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Steam Deck is pretty nice, so much better than my Nintendo Switch. It's pretty great to see the iGPU getting love these days, more compact consoles would be gre

Steam Deck is pretty nice, so much better than my Nintendo Switch. It's pretty great to see the iGPU getting love these days, more compact consoles would be great. The AMD 780M hopefully gets a chance at this as well.

weard_beard 4y ago
My one big complaint is battery life. 2hrs for most games. Its a great at home device... but on the go and car trips are a hassle. There are battery extenders but they make an already chonky handheld into a 15lb brick.
- mizzack 4y ago
  Part of the fun is tuning both in-game and Deck performance settings to squeeze out as much as possible. It's an art of tradeoffs. Many less demanding games can run with a ~7w TDP limit at 60fps without a hitch at full detail. This yields massive battery life improvements. For modern AAA games you'll probably have to frame cap 30-40fps and lower detail settings in-game.
  - weard_beard 4y ago
    Good advice. I haven't really dug into the settings as much as I should.
  - Miraste 4y ago
    It'd be cool if Valve had a shareable "common power settings" similar to how the Deck works with Steam Input.
    - robben1234 4y ago
      It is honestly the only thing that is missing for me as a daily Deck user with dozens of games from the backlog finally getting installed and receiving attention.
  - rmckayfleming 4y ago
    Yea, I was playing Wolfenstein New Order on it and was shocked at how well it ran. Easily made 60fps with battery life projected at well over 3hrs. Setting the refresh rate to 40hz helps a lot too.
- Keyframe 4y ago
  The other is weight and screen isn't as nice.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  I wish I had over 2 hours of uninterrupted play time :D
falcolas 4y ago
I will say that it's remarkably heavy for a portable system, and the OLED switch screen is far superior. But they both have a place, side by side, below my TV.
Miraste 4y ago
The software is better than the Switch, and the CPU/GPU is more capable. I'd say the design of the Switch is much better, though. My biggest frustration with the Deck is how huge it is, and second place goes to how poor the screen is vs OLED. Third goes to battery life :/
dcow 4y ago
It’s more powerful than a Switch for sure, but they’re different hardware classes. For a handheld, the Switch is far more portable and has a much better screen and battery life. That said, I don't get why Nintendo doesn't do a $500 Switch. I get that they’re about the gameplay and graphics come as an afterthought, but seriously their own launch title could not hit a consistent 30fps which is simply unacceptable. They cant keep using the gameplay excuse for being wildly out of touch with hardware reality.
- phone8675309 4y ago
  Why spend the money on R&D and retooling the production line when people will buy your Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games that aren't on any other platform? Most people aren't looking for occasional framedrops - they're there to play a game and have fun.
  - dcow 4y ago
    They don't need to retool, they just need hardware that can run the games they make with their existing tooling.
    - Tcepsa 4y ago
      I'm pretty sure parent wasn't talking about Nintendo's software tooling, they were talking about the machinery to assemble the hardware. From that angle, I suspect that Nintendo would not be able to simply order something off the shelf that would work with their existing assembly lines. There is no "just" when it comes to changing hardware in a system like the Switch--which is part of why you don't see a bunch of aftermarket upgrade kits. Related, I invite you to review the comments and note how many are focused on the battery life of the Deck, and specifically on how short it is. Even if Nintendo could just upgrade to a faster CPU, that would bring increased power draw, which would lead to either shorter battery life or needing a bigger battery, at which point you are either at people complaining about your battery life or once again back to industrial design and retooling your assembly line. Tldr: They can't just bump the price by $200, drop in a Threadripper, and call it a day.

weard_beard 4y ago

My one big complaint is battery life. 2hrs for most games. Its a great at home device... but on the go and car trips are a hassle. There are battery extenders but they make an already chonky handheld into a 15lb brick.

mizzack 4y ago
Part of the fun is tuning both in-game and Deck performance settings to squeeze out as much as possible. It's an art of tradeoffs. Many less demanding games can run with a ~7w TDP limit at 60fps without a hitch at full detail. This yields massive battery life improvements. For modern AAA games you'll probably have to frame cap 30-40fps and lower detail settings in-game.
- weard_beard 4y ago
  Good advice. I haven't really dug into the settings as much as I should.
- Miraste 4y ago
  It'd be cool if Valve had a shareable "common power settings" similar to how the Deck works with Steam Input.
  - robben1234 4y ago
    It is honestly the only thing that is missing for me as a daily Deck user with dozens of games from the backlog finally getting installed and receiving attention.
- rmckayfleming 4y ago
  Yea, I was playing Wolfenstein New Order on it and was shocked at how well it ran. Easily made 60fps with battery life projected at well over 3hrs. Setting the refresh rate to 40hz helps a lot too.
Keyframe 4y ago
The other is weight and screen isn't as nice.
theshrike79 4y ago
I wish I had over 2 hours of uninterrupted play time :D

falcolas 4y ago

I will say that it's remarkably heavy for a portable system, and the OLED switch screen is far superior. But they both have a place, side by side, below my TV.

Miraste 4y ago

The software is better than the Switch, and the CPU/GPU is more capable. I'd say the design of the Switch is much better, though. My biggest frustration with the Deck is how huge it is, and second place goes to how poor the screen is vs OLED. Third goes to battery life :/

dcow 4y ago

It’s more powerful than a Switch for sure, but they’re different hardware classes. For a handheld, the Switch is far more portable and has a much better screen and battery life. That said, I don't get why Nintendo doesn't do a $500 Switch. I get that they’re about the gameplay and graphics come as an afterthought, but seriously their own launch title could not hit a consistent 30fps which is simply unacceptable. They cant keep using the gameplay excuse for being wildly out of touch with hardware reality.

phone8675309 4y ago
Why spend the money on R&D and retooling the production line when people will buy your Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games that aren't on any other platform? Most people aren't looking for occasional framedrops - they're there to play a game and have fun.
- dcow 4y ago
  They don't need to retool, they just need hardware that can run the games they make with their existing tooling.
  - Tcepsa 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure parent wasn't talking about Nintendo's software tooling, they were talking about the machinery to assemble the hardware. From that angle, I suspect that Nintendo would not be able to simply order something off the shelf that would work with their existing assembly lines. There is no "just" when it comes to changing hardware in a system like the Switch--which is part of why you don't see a bunch of aftermarket upgrade kits. Related, I invite you to review the comments and note how many are focused on the battery life of the Deck, and specifically on how short it is. Even if Nintendo could just upgrade to a faster CPU, that would bring increased power draw, which would lead to either shorter battery life or needing a bigger battery, at which point you are either at people complaining about your battery life or once again back to industrial design and retooling your assembly line. Tldr: They can't just bump the price by $200, drop in a Threadripper, and call it a day.