3 ms·

Speaking of Steam Deck, is it worth the effort to invest in making one via Raspberry Pi? I don't think you can still buy the original Steam hardware version in

by dmix 4y ago

Speaking of Steam Deck, is it worth the effort to invest in making one via Raspberry Pi? I don't think you can still buy the original Steam hardware version in Canada where I live.

galleywest200 4y ago
If your goal is just indie games that are mostly 2D it might be totally viable. If you are looking for 3D gaming it would be limited to retro consoles just due to the hardware. There are several channels on YouTube that try to push Pis to their gaming limits, check them out -- search for low spec gaming.
jakogut 4y ago
Even the Pi 4, which is quite the powerhouse with 4x Cortex-A72 cores that easily overclock to 2.0+ GHz, is no match for the Steam Deck. https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/14301251?baseline=16110501 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/14301251?baseli... The Pi 4 overclocked to 2.3 GHz has approximately 40% of the single-thread performance, and 20% of the multi thread performance, which is quite impressive for a $35 board. The Steam Deck also has quad-channel LPDDR5, and a relatively beefy GPU. The Pi 4's GPU is lacking compared to the processor, barely being capable of running a desktop environment with acceptable performance. I have run Portal 2 on a Pi 4 using box86, but it was extremely hacky, unstable, and netted something on the order of 2-3 fps. You could run old school emulators that aren't GPU bound no problem, and probably even some old school shooters like Doom 3, but it's not going to be as polished or performant as a Steam Deck.
- dmix 4y ago
  Thanks, I didn't know that. I wonder what my options are then :(
  - 3np 4y ago
    Anything Ryzen-based at or above above 3400G should be good. There's probably decent Intel alternatives too. You may be able to use the Rpi4 (or equivalent) as a Steam Link client. I have it running mostly fine on a comparable 6yo embedded Celeron streaming from the desktop downstairs. Not sure how well that works without tweaks on ARM but it could be worth a shot if that's what you're after.
  - naikrovek 4y ago
    If the Nvidia Jetson Nano was still supported it would do MUCH better than a Raspberry Pi at nearly anything. It has a tiny (but very real) GPU on it, and tons of memory bandwidth: 4GB of RAM, I think, and something like 25GB/s of memory bandwidth.
  - fomine3 4y ago
    There are some Chinese offerings like AYANEO or GPD
syntheweave 4y ago
Almost certainly not, in terms of time-money tradeoffs as well as the final result probably being less of an integrated thing. There's been an onrush of Deck clones lately from all sorts of companies, and a lot of them look worthy of interest. See ETAPrime's Youtube for coverage.
- saghm 4y ago
  Based on my experiences trying to get Windows stuff working through WINE/Lutris/Proton on my Arch Linux laptop/desktop, I'm guessing that a huge part of why they're able to make the SteamDeck a good experience is being able to guarantee that all the software they've written to help with compatibility is tested on their exact hardware. It took me a full weekend of tinkering to get ray tracing to work on both my desktop (which uses an AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT) and my laptop (with a mobile 3070); even after getting Lutris to use Proton Experimental that I downloaded through Steam, I still needed a smattering of different environmental variables (only some of which were the same for both AMD and nvidia) along with a newer version of mesa (for DXR 1.1) that's available even in the Arch, which have a reputation for bleeding edge stuff (although since then it's been put into their testing repos, so hopefully it will get pushed out soon). Even after finally getting the configuration so that the GPUs successfully reported the ability to do ray tracing, it took some specific configuration of the WINE prefix itself to be able to get certain games to allow the setting to even be enabled; apparently the Windows 10 prefix that WINE created had its registry initialized with inconsistent values for the OS patch build number it would report to software and the human-readable version of the string, both of which were old enough that the games didn't believe that ray tracing was actually supported, so I had to update them both to the corresponding values for a new enough Windows 10 patch before I could even enable the ray tracing settings. Long story short, I have to imagine that even if someone managed to make custom hardware that was powerful enough to run the games they wanted, trying to just install the custom Linux distro that SteamOS uses would not just magically run arbitrary Windows games well. This really seems like something where the hardware and software have to be designed and tested in tandem to be able to have any level of confidence in a good user experience.
  - doix 4y ago
fayten 4y ago
You cannot buy one outright currently, but you can still reserve one on Steam and from the looks of it you'll most likely get it by December. The steam deck is pretty incredible and I have greatly enjoyed tinkering with it. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/steam-deck-is-speeding-up-production-and-shipments/1100-6507663/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/steam-deck-is-speeding-up-...
- HideousKojima 4y ago
  Also shipping is speeding up, I was scheduled to get mine Q4 this year at best but they shipped mine 2 weeks ago.
  - krzyk 4y ago
    I ordered 256 version a week ago, and got the "complete purchase" on Thursday. (in EU).
teraflop 4y ago
Are you maybe getting the Steam Deck confused with the now-discontinued Steam Link? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Link https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6424-467a-31d9-c6cb https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6424-467a-31d9-c6... If you do want a Steam Deck, you can get one in Canada: https://www.steamdeck.com/en/ https://www.steamdeck.com/en/
seba_dos1 4y ago
Steam Deck is available in Canada, you can order it just like anyone else. In terms of gaming capabilities, comparing it to Raspberry Pi is like comparing a mid-end smartphone to a full blown gaming rig.
naikrovek 4y ago
the Raspberry Pi memory bandwidth is absolutely terrible, which makes performance absolutely terrible. it is a computer designed to be inexpensive and to teach computers, and it excels at these two things. The Raspberry Pi is not a good platform for virtually anything else, really. "But PiHole!" Ok, sure. I would argue that this could run in a container on any other machine on your network and use less electricity, and if you don't have another machine on your network, fine; use a Raspberry Pi. the Pi is not a Steam Deck competitor; it is not even good as a Linux desktop if you do anything in a browser or use any Electron applications.

by dmix 4y ago

Speaking of Steam Deck, is it worth the effort to invest in making one via Raspberry Pi? I don't think you can still buy the original Steam hardware version in Canada where I live.

galleywest200 4y ago

If your goal is just indie games that are mostly 2D it might be totally viable. If you are looking for 3D gaming it would be limited to retro consoles just due to the hardware. There are several channels on YouTube that try to push Pis to their gaming limits, check them out -- search for low spec gaming.

jakogut 4y ago

Even the Pi 4, which is quite the powerhouse with 4x Cortex-A72 cores that easily overclock to 2.0+ GHz, is no match for the Steam Deck. https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/14301251?baseline=16110501 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/14301251?baseli... The Pi 4 overclocked to 2.3 GHz has approximately 40% of the single-thread performance, and 20% of the multi thread performance, which is quite impressive for a $35 board. The Steam Deck also has quad-channel LPDDR5, and a relatively beefy GPU. The Pi 4's GPU is lacking compared to the processor, barely being capable of running a desktop environment with acceptable performance. I have run Portal 2 on a Pi 4 using box86, but it was extremely hacky, unstable, and netted something on the order of 2-3 fps. You could run old school emulators that aren't GPU bound no problem, and probably even some old school shooters like Doom 3, but it's not going to be as polished or performant as a Steam Deck.

dmix 4y ago
Thanks, I didn't know that. I wonder what my options are then :(
- 3np 4y ago
  Anything Ryzen-based at or above above 3400G should be good. There's probably decent Intel alternatives too. You may be able to use the Rpi4 (or equivalent) as a Steam Link client. I have it running mostly fine on a comparable 6yo embedded Celeron streaming from the desktop downstairs. Not sure how well that works without tweaks on ARM but it could be worth a shot if that's what you're after.
- naikrovek 4y ago
  If the Nvidia Jetson Nano was still supported it would do MUCH better than a Raspberry Pi at nearly anything. It has a tiny (but very real) GPU on it, and tons of memory bandwidth: 4GB of RAM, I think, and something like 25GB/s of memory bandwidth.
- fomine3 4y ago
  There are some Chinese offerings like AYANEO or GPD

syntheweave 4y ago

Almost certainly not, in terms of time-money tradeoffs as well as the final result probably being less of an integrated thing. There's been an onrush of Deck clones lately from all sorts of companies, and a lot of them look worthy of interest. See ETAPrime's Youtube for coverage.

saghm 4y ago
Based on my experiences trying to get Windows stuff working through WINE/Lutris/Proton on my Arch Linux laptop/desktop, I'm guessing that a huge part of why they're able to make the SteamDeck a good experience is being able to guarantee that all the software they've written to help with compatibility is tested on their exact hardware. It took me a full weekend of tinkering to get ray tracing to work on both my desktop (which uses an AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT) and my laptop (with a mobile 3070); even after getting Lutris to use Proton Experimental that I downloaded through Steam, I still needed a smattering of different environmental variables (only some of which were the same for both AMD and nvidia) along with a newer version of mesa (for DXR 1.1) that's available even in the Arch, which have a reputation for bleeding edge stuff (although since then it's been put into their testing repos, so hopefully it will get pushed out soon). Even after finally getting the configuration so that the GPUs successfully reported the ability to do ray tracing, it took some specific configuration of the WINE prefix itself to be able to get certain games to allow the setting to even be enabled; apparently the Windows 10 prefix that WINE created had its registry initialized with inconsistent values for the OS patch build number it would report to software and the human-readable version of the string, both of which were old enough that the games didn't believe that ray tracing was actually supported, so I had to update them both to the corresponding values for a new enough Windows 10 patch before I could even enable the ray tracing settings. Long story short, I have to imagine that even if someone managed to make custom hardware that was powerful enough to run the games they wanted, trying to just install the custom Linux distro that SteamOS uses would not just magically run arbitrary Windows games well. This really seems like something where the hardware and software have to be designed and tested in tandem to be able to have any level of confidence in a good user experience.
- doix 4y ago

fayten 4y ago

You cannot buy one outright currently, but you can still reserve one on Steam and from the looks of it you'll most likely get it by December. The steam deck is pretty incredible and I have greatly enjoyed tinkering with it. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/steam-deck-is-speeding-up-production-and-shipments/1100-6507663/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/steam-deck-is-speeding-up-...

HideousKojima 4y ago
Also shipping is speeding up, I was scheduled to get mine Q4 this year at best but they shipped mine 2 weeks ago.
- krzyk 4y ago
  I ordered 256 version a week ago, and got the "complete purchase" on Thursday. (in EU).

teraflop 4y ago

Are you maybe getting the Steam Deck confused with the now-discontinued Steam Link? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Link https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6424-467a-31d9-c6cb https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6424-467a-31d9-c6... If you do want a Steam Deck, you can get one in Canada: https://www.steamdeck.com/en/ https://www.steamdeck.com/en/

seba_dos1 4y ago

Steam Deck is available in Canada, you can order it just like anyone else. In terms of gaming capabilities, comparing it to Raspberry Pi is like comparing a mid-end smartphone to a full blown gaming rig.

naikrovek 4y ago

the Raspberry Pi memory bandwidth is absolutely terrible, which makes performance absolutely terrible. it is a computer designed to be inexpensive and to teach computers, and it excels at these two things. The Raspberry Pi is not a good platform for virtually anything else, really. "But PiHole!" Ok, sure. I would argue that this could run in a container on any other machine on your network and use less electricity, and if you don't have another machine on your network, fine; use a Raspberry Pi. the Pi is not a Steam Deck competitor; it is not even good as a Linux desktop if you do anything in a browser or use any Electron applications.