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.
I don't think you can still buy the original Steam hardware version in Canada where I live.
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.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Link
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/
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.
If you don't care about ray tracing, Linux gaming on Steam is pretty much install it and it works. I enabled the multilib repos in arch, installed steam from pacman and that was it. I was playing games immediately.
You don't need to mess around with lutris/wine, Steam just does it for you with proton. At most you can install proton ge[0] to see if it fixes some problems with proton for the game you're trying. But if the problem is with proton, you'd have the same issues on the steam deck as well.
There are several channels on YouTube that try to push Pis to their gaming limits, check them out -- search for low spec gaming.
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.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/steam-deck-is-speeding-up-...