Xbox Series... M?

I agree. As cool as the Steam Deck seems, I don't think it's good enough to act as a GamePass mobile (which is the only thing MS really cares about) unless it's through xCloud. So either xCloud has to improve or MS has to shrink the S as you describe and do something similar on their own.

Shrinking the S is MS's only 'runs games locally' choice I'd have thought. Or at least enough power so games don't know they're running on something different.

I think MS would need 8 cores in the mobile chip that could run close to the S speed the majority of the time. If they go with a lower res like 1080p or 900p they could get away with slightly lower performance out of the mobile soc however. Maybe they would add in infinity cache to help with bandwidth issues ? I am guessing they could stay with 10 gigs of ram if the s is what they are targeting or perhaps it would be easier to just add in 16 gigs of ram at that point.
 
Is there one single game on GamePass that Steam Deck can't play at 1280×800?

As much as I'm hoping for an actual Series M with shrinked Series S hardware, Steam Deck is probably the closest we'll get for a number of years.
 
Not sure, would have to check the ProtonDB to see if it's supported.

Or do you mean from the hardware perspective, provided the game has user selectable resolution to drop to 1280x800? Hmmm, now I have a question on that, what/how does the retail SteamDeck deal with games that only render at 1080p or higher? Does it report higher standard resolution support then downscale at scan-out to display?

I too think a portable device targetting Series S performance is 3-5 years out, needing fabrication shrinks and possibly tech updates like more power efficient CPU/GPU.
 
New Not sure, would have to check the ProtonDB to see if it's supported.

Or do you mean from the hardware perspective, provided the game has user selectable resolution to drop to 1280x800? Hmmm, now I have a question on that, what/how does the retail SteamDeck deal with games that only render at 1080p or higher? Does it report higher standard resolution support then downscale at scan-out to display?

I meant from hardware perspective. I'm not assuming SteamOS 3 / Proton will be able to run Wibdows Store games as the online DRM probably isn't doable in anything other than Windows.

My guess is the Deck can run everything available on GamePass PC right now at 1280×800 with varying IQ settings.
 
My guess is the Deck can run everything available on GamePass PC right now at 1280×800 with varying IQ settings.
Reasonable expectation. What I'm entirely missing is what the memory bandwidth is on this SteamDeck. I only heard chatter that it's pretty bad, but had not seen the exact bandwidth to compare it with the SeriesS. Is it using 128bit memory bus?
 
Reasonable expectation. What I'm entirely missing is what the memory bandwidth is on this SteamDeck. I only heard chatter that it's pretty bad, but had not seen the exact bandwidth to compare it with the SeriesS. Is it using 128bit memory bus?

Who said it's bad?

From the catalogs of Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, only the first and the last sell 5500MT/s LPDDR5 chips. Samsung is only selling a 48Gb/6GB chip which wouldn't fit the Deck's total 16GB.
That leaves Micron, who only makes 64bit wide chips rated at 5500MT/s, ranging between 32Gb and 96Gb. The only thing that would fit the Deck's 16GB would be 2 of these:

https://www.micron.com/products/dram/lpdram/part-catalog/mt62f1g64d8ch-036-wt

2x 64Gb chips at 64bit each.
So at 5500MT/s the Deck should have 5.5GT/s × (2×64bit) / 8byte = 88GB/s.
 
2x 64Gb chips at 64bit each.
So at 5500MT/s the Deck should have 5.5GT/s × (2×64bit) / 8byte = 88GB/s.

Thanks for that. I wasn't certain on the math to go to GBps to readily compare it to console figures. As others are saying, it's not 128bit, which really hampers it.

The relative bandwidth per pixel is nearly 40%, using 800p and 1080p as the targets. That's pretty bad. However if it is 128bit then it's nearly 80%. Not bad but not great either.

800p = 1280x800 = 1,024,000 pixels
1080p = 1920x1080 = 2,073,600 pixels

44 GBps = 45,056 MBps SteamDeck (16 GB total)
88 GBps = 90,112 MBbps SteamDeck (16 GB total)
224 GBps = 229,376 MBps Series S (8 GB game)

SteamDeck = 0.044 MBps / Pixel.
SteamDeck = 0.088 MBps / Pixel
SeriesS = 0.1106 MBps / Pixel
 
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I meant from hardware perspective. I'm not assuming SteamOS 3 / Proton will be able to run Wibdows Store games as the online DRM probably isn't doable in anything other than Windows.

My guess is the Deck can run everything available on GamePass PC right now at 1280×800 with varying IQ settings.

I'd worry more about the next 3-4 years of games or however long your thinking about using the steam deck for. Once next gen games start releasing the steam dec could have trouble.
 
Yes. Once the true next gen games with heavy compute and bandwidth start rolling out I'm guessing the Steam Deck is going to be a 720p machine at best. Maybe that's good enough at 7". It'll be interesting to see. If not, S mobile is likely 4 years out, but I'm wondering if MS bothers.

I still think MS only cares about GP subscriptions. The only reason to go mobile is to please GP subscribers, but it's not mainstream enough for that yet. If 25 mil grows to 50 mil four years from now, there might be enough people that really want GP on a mobile platform. Definitely at 100 mil they could make it work.
 
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Yes. Once the true next gen games with heavy compute and bandwidth start rolling out I'm guessing the Steam Deck is going to be a 720p machine at best. Maybe that's good enough at 7". It'll be interesting to see. If not, S mobile is likely 4 years out, but I'm wondering if MS bothers.

I still think MS only cares about GP subscriptions. The only reason to go mobile is to please GP subscribers, but it's not mainstream enough for that yet. If 25 mil grows to 50 mil four years from now, there might be enough people that really want GP on a mobile platform. Definitely at 100 mil they could make it work.

If people want a Mobile xbox then there needs to be a social media campaign that is large showing that people want a mobile xbox. Microsoft makes a lot of prototypes and some come to market and some don't. The duo released because of the consistent pressure from social media showing a small but strong ground swell of support.

I think it would be in gamers best interest if people start flooding the xbox twitter with articles on steam deck asking MS where is the portable xbox .

As for a mobile series S ,

Rembrandt-U | 15W | Zen3+ | Navi2 | 6nm | LPDDR5/DDR5

Not sure if this will be powerful enough. But perhaps a 5nm or 3 nm version would be.

For a steam deck 2 I was thinking 2024 with a 3nm amd apu . I would certainly buy a zen 3 or 4 / rdna 3 based upgrade to a steam deck.
 
The CPU is the problem for a mobile series s.
It would need to match the 8C16T 3.x of the XSS.

What they could have done was release a mobile device that plays last gen and back games locally, and stream current gen games.

Get a decent catalogue to play when unable to stream, and a decent device to stream current gen to.
Lower powered so decent size and battery life.
VRR screen
Good controls
HDMI out to connect to TV
Wifi & possibly 4G
Reasonable price

The question is would anyone want one that doesn't play current gen locally? I suspect in some markets yes.
May be a bit late for such a device now though, just before release of current gen would have worked well.
 
Rembrandt-U | 15W | Zen3+ | Navi2 | 6nm | LPDDR5/DDR5

Not sure if this will be powerful enough. But perhaps a 5nm or 3 nm version would be.

Seems like it's probably 12 CU's, so not unless the back compat team can work some sort of arse about face magic to reduce rendering resolution from the S.

Is Rembrandt 8/16T cores? I couldn't see that info with an admittedly brief search over a cup of tea.
 
But perhaps a 5nm or 3 nm version would be.

Sure, let's wait 5/7 years just in the middle of a new generation to have something comparable to Series S in a mobile format.
Why not build now something comparable to a One S then?
 
Sure, let's wait 5/7 years just in the middle of a new generation to have something comparable to Series S in a mobile format.
Why not build now something comparable to a One S then?

Apparently, because every top brass suit within console makers is afraid of Big Bad Nintendo on anything handheld.
 
Sure, let's wait 5/7 years just in the middle of a new generation to have something comparable to Series S in a mobile format.
Why not build now something comparable to a One S then?
https://www.computerworld.com/artic...for-3nm-silicon-iphones-and-more-in-2022.html

I dunno looks like MS could put out a 3nm handheld as early as 2022 if they wanted to pay the premium for chips.

As for something based on the One S . Well I don't think it would be smart for MS to continue investing resources into a what 8 year old hardware design. Series S will be relevant for another 5-6 years based on the last few MS consoles ( Xbox 360 launched 2005 replaced by xbox one launched in 2013 so a 8 year life span. xbox one replaced in 2020 so a 7 year life span. ) So would a portable xbox series s level console be a big issue if it his in 2023 ? You'd still get a good 4-5 years where the hardware is relevant and maybe an additional 1-2 years on top of that while the generation transitions like we are in now.
 
He said comparable, he never said based on.

Still seems to be a waste doesn't it ? lets say they target xbox one but use zen 2 and rdna 2 to achive that. You have a ton of features just sitting there wasting away on the chip. Then what are you going to do ? You already have people complaining that the series s is holding everything back but now you have something even less powerful out on the shelves.

I dunno doesn't seem to be a smart way to go
 
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