Early tests of Steam deck promising

B00nie

B00nie

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Linus tech tips got early access to the Steam deck and was really impressed, contrary to what some members here predicted:

 
AustinW said:
well go figure they like it, LTT is more or less a click bate marketing firm.
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So you're disputing that he was able to run the latest Windows games on linux, live on screen at 60fps? Was it all CGI effects, didn't happen?
 
B00nie said:
So you're disputing that he was able to run the latest Windows games on linux, live on screen at 60fps? Was it all CGI effects, didn't happen?
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Quite a few of the latest windows games will already run on Linux, so even more being able to on an OS that designed specifically for that isn't that amazing.
 
Good watch; I'm really liking the thermals they got (larger form factor, so it makes sense).

The Steam Deck might actually have me looking forward to going on travel again.
 
Good thing it was not a 2020 item, the market of rich people stuck on public transport for long time that would be interested in this was probably small.
 
Deck launch is going to be hillarious. Bunch of people installing windows and then QQing that their Deck doesn't do X or Y. It doesn't pauses games right... the tilt aim doesn't have a driver ect ect.
Yes it runs Linux and its going to be what you want on it folks. Don't go and down grade your experience to windows. If a couple of Anti cheat laden DRM hooked into the HAL layer crap aren't working day one... don't sweet it, publishers will dump most most of that terrible anti consumer junk Microcrap has been letting them get away with for years. This should give the industry the Linux critical mass required to correct all that junk.

The first few months are going to be hilarious though... it can run Windows but #1 WHY would you want to do that... and #2 don't expect great hardware support the device doesn't sell with windows and uses a bunch of pretty custom hardware beyond just the AMD cpu/gpu.
 
ChadD said:
Deck launch is going to be hillarious. Bunch of people installing windows and then QQing that their Deck doesn't do X or Y. It doesn't pauses games right... the tilt aim doesn't have a driver ect ect.
Yes it runs Linux and its going to be what you want on it folks. Don't go and down grade your experience to windows. If a couple of Anti cheat laden DRM hooked into the HAL layer crap aren't working day one... don't sweet it, publishers will dump most most of that terrible anti consumer junk Microcrap has been letting them get away with for years. This should give the industry the Linux critical mass required to correct all that junk.

The first few months are going to be hilarious though... it can run Windows but #1 WHY would you want to do that... and #2 don't expect great hardware support the device doesn't sell with windows and uses a bunch of pretty custom hardware beyond just the AMD cpu/gpu.
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I REALLY want this to force developers to give Linux versions on the PC as well. But I see companies going out of their way, if people install windows on the device, to just keep providing what's required for their games to work in windows on it.

If I'm a game developer for this device, or a company that has provided hardware towards the device, and porting my windows driver to the device or game is easier, I probably will.

I still think it will be a select few that even bother installing windows, though. Most won't realise what it's running on because they won't care. It runs my games? Cool.


In the end MS has tons of clout. I hope they use that clout to push Linux since they seem to be working with it heavily these days.
 
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auntjemima said:
I REALLY want this to force developers to give Linux versions on the PC as well. But I see companies going out of their way, if people install windows on the device, to just keep providing what's required for their games to work in windows on it.

If I'm a game developer for this device, or a company that has provided hardware towards the device, and porting my windows driver to the device or game is easier, I probably will.

I still think it will be a select few that even bother installing windows, though. Most won't realise what it's running on because they won't care. It runs my games? Cool.


In the end MS has tons of clout. I hope they use that clout to push Linux since they seem to be working with it heavily these days.
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It will just be sweet hearing all the wine from those having issues getting windows on it ect. I look forward to trolling with the "windows is just too hard to install properly" and "Windows doesn't just work and trying to find all the drivers to work is horrible and hard" :) /jk
 
ChadD said:
It will just be sweet hearing all the wine from those having issues getting windows on it ect. I look forward to trolling with the "windows is just too hard to install properly" and "Windows doesn't just work and trying to find all the drivers to work is horrible and hard" :) /jk
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You and I both know that windows hardware has an insane amount of driver support. Thinking that these are proprietary parts and not off the shelf, or extremely similar to that, is a bit short sighted.

If windows can be installed on the device, it will have drivers available and 45 million tutorials on launch day.

Support for a windows ecosystem far surpasses that of Linux, in any form.
 
auntjemima said:
You and I both know that windows hardware has an insane amount of driver support. Thinking that these are proprietary parts and not off the shelf, or extremely similar to that, is a bit short sighted.

If windows can be installed on the device, it will have drivers available and 45 million tutorials on launch day.

Support for a windows ecosystem far surpasses that of Linux, in any form.
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Perhaps and when features Valve has been talking about like game pausing and resuming... and tilt aiming don't work day one I look forward to the tantrums. I am just poking fun... seriously this thing is designed for Linux, its not designed for windows... and it is probably going to be a janky experience with Win 11 or 10... Zen2+RDNA2 won't be shipping on anything else when this gets to end users. And who knows what the state of windows drivers for the chipset will be like never mind things like haptic joysticks ect.

It will run windows but it will be a sub class experience. Your going to have to boot into windows at 720p... download drivers, run windows updates. Get steam working in big picture properly. (I guess you can use a external monitor but who knows if a USBC monitor is even going to work with win out of the box) Its going to be 20 steps... where as SteamOS 3 is going to be instant on and into the Steam interface instantly. I don't expect many people are really going to put windows on this. I also expect a ton of "How do I reinstall SteamOS on my deck" threads as well. Looking forward to testing out SteamOS 3 looks like Valve has the deck seamlessly switching to a KDE desktop when you dock the Deck which looks pretty damn slick to me.
 
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Correct. It is designed to run Linux, and Valve is working closely with hardware partners to tweak the experience on Steam OS 3.

Yeah, I'm sure Windows will install, but it probably won't be a great experience. People will do it, and if the device is popular there will probably be community fixes for things like the gyro aiming (if Valve doesn't do it themselves).

Still, it will be a second rate experience. And, yeah, I ran Windows 10 on a GPD Win 2, I have some idea of how it works and it wasn't great.
 
Furious Nerd said:
In a good way, right? Seems very low price for what it is. Wonder how supply will be. OOS constantly for the next year? Hopefully not
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Yes - a very decent price for what it does. I doubt I would buy the first ones, maybe wait a year for any bugs that may pop up with something new.
 
Price is pretty low, but that is what makes it viable as a mainstream device. Things like the new GPD cost over a grand, and are unwieldy at that form factor (in which case just get a laptop).

At $400 entry level (and I'm sure Valve is probably eating the cost here) they can reach a wide audience. This could even be great as a first gaming PC for console gamers, great replacement for a laptop/switch combo for travel, kids learning Linux for the first time.

It's huge. It could potentially be way bigger than the XSX or PS5 (not in the total units but in the influence it could have on the market). Like the PS5 is just like PS4, but better. Some cool stuff with the controller, but it's just a new version of an existing product. The Deck is a whole new product line altogether.
 
ChadD said:
Deck launch is going to be hillarious. Bunch of people installing windows and then QQing that their Deck doesn't do X or Y. It doesn't pauses games right... the tilt aim doesn't have a driver ect ect.
Yes it runs Linux and its going to be what you want on it folks. Don't go and down grade your experience to windows. If a couple of Anti cheat laden DRM hooked into the HAL layer crap aren't working day one... don't sweet it, publishers will dump most most of that terrible anti consumer junk Microcrap has been letting them get away with for years. This should give the industry the Linux critical mass required to correct all that junk.

The first few months are going to be hilarious though... it can run Windows but #1 WHY would you want to do that... and #2 don't expect great hardware support the device doesn't sell with windows and uses a bunch of pretty custom hardware beyond just the AMD cpu/gpu.
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What a pipe dream. I'll go ahead and predict the opposite. People will be confused about why their Steam Deck barely supports their favorite games and then these people put Windows on it as a result. Obviously people are going to gravitate to the option that offers better compatibility and better performance.

Windows driver support is fine, by the way.
 
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That's a good point. Despite what Valve says, there are way too many games to get to 100% compatibility in 4 months. It's just not possible.

But, if they can work with developers to get like the top 100 titles working perfect, and better generic support for the rest, I think that is a good place.

People will install Windows, sure. I just hope they give Linux a fair chance.
 
cybereality said:
That's a good point. Despite what Valve says, there are way too many games to get to 100% compatibility in 4 months. It's just not possible.

But, if they can work with developers to get like the top 100 titles working perfect, and better generic support for the rest, I think that is a good place.

People will install Windows, sure. I just hope they give Linux a fair chance.
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Heh I couldn't imagine someone being so stupid to install Windows on it actually. But I guess there are strange people.
 
B00nie said:
Heh I couldn't imagine someone being so stupid to install Windows on it actually. But I guess there are strange people.
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Well I think Steam OS 3.0 will be the better user experience, but it's not dumb to customize it with whatever OS you want. It would be much worse if Valve locked it down like a console. Here people have their choice.
 
cybereality said:
Well I think Steam OS 3.0 will be the better user experience, but it's not dumb to customize it with whatever OS you want. It would be much worse if Valve locked it down like a console. Here people have their choice.
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I think it will support Linux better out of the box, as it's designed for it in mind. At the same time, I know how people get with modifying consoles, or handhelds, and I suspect the Windows experience will be just as good in no time.

To think that Windows won't run flawlessly on a device when Linux will, on current mainstream hardware, is foolish.

Not directed towards you, just the guys who think Linux will somehow be the best on it. I think they will be comparable.
 
auntjemima said:
What's so stupid about it? The support for ALL games? In a gaming handheld? Yeah, SO DUMB, IDIOTS.

AMIRITE?!
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Have fun even installing windows... I look forward to all the QQ. As we have been saying for years with Linux most people especially gamers that think they are IT gods are simply not all that capable of installing an operating system. Those types of gamer gods that have no idea how to partition things trying to install windows on a 720p screen having to find compatible keyboards external monitors and the like it really is going to be a hilarious type of karmic fun for some of us.

Then when its all installed people are going to wonder why their plugged in external monitors don't behave as expected when windows is running... ect ect. I also look forward to the issues people will have trying to resize things so they can see them properly. Windows at 720p is a janky experience.

We'll see though a few months before the actual launch. I do expect Valve will have the vast majority of the steam catalog up and running. Developers that where resistant to help are turning around pretty quick. Tons of hardware preorders will do that. The fact is supporting Linux via proton has never been all that much work... some of the large publishers just like their spyware storefront/DRM/"anti cheat" $ makers more. I expect valve will have darn close to everything running well by the end of the year.

They built the developer tended proton profile infrastructure a few years ago. No one really expected the big developers would actually start adding them, I it was wishful thinking on Valves part. Now it looks like they had a plan. Its not like 4 or 5 years ago where convincing a developer to support Linux meant building out a completely new version of their game, or worse hiring a third party company to do it. Now for most games its a few hours of tweaking a profile... and in some cases perhaps a day or two of patching a few non standard windows behaviors. The barriers for developers are significantly reduced for official support.
 
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auntjemima said:
I think it will support Linux better out of the box, as it's designed for it in mind. At the same time, I know how people get with modifying consoles, or handhelds, and I suspect the Windows experience will be just as good in no time.

To think that Windows won't run flawlessly on a device when Linux will, on current mainstream hardware, is foolish.

Not directed towards you, just the guys who think Linux will somehow be the best on it. I think they will be comparable.
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There is a reason Valve loads into a version of their big picture mode.

Default windows installs at 720p with onscreen keyboards and touch screens. I'm not so sure it will be all that usable without plugging in an external monitor to at least get it setup and tweaked. I don't know perhaps microsoft will add some sort of 720 friendly auto mode to win 11... but I don't expect it. And most people are still going to try and put 10 on it anyway.

It will run games under windows fine I'm sure... I expect its going to drive people nuts getting there is all.
 
auntjemima said:
I think it will support Linux better out of the box, as it's designed for it in mind. At the same time, I know how people get with modifying consoles, or handhelds, and I suspect the Windows experience will be just as good in no time.

To think that Windows won't run flawlessly on a device when Linux will, on current mainstream hardware, is foolish.

Not directed towards you, just the guys who think Linux will somehow be the best on it. I think they will be comparable.
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Windows on (x86) Chromebooks is a thing, and depending on which model and when it has its quirks. I ran Windows on a Chromebox so I saw stuff about missing keyboard drivers, but it didn't affect me; HDMI audio was weird for a while on all the similar hardware though. I'd expect similar details to be wonky on the Steam Deck unless they test Windows during development. No big deal, tinkerers gonna tink.
 
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ChadD said:
Have fun even installing windows... I look forward to all the QQ. As we have been saying for years with Linux most people especially gamers that think they are IT gods are simply not all that capable of installing an operating system. Those types of gamer gods that have no idea how to partition things trying to install windows on a 720p screen having to find compatible keyboards external monitors and the like it really is going to be a hilarious type of karmic fun for some of us.

Then when its all installed people are going to wonder why their plugged in external monitors don't behave as expected when windows is running... ect ect. I also look forward to the issues people will have trying to resize things so they can see them properly. Windows at 720p is a janky experience.

We'll see though a few months before the actual launch. I do expect Valve will have the vast majority of the steam catalog up and running. Developers that where resistant to help are turning around pretty quick. Tons of hardware preorders will do that. The fact is supporting Linux via proton has never been all that much work... some of the large publishers just like their spyware storefront/DRM/"anti cheat" $ makers more. I expect valve will have darn close to everything running well by the end of the year.

They built the developer tended proton profile infrastructure a few years ago. No one really expected the big developers would actually start adding them, I it was wishful thinking on Valves part. Now it looks like they had a plan. Its not like 4 or 5 years ago where convincing a developer to support Linux meant building out a completely new version of their game, or worse hiring a third party company to do it. Now for most games its a few hours of tweaking a profile... and in some cases perhaps a day or two of patching a few non standard windows behaviors. The barriers for developers are significantly reduced for official support.
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The year of Linux!

Again..
 
auntjemima said:
The year of Linux!

Again..
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No probably not. The year of Linux on the deck... of course.

If 5% of people that buy chromebooks put windows on them... expect that number to be around double for the deck. I do strongly believe that half those folks are going to be disappointed, and probably bad mouth the deck as a result. More then the "how to install windows on your deck" articles and videos ect... I look forward to the "how to reinstall Steam OS on your deck" stuff that follows. lol
 
I have professional sound cards and printers that have Linux driver support and haven't been supported under Windows since the advent of Windows 10, and no, Windows 7 drivers don't work correctly. Driver support issues exist under all operating systems.

The year of the Linux desktop is whenever you want to dump Windows for something better. Bear in mind that 'desktop' is the operative word here, with every update (not to mention Windows 11), Windows is becoming more of a mobile touch operating system with a fat fingered UI that makes poor use of screen real estate.
 
ChadD said:
having to find compatible keyboards external monitors and the like it really is going to be a hilarious type of karmic fun for some of us.

Then when its all installed people are going to wonder why their plugged in external monitors don't behave as expected when windows is running... ect ect. I also look forward to the issues people will have trying to resize things so they can see them properly. Windows at 720p is a janky experience.
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Buying a mobile PC like device to end up playing with a keyboard and monitor do sound like something some people will do, but that a subniche of a niche affair and not really something anyone will do, outside of trying to do it for the fun of making it work. Or I am missing the point quite a bit.
 
LukeTbk said:
Buying a mobile PC like device to end up playing with a keyboard and monitor do sound like something some people will do, but that a subniche of a niche affair and not really something anyone will do, outside of trying to do it for the fun of making it work. Or I am missing the point quite a bit.
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use it mobile and then plug it into a usb-c hub with mon/m/kb when you get home. seems like a reasonable use case to me...
 
LukeTbk said:
Buying a mobile PC like device to end up playing with a keyboard and monitor do sound like something some people will do, but that a subniche of a niche affair and not really something anyone will do, outside of trying to do it for the fun of making it work. Or I am missing the point quite a bit.
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Like pendragon says... using these docked will be quite popular. I admit I'm thinking to myself... do I want a new basic little LInux laptop for when I need to recover someones windows password, do a little pen test or chroot into something ect. Or CAN I perhaps do it with a deck. Hey I'd happily write one of these off if I think I can get away with it. lol Its for sure more powerful then the little baby Samsung I use for that now. (of course the IO situation probably kills the idea haha)

What I am talking about is trying to do actual windows things on a 720p monitor. Remember these come preinstalled with Linux. No need to read bios settings... no need to read little baby text on an install screen. No worrying about finding the right video driver before the screen properly displays on the screen. Imagine looking for all the little windows settings most people mess with when installing WITHOUT having it plugged into a proper monitor.

As sold... when you fire up a deck it will automatically be running a new version of Steams big picture. Its going to have a easily readable text size... it will be click install click play on your games. When you dock a Deck as sold into the valve sold dock... it will fire up a Linux KDE desktop environment on the plugged monitor. It will be seamless. Windows is not going to be. If you want windows to autoboot into big screen I'm pretty sure that is doable but first your going to have to set your windows install up to do that... and its not going to automatically throw up your windows desktop when you plug into a dock. (at least not without some user tweaking)

The Deck is a well thought out consumer device that is going to behave just like you would expect it to when docking... and when your not docked your not going to have any real reason to try and squint at a desktop intended to run at a min of 1080p. I expect the windows on deck experience is probably going to be frustrating. Even if people release some nice helper setup scripts and the like you still got to get windows on it to begin with. And a lot of people buying the deck are just not going to have the hardware around to make that easy.
 
Mazzspeed said:
I have professional sound cards and printers that have Linux driver support and haven't been supported under Windows since the advent of Windows 10, and no, Windows 7 drivers don't work correctly. Driver support issues exist under all operating systems.

The year of the Linux desktop is whenever you want to dump Windows for something better. Bear in mind that 'desktop' is the operative word here, with every update (not to mention Windows 11), Windows is becoming more of a mobile touch operating system with a fat fingered UI that makes poor use of screen real estate.
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I admit I am interested to see what a fresh windows 11 install is going to look like on the deck though. Who knows perhaps there touch stuff will fire up and work well at 720p... I bet it won't. But it might. I look forward to seeing how that goes anyway. Of course 90% of the people trying are likely to be trying to stick windows 10 or even 7 on it anyway. :)
 
ChadD said:
Like pendragon says... using these docked will be quite popular. I admit I'm thinking to myself... do I want a new basic little LInux laptop for when I need to recover someones windows password, do a little pen test or chroot into something ect. Or CAN I perhaps do it with a deck. Hey I'd happily write one of these off if I think I can get away with it. lol Its for sure more powerful then the little baby Samsung I use for that now.

What I am talking about is trying to do actual windows things on a 720p monitor. Remember these come preinstalled with Linux. No need to read bios settings... no need to read little baby text on an install screen. No worrying about finding the right video driver before the screen properly displays on the screen. Imagine looking for all the little windows settings most people mess with when installing WITHOUT having it plugged into a proper monitor.

As sold... when you fire up a deck it will automatically be running a new version of Steams big picture. Its going to have a easily readable text size... it will be click install click play on your games. When you dock a Deck as sold into the valve sold dock... it will fire up a Linux KDE desktop environment on the plugged monitor. It will be seamless. Windows is not going to be. If you want windows to autoboot into big screen I'm pretty sure that is doable but first your going to have to set your windows install up to do that... and its not going to automatically throw up your windows desktop when you plug into a dock. (at least not without some user tweaking)

The Deck is a well thought out consumer device that is going to behave just like you would expect it to when docking... and when your not docked your not going to have any real reason to try and squint at a desktop intended to run at a min of 1080p. I expect the windows on deck experience is probably going to be frustrating. Even if people release some nice helper setup scripts and the like you still got to get windows on it to begin with. And a lot of people buying the deck are just not going to have the hardware around to make that easy.
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its amd based so all of that, except the tiny screen during setup, might be moot. it might all just pnp under windows. there really doesnt seem to be anything too special about it.
 
pendragon1 said:
its amd based so all of that, except the tiny screen during setup, might be moot. it might all just pnp under windows. there really doesnt seem to be anything too special about it.
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Possibly... Valve has said they are working on windows support. I take that to mean that some things like touch drivers may not be as simple as install and go if you have say a current windows 10 ISO. Probably going to need driver downloads... and if you have no other method if input ?

I guess we'll have to see. I mean its very possible this being a very new AMD chipset... that basic things like WIFI won't work on older ISOs. I can forsee windows 11 working without issue... but windows 10 installs being completely fubar unless your prepared. (which isn't a big deal)

I have no doubt windows will run on it of course and run well. My doubt it more... will the average gamer who considers themselves a member of the PC master race be capable of installing windows smoothly. I have met plenty of such "experienced PC users" who wouldn't bat an eye if I told them to add a argument with a value of one to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY cause it was going to make them more leet. :)
 
ChadD said:
Possibly... Valve has said they are working on windows support. I take that to mean that some things like touch drivers may not be as simple as install and go if you have say a current windows 10 ISO. Probably going to need driver downloads... and if you have no other method if input ?

I guess we'll have to see. I mean its very possible this being a very new AMD chipset... that basic things like WIFI won't work on older ISOs. I can forsee windows 11 working without issue... but windows 10 installs being completely fubar unless your prepared. (which isn't a big deal)

I have no doubt windows will run on it of course and run well. My doubt it more... will the average gamer who considers themselves a member of the PC master race be capable of installing windows smoothly. I have met plenty of such "experienced PC users" who wouldn't bat an eye if I told them to add a argument with a value of one to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY cause it was going to make them more leet. :)
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yeah the gyro and TPs might need a valve driver, unless theyre off the shelf parts. yup, we'll see.

"average gamers" are not "pc master race". average gamers arent the ones buying these up, its "master racists" ;) and enthusiasts.

so what enter do you want me to add?! its run>regedit right?! ;)
 
pendragon1 said:
use it mobile and then plug it into a usb-c hub with mon/m/kb when you get home. seems like a reasonable use case to me...
Click to expand...

Is the target audience (geek people with a steam game libraries with a mon-m-kb at home) really not already having a more powerful machine (what those mon-m-kb connected too ?)

Has for the 720p monitor issue, my current third monitor is a 900p and I am not sure it will be that big of an issue.
 
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LukeTbk said:
Is the target audience (geek people with a steam game libraries with a mon-m-kb at home) really not already having a more powerful machine (what those mon-m-kb connected too ?)

Has for the 720p monitor issue, my current third monitor is a 900p and I am not sure it will be that big of an issue.
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maybe. lots have multiple systems, maybe its set up in the living room.
its not just the res, its the size too.
 
pendragon1 said:
maybe. lots have multiple systems, maybe its set up in the living room.
its not just the res, its the size too.
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I think it will mainly be the size, living room like a switch do make sense, if you do not have an old laptop or almost anything hanging around able to stream steam from your powerful machine instead (is it known that this will not be able to stream your windows steam machine game over the network if you want to simply plug it on the TV ?).
 
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