, or in fact the hero stories of the Greeks just expanded on the original Sumerian?

And why do we assume that Gilgamesh is original, and not simply a collection of earlier myths and stories that were never written down?

I actually don't think he was, and that it's just the oldest version of the Epic that we've found. Just like a lot of the old testament stuff has equivalent stories found on old tablets once we started digging up the Sumerian stuff. A whole lot of them refer to a time before the great deluge, where there was much art and culture destroyed.

Ha, I think about such things a lot, as I try to design my own campaign settings for games. Like how legends form, how religions form (as some of them definitely seem to form from the legends, or even to the point where stuff like 'Oh, the gods gave birth to him, he was a demigod!' certainly could be added to a story to make it more incredible and captivating, or simply some way to excuse a hero that pulled off amazing feats.

Some myths and legends are simply used to describe events that happened in nature. I think as far as Zechariah Sitchin's work goes, the most intriguing thing is his idea that the cosmology of the planets being described in plays by the Babylonians to describe how the solar system was formed. That's just a really cool concept!


Last edited by slaapliedje on 13 May 2024 at 2:58 pm UTC

Is it weird how much I want to just write an entire thesis on how Gilgamesh and Hercules are so similar that many of the key story points for the two could be assumed that Hercules likely stole a lot of elements from Gilgamesh, or in fact the hero stories of the Greeks just expanded on the original Sumerian?

And why do we assume that Gilgamesh is original, and not simply a collection of earlier myths and stories that were never written down?

I actually don't think he was, and that it's just the oldest version of the Epic that we've found. Just like a lot of the old testament stuff has equivalent stories found on old tablets once we started digging up the Sumerian stuff. A whole lot of them refer to a time before the great deluge, where there was much art and culture destroyed.

Ha, I think about such things a lot, as I try to design my own campaign settings for games. Like how legends form, how religions form (as some of them definitely seem to form from the legends, or even to the point where stuff like 'Oh, the gods gave birth to him, he was a demigod!' certainly could be added to a story to make it more incredible and captivating, or simply some way to excuse a hero that pulled off amazing feats.

Some myths and legends are simply used to describe events that happened in nature. I think as far as Zechariah Sitchin's work goes, the most intriguing thing is his idea that the cosmology of the planets being described in plays by the Babylonians to describe how the solar system was formed. That's just a really cool concept!

I do suspect that there was a substantial shift from older stories, just because this story is told from the perspective of a city, a city-state, and that was kind of a new different thing at the time.