4 ms·

I love that the steam deck appears to be the new hacker machine. This is literally the kind of computer I dreamed about having when I was a kid.

matheusmoreira 4y ago
I didn't know about the Steam Deck. A sleek handheld gaming console with PC hardware running Arch Linux under the hood. Looks like it even supports multiple operating systems. Didn't think I'd ever see something like this. As expected, it's held back by the massive power consumption of PC hardware. Imagine an Apple M1 Steam Deck... I'd really like a handheld programming device. I wonder how easy it is to write software with it.
- eloisant 4y ago
  The Steam Deck is x86 despite being a handheld for compatibility with PC games. There is already a compatibility layer software-wise (Proton to run Windows games on Linux), adding one more compatibility layer for hardware this time will add more problems to run games. So unfortunately until PC game developers massively start to support ARM architectures, we're stuck with x86.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > So unfortunately until PC game developers massively start to support ARM architectures, we're stuck with x86. No. All it needs is someone other than Apple to do what Apple did with the M1 - people have shown that you can run games perfectly fine in Rosetta [1]. [1] https://www.macwelt.de/ratgeber/Das-M1-Macbook-Pro-als-Gaming-Laptop-ein-Experiment-11088973.html https://www.macwelt.de/ratgeber/Das-M1-Macbook-Pro-als-Gamin...
    - kllrnohj 4y ago
      Running games under Rosetta comes with a performance hit. A small hit, sure, but it definitely appears to be a large enough hit to kill the M1's power efficiency advantage. It's not far fetched that the AMD SoC in the deck is more powerful efficient than M1 with Rosetta, even, especially since M1's GPU performance in games is notably below par.
- Goz3rr 4y ago
  >As expected, it's held back by the massive power consumption of PC hardware. Massive power consumption.. ? I've never seen it report more than 20W being discharged from the battery (this is easily found in the menu) even during gaming >I wonder how easy it is to write software with it. I'd call it borderline unusable for that unless you use a physical keyboard with it
  - kllrnohj 4y ago
    > Massive power consumption.. ? I've never seen it report more than 20W being discharged from the battery For comparison, this is the same peek power consumption of the M1 base SoC. A debate could be had if the M1 would be faster overall (I don't think it would be in games if Rosetta is involved), but it's not going to lower power consumption.
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    > Massive power consumption.. ? Yes. All reviews I looked up complained about battery life. Some cited figures of 1-2 hours when playing demanding games. Is that wrong? I assumed it had higher power consumption than the Apple M1 computers since they have a reputation for insane battety life. Not sure exactly how many watts they draw. > I'd call it borderline unusable for that unless you use a physical keyboard with it Well, I've written code using my phone... Can't be worse than that, can it?
    - goosedragons 4y ago
      Yeah, battery life varies greatly. More demanding games are in that ballpark. Sometimes you can squeeze more out by reducing the graphics settings and ensuring you have a set framerate cap. Older and less demanding titles get a lot better battery life. It can get 6 hours in something less demanding IME. You can also easily use a physical keyboard and mouse with the Steam Deck either through Bluetooth or any old USB C hub. Video out works too and it supports MST so it's possible to do multiple external monitors even though it has a single USB C port (can't be done with M1!). It has a full fledged desktop mode that's basically just a normal distro with KDE. By default you can't use pacman to install Arch packages but you can easily enable it if you want. Flatpaks are easily installable by default though. I'm not sure M1 would be much more efficient playing AAA games either. Some of the battery life advantage is just the fact that they have more room for more battery.
- kcb 4y ago
  > Apple M1 Steam Deck Yea. Not being able to play 99.9% of PC games due to only supporting 1 proprietary graphics API would be great.

matheusmoreira 4y ago

I didn't know about the Steam Deck. A sleek handheld gaming console with PC hardware running Arch Linux under the hood. Looks like it even supports multiple operating systems. Didn't think I'd ever see something like this. As expected, it's held back by the massive power consumption of PC hardware. Imagine an Apple M1 Steam Deck... I'd really like a handheld programming device. I wonder how easy it is to write software with it.

eloisant 4y ago
The Steam Deck is x86 despite being a handheld for compatibility with PC games. There is already a compatibility layer software-wise (Proton to run Windows games on Linux), adding one more compatibility layer for hardware this time will add more problems to run games. So unfortunately until PC game developers massively start to support ARM architectures, we're stuck with x86.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > So unfortunately until PC game developers massively start to support ARM architectures, we're stuck with x86. No. All it needs is someone other than Apple to do what Apple did with the M1 - people have shown that you can run games perfectly fine in Rosetta [1]. [1] https://www.macwelt.de/ratgeber/Das-M1-Macbook-Pro-als-Gaming-Laptop-ein-Experiment-11088973.html https://www.macwelt.de/ratgeber/Das-M1-Macbook-Pro-als-Gamin...
  - kllrnohj 4y ago
    Running games under Rosetta comes with a performance hit. A small hit, sure, but it definitely appears to be a large enough hit to kill the M1's power efficiency advantage. It's not far fetched that the AMD SoC in the deck is more powerful efficient than M1 with Rosetta, even, especially since M1's GPU performance in games is notably below par.
Goz3rr 4y ago
>As expected, it's held back by the massive power consumption of PC hardware. Massive power consumption.. ? I've never seen it report more than 20W being discharged from the battery (this is easily found in the menu) even during gaming >I wonder how easy it is to write software with it. I'd call it borderline unusable for that unless you use a physical keyboard with it
- kllrnohj 4y ago
  > Massive power consumption.. ? I've never seen it report more than 20W being discharged from the battery For comparison, this is the same peek power consumption of the M1 base SoC. A debate could be had if the M1 would be faster overall (I don't think it would be in games if Rosetta is involved), but it's not going to lower power consumption.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  > Massive power consumption.. ? Yes. All reviews I looked up complained about battery life. Some cited figures of 1-2 hours when playing demanding games. Is that wrong? I assumed it had higher power consumption than the Apple M1 computers since they have a reputation for insane battety life. Not sure exactly how many watts they draw. > I'd call it borderline unusable for that unless you use a physical keyboard with it Well, I've written code using my phone... Can't be worse than that, can it?
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    Yeah, battery life varies greatly. More demanding games are in that ballpark. Sometimes you can squeeze more out by reducing the graphics settings and ensuring you have a set framerate cap. Older and less demanding titles get a lot better battery life. It can get 6 hours in something less demanding IME. You can also easily use a physical keyboard and mouse with the Steam Deck either through Bluetooth or any old USB C hub. Video out works too and it supports MST so it's possible to do multiple external monitors even though it has a single USB C port (can't be done with M1!). It has a full fledged desktop mode that's basically just a normal distro with KDE. By default you can't use pacman to install Arch packages but you can easily enable it if you want. Flatpaks are easily installable by default though. I'm not sure M1 would be much more efficient playing AAA games either. Some of the battery life advantage is just the fact that they have more room for more battery.
kcb 4y ago
> Apple M1 Steam Deck Yea. Not being able to play 99.9% of PC games due to only supporting 1 proprietary graphics API would be great.