Steam Deck - SteamOS, Zen2 4C/8T, RDNA2 1.0-1.6 TF, 16 GB LPDDR5 88 GB/s, starting at $399 [2021-12]

I think they are thinking more of the Nvidia vGPU and Intel gvt-g. One GPU accelerating multiple VMs (and possibly accelerating the host itself).

No need to run multiple GPUs on one machine. I'd guess AMD has/had something similar.

Of course, Nvidia vGPU is limited to very expensive GPUs (+ licensing) and Intel's is currently limited to older pre-10nm GPU/IGPs (best way to describe the situation), with no plans to bring it forward via the current open source driver.

So Valve strongarming AMD to produce a better solution via their open source drivers would help immensely, IMO. It would allow a lightweight Windows VM to run as a "gaming-only" guest with the real OS running underneath. In an abstract sense, it's not to dissimilar to how the Xbox One and Xbox Series function w.r.t. OSes and hypervisers.
 
It is not in Valve's interest to have people running Windows on their Steamdecks. Valve won't stop it and will probably do the minimum so that Windows actually runs in some kind of state, but they do not want people using Windows to game on it.
 
tuna said:
It is not in Valve's interest to have people running Windows on their Steamdecks. Valve won't stop it and will probably do the minimum so that Windows actually runs in some kind of state, but they do not want people using Windows to game on it.
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I think for Valve its in their best interest to just get as many people used to this form factor and go out and buy steam decks as possible. If allows them to get an install base built up and gets devs targeting the features of the device. Then in 3 years or whatever the put out a steam deck 2 and from the onset more devs will be willing to support it or will already be supporting it as an extension of the steam deck one.

The other thing is most people hate the windows store and few people express interest in the xbox gaming app on the pc. If it continues to stay that way i bet most people will run steam on windows and maybe subscribe to game pass for its incredible value

Of course Valve can warp linux into wht they want to since its open source. They can really get down into the metal of these chips and figure out how to eek out more power or better battery life and so on and so forth.
 
Why would they invest so much resources (time and money) in Proton, drivers (mesa), Steam OS... only to switch to Windows? If they stick to Linux as a main OS for Deck, they might convince players to buy games on Steam, instead of GOG, Epic, MS Store... if one is available on such stores. I prefer GOG, Steam is my 2nd choice. But as Linux is my primary OS (have dual boot), from now on, I will rather buy games on Steam, even though I can play some windows games from GOG via Lutris (and Wine)

Though I suppose all steam games will have better compatibility with Deck, regardless of OS used. So eitherway, it might be better to buy it from Valve if you want to play it on Deck
 
SpaceBeer said:
Why would they invest so much resources (time and money) in Proton, drivers (mesa), Steam OS... only to switch to Windows? If they stick to Linux as a main OS for Deck, they might convince players to buy games on Steam, instead of GOG, Epic, MS Store... if one is available on such stores. I prefer GOG, Steam is my 2nd choice. But as Linux is my primary OS (have dual boot), from now on, I will rather buy games on Steam, even though I can play some windows games from GOG via Lutris (and Wine)

Though I suppose all steam games will have better compatibility with Deck, regardless of OS used. So eitherway, it might be better to buy it from Valve if you want to play it on Deck
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truth is that the money is in their best interest for the future, but Linux is just not there -as of now-. I've used Windows 11 like 4 hours in more than 2 months and Linux the rest of the time, and I dont want to game on Linux anymore. Is the experience surprisingly good? Sure it is, it's almost a miracle lots of Windows software runs on Linux at all, but the experience, gaming wise, is sub par.

Valve insisted on the fact of the openness and freedom of the system. If they want to succeed, they must let the players choose what they prefer. If they favour Linux other than in using it as the initial OS, I wont buy it, 'cos I want to feel free in a freedoom based machine. If they dont, I will get the GPD Win 4 instead and run anything I like on that.

Btw, Steam OS 3 has been leaked and is already running on GPD Win and Aya Neo and the likes. Like you, GoG is my main choice, but on Linux I got used to Steam a lot more, it's a great platform.
 
eastmen said:
I think for Valve its in their best interest to just get as many people used to this form factor and go out and buy steam decks as possible. If allows them to get an install base built up and gets devs targeting the features of the device. Then in 3 years or whatever the put out a steam deck 2 and from the onset more devs will be willing to support it or will already be supporting it as an extension of the steam deck one.

The other thing is most people hate the windows store and few people express interest in the xbox gaming app on the pc. If it continues to stay that way i bet most people will run steam on windows and maybe subscribe to game pass for its incredible value

Of course Valve can warp linux into wht they want to since its open source. They can really get down into the metal of these chips and figure out how to eek out more power or better battery life and so on and so forth.
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in addition to the great value of gamepass PC, there are other stores like GoG -my favourite though I use Steam more nowadays-, Epic Store, Ubisoft -have some great games there-, EA Play! (quite important for me, also related to gamepass PC or Steam...), Battlenet and so on and so forth. I dont like to stick to a single platform not gaming on Linux regardless of how good it is as an OS, for gaming Windows is the best OS.
 
SpaceBeer said:
Why would they invest so much resources (time and money) in Proton, drivers (mesa), Steam OS... only to switch to Windows? If they stick to Linux as a main OS for Deck, they might convince players to buy games on Steam, instead of GOG, Epic, MS Store... if one is available on such stores. I prefer GOG, Steam is my 2nd choice. But as Linux is my primary OS (have dual boot), from now on, I will rather buy games on Steam, even though I can play some windows games from GOG via Lutris (and Wine)

Though I suppose all steam games will have better compatibility with Deck, regardless of OS used. So eitherway, it might be better to buy it from Valve if you want to play it on Deck
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I'm not saying Valve would switch to windows. I am saying if a user does. The majority of users will still use steam to purchase games . Its the biggest gaming store still. The more units out there the more likely devs will target steam deck and make optimizations based on it. Those might only exist in the steam os versions of the games. So at the end of the day you could install windows but a game might perform much better on the linux side.

For me I will dual boot windows but only because of game pass. There are a lot of games I get for a very low price on game pass and I can share the progress across my 3 main gaming platforms (xbox series x , pc and then steam deck) actually i can play them on more than just that as xcloud lets me stream to my phone or surface device even if they can't natively or performance wise run the games.

Cyan said:
in addition to the great value of gamepass PC, there are other stores like GoG -my favourite though I use Steam more nowadays-, Epic Store, Ubisoft -have some great games there-, EA Play! (quite important for me, also related to gamepass PC or Steam...), Battlenet and so on and so forth. I dont like to stick to a single platform not gaming on Linux regardless of how good it is as an OS, for gaming Windows is the best OS.
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I like GOG but i buy a lot less than on steam. I mostly use GOG for older games like the ultima series and warlords and moo.

I don't use the epic store , not since china got its hands on it. I also don't really use battle.net to be honest the only blizzard game I really liked was diablo 1 and 2 never got into 3. I use EA play / origin because of game pass .

On steam deck I don't have a problem playing on linux if its done well and I get performance benefits be it battery life or better in game performance. If the game performs the same on linux vs windows then I will most likely play in windows on the deck.

At home I just use windows. Since I was a kid I was told windows is done linux is taking over and it just never does . Is it even at 1% for home use ?
 
Some stuff from reddit and twitter


7iiwvrrqqoo71.jpg


Switch on top of steam deck

https://twitter.com/x/status/1439816414072770563

steam deck outside

https://twitter.com/x/status/1439370004365905920

Rivals of Aether

https://twitter.com/x/status/1438946447832010752

Getting over it

https://twitter.com/x/status/1439745424202428416

Audiosurf




Even some vr devs are getting it like the pistol whip devs

https://twitter.com/x/status/1440111275149647877
 
SpaceBeer said:
Why would they invest so much resources (time and money) in Proton, drivers (mesa), Steam OS... only to switch to Windows?
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Most casual users will probably stay on SteamOS and most hardcore users will probably install Windows.

Both are fine and Valve doesn't want to marginalize either of them. They know they'll still get steam sales from the users that install windows and they're not selling the device at a loss.
 
SpaceBeer said:
Why would they invest so much resources (time and money) in Proton, drivers (mesa), Steam OS... only to switch to Windows?
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Not switch to windows, support windows as seamlessly as possible. The user has to supply the windows key.

They would do it for the same reason Google is working on Crostini/Virgil3D, to expand their market. Diminishing the push for developers to natively support the OS can be secondary to greater (partial) adoption by consumers.
 
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-discloses-new-cppc-ryzen-driver-at-conference

According to the presentation, the new CPU driver started development when Valve found problems with the current ACPI CPUFreq driver being used today on all Intel and AMD Processors running a Linux OS. The developer found performance problems with games using its Proton compatibility layer, that was caused by incorrect sysfs calls to Wine from the CPUFreq driver. This is particularly worrying because Valve needs this problem fixed if it wants the Steam Deck to run games smoothly with its custom Zen 2 SoC and Linux-based SteamOS.

Once Valve contacted AMD about the matter, AMD also found other issues pertaining to the older ACPI driver, which were causing problems with Ryzen's performance and power efficiency on Linux.


The problem with the old ACPI driver is largely tied to its age. The driver was created by Intel years ago and was designed for 1st generation Core CPUs and older. Needless to say, this ancient driver cannot take full advantage of all the features AMD's latest Ryzen CPUs can offer.
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Wow the linux driver was made by intel for 1st gen core cpus ? what is that 12 years now ?

AMD is addressing the known issues with its new CPPC driver; effectively the new driver will be able to target any power state it wants for the appropriate workload. AMD will achieve this by providing its own P-state driver to control CPU clock speeds (instead of the Intel version in the ACPI driver), and through the use of multiple governors to control and predict CPU workloads.

In preliminary tests with a Ryzen 7 5750G, AMD found that the new driver has already boosted Zen 3's performance per watt by 10-25%. In TBench and Speedometer 2.0, AMD found a 10.6% improvement in power efficiency using the OnDemand governor. But the largest improvement was from the Gitsource Benchmark, which saw a 26.6% improvement in power efficiency with the same governor.
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That is a great savings for AMD. Hopefully similar happens to zen 2.

n a gaming test, AMD showed off a quick demo of Horizon Zero Dawn running on a Ryzen 7 Pro 5750G, locked to 60FPS, to demonstrate the enhancements made to AMD's new P-state driver. The test shows that the new AMD P-state driver, reduces the clock speed of idle cores significantly, to just 400mhz. Meanwhile, all the idle cores running on the older ACPI driver are only going down to just 3.8GHz.
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That is really great on something like the steam deck they'd be able to get much better battery life , esp on games with poor multi core usage.


Looks like the partnership with Valve will help out AMD in unexpect ways and who knows depending on the driver tech sony uses this might help them too.
 
Sorry for the double post. The Steam Deck FAQ went up
https://www.steamdeck.com/en/faq


Some of the more interesting

What file system format does the microSD card use on Steam Deck?
Steam Deck microSD cards use ext4 with casefolding - Steam Deck formats SD cards to the proper format.

Will Steam Deck support external GPUs?
No, external GPUs are not supported on Steam Deck.

What can you tell us about the BIOS and does it allow dual-boot?
Multi-boot is supported - you can have multiple OSes installed and choose which one to boot into. Users will have access to the BIOS menu.

What kinds of screens do the 64 GB and 256 GB models have?
All models have a glass screen (optically bonded IPS LCD). The 512 GB model's screen has an additional anti-glare etched treatment applied to it.

What kinds of haptics does the Steam Deck have?
The Steam Deck has dual LRA motors, one under each trackpad.
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most aren't really interesting.


Also Phil spencer likes his steam deck
https://www.videogameschronicle.com...team-decks-and-giving-their-initial-verdicts/

Xbox boss Phil Spencer revealed last month that he’s been playtesting the Steam Deck, and said that Xbox games such as Halo “feel good” and “work well”.
“After having mine most of the week I can say it’s a really nice device,” Spencer said. “Games with me on the go, screen size, controls all great. Playing Halo and Age feels good, xCloud works well. Congrats SD team.”
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1440347232725700614

https://twitter.com/x/status/1440374955720409091
 
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eastmen said:
most aren't really interesting.
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This one is awesome:

Can Steam Deck be used as a PC controller?
Yes, you can connect your Steam Deck to a PC via Remote Play and use it as a controller.
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We can use the Steam Deck as a controller that also boots up the game remotely. I know this isn't exactly the most cost-effective way to use the ~650€ handheld, but if they get the ergonomics right then it might become my PC gamepad of choice, for the convenience alone.
 
ToTTenTranz said:
We can use the Steam Deck as a controller that also boots up the game remotely. I know this isn't exactly the most cost-effective way to use the ~650€ handheld, but if they get the ergonomics right then it might become my PC gamepad of choice, for the convenience alone.
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Not sure I'd like the additional latency of using a controller via Remote Play. It sounds like a cool extra feature if you don't have a controller handy already though.
 
Malo said:
Not sure I'd like the additional latency of using a controller via Remote Play. It sounds like a cool extra feature if you don't have a controller handy already though.
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Is there any perceivable latency though? I get that there's latency for the video+audio, but the controller input should be mostly one-directional and the latency should come from the WiFi network alone. Does WiFi have more latency than Bluetooth, for example?
 
I think it depends on exactly what Wifi protocols are in use and which Bluetooth protocols. Then there is the game controller stack itself. For instance, on Xbox they improved the protocol on the controllers and on the game side, called DLI - Dynamic Latency Input, so their Bluetooth controllers used wirelessly get input as quickly as they do when wired.
 
eastmen said:
(...)
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this is new, and my favourite part is the one below. Pretty much confirmed full support for any OS. It's in their (and users) benefit.

What can you tell us about the BIOS and does it allow dual-boot?
Multi-boot is supported - you can have multiple OSes installed and choose which one to boot into. Users will have access to the BIOS menu.
 
ToTTenTranz said:
This one is awesome:



We can use the Steam Deck as a controller that also boots up the game remotely. I know this isn't exactly the most cost-effective way to use the ~650€ handheld, but if they get the ergonomics right then it might become my PC gamepad of choice, for the convenience alone.
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gotta give it a try.

A feature that would be nice to see mentioned in the FAQ is a "Steam Deck" setting for all games.

Given the influence Valve has, maybe they could talk to developers to include a default Steam Deck graphics setting on all games for those who dont like to fiddle.
 
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