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


This was probably one of the better videos done. The thing that the buyer must be aware of is this is not a console, it is a PC. This brings a tremendous amount of flexibility, and with that comes caveats that things wont always just work like they do a console. If you are already a PC gamer, you are likely someone is is accustomed to working through these issues, but if you are someone who is not PC tech savy and really just wanted a Switch Pro, this device may leave your frustrated. Game development on consoles is more than just creating good code, its about creating a smooth problem free experience that just works.

The OS is basically in the Beta stage right now, it has issues but luckily its software related and as long as Valve stick with it, they can iron them out over time. Lucky or unluckily for most buyers, it will be weeks or months before you get your Deck and many of the current issues will likely be resolved.

eastmen said:
2) They had over a 100 thousand preorders for just the combined 256/512 models in just the first 90 minutes arstechnica has an article . Remember those numbers are just the first 90 minutes and doesn't include the cheapest sku.
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So we really don't know how many preorders Valve has for the Deck other than we know its over 100k. Did you ask yourself why they didn't report the numbers for the $399 SKU? I have a hunch that its not because the numbers are huge and would be very flattering to report, but instead they don't want consumers to know they allocating minimal inventory to the SKU. It is likely the model they are losing the most money on, but by having it they are able to market the Deck with a "starting" price of just $399. That model was created because they wanted to be able to market it as such, but there intent has always been to get buyers to upgrade to the more expensive models where they arent losing a fortune.
 
Goodtwin said:

This was probably one of the better videos done. The thing that the buyer must be aware of is this is not a console, it is a PC. This brings a tremendous amount of flexibility, and with that comes caveats that things wont always just work like they do a console. If you are already a PC gamer, you are likely someone is is accustomed to working through these issues, but if you are someone who is not PC tech savy and really just wanted a Switch Pro, this device may leave your frustrated. Game development on consoles is more than just creating good code, its about creating a smooth problem free experience that just works.

The OS is basically in the Beta stage right now, it has issues but luckily its software related and as long as Valve stick with it, they can iron them out over time. Lucky or unluckily for most buyers, it will be weeks or months before you get your Deck and many of the current issues will likely be resolved.



So we really don't know how many preorders Valve has for the Deck other than we know its over 100k. Did you ask yourself why they didn't report the numbers for the $399 SKU? I have a hunch that its not because the numbers are huge and would be very flattering to report, but instead they don't want consumers to know they allocating minimal inventory to the SKU. It is likely the model they are losing the most money on, but by having it they are able to market the Deck with a "starting" price of just $399. That model was created because they wanted to be able to market it as such, but there intent has always been to get buyers to upgrade to the more expensive models where they arent losing a fortune.
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Steam never reported numbers. The numbers were grabbed by third parties and they weren't able to get the lowest end sku. Gabe himself said the greatest demand was the 512gig sku in a recent interview.


Also

Q: What's the supply situation looking like for the steam deck? Now i know it was delayed just a little bit from its initially planned December date, how is how's your supply looking right now?

A: Yeah i mean we had to delay for supply chain reasons. Those continue to be issues but we are surmounting them. We imagine that the launch is gonna ramp in production terms, it'll ramp very quickly. In the first month very quickly we'll be in the tens of thousands. By the second month we'll be in the hundreds of thousands. And beyond that it'll grow even quicker. So once we launch the after q2 time slot will become more granular and clearer, and we'll be updating those dates for folks who are in that window as we go. So look at that.
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I doubt they would be growing production if the pre orders and sales weren't there to justify it.

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-steam-deck-is-still-on-track-for-february-launch-valve-says/
"It's a real product launch, so many thousands of people right away are going to receive Decks as soon as we're able to ship them," Coomer said. "But even talking about thousands would be quite low compared to the volumes we're shooting for in the first few months."Valve hasn't disclosed how many Steam Deck pre-orders it's gotten, but Coomer pointed out that the Steam Deck's launch is different than many other hardware launches, where companies need to supply thousands of retail stores. For now the Deck is only being sold through Steam."We're going to have a launch that looks like a significant number of users right out of the gate, and then build that over time, rather than having the biggest splash on day one and then generally declining after that," he said. "If you extend the timeline out through 2022 and all the way to 2023, we expect to be building on our numbers constantly throughout that whole time, to the point where there's many millions of customers if things go the way we think they will, who are using Steam Deck by the end of that year or so, through 2023."
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This is all through steam only. If valve makes partnerships with game stop of best buy then sales will keep going up and be even quicker. But it seems the supply is bottlenecked by production
 
arandomguy said:
This is going to be contentious but based on the current information/impressions so far is it really "Portable PC gaming" or "Portable SteamOS and Steam store gaming." PC gaming to me has to include non Steam store bought games even if we want to ignore the Windows/Linux issue.
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You can run whatever you want on the Steam Deck. Epic, GOG etc. has chosen not to support it, but you can run whatever binaries you want.
 

Cyberpunk works (some weird start up crashes) Dedicated benchmark Low-medium settings native res 1280x800. It plays pretty well in this benchmark staying above 30 with the odd dip under 30. Sometimes it will the mid 40s.

He then tests it Fidelityfx super res 1.0 set to auto inside the game. It jumps up to 45+ fps and reaches into the high 70s at some points . On my monitor it doesn't look that great but it could be okay on the small screen. Will be interesting to try it .

I really hope that Valve and AMD can come up with something a bit better than the current super res.
 
eastmen said:
4) Valve has close to a million preorders spread across $400-$650 dollar skus. I think they have enough demand for the item and It seems like going into this holiday it shouldn't be as supply constraint as it will during q1/2/3. Valve doesn't really need to sell a 100m of them. They just need to get the device out there and selling.
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Here you said they have close to a million preorders, but you have failed to show a source that support this. I'm not saying its not possible, but from the information that is currently available, that statement was pure speculation. I'm skeptical because if Valve does have a million preorders, that would be a pretty flattering number that I find hard to believe they wouldn't report in a press statement. I find it more likely that they were able to get around 200k units manufacture for launch and will be extremely supply constricted for the foreseeable future. If they are able to get production up to even 100k per month, that would be pretty great, but we are still talking low volume product by comparison to something Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo roll out. The Decks demand will outpace supply but people need not take that out of context and start to think demand is enormous. The Wii U launched in 2012 and sold 3.5 million units in its first three months on sale, but went on to be a commercial failure selling just 13.5 million units. As for Valve partnering with a retailer, sure they could do that, but this means the retailer will now be getting a chunk of the revenue making the losses much worse than they are currently by selling direct.

eastmen said:
He then tests it Fidelityfx super res 1.0 set to auto inside the game. It jumps up to 45+ fps and reaches into the high 70s at some points . On my monitor it doesn't look that great but it could be okay on the small screen. Will be interesting to try it .

I really hope that Valve and AMD can come up with something a bit better than the current super res.
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What does FidelityFX choose at a preset when set to "Auto"? From the reviews on FidelityFX I have watched, it seems like anything below the Quality preset is generally perceived to have poor image quality, and normally the Ultra Quality is the one generally chosen. Ultra Quality upscales the resolution by a factor of 1.3, so a game using it on Deck should be able to render 600p while FidelityFX does its work to match the 800p display. It still wont look quite as nice as a native 800p image, but thats never been the point, its always been about creating an image that is superior to the 600p image that is actually being rendered. I'm sure AMD is constantly working on improving FidelityFX, but people need to temper expectations on what the algorithm can do ultimately do, this is not using deep learning AI to fill in the blanks.
 
Goodtwin said:
Here you said they have close to a million preorders, but you have failed to show a source that support this. I'm not saying its not possible, but from the information that is currently available, that statement was pure speculation. I'm skeptical because if Valve does have a million preorders, that would be a pretty flattering number that I find hard to believe they wouldn't report in a press statement. I find it more likely that they were able to get around 200k units manufacture for launch and will be extremely supply constricted for the foreseeable future. If they are able to get production up to even 100k per month, that would be pretty great, but we are still talking low volume product by comparison to something Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo roll out. The Decks demand will outpace supply but people need not take that out of context and start to think demand is enormous. The Wii U launched in 2012 and sold 3.5 million units in its first three months on sale, but went on to be a commercial failure selling just 13.5 million units. As for Valve partnering with a retailer, sure they could do that, but this means the retailer will now be getting a chunk of the revenue making the losses much worse than they are currently by selling direct.



What does FidelityFX choose at a preset when set to "Auto"? From the reviews on FidelityFX I have watched, it seems like anything below the Quality preset is generally perceived to have poor image quality, and normally the Ultra Quality is the one generally chosen. Ultra Quality upscales the resolution by a factor of 1.3, so a game using it on Deck should be able to render 600p while FidelityFX does its work to match the 800p display. It still wont look quite as nice as a native 800p image, but thats never been the point, its always been about creating an image that is superior to the 600p image that is actually being rendered. I'm sure AMD is constantly working on improving FidelityFX, but people need to temper expectations on what the algorithm can do ultimately do, this is not using deep learning AI to fill in the blanks.
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1) Preorders are not sales. Valve is selling it through their own store so they don't need to entice retailers to stock their game. Also preorders have started to get a negative connotation in recent years. They did over a 100k preorders on just 2 of the 3 skus within 90minutes of preorders opening up. That number was found by a third party. The numbers would have only grown from that point on.

2) No idea what fidelityfx does at auto. I am not a fan of upscaling even dlss but at a 8 inch screen it may not be very noticeable
 
eastmen said:
2) No idea what fidelityfx does at auto. I am not a fan of upscaling even dlss but at a 8 inch screen it may not be very noticeable
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Would you say you would prefer a 600p image without FidelityFX than with it? What is it that you don't like? From what I watched, it seems like FX does its best work when there is a much higher rendering resolution. For example, taking a 1440p rendering resolution to a 4k display created good image quality with only a slightly softer image. I do not have much experience with FX, but it was found that Nintendo licensed the tech from AMD for Switch Sports, and when I partifcipated in the stress test, the image quality was certainly different. For example, the markers on the bowling lane could get a bit funky at certain angles, going from perfect triangles like they should be into a shape that wasn't quite a triangle anymore. This was playing on the TV of course, so perhaps results would have looked great on the small screen.
 
Still waiting for me email. Seriously I’m pretty sure I nabbed a unit within the first second. Sigh
 
Goodtwin said:
Would you say you would prefer a 600p image without FidelityFX than with it? What is it that you don't like? From what I watched, it seems like FX does its best work when there is a much higher rendering resolution. For example, taking a 1440p rendering resolution to a 4k display created good image quality with only a slightly softer image. I do not have much experience with FX, but it was found that Nintendo licensed the tech from AMD for Switch Sports, and when I partifcipated in the stress test, the image quality was certainly different. For example, the markers on the bowling lane could get a bit funky at certain angles, going from perfect triangles like they should be into a shape that wasn't quite a triangle anymore. This was playing on the TV of course, so perhaps results would have looked great on the small screen.
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I can't really say if i perfer it or not. I have to try it out on the steam deck screen to see how it looks. It's hard to judge a 800p image that was upscaled and then viewed on my 32 in 4k monitor. On the desktop with my pc I don't like it as it lowers final image quality. I'm not even too much of a fan of dlss because artifacts get introduced into the image. I would perfer native resolution as often as possible and that is why I am a pc gamer. If something doesn't work as well as I want , I can simply buy better hardware
 
iroboto said:
Still waiting for me email. Seriously I’m pretty sure I nabbed a unit within the first second. Sigh
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Sorry bro , I have a trip the first week of april and would love to get mine before then but I highly doubt it will ship in time.
 
eastmen said:
https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-deck-emulation-installation/


Emulation looks great here. I would most likely keep with the 2d systems on this. Would love to see how battery life is when playing snes , genesis and nes games .
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That looks really good. I tried Dolphin on my PC back in 2016, and the emulation just wasn't consistent enough to run games full speed. Mario Kart DD and F-Zero GX still look amazing with nothing more than an uprez.

As for battery life for Genesis, SNES and NES, I would have to think you will get right around the maximum battery life of 8 hours. I get over 6 hours on my Switch running SNES games so its hard to imagine you wouldnt get even more life on the Deck.
 
Goodtwin said:
That looks really good. I tried Dolphin on my PC back in 2016, and the emulation just wasn't consistent enough to run games full speed. Mario Kart DD and F-Zero GX still look amazing with nothing more than an uprez.

As for battery life for Genesis, SNES and NES, I would have to think you will get right around the maximum battery life of 8 hours. I get over 6 hours on my Switch running SNES games so its hard to imagine you wouldnt get even more life on the Deck.
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Phawx has a bunch of videos , it look like the PS3 is when things get rough since those emulators love cpu clocks. But Looks like switch down and ps2 down are very possible.
 
eastmen said:
Phawx has a bunch of videos , it look like the PS3 is when things get rough since those emulators love cpu clocks. But Looks like switch down and ps2 down are very possible.
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I watched the Switch emulation, it didn't look great to me. Mario Odyssey had constant dips into the mid 50's and some hitches down into the 40's. They may be able to iron it out over time, but as it stands, the Switch emulation comes with some performance issues. I suppose if you didnt own a Switch it might be worth a look. The PS3 is a nightmare to emulate, but somehow they are making progress with it. I have been unimpressed with most unofficial emulators over the years. So often they come with glitches and performance problems that just don't bring about a smooth experience, but that looks like it is starting to change. That footage of the Gamecube games running on Deck looks amazing. The older 2D consoles have had proper full speed emulation for decades now. I remember playing NES games on my PC in 1997 with no issues.
 
Goodtwin said:
I watched the Switch emulation, it didn't look great to me. Mario Odyssey had constant dips into the mid 50's and some hitches down into the 40's. They may be able to iron it out over time, but as it stands, the Switch emulation comes with some performance issues. I suppose if you didnt own a Switch it might be worth a look. The PS3 is a nightmare to emulate, but somehow they are making progress with it. I have been unimpressed with most unofficial emulators over the years. So often they come with glitches and performance problems that just don't bring about a smooth experience, but that looks like it is starting to change. That footage of the Gamecube games running on Deck looks amazing. The older 2D consoles have had proper full speed emulation for decades now. I remember playing NES games on my PC in 1997 with no issues.
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Devs already have Vulkan working on Yuzu so very soon there wont be such glaring frame rates issues.


The original Aya Neo seems to have better than switch emulation for the most part. The Original Neo had a Ryzen 5 4500u so unless the emulator is heavily cpu limited the deck should do as well in emulation here. Also the Neo runs windows so there could be more overhead there vs steam deck running linux but who knows


Looking even more into it , the Ryzen 3 200G is able to emulate the switch pretty well too its a quad core clocks up to 3.7ghz
 
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