Quoting: CatKillerMicrosoft, of course, does have a gaming software ecosystem to lean on for profits, and releasing an Xbox-branded handheld that plays Windows games could really put a spoke in the wheels of the Steam Deck.

But they said that the Steam Deck is an Xbox Handheld.

https://bgr.com/tech/phil-spencer-hints-that-the-steam-deck-could-be-the-portable-xbox-of-our-dreams/

Edit: This said, it feels like Valve is using the Steam Deck and SteamOS 3.0 to try and create something similar to Google and Android with many OEM jumping in the fray along with their own hardware and, who knows, custom SteamOS versions.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: Mohandevir

Quoting: CatKillerBut it's definitely not primarily a hardware play (they aren't making anywhere near enough units, by several orders of magnitude)

Why so? I always tought it was a matter of offer and demand, in the hardware market... You want to have enough inventory to meet the demand, but not too much of it so as not to get stuck with it. If there is a demand, why wouldn' Valve try to ramp up the production of Steam Decks?

To make a credible console, you need to be aiming at sales of around 100 million units, and you need everyone to know that you're aiming for that kind of audience for your platform so that everyone buys in. Low sales breaks the entire model. Valve aren't making anything like that many. Nowhere near. You need to sell worldwide to normal people in normal shops. Valve aren't doing that, either.

As a demonstration device for Linux gaming, you only need to sell a few million devices; the important thing is to get people talking about it. That's perfectly in line with what we've seen about Valve's production capacity. As a demonstration device for Linux gaming, your primary audience is PC gamers. You need to already have a Steam account to buy a Steam Deck. For a console, having competitors making similar devices running the same OS and the same games would mean that you'd lost, and badly; as a demonstration device for Linux gaming, having competitors making similar devices running the same OS and the same games means that you've won, and someone else is doing your work for you. Valve have said that they want other companies to make similar devices.

I'm sure that Valve are very satisfied that there's lots of demand, and they'll scale up production to make as big a splash as they can. It's just not at the scale of a console and isn't doing console things. They've said themselves that it's an experiment, to gauge their assumptions about where they've got to.

I get your point, but I see a "flaw" (might be too strong a word)... No other company will be able to challenge Steam Deck's pricing ranges. Valve was able to offer agressive pricing because they mainly sell games. Those that could challenge them are Sony or Microsoft, who knows how to undersale consoles and get the money invested back on game sales. DELL's potential UFO will never be able to challenge the Steam Deck on this aspect... Just like any other PC handheld that we've seen up to this date. The Steam Machines suffered from too high prices in the same way.

I'm quite sure that the Steam Deck will stay relevant for years, in this market and will be the leader of the segment. Let's hope Valve is aware of that and ready to face the challenge.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: CatKillerBut it's definitely not primarily a hardware play (they aren't making anywhere near enough units, by several orders of magnitude)

Why so? I always tought it was a matter of offer and demand, in the hardware market... You want to have enough inventory to meet the demand, but not too much of it so as not to get stuck with it. If there is a demand, why wouldn' Valve try to ramp up the production of Steam Decks?

At this moment, it's pretty hard to have a clear idea of Valve's intentions, due to the chip shortage that's draining nearly all resources, but I doubt they wouldn't try to meet the demand. That's what I would do if I was launching a new product, at least.

The Steam Deck presale gave Valve a good insight of what's to come for the Steam Deck, imo. Let's wait and see, but it would be weird if they didn't decide to capitilize on the opportunity, imo.

Edit: I mean, it might not be primary now, but who knows, it might come to this, at some point.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

+15 that are broken due to Anti-Cheat that may be within reach when Proton support is enabled... Not bad at all!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I'm about to commit a crime posting this here:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RADV-Mesa-21.3-Older-RT

An old RX 570 might be able to do some Raytracing on Linux, but not on Windows... An argument for the SteamDeck to stick with SteamOS 3.0? Coupled with AMD FSR?

No clue if it's relevant, it's just a tought and I found the news funny (RTX on Linux, but not on Windows).

Edit 1: Reformulated the last phrase.

Edit 2: It could be the missing piece of the puzzle for Stadia to add Raytracing support too...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Might not be that kind of digital table top games, but this news makes me think about "Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth" which is one of our family weekend games, which makes me think about the Steam Deck... Could be a nice combination to replace the huge laptop/screen that I have to setup at one end of the table... Mmmm...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: MohandevirIt might be something easier to implement with an officially supported build, optimized for the Steam Deck? Something like variable resolution, depending on the screen's output resolution (native or external)?

Gamescope already sits between the game surface and the display surface, and can happily lie to either of them as it sees fit (hence being able to easily cap the framerate at 30 fps if you want to, to save battery). It should be pretty straightforward to slot FSR in there as an automatic scaling method. There are already a couple to choose from.

Forgot about that piece of tech. Looking forward to see it in action. Didn't know it could be used for "FSR Scaling". Awesome!

Edit: Forgot that CP2077 was tested at High preset... 20-30fps in those conditions is already surprising for such a device... I expected that kind of performances... At low preset.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: MohandevirOne doesn't prevent the other. I mean, for edge cases like CP2077, FSR could help raise the fps counter for a smoother overall experience, on the native screen.

Sure, and once you've got the framework in place you could use it either way, but if you've got less than 1280×800 pixels available, that's not a lot of information to work with to make the image look good; you'd probably rather turn something else down other than the resolution to get better performance. Whereas having the same performance docked as not, and having an image that doesn't look too terrible, would be universally pretty useful.

It might be something easier to implement with an officially supported build, optimized for the Steam Deck? Something like variable resolution, depending on the screen's output resolution (native or external)?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: kokoko3kOT:
Is there a way to inject FSR in games that do not support it natively, maybe through vkBasalt?

Yes. One of the custom Protons (I think GE?) has it automatically for the part that scales the window size to the display size (FSHack), and gamescope does the same conversion: they've already said that they're interested in having FSR available as a scaling method there. Vulkan-only, I think, and it doesn't work if the game has its own scaling, and it makes the UI blurry if you do it outside of the game.

Personally, I followed this "How to":

Forbes: AMD FSR via ProtonGE

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: MohandevirI wonder if they'll add AMD FRS support to Proton and do some upscale to 800p... Did that with Witcher 3 and F1 2021 (900p upscaled to 1080p). It lowered my GPU temps by 10°-15° (probably not going to happen on an APU) while giving me a performance boost with no noticeable visual impacts. In fact, imo, the contrasts looked better and it solved my fan noise issues.

A more likely use case for FSR than games running on the internal display is to scale up the image when the device is docked and avoid a performance hit.

One doesn't prevent the other. I mean, for edge cases like CP2077, FSR could help raise the fps counter for a smoother overall experience, on the native screen.

View this comment - View article - View full comments