They don’t want to compromise battery in favor of performance and I agree. With smaller games like Hades or cult of the lamb my steam deck battery will last and last. On more demanding games like cyberpunk or Armored Core I get a little over an hour out of it best case scenario.
Beefier graphics hardware will only make that issue worse.
I so often use mine plugged in as I’m not walking or in a park, I’m on a bus or train which can often have a plug, so not much of an issue there, however I’m not playing high-end games, it’s so good for stuff like Hades and whatnot.
Personally I don’t plan on playing big games like these on the go anyway, so battery life isn’t going to be a problem.
I was thinking of getting a docking station with an m.2 slot for those bigger games to play when I’m home.
Only waiting for new generations of GPUs and CPUs can help there I guess, those usually push things a lot in a performance per wat comparison!
They don’t want to compromise battery in favor of performance and I agree
The battery life is already 5 seconds. No need to make the problem worse.
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Exactly. I’d like to see a few significant improvements for the next gen - namely in screen and performance to match, but my dream would be to see Valve license Framework’s module system (or build something similar of their own) and integrate one of those somewhere on the deck.
It’d be great for the obvious, like adding high-speed storage, but just imagine the possibilities for a handheld gaming console of attachments people could build with a module system that locks in place like that.
Obviously the module thing is a pipe dream and unlikely to happen, but I just feel like there’s a ton of additional potential for that form factor that’s unexplored, and I’d like to see longer generations not only for support, but also so that larger iterative work like designing a module system or whatever can be prioritized over rushing out regular performance upgrades.
I’m not in a rush, and stable specs makes it easier for devs to get their games to work and Valve to improve Proton.
The next version is definitely on my radar, but for now my desktop works well enough.
The thing that made me reconsider buying one is the screen. Make an OLED version and I‘m gonna get one. I‘m not worried about the performance, I‘d get a deck for stuff like Dead Cells and Spelunky, not for stuff like Cyberpunk.
If they made an OLED version and offered replacement screens for burn-in cases in x years, that‘d be absolutely amazing.
I just hope they can bring the weight down in the next version. It’s a little too heavy for me to use, and I was so sad when I realized it.
Hold it with one hand
Do curls with it
Change hand
Repeat
Couple of weeks later it will feel light as fuck holding it with two hands!
This guy’s trying to trick us into working out - Get them!
Hey wait a minute, this guy is trying to trick us into getting out of our chairs! Get them!!
Playing on the Steam Deck for a few weeks and then picking up a Nintendo Switch, it felt like I was holding air.
It’s lighter than I expected for its size. What problems are you having with it?
I have a genetic disorder that causes my tendons and ligaments to be weak, so I get sprains and dislocations easily. I’ve sprained a finger pushing an elevator button before, and dislocated a knee standing up and taking a step. My hands are so stupid weak I couldn’t even get a Switch, I had to get a Switch Lite. I can’t use Xbox controllers because the D-pad and left stick being switched caused me to accidentally dislocate my thumb once.
The Steam Deck is just slightly too heavy for me to hold for long, because you carry some of the weight on your middle fingers when you’re holding it. When I was trying it, a middle finger joint started to go out of place.
The ergonomics of the Steam Deck were great; so I was so upset when I felt my finger starting to give. I had only played for about 10, 15 minutes before I started having problems, and I had to tape my finger after I got home from trying it.
I’m a rare case, I know, but usually new versions of electronics tend to be slimmer and lighter, so I’m hopeful.
On the plus side, you can use any Bluetooth or USB compatible controller that you find comfortable and a cheap stand to make your experience more comfortable. Steam’s controller support is fantastic.
Yeah, but that’s not going to be very easy to do on the train, or laying down in bed, and having to carry around a controller kills a lot of the portability, which would be the whole point of a Stream Deck for me. And if I’m going to play at home, I’ve already got a gaming PC.
Oh shit. I’m sorry about that.
If there’s one thing the Deck is good for is customisation. It’s not ideal but I wonder if it’s possible to design handles that don’t put so much pressure on your middle fingers or grips that wrap around your palms.
As you can tell, I’m not someone who specialises in ergonomic design.
Fine by me, just keep supporting the Steam Deck and being awesome.
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Kinda wonder what kind of effect a more powerful nintendo device will have on the whole ecosystem. Nintendo devices are automatically probably going to run smoother watt for watt just because developers will likely prioritize optimisation for that device, so it’s all a bit of an uphill battle for the steam deck there
Nintendo never makes anyhow powerful devices, they juat rely wntirely on developer optimization and only certain dwvelopers are willing to put in the time well and money to publiah for their propriatary and expensive frameworks in the first place.
- famicom: very competitive at the time, advanced in some areas
- snes: very competitive, more powerful in many regards
- n64: widely accepted as the most powerful of that generation
- gamecube: more powerful than ps2
- wii: this one is the least powerful you have that.
- wiiu: widely accepted as more powerful than x360/ps3
- switch: powerful hardware for a handheld of the time.
- rumoured switch successor: rumored to basically be a portable ps4.
Your theory does not hold water. And it is full of typos. You need a better mobile keyboard.
I can’t really comment on the earlier consoles, but those are some pretty biased comparisons.
The GameCube is more powerful than the PS2, but then the Xbox was more powerful than the GameCube. Then you have the Wii. But then WiiU being more powerful than a console coming out 6 years prior? What kind of argument is that?
The argument for the Switch doesn’t prove anything when there’s very little investment in the handheld console market when the Switch came out. And also, who cares if the Switch’s successor can beat a decade old console? I swear, my phone probably can run a PS4 game based purely on its processing power.
Not only that but the processor it had was like a 2 year old design when switch was released
The WiiU wasn’t more powerful than the competition but the old ones where, they gave up on compeating in terms of specs with the Wii and the Swit h uses a mobile processor that was old and slow even when it came out and can easily be surpassed by most phones if it wasn’t for the insane optimisation. They continue to proof that games matter more than specs and that’s a very profitable and well working strategy so idk where you got those rumors from but I am 99% sure the next switch will have a relatively slow ARM processor again and there is nothing wromg with that if it’s enough fun, it just requires a lot of work from the game developers that not all of them are willing to put in. About the typos, no keyboard in the world can fix my drunken typing and I am fairly happy with mine but thanks for the suggestion I guess…
The switch 2 is rumored to be more powerful than the ps4 an old console at this point in time that also had relatively seeker hardware than it could or should of at the time (same with Xbox the and jaguar cores were not that good)
I just want a slightly higher res screen. Not by much just a bit more. Thats all
I would upgrade for a slightly smaller, more battery efficient Steamdeck with an OLED screen. I know that’s a lot to ask for, but definitely performance is the least of my concerns.
I’m holding off until a new version. Doesn’t necessarily need to be faster, but I’m sure they’ve learned a ton with this release. Interested to see their 2.0 release.
Only thing I would ever want more is battery, but I’ve never even drained it and I carry my power brick with me everywhere for my phone/ laptop anyway so. I’d just get this version on the next discount (if I did not have a similar device).
I’m waiting for the Steam Deck to be better before I buy it. Or any other handheld linked to a gaming account. Sure, you can play Titan Fall 2 on the Steam Deck. For maybe an hour or two? Not sure, as I don’t have a Steam Deck and haven’t tried it out for myself, but my understanding is that the battery life depends on how the user wishes to “abuse” it with games at this point. Same probably goes for the other PC gaming handhelds that run on Windows. I think the Steam Deck is fantastic, and is probably useful to people who travel a lot or who love their PC games and don’t want to invest in a whole computer because that would be a waste of money to them. It’s the same for all the other portable PC game handhelds. Would I love to have a Steam Deck? Yes. Do I need one? No. I don’t travel much. I have a gaming laptop and a new gaming PC I built. I’m sure the Steam Deck is great on battery life for low-power games, as are most other handhelds for PC games now. I don’t have a Nintendo Switch, but what I understand about it is that it sacrifices what we have on PC for battery longevity. Do I hate my gaming laptop? Yes. When, on the rare occasion, I have to travel, can I use it to play games? Yes. Does its battery last better than the Steam Deck on some graphics intensive games? Yes. In the future, it will be really cool to travel around and have your PC games with you on an extra small device that weighs less than a gaming laptop. Maybe that future won’t come because of corporate enshittification, though. Maybe in the future, the games you play will be tied to a specific small mobile device and if you like particular games, you’ll have to buy various small devices to play all the games you like, whether you’re more stationary or need to travel a lot for work or whatever. So, whatever. I mean, right now, the Steam Deck is really nice, and affordable for a lot of people. This news announcement kind of looks like a warning to game developers for PC. Want your game to work on Steam Deck and not drain the battery in less than an hour or two? Make it low intensity graphics wise. Right now, a big seller on Steam is how to discern between games you might like to buy depending on if they work on Steam Deck with Proton. The Steam App even allows you to toggle the setting for whether or not it’s compatible with Steam Deck or not. Game publishers right now want their games to work on Steam Deck because they know that setting is there for users. For now. Some PC gamers want outrageous graphics they can’t get on console. That’s why there are games released as “enhanced.” So… yadda yadda blah blah. We can’t predict the future. It’s all about the game publishers versus the PC gaming console manufacturers. The only people who lose money are the gamers who buy their shit.
I have absolutely no idea what you’re ranting about and why this has to do with the steam deck but I appreciate the enthusiasm I guess
Because people are discussing the battery life of the Steam Deck versus the games they play in the thread and how low-power games affect the battery life less. I’m addressing this: battery life versus how you choose to use the battery, depending on the games you choose to play on the device. Am I clearer now? If I’m not, please feel free to complain about how I took the time to explain myself in the first place so you could understand what I was talking about.
Are you on drugs buddy?
Sure. I’m on all the drugs. Do you feel better for INSULTING me? Where’s the moderator of this community, by the way? Out to lunch? Feeling like not dealing with issues like this, that violate the Code of Conduct or something? For the record, I’m not on drugs. According to the Code of Conduct, your comment should have been deleted, because you’re insulting me. I said nothing insulting to anyone., I just made a long comment. I guess nobody moderates this community or something. Your comment broke the Lemmy Code of Conduct.
And if they are is it any of your buisnesss
There’s a lot of rambling here but your points are centred around battery life so I’ll hit that.
The Steam Deck’s battery life isn’t amazing.
The most I’ve seen is Stardew Valley running for 5 hours.There’s two sides to this; the Steam Deck’s power consumption settings and how long you actually want to spend playing.
The Deck allows you to control how much power a game is allowed to consume. I’m playing Fallen Order atm and that game would probably run for 2-3 hours of continuous play. I’m playing on mostly medium settings with textures on high.
There are certain other games that will utterly drink battery life, like Baldur’s Gate 3. I would personally argue that you shouldn’t be attempting it as a regular mode of playbut I tried it myself and it doesn’t look terrible. But you have to go in understanding that BG3 is a graphically intensive game and the Steam Deck isn’t exactly built for it.
On the second point, I personally can’t spend more than 2 hours of continuous play. After a while, I get tired of holding the device. I live in the UK so our travel times aren’t long. I also don’t travel very often either. My time on the Deck is usually just before going to sleep. The way the device is, I’m not sure that you could be playing one game for that long. Sure, you can play Titanfall 2 but that’s a very fast-paced game and it’s probably not going to translate well to the Deck. It’s better if you plug in KBM but then you’re having to carry those around as well. At that point, you may as well be on a laptop or PC.
There are certain games I’ve decided that I’ll play on the Deck like Fallen Order or No Man’s Sky. I’ve also got emulators loaded if I ever want to play those games. If you want a Steam Deck, you should be getting it because it allows you to play a huge breadth of games, not the latest ones at high graphical settings. If you want that, get a PC, you’ll be happier with that than the sacrifices you’ll have to make on the Deck just to get the game to run well.
