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Post by Xeogred on Jul 21, 2021 22:12:03 GMT -5
64GB really is a weird entry point. Guess that's for someone that loves retro games, or indie games, or deleting every game they beat asap to free up space. Like we've joked, that'll barely be enough for a lot of single modern games lately.
Did any of you guys ever use the Steam controller? I never wanted to drop a penny on it, but it looked ... interesting. lol
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Post by Sarge on Jul 21, 2021 22:17:17 GMT -5
I have one. I've barely used it. But it was cheap, cheap, cheap! I could probably turn around and sell it now on eBay for a pretty decent chunk.
*checks prices*
Geez, I could probably sell it for $100. What. The. Heck.
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Post by Ex on Jul 21, 2021 22:33:02 GMT -5
Sarge >Folks point out that Steam doesn't exactly have the best track record in this regard (Steam Machines, Steam Controller).I see those folks forgot about the Valve Index and its controllers then. www.pcmag.com/reviews/valve-index-vr-kit>I expect Switch 2 in the next two years, so Steam won't have too long to establish some sort of market dominance.Until the Deck 2. >Running full versions, unscaled from their big PC counterparts, will likely be very problematic just from the 64GB of (slow) storageI don't know how big recent AAA PC games have gotten, honestly. But I wager you could fit most singular installs in 64GB. Though as I said before, you'd need to juggle the game installs. As far as speed goes, 64GB eMMC PCIe Gen 2 x1 should be ~500MB/s, which is fast enough for many modern PC games, especially eight and seventh gen stuff, which are the gens the Deck appears to target from what I've seen. Don't get me wrong, the SSD model is a big upgrade, and that extra storage is of course good to have! But the base Deck, I don't think it is neutered right out the gate because it lacks an SSD. Especially if someone just wants to play indies on it. And to be honest, I think the base deck is targeting folks who want to play indies more than AAA releases.
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Post by Sarge on Jul 21, 2021 22:48:57 GMT -5
They've gotten big. I'm finding that out with a lot of these AAA games as I snag them from Steam and whatnot. Basically, if you see a hefty install on PS4, expect it to at least be that hefty on PC. I do agree, though, that indies will play just fine on the base model, with a fast MicroSD supplementing. That model would be ideal for someone just wanting an emulation box + indies.
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Post by Sarge on Jul 22, 2021 18:43:39 GMT -5
Interesting long discussion from the Digital Foundry guys about Steam Deck.
Also, potential power envelope from ETA Prime.
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Post by Ex on Jul 23, 2021 11:56:21 GMT -5
Here's a review for the most hipstery hipster handheld ever: arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/07/playdate-preview-you-wont-believe-how-fun-this-dorky-179-game-system-is/"Panic already deserves credit for scaling its design vision to deliver a mix of solid build quality and diverse, built-in games at a $180 price point. This is how you compete with entrenched gaming titans: by putting accessible, unique whimsy into anyone's hands without requiring an instruction manual, all while delivering a fair price-to-content ratio."
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Post by Ex on Jul 27, 2021 11:57:15 GMT -5
"Valve expects that its recently announced Steam Deck portable gaming console will be able to run "really the entire Steam library" on its 1280x800 LCD screen at frame rates of 30 fps or higher. " "If people are still valuing high frame rates and high resolutions on different platforms, I think that content will scale down to our 800p, 30 Hz target very well," he said. "If people start heavily favoring image quality, we might be in a position where we might have tradeoffs, but we're not in a position where we really see that yet." Sounds like Proton is doing its job so far.
"Aldehayyat said that Valve spent a lot of time optimizing Steam Deck's SD card connection so that games stored there should be "comparable" to those stored on the internal SSD storage. He added that the NVMe storage was connected in a separate module and not directly on the motherboard, which could suggest it will be possible to replace as time goes on." The part in red makes me wonder if you could buy the low tier 64-bit SD card Deck, then upgrade it with your own SSD via the NVMe port.
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Post by Sarge on Jul 27, 2021 12:51:02 GMT -5
Possibly, although I suspect it will require some disassembly. Folks that aren't squeamish about that could save a buck that way. I'm just going to go ahead and forge on with that upper-tier model, although it will be nice if I can upgrade the storage as time goes on.
I know there are hardcore PC heads that scoff at 720p/30Hz, but those are very playable framerates for a handheld. And we're talking about AAA titles in this case - most indies will run much faster than that, many of which likely hitting 60 FPS easily, if this old computer I'm fiddling with is anything to go by.
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Post by anayo on Jul 27, 2021 12:58:28 GMT -5
How badly do PC games play over an SD card? I'm sure some tech YouTuber has benchmarked a gaming PC with an SD card as the boot disk for the hell of it.
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Post by Sarge on Jul 27, 2021 13:11:32 GMT -5
ETA Prime had a look at SD loading times. They're playable - it's mostly loading times that increase, but it doesn't seem that awful.
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