Valve gave us the strongest wording yet that a Steam Deck 2 is actually real, although it's still clearly going to be some time away before there's enough of an upgrade.
Recently we had the news that the Steam Deck is finally going to release in Australia, and so now Valve have another market opened up for future hardware launches. So, a few Australian websites managed to get Valve to open up a little to discuss the future and it's sounding good.
Speaking to Reviews.org Australia here's what Steam Deck designer Lawrence Yang said about a Steam Deck 2:
It is important to us, and we’ve tried to be really clear, we are not doing the yearly cadence. We’re not going to do a bump every year. There’s no reason to do that. And, honestly, from our perspective, that’s kind of not really fair to your customers to come out with something so soon that’s only incrementally better. So we really do want to wait for a generational leap in compute without sacrificing battery life before we ship the real second generation of Steam Deck. But it is something that we’re excited about and we’re working on.
Also mentioned in the interview is how they really love seeing all the devices from other companies, even if they're not a fan of the constant device refreshes. There's plenty of other good stuff mentioned in the full interview so be sure to go give it a read.
It's not exactly the freshest news though if you've been following along, since I previously covered Valve's little handbook for the Asia launch, that did make it seem pretty clearly like more was planned. Still, Valve reiterating it so strongly is a great sign.
Until then we've still got plenty to look forward to like the final release of SteamOS 3.6 (it's in Beta) which will bring another big lot of system improvements. And, whatever this ARM64 and Android stuff is for (likely a new VR set).
Also Valve: Releases Steamdeck OLED a year after original...
Quoting: B4nerj3eValve: It's not fair to consumers that we put out a steamdeck every year....Sure, but that's like a PS-slim edition. It's the same hardware with one aspect slightly improved. They're talking about generational (in chip terms) jumps in performance here.
Also Valve: Releases Steamdeck OLED a year after original...
Quoting: missingnoForget about power, I just want a Steam Deck Pocket. One that fits in my pocket.
Have you considered wearing cargo pants?
Quoting: eldakingThis depends a lot on what clothes you wear. I have some cargo pants where the pockets could fill a small laptop, but if you wear women's clothing then it is never happening.
I recall many years ago (2017-2018ish?) someone on r/transgamers posted a screenshot of a skirt with pockets big enough to fit a Switch. Most of the comments were something along the lines of "That's going to be really really uncomfortable to walk in."
As to the main topic, I'm quite curious as to whether they go with ARM for the Deck 2.
Last edited by RandomizedKirbyTree47 on 15 October 2024 at 11:46 pm UTC
Quoting: RandomizedKirbyTree47As to the main topic, I'm quite curious as to whether they go with ARM for the Deck 2.
ARM is probably still a few years away from being PERFORMANT under Linux. Which means it performs close to its raw hardware power levels because atm, its real crap, but yes the ARM's technically work under Linux.
As for the VR Headset, I think a ARM could work to run custom Valve software that has BAKED IN steam streaming support to PC (like real good quality) so people can play PCVR at great quality via USB or WiFi6+/7.
Not sure which ARM chips can decode and encode 4k AV1 120fps in real time. I know the Intel ARC GPU's (cheap/lowpower) can but who knows about ARM chips.... (also x264/HVEC is probably good enough since BANDWIDTH is unlikely to be a issue thanks to compression and highspeed wifi7/usb4 we have these days)
Last edited by TheRiddick on 15 October 2024 at 11:59 pm UTC
Quoting: eldakingThis depends a lot on what clothes you wear. I have some cargo pants where the pockets could fill a small laptop, but if you wear women's clothing then it is never happening.Never happening? Mini handhelds have been a thing for quite some time. I bought a Miyoo Mini Plus on sale a year ago and ended up putting far more time into it than I ever did the Deck.
Surely it's a matter of time before someone gets SteamOS running on a device in this form factor.
Ever since then it has been mild increments at best.
Last edited by rustybroomhandle on 16 October 2024 at 7:42 am UTC
Quoting: TheRiddickProbably a custom lower power version of the AMD Strix Halo APU which I think is coming out soon for use.
Quoting: RandomizedKirbyTree47As to the main topic, I'm quite curious as to whether they go with ARM for the Deck 2.
ARM is probably still a few years away from being PERFORMANT under Linux. Which means it performs close to its raw hardware power levels because atm, its real crap, but yes the ARM's technically work under Linux.
As for the VR Headset, I think a ARM could work to run custom Valve software that has BAKED IN steam streaming support to PC (like real good quality) so people can play PCVR at great quality via USB or WiFi6+/7.
Not sure which ARM chips can decode and encode 4k AV1 120fps in real time. I know the Intel ARC GPU's (cheap/lowpower) can but who knows about ARM chips.... (also x264/HVEC is probably good enough since BANDWIDTH is unlikely to be a issue thanks to compression and highspeed wifi7/usb4 we have these days)
Quoting: TheRiddickProbably a custom lower power version of the AMD Strix Halo APU which I think is coming out soon for use.
Quoting: RandomizedKirbyTree47As to the main topic, I'm quite curious as to whether they go with ARM for the Deck 2.
ARM is probably still a few years away from being PERFORMANT under Linux. Which means it performs close to its raw hardware power levels because atm, its real crap, but yes the ARM's technically work under Linux.
As for the VR Headset, I think a ARM could work to run custom Valve software that has BAKED IN steam streaming support to PC (like real good quality) so people can play PCVR at great quality via USB or WiFi6+/7.
Not sure which ARM chips can decode and encode 4k AV1 120fps in real time. I know the Intel ARC GPU's (cheap/lowpower) can but who knows about ARM chips.... (also x264/HVEC is probably good enough since BANDWIDTH is unlikely to be a issue thanks to compression and highspeed wifi7/usb4 we have these days)
ARM is already performant under Linux, because lots of servers run on Linux/ARM and most Android phones do run ARM.
The real problem will be the emulation needed for x86.
ARM/x86 emulation is complete to in the level that they're now mostly limited by the speed that they can discover new secret instructions in x86.
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