Is the Steam Deck getting outdated soon? Should I wait for the next gen?
-
Yeah there isnt anything of the same size with significantly more power afaik. Gotta go with a laptop then if u need the power.
It’s new so reviews are just filtering out but it’s starting to look like SteamOS powered version of the Legion Go S (Z1 Extreme version) is a pretty great handheld that uses the latest AMD chipset with a sizable assist from Linux/proton efficiencies vs Windows to drive a 15-30% performance improvement which does make some more modern games more playable though it is significantly more expensive than the deck. I watched Retro Games Corps review of it yesterday. That said, if you’re okay waiting another couple years or so I bet there will be a Steam Deck 2 release but it seems like it mainly rests on AMD to deliver a significant (“generational”) leap with upcoming mobile APUs. Valve seems keen on not releasing a follow-up to the first deck until it is significantly better in every way and the chipsets available now just aren’t quite there yet it seems.
-
Is the Steam Deck performance struggling with new AAA games? Should I be concerned buying a Steam Deck now?
I'm guessing/hoping not because most game developers would optimise the games for the Switch 2 and Xbox Series S which have similar performances as the Deck.
I think 30 fps (consistent) is perfectly fine, and I don't mind medium details.
Here is my opinion. I absolutely love playing oblivion on my gaming laptop with RTX4080. It looks gorgeous and so do a lot of games.
That said, I'd rather play on the deck with somewhat less graphics and chill on the couch after a long day of work. I just love the portability. Performance is okay for most games (it even plays oblivion okayish with reasonable graphics). A lot of games are optimized pretty well for it.
I just see it as an open source switch you can do and play anything you like on. I have tried windows on it too but personally it has no benefit for me so I use steamOS.
Games I play on it:
Oblivion remastered
Borderlands 3
Risk of Rain 2
Elden Ring
GTA VI also stream from my PlayStation 5 to my deck with chiaki4deck.
-
It’s already outdated for that because the hardware is weak. If what you want is AAA games, just buy a ROG Ally Z1E, it’s much better for your use case. Buy it used.
But I do need to point out that AAA games are trash and you should reflect on your life choices if that’s all you care to play.
Jfc. Dude asked for a simple question, got handed down life lesson.
-
Yeah I have tried cleaning the fans but it doesn't help. I think it is just not designed well for gaming use.
Ah, bad luck
-
Ah, bad luck
Is it just bad luck? I've watched many gaming laptop reviews and most of them seem to mention excessive fan noise. Steam Deck seems to be significantly more quiet, and the Switch 2 is essential silent.
-
Yeah that's my concern as many new AAA games will be UE5. I've also read that Oblivion Remastered struggles on the Deck. (I prefer the original Oblivion anyway).
It's not necessarily UE5 that has issues with the Steam Deck, but what they do with it. For example, Clair Obscur plays well on Steam Deck, but I wouldn't even try to play Ark Survival Ascended.
-
It's not necessarily UE5 that has issues with the Steam Deck, but what they do with it. For example, Clair Obscur plays well on Steam Deck, but I wouldn't even try to play Ark Survival Ascended.
Good to know. Hopefully future UE5 games will be more optimised.
-
Is the Steam Deck performance struggling with new AAA games? Should I be concerned buying a Steam Deck now?
I'm guessing/hoping not because most game developers would optimise the games for the Switch 2 and Xbox Series S which have similar performances as the Deck.
I think 30 fps (consistent) is perfectly fine, and I don't mind medium details.
The next gen steam deck likely isn't coming out for quite awhile still, so it's probably not worth waiting for next gen.
Performance wise, the Steam Deck does struggle to run new AAA games if they're poorly optimized, use UE5, or have mandatory ray tracing for lighting. It's still possible to play most of these games, but it will depend on your tolerance for graphics quality or your willingness to install performance mods. There's also no shortage of good games to play, slightly older AAA games generally work flawlessly and nearly all AA/indie games run great. I have enough good games in my library where I could never buy another game and always have something good to play.
The switch 2 in portable mode has nearly identical power to the Steam Deck, so if it sells anywhere close to Switch 1 I think we'll see a lot of games target being able to run on it. The switch 1 was far enough behind modern platforms to not be worth optimizing for, for most AAA games/devs. But the switch 2 and steam deck generally have enough power to run new games at an almost acceptable level, and that makes optimization a much more appealing target.
Also worth considering is local streaming. If you have a decent PC/PS5 you can stream games to the deck. It can be a good compromise for the games that don't run great natively.
-
Here is my opinion. I absolutely love playing oblivion on my gaming laptop with RTX4080. It looks gorgeous and so do a lot of games.
That said, I'd rather play on the deck with somewhat less graphics and chill on the couch after a long day of work. I just love the portability. Performance is okay for most games (it even plays oblivion okayish with reasonable graphics). A lot of games are optimized pretty well for it.
I just see it as an open source switch you can do and play anything you like on. I have tried windows on it too but personally it has no benefit for me so I use steamOS.
Games I play on it:
Oblivion remastered
Borderlands 3
Risk of Rain 2
Elden Ring
GTA VI also stream from my PlayStation 5 to my deck with chiaki4deck.
FYI- you can also stream from your laptop to the Deck. Technically you can do it on a per-game basis through Steam (which you may have already noticed), but I find it's even better to install Steam Link as a non-Steam game, similar to what you probably did with Chiaki. As long as you have a good local network it's great and uses way less of the Deck's power.
I have no idea why Valve hasn't added Steam Link to the Steam store. That would make things so much easier, and you get way more settings and fewer bugs that way than doing the per-game streaming option.
-
me, who bought the steam deck primarily to play roms of games from 30 years ago: never had a problem so far.
Same, the last roughly 40 hours of my gameplay on the Deck have been PS1/2 and Xbox games, with a few hours of New Vegas sprinkled in.
-
It’s new so reviews are just filtering out but it’s starting to look like SteamOS powered version of the Legion Go S (Z1 Extreme version) is a pretty great handheld that uses the latest AMD chipset with a sizable assist from Linux/proton efficiencies vs Windows to drive a 15-30% performance improvement which does make some more modern games more playable though it is significantly more expensive than the deck. I watched Retro Games Corps review of it yesterday. That said, if you’re okay waiting another couple years or so I bet there will be a Steam Deck 2 release but it seems like it mainly rests on AMD to deliver a significant (“generational”) leap with upcoming mobile APUs. Valve seems keen on not releasing a follow-up to the first deck until it is significantly better in every way and the chipsets available now just aren’t quite there yet it seems.
Efficiency is also a major problem i think. You can always just slap a higher power APU in there, but then you also have to cool that thing. And that means either a higher RPM fan or a larger device with a bigger radiator.
-
Is it just bad luck? I've watched many gaming laptop reviews and most of them seem to mention excessive fan noise. Steam Deck seems to be significantly more quiet, and the Switch 2 is essential silent.
I meant bad luck that you bought a machine with loud fans generally!
-
Is the Steam Deck performance struggling with new AAA games? Should I be concerned buying a Steam Deck now?
I'm guessing/hoping not because most game developers would optimise the games for the Switch 2 and Xbox Series S which have similar performances as the Deck.
I think 30 fps (consistent) is perfectly fine, and I don't mind medium details.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Is the Steam Deck performance struggling with new AAA games?
It did that on day 1. It's a mobile device. You have to temper your expectations.
I'm guessing/hoping not because most game developers would optimise the games for the Switch 2 and Xbox Series S which have similar performances as the Deck.
The XBOX is not going to have similar performance. The Nintendo is actually quite a bit more performant. But more importantly the games on these devices are going to be specifically designed and optimized to run on a specific piece of hardware.
I think 30 fps (consistent) is perfectly fine, and I don't mind medium details.
It obviously depends on the game but newer AAA titles are going to struggle to hit 30FPS on 800p/low.
If you want something with more performance you should get the Legion Go (non S) or Ally X and run Bazzite on it.
Should I wait for the next gen?
Valve is very quiet about these things. I don't think anyone saw the OLED model coming. There were no leaks or rumors. Just boom, one day there it was. So probably no one knows and anyone who says they do is probably lying.
-
If you are looking for an affordable device to play AAA games well on with no issues, get a ps5.
If you are looking for a hand held to play indie titles and the plethora of older games available I'd go for the steam deck.
I think it'll be a while until we get a hand held experience like the steam deck but with AAA capable hardware.
I think it'll be a while until we get a hand held experience like the steam deck but with AAA capable hardware.
That will never happen. Physically larger devices are always going to be more performant. And AAA titles will just increase the demands of games accordingly.
-
Are there electronic goods on the market that aren't, in some part, made in China?
There's a vast different between "a part made in China" and "made by Chinese companies".
-
Is the Steam Deck performance struggling with new AAA games? Should I be concerned buying a Steam Deck now?
I'm guessing/hoping not because most game developers would optimise the games for the Switch 2 and Xbox Series S which have similar performances as the Deck.
I think 30 fps (consistent) is perfectly fine, and I don't mind medium details.
The Steam Deck runs games at PS4-level graphics fairly well. It will definitely struggle with newer AAA games if they don't have graphics options low enough for the Deck.
-
The thing that I would keep an eye out for is if Valve ever does a refresh with a VRR panel. With VRR, you don't need to have "so much excess GPU power that it's impossible to miss a rendering deadline".
Deck doesn't have vrr?
-
FYI- you can also stream from your laptop to the Deck. Technically you can do it on a per-game basis through Steam (which you may have already noticed), but I find it's even better to install Steam Link as a non-Steam game, similar to what you probably did with Chiaki. As long as you have a good local network it's great and uses way less of the Deck's power.
I have no idea why Valve hasn't added Steam Link to the Steam store. That would make things so much easier, and you get way more settings and fewer bugs that way than doing the per-game streaming option.
Check out out Sunshine / Moonlight and Moondeck if you haven’t already
-
Is the Steam Deck performance struggling with new AAA games? Should I be concerned buying a Steam Deck now?
I'm guessing/hoping not because most game developers would optimise the games for the Switch 2 and Xbox Series S which have similar performances as the Deck.
I think 30 fps (consistent) is perfectly fine, and I don't mind medium details.
Is the Deck going to be your first / primary gaming device?
I got my Deck primarily for indie games, 10-30 year old games, or other generally “light” / casual games to play on the go or while watching a show with my partner.
For more demanding games, I’ll run them on my gaming PC and stream to my Deck via Sunshine / Moonlight / Moondeck. This has the added benefit of very low power consumption, meaning that instead of a ~2 hour battery life I get 6 or more.
The added benefit here is that a lot of games seem to be shipping increasingly unoptimized. Things that might have finnicky performance on my 3840 x 1600 monitor run silky smooth when I squish them down to 1920 x 1080 to stream to the Deck, usually with maxed out settings.
In the context of how I’m using it, Steam Deck is probably never going to be obsolete.
If you’re considering it as your primary device and primarily want to play modern AAA games, you should probably be spending at least 2-3x as much on a laptop or desktop. For that use case, Steam Deck is more appropriate as a companion device.
-
Is the Steam Deck performance struggling with new AAA games? Should I be concerned buying a Steam Deck now?
I'm guessing/hoping not because most game developers would optimise the games for the Switch 2 and Xbox Series S which have similar performances as the Deck.
I think 30 fps (consistent) is perfectly fine, and I don't mind medium details.
Decks went from GDPWin with intel HD 615 integrated graphics, running desktop windows in 2016 (we were amazed it could run 2011's Arkham City 25 fps low (definitely playable! lmao)) to Steam Deck where people are still reasonably posting about it having console parity.
RE "outdated soon": this is a $350 handheld x86 computer with an APU powerful enough to drive complex 3d games at 720p. People are going to be buying Steam Decks until they stop making them. Capability and performance per $$ is extremely good for numerous use cases, including people who are gaming like OP.
RE devs optimizing for SD/Switch2/XBS: i hope OP is right? definitely where non-AAA studios are going to be aiming, but AAA studios have weird corpo masters who rarely operate in ways that would make sense to cool people.
