from Hacker News

Valve hit a home run with the first year of Steam Deck

by cunidev on 12/15/22, 5:11 PM with 24 comments

  • by staticman2 on 12/15/22, 8:19 PM

    The biggest problem with the Steam Deck is the performance is less than ideal when paired with a 4k tv.

    I don't mean performance as in "the games run bad" I mean performance as in "I can't get this thing to reliably treat my Oled TV as a primary monitor, Swich to 4k resolution, and shut off the Steam Deck's second screen when I dock it with the official dock."

    I don't think this system is ever going to be competitive with the Nintendo Switch and the inevitable Switch 2 at seamlessly docking between desktop and handheld mode. (Which I read developers need to support to be approved on the Nintendo Eshop.)

    On the other hand the Steam Deck can play The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess HD and The Legend of Zelda Wind Waker HD in handheld mode, which for some bizarre reason is not something the Nintendo Switch can currently do.

  • by titusjohnson on 12/15/22, 5:45 PM

    Yeah they did. I hit a rut in gaming a couple of years back and the Steam Deck has really revived a lot of the joy I get from single player gaming. I've had a blast installing ancient games from my library and reliving memories.

    The Deck can really take advantage of all the Xbox forward ported titles that still play better with a controller, and I've picked up a lot of those over the years on sale.

  • by jcpham2 on 12/15/22, 6:22 PM

    Bought one for my kid LAST CHRISTMAS only to be delayed until this year but I'm finally giving it to him for Christmas this year. I've ben sitting on it for months and it is killing me.

    Really nice unit.

  • by nubb on 12/15/22, 6:51 PM

    emudeck alone makes the Deck worth every penny. playing ps2 games on a handheld is friggin awesome.

    my biggest complaint is the battery life but the device charges surprisingly fast.

  • by willio58 on 12/15/22, 8:20 PM

    I'm looking forward to future iterations, that's probably when I'd jump to get one. I know this is far fetched, but what I want is to be able to dock the steamdeck to my 4k dev monitor and get 60+ fps on steam games while using discord.

    I use a mac for life/work, but do want to game with friends and that would be perfect for me.

  • by mgdev on 12/15/22, 7:56 PM

    I hadn't really gamed in years. Until Steam Deck

  • by aarpmcgee on 12/16/22, 1:26 AM

    I returned mine for two reasons:

    1. The UI is horrendously slow/laggy/crashy.

    2. It is yet another disposable device with a battery that cannot be easily replaced[1], which I consider to be unconscionable.

    Otherwise, I liked it.

    [1]: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+Battery+Replacement/...

  • by Andaith on 12/16/22, 12:47 AM

    If there's anybody from Valve reading this, when will the Steam Deck be available in Australia? I'd love to get my hands on one.

  • by dan_hawkins on 12/16/22, 12:54 PM

    I can't believe the current state of Windows API emulation by Proton. I installed Heroic Game Launcher yesterday, got to my GOG account and installed "Control" from there. It's a triple-A title and it works almost flawless (tiny glitches pop up from time to time, no big deal.) Unbelievable!

  • by sudofail on 12/15/22, 6:15 PM

    I've been hesitant to buy one just because it seems like the screen is subpar. The OLED Switch screen is beautiful, and I'd really like to see something like that in the Steam Deck before purchasing it.