Quoting: NerdNoiseRadio

Quoting: Mohandevir

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadioBased on what I see in Steam Deck groups on social media, I would have no trouble believing that it could be as many as 40% of Steam Decks have Redmondsoft on them.

The Steam hardware survey seem to contradict that theory. Thing is, my experience is that the Windows fanboys in the facebook groups I follow are really vocal, but few are actually doing the move and many regret it aftward. It feels more like a vocal minority, imo, but I do not have any proof of that either.

Windows is just unfit for the task. Too much heat, drains the battery much faster and there is a lot more fan noise. On top of that, a desktop OS on a handheld... It's awkward, at best. SteamOS is a big part of it's best aspects. Users love it. Removing it makes the SteamDeck another boring PC... Or "How to transform a handheld into a laptop".

Edit: Not saying you are wrong, there might be a lot of dualbooting though, from what I read: "Xbox gamepass, Destiny 2, COD Warzone..." but since SteamOS doesn't support that, it's not a trek for the faint of hearts... Non techy users might not be really enticed by that solution.

I have had a similar thought occur to me previously that it's only 40% of the enthusiasts that are actually going to Windows, where the radical majority of the more "casual laity" are just sticking with what it came with, meaning, of course, Linux. It's not that these laypeople are actively choosing Linux like you or I or the people in the group would, but passively choosing it by consequence of simply demurring to actively pursue the alternative. However for the purposes of our aims of pushing Linux gaming forward, these disinterested "I'm just here for the games, man" people, I'd say are still probably 90% as valuable to us and our purposes as "we passionate much fewer" are, since Gaming on Linux is still advancing through them even if only by coincidence. I left this out of my last comment because even with the "long-winded" caveat, I was probably coming up on the limits of how long I should make my reply, figuring we could deal with it in follow ups like this one. :-)

Dual-boot situations occurred to me as well, of course, but [and I could definitely be talked out of this], for the purposes of "propelling or curtailing the advance of Linux gaming, I tend to consider them to be more akin to the Windows-only curtailing than to the Linux-only propulsion.

Lastly, as for the desktop situation, i will admit to ignorance over whether or not Steam has a "Steam Mode" client equivalent for Windows like we do in Linux. If so, then I suppose it becomes a distinction without a difference on handheld and TV / couch gaming at that point, except for the battery / thermals / performance things that you mentioned. I had presumed they had had such a client, but I could be wrong. But if they don't have a "Steam Mode" for Windows, and they'd have to do everything on the small screen in Desktop mode and the full-fat desktop Steam Client, then yeah, I could see that really killing the experience.

The one quibble I'll make, and this may not even be a point of contention between us, necessarily, is that here in Linux, I absolutely LOVE that we have desktop mode. Sure it COULD work as a super quirky little laptop with a kickstand and an external KBM, but I basically never use it this way. However, hooked to a USB-C dock on a pair of 1080p monitors and a KBM at a computer desk, or even outputting 1440p on a 49" 4K living room TV using a USB-C dock and wireless KBM, I find the desktop experience really good, and the fact that on top of everything else the Steam Deck is, it's also a full-fat Linux desktop PC that keeps the KDE I love, but gives me an alternative to Ubuntu to play around with that all my other Linux PCs are based on (two on Ubuntu Studio, and one on Ubuntu Web Remix) is I'd say no less than a full third of what makes this thing so valuable and exciting to me! :-)

All you said sounds fair. We are speculating a lot, at this point. It's just that I have the feeling that the 40% is about dualbooting (might be less than that, imo) and mostly for what can't be done on SteamOS exclusively. Those that project to completely replace SteamOS with Windows are rare occurences, from what I read. There are a lot of "I will boot Windows from my SD card". Which is a bad idea, imo, but... Well... Time will tell... At some point, Valve will release sales figures and probably usage...

Steam has a BPM (Big Picture Mode) on Windows too, but it's the old UI that was used in the Steam Machines and it dates a lot. You don't get all the precious Steam Deck optimizations and features.

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Quoting: NerdNoiseRadioBased on what I see in Steam Deck groups on social media, I would have no trouble believing that it could be as many as 40% of Steam Decks have Redmondsoft on them.

The Steam hardware survey seem to contradict that theory. Thing is, my experience is that the Windows fanboys in the facebook groups I follow are really vocal, but few are actually doing the move and many regret it aftward. It feels more like a vocal minority, imo, but I do not have any proof of that either.

Windows is just unfit for the task. Too much heat, drains the battery much faster and there is a lot more fan noise. On top of that, a desktop OS on a handheld... It's awkward, at best. SteamOS is a big part of it's best aspects. Users love it. Removing it makes the SteamDeck another boring PC... Or "How to transform a handheld into a laptop".

Edit: Not saying you are wrong, there might be a lot of dualbooting though, from what I read: "Xbox gamepass, Destiny 2, COD Warzone..." but since SteamOS doesn't support that, it's not a trek for the faint of hearts... Non techy users might not be really enticed by that solution.

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Quoting: const

Quoting: tfk

Quoting: Mohandevir

Quoting: constI wouldn't put witcher3 or gta on that :D

Oups! Currently, I'm running Rise of the Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, The Outer Worlds and Resident Evil Village on my MicroSD Sandisk Pro... The loading times are a little longer, but for my part, it's not a deal breaker... It runs great... Am I doing a mistake?

Neh. I put guardians of the galaxy on it. It's a bit slower in terms of load times but other then that, no issues. And you can always move the games back to the ssd.

That's absolutely true.
Moving big games from internal to sd when I don't feel like playing them for a while and back to internal on demand is really comfy. And chances are you won't feel any difference, anyway. I specifically named GTA and witcher3 since those are the only two games so far where I think the experience was a little improved from internal, though I can't back up that claim :D

It's not really an issue, imo. To each your own.

Personnally, I really do like my 512gb model (coupled with a 400gb sd) and don't regret it at all, but if I had to choose again, I'd probably pick the 256gb model with a 1tb SD. I would pick the 64gb model, but I'm not sure if it's enough to handle all the texture cache data that seems to be downloaded on the internal storage, no matter what. If you install lots of AAA titles... hish!

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Excellent! I'm starting to put money in my Steam wallet for the next Steam Deck, right now!

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Quoting: constI wouldn't put witcher3 or gta on that :D

Oups! Currently, I'm running Rise of the Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, The Outer Worlds and Resident Evil Village on my MicroSD Sandisk Pro... The loading times are a little longer, but for my part, it's not a deal breaker... It runs great... Am I doing a mistake?

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Quoting: TodCWeird that they claim Q4 emails are going out, while mine says expected Q3 and I haven't gotten one. Maybe the cheaper ones are more readily available?

Yep! It's exactly this. The 512gb model is a lot longer to get than any other.

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Good job Valve! Let's make the Linux market share higher than ever!

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Probably the bot made this decisions based on "The fear of the unknown"!

Ridiculous!

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Quoting: jordicoma

Quoting: MohandevirThis device is just fabulous. It's been over a month since I got it and my desktop has been collecting dust ever since. I don't feel I'll get tired of it, anytime soon. Completed HZD on SD. Rediscovered Blaze Rush which I resumed and finished. Just started new Tomb Raider, Grid (2019) and Witcher 3 runs... Lots of emulation too (never did that much emulation, even with my Rpi). The form factor is just a perfect match, for me. I'm not tied to my desk anymore (which I started to dislike, after long work hours) and not limited by the availability of my living room. Whenever I want, wherever I want, Whatever I want. On top of that SteamOS is so comfy to use... Wow!

Happy to hear that those that didn't get it yet will get it even faster. Thanks Valve!

Just I recived the email yesterday.
Hope I'll find as useful as you. I have bad experience with the n switch, as I have "big hands".
But the deck it's much more versatile.

I can't say if it will be big enough (all hands are not the same), but it's similar to holding my Steam Controller... With a screen in the middle. It's bigger and a lot more comfortable than my son's Switch Lite, for sure!

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This device is just fabulous. It's been over a month since I got it and my desktop has been collecting dust ever since. I don't feel I'll get tired of it, anytime soon. Completed HZD on SD. Rediscovered Blaze Rush which I resumed and finished. Just started new Tomb Raider, Grid (2019) and Witcher 3 runs... Lots of emulation too (never did that much emulation, even with my Rpi). The form factor is just a perfect match, for me. I'm not tied to my desk anymore (which I started to dislike, after long work hours) and not limited by the availability of my living room. Whenever I want, wherever I want, Whatever I want. On top of that SteamOS is so comfy to use... Wow!

Happy to hear that those that didn't get it yet will get it even faster. Thanks Valve!

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