Hacker News Reader

Comment by nerdjon | Hacker News Reader

I am mildly tempted to upgrade to this, it seems kinda weird that the OLED is the same resolution? Doesn't it? Maybe I am just out of touch. But I guess at least that means it won't have a performance impact.

As much as I love my steam deck, it kinda sucks to use after using my OLED Switch after a while. That screen is just beautiful (especially for Mario Wonder).

I have been looking for alternatives for a while now, with the Asus Rog Ally or the Legion Go but the lack of the 4 back controls being vertical have made both of those a no go for me.

Kinda wish it was beefed up a little bit (technically it looks like it is, the GPU is no longer listed as a range if you scroll down, but I am not sure why that is).

I just want official word that the drivers and everything still work on Windows. I assume it will

View on HN

> it seems kinda weird that the OLED is the same resolution?

Given the specifications of the rest of the device, I'm extremely happy the resolution remained the same! A bump to 1080p or similar would make games on the limited CPU/GPU that much harder to run at a reasonable frame rate while keeping a sharp image. This does not strike me as weird in the slightest - it's common sense to do here.

Not to mention how much hotter the device would run - you would be spending much more time at 15w+ in many titles, which is where the Deck starts to get hot/noisy fans spinning, and of course battery life drops.

I don't think it's as big a deal with Steam Deck using gamescope and system-wide FSR to upscale the image. It's already used if you plug a Deck into a 4k TV: the game defaults to running at 720p still.

With newer games having decoupled 3D render resolution and FSR2, a bump in output resolution no longer means an increase in CPU/GPU required. While allowing older games that aren't as resource intensive to run at 1080p.

For me it'd be a big deal as FSR1 looks awful and FSR2 looks bad - the whole "decoupling render resolution from output resolution" is a delusion for trying to push current GPUs to do things they are not really capable of doing. In 10 years we'll be looking back and make fun of how smeary, ghosty and blurry everything was.

> trying to push current GPUs to do things they are not really capable of doing

Sure, but until we get better GPUs, it's still the better solution to not being able to play it at all. Especially with the Steam Deck being battery powered, so you can't just brute force it with higher frequencies or more hardware. Even this new Steam Deck doesn't include a better GPU.

No, the better solution (IMO at least) is to write code that can run on current GPUs without relying on upscaling tech. Upscaling tech should be something to use once your GPU is old so you can run new games, not something that new games should rely on to run on current GPUs.

As for Steam Deck specifically, the current display resolution it has is perfect for its size, a higher resolution is going to have marginal results - and actually worse results if you need to rely on upscaling to reach it (at which point might as well stick with the current resolution and target it natively so you wont even have the upscaler's overhead).

Not just old GPUs, but also low-end GPUs. Which the Deck definitely is, that's why its target performance is 720p. I shouldn't expect to be able to plug it into a 4K screen and get performance without an upscaler. I also disagree with 720p being perfect for the size. I also have an Asus Ally which is 1080p, and it is a noticeable difference.

> actually worse results if you need to rely on upscaling to reach it

Not worse than just outputting the lower resolution. Otherwise there'd be no point of any of these upscaler.

I don't think comparing overhead to current resolution is 1:1 because modern upscalers also double as AA. Some modern games even force TAA, which upscalers replace. Especially at the lower resolutions, too less AA is more noticeable. And TAA kinda sucks.

Alan Wake 2 has FSR2 or DLSS instead of any other AA option even running them at native. Other games like Diablo IV give you the option of either TAA or upscaler.

> I also disagree with 720p being perfect for the size. I also have an Asus Ally which is 1080p, and it is a noticeable difference.

You can notice it but IMO the drabacks are not worth it. 720p will both perform faster and use less battery. The additional fidelity isn't worth the cost.

> Not worse than just outputting the lower resolution. Otherwise there'd be no point of any of these upscaler.

IMO it is actually worse - even on my main PC any game that has the option between "smart" upscaling and plain old bilinear i always choose the latter (assuming i can't run the game at native resolution at 60fps - which sadly seems to be the case with UE5 games and my RX 5700 XT) because the other options are both (slightly) slower and look worse. They look fine on static images or if the camera/objects doesn't move much, but fast changes create noticeable artifacts - especially on third person games where often the character model has a very visible "pixelly" outline. It looks like those 2D pixel art games that arbitrarily mix resolutions and as a result create a garish result. I'd rather have the consistent quality of bilinear upscaling.

Or, to be on topic, i'd rather have no upscaling at all and have the result be at the native resolution of the monitor with the latter being at a proper size so the underlying hardware can actually reach said resolution at playable framerates.

Exactly. Maybe my eyes are not good enough, but I've literally never ever wished for more resolution - and especially not as an immediate and unavoidable tradeoff to power/battery/framerate/weight/heat/noise!

I do not need same resolution on my 7" device as on my 27" monitor :)

They deliberately said they don't want to change performance characteristics - which is pretty normal for console refreshes.

TBH I don't buy that argument, we are talking about PC games that have handled scaling for a very long time. This is standard if you are making PC games.

The Steam Deck really isn't a console in any traditional sense of the word. With there now being multiple devices like this out there, I don't think that argument works.

Valve wants the Steam Deck to fit in the Console space and be a easy gateway for less-techy people to play PC games.

But I have yet to see any indication from a development standpoint that it is.

PC games already automatically figure out what specs to use (or at least many do) so I am still struggling with this argument.

The argument completely falls apart when you have devices like the Asus Rog Ally or the Legion GO.

It also falls apart when, unless I am mistaken, SteamOS is open for anyone to use on other devices.

A single performance target means devs can fairly easily make tweaks and fixes to get "Verified Compatible" with Steam Deck which means more games work on ALL steam decks and its easier for casual consumers to just pick it up, buy some games, and have a good experience without knowing anything about PC gaming.

The Ally and the Legion GO (and other power constrained devices/devices with APUs) will benefit from some devs' performance and power optimizations for steam deck, and SteamOS based devices will benefit from fixes that work around issues with proton, both of which would be less likely to be addressed if there weren't an entire market of consumers you can access by getting that "Verified" badge.

> The Ally and the Legion GO (and other power constrained devices/devices with APUs) will benefit from some devs' performance and power optimizations for steam deck, and SteamOS based devices will benefit from fixes that work around issues with proton, both of which would be less likely to be addressed if there weren't an entire market of consumers you can access by getting that "Verified" badge

IF that is the case, then the argument for why they would not increase the performance is not valid. They could have kept the same resolution but made it more powerful.

You can't say other devices will benefit and still make the argument that the steam deck had to stay at the same performance level. It's one or the other.

It's perfectly fine that Valve didn't want to upgrade it but I just don't buy the argument.

It's not one or the other because the concern isn't for the owners of the new Deck, its for the owners of the old one. Any meaningful increase in power will create a scenario where the new deck can play games that the old one cannot which would be confusing for consumers and would weaken developer incentives to create a good experience on the older deck.

When you factor in that the niche market of slightly more powerful $600+ handhelds is already served by 4+ different players I just don't see why Valve would need to jump into it at this point. The marginal benefit is not worth the risk of fracturing the deck community and burning early adopters.

Also I should have made it more clear, but only some patches targeting the steam deck will trickle up to higher performance devices. Some patches will be things like "low shadows look like crap but medium shadows are just barely too much for the deck, lets lower medium a bit so that it can run well". I only mention that some patches will help other mobile devices because in my view its a win-win for the entire market that Valve is committed to providing a common denominator.

On the contrary, I'd say that the Steam Deck has a lot in common with consoles, especially as modern consoles (PS5 and XSX) converge with PCs. The Steam Deck comes with a store integrated into the frontend, a verification process, and standardized controls and performance targets. It's basically a "pre-jailbroken" console. At the same time, the XBox Series S is showing a big reason why Valve might want to keep a single performance target for a longer than the normal constantly evolving hardware in PCs, and both it and the PS5 digital have removed any sort of physical distribution aspect to the definition of consoles.

>especially as modern consoles (PS5 and XSX) converge with PCs.

What makes you think this is true?

I suppose I should clarify that I don't think they're likely to fully converge, at least not in the next decade (through the PS6 and whatever nonsense Microsoft calls their next iteration).

But it's increasingly similar hardware inside, consoles are increasingly supporting more general purpose computing (media apps, social networking features, web browsing, game/app stores), the experience is more customizable, patching has made it much less "the game is the game", and the stupid simple reliability has gotten much less stupid simple. I'd say that the distance between PCs and consoles has been gradually shrinking since probably the release of the PS3/360, mostly due to consoles moving closer to PCs, but the Steam Deck is a big jump towards a PC being console-y.

So you would say that phones are becoming PCs too? Your definition is not what most people think when they hear the word PC.

They absolutely are in lots of ways. Phones are too small to be convenient PCs, but there's not much left they can't do these days. If you look at the spectrum from phones, to phone-OS tablets (ipads or android tablets), to PC-OS tablets, to laptops, it's really not a solid line you can draw where things are dramatically different. The main difference is that the UX isn't designed to be good at being a PC.

Sure, but changing the resolution and changing the scaling means changing the performance metrics.

If one device is 1080p and one is 2160p, then even if both "render" at 1080 and one scales up to 2160 that is a change in performance. They don't want developers to have to test on multiple devices to see if it gets laggy on the one with the higher-res screen.

I’m still waiting for performance gen 2 to come out. I think that’s going to be the sweet spot

Seems like the back buttons are a worthy tradeoff if you're looking for a Windows-based handheld. The Ally is faster and has some nifty tricks but Windows holds it back, compared to the snappy, polished feel of the Deck.

For me it is not, I use my Steam Deck has a way to carry the games that I play with a controller on my PC or Console... mobile. I use an Elite Xbox Controller and rely heavily on the back buttons.

TBH I don't think Windows holds it back when once I am in the game (the part that matters) the experience is the same.

> TBH I don't think Windows holds it back when once I am in the game (the part that matters)

Being able to instantaneously[1] pause and resume games on the Steam deck makes for a pretty great experience. The non-gaming parts also matter a lot in a portable gaming device.

1. In 3 seconds or less

>I just want official word that the drivers and everything still work on Windows.

I thought steam deck doesn't run windows ? You install windows on your steam deck ?

Yeah you can dual boot Windows and there are official drivers for it.

It is the primary way I use my steam deck.

It runs a version of Arch Linux called SteamOS. I don't see a reason for Windows to run on it.

Some games have anti cheat that only work on Windows.

I thought Steam Deck used Proton, which allowed that stuff to mostly work without modification, even when running on Linux? (basically Wine+extras)

Anti-cheat is usually a kernel extension, I don't think you can do that in Proton.

Edit: yes, I know EAC is Linux supported, but you can't use proton to run a Windows kernel extension.

Proton has some support for easy anti cheat. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2022/02/proton-7-easy-anti-che...

It seems to be up to the developer, as many anti-cheat support Linux if the developer wants it to.

Elden Ring uses Easy Anticheat which works fine in Proton, but Black Desert also uses EAC and it doesn't. Phantasy Star Online 2 works with Proton-GE and it used GameGuard and now Uncheater.

Here's a crowdsourced list of games with anticheat that do or do not work with Proton: https://www.protondb.com/explore?selectedFilters=antiCheat

Valve tries to make it easy to run a proton-compatible anti-cheat system which I believe is built in to steam libraries, but developers still have to choose to use it notably Microsoft seemed totally uninterested in using a proton compatible EAC for Halo Master Chief Collection last time I checked earlier this year. I read online it should have been easy to switch to the proton compatible EAC but some devs might not want to.

Halo: MCC specifically did get support for it a few months ago. But anti-cheat is still very dependent on the game.

That is nice to know thanks! I figured it would come eventually, I’m glad they added it.

Agreed, but that wasn't the question. Yes it does run Windows natively if you want. They even have all the necessary drivers offered for download at a single page: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6121-ECCD-D643-BA...

Not by default. But you absolutely can setup dual boot if you care to.

I've used stock steam deck since its release and love it to death; but it's super flexible for those who want to install other stuff or play with it :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com