GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited July 2021
People buy un-upgradable laptops to play PC games all the time, and I don't hear anyone screeching about it "not really being a PC because you can't upgrade the hardware". It just seems people want a nit to pick and they are picking it. Which is fine but also predictable.
e: I'll also eat my hat if you can't end up attaching an eGPU to this thing in some capacity. So it's basically a gaming laptop in a different form factor.
I feel like PC gaming has....changed since the Pentium 100 and even the early 2000s?
I bought a 980ti in 2016. It was a very fancy graphics card, and I liked it a lot. The only reason I upgraded was because I bought an even fancier VR headset, that supports 120 hz and has a higher resolution than my old one. VR is incredibly demanding, similar to 4K gaming.
If I were still just using my 60 hz 1440p monitor, I really had no reason to upgrade. When I got my 2070 Super, it was the first time I was like "man there really aren't any flat screen games that I'm going to get tremendous noticeable upgrades for on this". In 2021, yeah there's some really fancy stuff that I can crank up the settings on with this videocard that I couldn't with the old card, but they're really few and far between. It lets me turn on wasteful BS like HairFX or whatever weird new cloth rendering software Nvidia is going to push next. It lets me buy a 144hz monitor and get some extra frames relative to my 60hz one, or a 4K monitor if you're into that. Ray Tracing is sweet and a lot of fun, but you don't need it to be an incredibly content PC gamer running most of their games smoothly with beautiful graphics.
I feel like for 95% of games, you upgrade now for 4K, VR, and >60hz monitors. Those are still sweet luxury items to me, and the vast majority of PC gaming is done at less than that. I love that high end cutting edge PC gaming is a thing, but it's substantially less necessary to play the games you want today than it ever has been before. Developers want to sell games, and it's the rare exception and the rare horrible PC port where you have to have a beast of a rig just to get an engaging experience. I can't tell you the amount of times I buy a new graphics card, then wind up playing indie games like Rimworld or something as ancient as UnReal World a ton in the months to follow -- that's the beauty of PC gaming too. It's not just having all of the bells and whistles, it's having thousands of cheap and easily accessible indie games that can give you 100+ or sometimes 1000+ hours of playtime without having to push the envelope graphically.
There's a huge market for that, and all of those games aren't going to suddenly demand RTX and cutting edge graphics cards; hundreds of games released next year and the year after wont either. If you want something to play the most cutting edge stuff, a handheld that looks like a Switch is never going to be that. But there's an ocean of "PC gaming" to be done that doesn't require that, and it's often just as awesome and engaging or more as the cutting edge stuff.
Man of it can do Xbox cloud streaming. From what I've tried, the steam controller doesn't work for Xbox cloud on phone, but if the deck can, that would be even more tempting.
Through a browser, of course, there's no reason to think it wouldn't. I wouldn't be the surprise if Microsoft openly discusses their plans for Game Streaming support.
Of course, if you were only using it for that, why the heck would you bother? For the same price point, assuming you didn't already own one, you could get a modern Android handset with a better screen (let's assume 1080p, as that's the current cap for Project XCloud, but Microsoft is clear that's not the end of the story), pair it with a controller of your choosing, and have something at least as portable, potentially with much better battery life.
Naturally, the Steam ecosystem really sells this thing (and thus, "It's kind of a PC, you can put Windows on it," as the advanced form of that; it's going to run up against the same streaming limitations as a phone, but potentially worse). Then again, it's hard to picture anyone buying this thing just for Xbox Game Streaming (which is a fraction of the total Xbox Game Pass library) when it's effectively going to run as good, or better, on the platforms it's already come to.
So as a test, I added Edge to Steam library and it ran xcloud with the steam controller fine. Neat.
The biggest draw for this thing to me is that it is affordable and it is available. I'd be paying twice the price for just a GPU if I built my own machine, and that's only if I could get hold of one versus all the crypto bots and scalpers. Then there's the other components that have risen in price too because demand is way up.
I mean it depends on what you want to do with a gaming PC.
I bought something close but not at top of the line in 2016. That PC has never once struggled to play anything I chose to play up till today. I still do not see anything in the near future I could not easily play well. Sometimes I have to tweak settings, that is about it.
So like, if you need something that can play those 1-2% of all game releases that absolutely push the envelop and alienate the average PC owner due to their strict requirements, then yeah this thing would age poorly. However, I guarantee over half or more of the games released in the next 5 or even 10 years will play flawlessly on this thing. And almost anything not one of those AAA games pushing the limits made from now or early will work without question.
I guess that is why I find it a silly argument. Like, honestly, how many games come out per year that need the top of the line hardware to play right? Then, how many people actually play a ton of those games? The answer to that likely is if you care about how much of a valid PC it would be or not.
I didn't say anything about top of the line performance.
I did ask how useful a limited use, non-customisable platform is to a wider audience? What makes this a better purchase than a mid-range laptop/tablet and a Xbox controller?
I mean it depends on what you want to do with a gaming PC.
I bought something close but not at top of the line in 2016. That PC has never once struggled to play anything I chose to play up till today. I still do not see anything in the near future I could not easily play well. Sometimes I have to tweak settings, that is about it.
So like, if you need something that can play those 1-2% of all game releases that absolutely push the envelop and alienate the average PC owner due to their strict requirements, then yeah this thing would age poorly. However, I guarantee over half or more of the games released in the next 5 or even 10 years will play flawlessly on this thing. And almost anything not one of those AAA games pushing the limits made from now or early will work without question.
I guess that is why I find it a silly argument. Like, honestly, how many games come out per year that need the top of the line hardware to play right? Then, how many people actually play a ton of those games? The answer to that likely is if you care about how much of a valid PC it would be or not.
I didn't say anything about top of the line performance.
I did ask how useful a limited use, non-customisable platform is to a wider audience? What makes this a better purchase than a mid-range laptop/tablet and a Xbox controller?
You can play it on a bus to school, a bus to work, a subway, on your lunch break at work, in between classes at the student union much more easily than a laptop and particularly one with an Xbox controller. You can play it standing up waiting for class to start while the professor finishes his lecture from the class before, you can play it while you're waiting in line for something that has a wait time. I loved my gaming laptop in college, but it's not always easy to sit down, find a desk, bust out a mouse or a controller and play games. It's way too much of a hassle to do on a bus or a subway. You also draw more attention to yourself if you do bust out a mouse or controller on a bus or something like that (it doesn't matter to everyone but it does to many); it's just easier to pick up a Switch-like-device and play it for a few minutes than it is a laptop, and it requires less setup.
I mean it depends on what you want to do with a gaming PC.
I bought something close but not at top of the line in 2016. That PC has never once struggled to play anything I chose to play up till today. I still do not see anything in the near future I could not easily play well. Sometimes I have to tweak settings, that is about it.
So like, if you need something that can play those 1-2% of all game releases that absolutely push the envelop and alienate the average PC owner due to their strict requirements, then yeah this thing would age poorly. However, I guarantee over half or more of the games released in the next 5 or even 10 years will play flawlessly on this thing. And almost anything not one of those AAA games pushing the limits made from now or early will work without question.
I guess that is why I find it a silly argument. Like, honestly, how many games come out per year that need the top of the line hardware to play right? Then, how many people actually play a ton of those games? The answer to that likely is if you care about how much of a valid PC it would be or not.
I didn't say anything about top of the line performance.
I did ask how useful a limited use, non-customisable platform is to a wider audience? What makes this a better purchase than a mid-range laptop/tablet and a Xbox controller?
I can keep it in my pants and whip it out and start playing with it immediately, whenever I want.
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
A laptop is bigger, and a laptop with the gaming capabilities of this thing would cost much more. Also, a laptop doesn't have a controller attached to it's screen.
A tablet with a controller cannot be held as one unit (and I think almost all tablets pale in comparison to the power of this thing)
Almost ALL tablets outside of Surface Pro do not use the same Chip architecture to install windows either. Therefore they can't even touch Steam games.
Finally, this is a handheld gaming device. It is setup as such. It is not easy to find something of high quality that involves controllers and a screen built into the hardware. So it also is kind of silly to compare it to those. But if you must, the tablet doesn't even compare because it is NOT a PC, and a laptop will almost be guaranteed to cost more for even close to this amount of power.
Also Fiatil worded it way better than I did. The majority of games out there will play on it and a large number of any coming in the next years will as well. If you want to be able to do this portably there is nothing even close. If you don't, you still would be hard pressed to buy something for that price. If not being able to update it is an issue, you still might be well off spending $400 bucks on this and hooking it into a monitor for a long time until you find a substantial number of games you can't play on it to warrant complete replacement.
Oh yeah, and not to mention, even when you CAN modularly update a PC, how often do people not just replace most of the internals anyway?
Man of it can do Xbox cloud streaming. From what I've tried, the steam controller doesn't work for Xbox cloud on phone, but if the deck can, that would be even more tempting.
Through a browser, of course, there's no reason to think it wouldn't. I wouldn't be the surprise if Microsoft openly discusses their plans for Game Streaming support.
Of course, if you were only using it for that, why the heck would you bother? For the same price point, assuming you didn't already own one, you could get a modern Android handset with a better screen (let's assume 1080p, as that's the current cap for Project XCloud, but Microsoft is clear that's not the end of the story), pair it with a controller of your choosing, and have something at least as portable, potentially with much better battery life.
Naturally, the Steam ecosystem really sells this thing (and thus, "It's kind of a PC, you can put Windows on it," as the advanced form of that; it's going to run up against the same streaming limitations as a phone, but potentially worse). Then again, it's hard to picture anyone buying this thing just for Xbox Game Streaming (which is a fraction of the total Xbox Game Pass library) when it's effectively going to run as good, or better, on the platforms it's already come to.
So as a test, I added Edge to Steam library and it ran xcloud with the steam controller fine. Neat.
I've never added a browser to Steam library (then again, I can't remember the last time I added anything to the Steam library that wasn't already there). But yeah, I guess the real question is if it would work via Steam's own browser. Which I guess yes?
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drunkenpandarenSlapping all the goblin hamIn the top laneRegistered Userregular
I really want a Deck but I'm a sucker for this kind of portable technology and own like three GPD handhelds that do the same thing. But what I really wish they made was just a light weight handheld that holds a battery charge that I can stream PC games around the house over my wifi. I love doing that with the Vita and now I'm using a Retroid 2, but man the battery life on those suckers is awful and they basically require a charge everyday when I'm not using them. I can't help myself that I play too much Satisfactory on the couch while binge watching movies on the TV.
Playing games on the handheld natively is cool and all but I already have a PC that crushes games for me, so it's not really something I need extra for, ya know?
KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
My deposit got through too. I dropped $5 for a 512. I figured one of three things will happen,
Reviews come out and it's a banger and I'll hook it up to my TV or something for easy lan co-oping with the partner, or a mobile game station for when I go home to hang with my sister.
I won't want it and I'll just refund it.
I'll buy it anyway and give it away as an Extra-Life incentive :rotate:
Like I'm not obtuse, I know better than anyone here that there are some things that still don't work well with Linux, but that list is getting smaller every day. Why would you install Windows?
I might be hosed. I got the "It looks like you've been attempting a lot of purchases in the last few hours. Please wait a while before trying again."
Toughest $650 I've ever tried to throw away.
I mean, you are only throwing in $5 though.
That actually might be why a ton of people sign up right now. $5 bucks is NOTHING and just kind of reserves you a spot in line. A lot of people might drop out from that.
I might be hosed. I got the "It looks like you've been attempting a lot of purchases in the last few hours. Please wait a while before trying again."
Toughest $650 I've ever tried to throw away.
I mean, you are only throwing in $5 though.
That actually might be why a ton of people sign up right now. $5 bucks is NOTHING and just kind of reserves you a spot in line. A lot of people might drop out from that.
You make a good point. The reserve price should be 3x the cost instead of just $5. Then they refund you 2x the cost when it comes out and you get 1x back. There will be no more scalpers or mad rush to preorder again ever.
(This is a joke.)
Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
+1
anoffdayTo be changed whenever Anoffday gets around to it.Registered Userregular
I might be hosed. I got the "It looks like you've been attempting a lot of purchases in the last few hours. Please wait a while before trying again."
Toughest $650 I've ever tried to throw away.
I just got this as well. Just punching it might not be the best option because eventually you get this and I'm pretty sure you're done. Any way around it?
Hopefully it works differently here and is just an error, but typically the "too many purchases" cooldown is about an hour or so, just fyi. I think those of us getting that message are just boned.
Like I'm not obtuse, I know better than anyone here that there are some things that still don't work well with Linux, but that list is getting smaller every day. Why would you install Windows?
I think the better question is, why wouldn't you install Windows on it
Did you read that article? It's the headline of what Valve is working on in the leadup to launch for the Steam Deck. All 4 of those games are jacked because Proton doesn't work with anti-cheat just yet, but it appears to be their #1 priority right now from every source that reported on the Steam Deck, and from GabeN as well. Per your article:
Fortunately, Valve is working on solving the problem.
“For Deck, we’re vastly improving Proton’s game compatibility and support for anti-cheat solutions by working directly with the vendors,” Valve wrote on the Steam Deck website.
Certainly an interesting take-away you have there.
Fiatil on
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
Like I'm not obtuse, I know better than anyone here that there are some things that still don't work well with Linux, but that list is getting smaller every day. Why would you install Windows?
I think the better question is, why wouldn't you install Windows on it
Did you read that article? It's the headline of what Valve is working on in the leadup to launch for the Steam Deck. Those games are jacked because Proton doesn't work with anti-cheat just yet, but it appears to be their #1 priority right now from every source that reported on the Steam Deck, and from GabeN as well. Per your article:
Fortunately, Valve is working on solving the problem.
“For Deck, we’re vastly improving Proton’s game compatibility and support for anti-cheat solutions by working directly with the vendors,” Valve wrote on the Steam Deck website.
Certainly an interesting take-away you have there.
I think this is absolutely a case of "wait till this is out to actually see what the thing can run"
Like I'm not obtuse, I know better than anyone here that there are some things that still don't work well with Linux, but that list is getting smaller every day. Why would you install Windows?
I think the better question is, why wouldn't you install Windows on it
Did you read that article? It's the headline of what Valve is working on in the leadup to launch for the Steam Deck. Those games are jacked because Proton doesn't work with anti-cheat just yet, but it appears to be their #1 priority right now from every source that reported on the Steam Deck, and from GabeN as well. Per your article:
Fortunately, Valve is working on solving the problem.
“For Deck, we’re vastly improving Proton’s game compatibility and support for anti-cheat solutions by working directly with the vendors,” Valve wrote on the Steam Deck website.
Certainly an interesting take-away you have there.
I think this is absolutely a case of "wait till this is out to actually see what the thing can run"
Well, I don't play the four games listed so at least for me that article doesn't change anything.
I mean, any game that's relies heavily on an internet connection is not one I typically play on a handheld.
edit: That said, I am still considering running Windows on it myself.
Like I'm not obtuse, I know better than anyone here that there are some things that still don't work well with Linux, but that list is getting smaller every day. Why would you install Windows?
I think the better question is, why wouldn't you install Windows on it
Did you read that article? It's the headline of what Valve is working on in the leadup to launch for the Steam Deck. Those games are jacked because Proton doesn't work with anti-cheat just yet, but it appears to be their #1 priority right now from every source that reported on the Steam Deck, and from GabeN as well. Per your article:
Fortunately, Valve is working on solving the problem.
“For Deck, we’re vastly improving Proton’s game compatibility and support for anti-cheat solutions by working directly with the vendors,” Valve wrote on the Steam Deck website.
Certainly an interesting take-away you have there.
I think this is absolutely a case of "wait till this is out to actually see what the thing can run"
Posts
e: I'll also eat my hat if you can't end up attaching an eGPU to this thing in some capacity. So it's basically a gaming laptop in a different form factor.
I bought a 980ti in 2016. It was a very fancy graphics card, and I liked it a lot. The only reason I upgraded was because I bought an even fancier VR headset, that supports 120 hz and has a higher resolution than my old one. VR is incredibly demanding, similar to 4K gaming.
If I were still just using my 60 hz 1440p monitor, I really had no reason to upgrade. When I got my 2070 Super, it was the first time I was like "man there really aren't any flat screen games that I'm going to get tremendous noticeable upgrades for on this". In 2021, yeah there's some really fancy stuff that I can crank up the settings on with this videocard that I couldn't with the old card, but they're really few and far between. It lets me turn on wasteful BS like HairFX or whatever weird new cloth rendering software Nvidia is going to push next. It lets me buy a 144hz monitor and get some extra frames relative to my 60hz one, or a 4K monitor if you're into that. Ray Tracing is sweet and a lot of fun, but you don't need it to be an incredibly content PC gamer running most of their games smoothly with beautiful graphics.
I feel like for 95% of games, you upgrade now for 4K, VR, and >60hz monitors. Those are still sweet luxury items to me, and the vast majority of PC gaming is done at less than that. I love that high end cutting edge PC gaming is a thing, but it's substantially less necessary to play the games you want today than it ever has been before. Developers want to sell games, and it's the rare exception and the rare horrible PC port where you have to have a beast of a rig just to get an engaging experience. I can't tell you the amount of times I buy a new graphics card, then wind up playing indie games like Rimworld or something as ancient as UnReal World a ton in the months to follow -- that's the beauty of PC gaming too. It's not just having all of the bells and whistles, it's having thousands of cheap and easily accessible indie games that can give you 100+ or sometimes 1000+ hours of playtime without having to push the envelope graphically.
There's a huge market for that, and all of those games aren't going to suddenly demand RTX and cutting edge graphics cards; hundreds of games released next year and the year after wont either. If you want something to play the most cutting edge stuff, a handheld that looks like a Switch is never going to be that. But there's an ocean of "PC gaming" to be done that doesn't require that, and it's often just as awesome and engaging or more as the cutting edge stuff.
So as a test, I added Edge to Steam library and it ran xcloud with the steam controller fine. Neat.
Steam ID: Good Life
I didn't say anything about top of the line performance.
I did ask how useful a limited use, non-customisable platform is to a wider audience? What makes this a better purchase than a mid-range laptop/tablet and a Xbox controller?
You can play it on a bus to school, a bus to work, a subway, on your lunch break at work, in between classes at the student union much more easily than a laptop and particularly one with an Xbox controller. You can play it standing up waiting for class to start while the professor finishes his lecture from the class before, you can play it while you're waiting in line for something that has a wait time. I loved my gaming laptop in college, but it's not always easy to sit down, find a desk, bust out a mouse or a controller and play games. It's way too much of a hassle to do on a bus or a subway. You also draw more attention to yourself if you do bust out a mouse or controller on a bus or something like that (it doesn't matter to everyone but it does to many); it's just easier to pick up a Switch-like-device and play it for a few minutes than it is a laptop, and it requires less setup.
I can keep it in my pants and whip it out and start playing with it immediately, whenever I want.
A tablet with a controller cannot be held as one unit (and I think almost all tablets pale in comparison to the power of this thing)
Almost ALL tablets outside of Surface Pro do not use the same Chip architecture to install windows either. Therefore they can't even touch Steam games.
Finally, this is a handheld gaming device. It is setup as such. It is not easy to find something of high quality that involves controllers and a screen built into the hardware. So it also is kind of silly to compare it to those. But if you must, the tablet doesn't even compare because it is NOT a PC, and a laptop will almost be guaranteed to cost more for even close to this amount of power.
Also Fiatil worded it way better than I did. The majority of games out there will play on it and a large number of any coming in the next years will as well. If you want to be able to do this portably there is nothing even close. If you don't, you still would be hard pressed to buy something for that price. If not being able to update it is an issue, you still might be well off spending $400 bucks on this and hooking it into a monitor for a long time until you find a substantial number of games you can't play on it to warrant complete replacement.
Oh yeah, and not to mention, even when you CAN modularly update a PC, how often do people not just replace most of the internals anyway?
I've never added a browser to Steam library (then again, I can't remember the last time I added anything to the Steam library that wasn't already there). But yeah, I guess the real question is if it would work via Steam's own browser. Which I guess yes?
Playing games on the handheld natively is cool and all but I already have a PC that crushes games for me, so it's not really something I need extra for, ya know?
Steam: pandas_gota_gun
Whoever thought this was going to be a super niche product....
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck yooooooooooooooooooooooooooou
edit: Nevermind. I guess I'm not even on the final purchase screen yet.
"It looks like you've been attempting a lot of purchases in the last few hours. Please wait a while before trying again."
Well that's that I guess.
Now it says "Working" but I don't think it is.
lol https://kotaku.com/steam-deck-might-not-play-some-of-steams-most-popular-g-1847305934
I think the better question is, why wouldn't you install Windows on it
Toughest $650 I've ever tried to throw away.
Yep finally got mine. Now to just wait in line until 2023...
Also it looks like I can remotely install the Steam Deck which is great. Preloading it now!
Yup this is where I'm at. Whenever it doesn't give the other message it returns this one instead.
Half-Life Bejeweled, here we come!!!!!1111
I mean, you are only throwing in $5 though.
That actually might be why a ton of people sign up right now. $5 bucks is NOTHING and just kind of reserves you a spot in line. A lot of people might drop out from that.
You make a good point. The reserve price should be 3x the cost instead of just $5. Then they refund you 2x the cost when it comes out and you get 1x back. There will be no more scalpers or mad rush to preorder again ever.
(This is a joke.)
I just got this as well. Just punching it might not be the best option because eventually you get this and I'm pretty sure you're done. Any way around it?
Did you read that article? It's the headline of what Valve is working on in the leadup to launch for the Steam Deck. All 4 of those games are jacked because Proton doesn't work with anti-cheat just yet, but it appears to be their #1 priority right now from every source that reported on the Steam Deck, and from GabeN as well. Per your article:
Certainly an interesting take-away you have there.
I think this is absolutely a case of "wait till this is out to actually see what the thing can run"
Well when it comes to series x, ps5, and steam deck I am officially 0 for 3.
Well, I don't play the four games listed so at least for me that article doesn't change anything.
I mean, any game that's relies heavily on an internet connection is not one I typically play on a handheld.
edit: That said, I am still considering running Windows on it myself.
There will be no end to rationalisations.
so glad to see that working technology
:so_raven: