Steam Deck

[+remowilliams]

1 hour ago, Zoyous said:

Cool! Is there anything I can do to prepare on Steam in advance, or just wait until I have the device in hand?

 

Nothing really to do from the Steam end until you get the power of awesome in your hands : )

 

Here's a vid showing the setup (and excluding Steam Rom Manager) so you can check it out now.  The current EmuDeck setup is a bit different from that vid, but not much.

 

 

 

[Zoyous]

Well so far I've been really enjoying the Steam Deck! I was wondering, though... regarding shaders in Emulation Station - I like to use a CRT shader most of the time, but I'm having to select and load it every time I start a new game. I've tried to find a way to apply it universally to every game by default, but so far, no luck. Has anyone else tried that and had success?

 

One other issue I've noticed is in regards to the Xbox emulator, Xemu. Namely, that the sensitivity of the analog sticks is quite a bit different from the original hardware. I found a way to adjust the deadzone in the SteamOS, which helped a bit but it still feels too sensitive. Also, the deadzone appears to function kind of opposite to how I expected. Usually I have considered the deadzone to be in the center of the stick, but in SteamOS it looks like the center of the stick is the active area and the deadzone is around the perimeter. The result is the action near the center is way too sensitive. Back in the day, I was ranked in the top 25 on the global leaderboards for Outrun 2 and Outrun 2006, but on the Steam Deck/in Xemu I can barely finish a stage with the next-to-lowest ranking. I did try plugging in an Xbox Series controller when playing through a dock, and had the same problems. So I'm leaning toward it being primarily software-based, although I can't definitively say that the OG Xbox S controller and the Series controller have comparable analog sticks internally. I think there are several factors, not least of which is that Xbox emulation is still in a fairly rough state (although much improved over the past 2-3 years!) but yeah, that's one thing that's been a struggle and I'll keep tinkering with it.

[Reaperman]

Sneak level 68 and counting. 🤣

 

The order of thought processes on this one:

• I don't like skyrim, but everybody just loves it--better give it another chance.
• I'm currently on a ps3 kick, but skyrim legendary edition is really ugly. Better buy it on switch.
• Oh wait, I'm dumb, I own it on steam already. 
• Oh wait, it won't let me grind my sneak ability on a secondary monitor while I'm using the computer for actual computer things.
• Let me get that steam thing I use for youtube in bed.

Edited October 16, 2022 by Reaperman

[Rick Dangerous]

Got a fully loaded steam deck and dock.  This thing is a game changer.  Nothing like playing Alan Wake or Uncharted 4 in bed!

 

In the months ahead i need to figure out how to do emulation and all that.   Seems weird you can't add apps like Youtube, Netflix, etc.

 

Overall SUPER happy with this device!  This is my next console moving forward, no more Sony/Xbox except for what I already have.  Nintendo can stay  

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Rick Dangerous

[Reaperman]

On 10/20/2022 at 8:41 AM, Rick Dangerous said:

Seems weird you can't add apps like Youtube, Netflix, etc.

 

I didn't have any trouble adding the Brave browser in over the standard browser for my youtube fun. I don't think those sites have pc apps. That sounds more like a phone-stuff.

 

I wonder if web shortcuts could be added to the steam menu by using maybe a .lnk file--I'd try it, but my menu is already all crapped up with that last brush with emulation. I still have to undo all that trash, especially since I noticed my steamdeck categories carry over to desktop steam. It makes sense, but I don't like it.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Reaperman

[Rick Dangerous]

The other thing i like is that this fits in my big man hands comfortably.

 

The switch has always felt tiny in my hands.

 

Played Alien Isolation last night in bed...Amazing!!  It feels like handhelds have fully caught up with home consoles.  Remember in the 90's/2ks they were always 1-2 gens behind? 

[Gamemoose]

On 10/16/2022 at 6:45 PM, Reaperman said:

Sneak level 68 and counting. 🤣

 

The order of thought processes on this one:

• I don't like skyrim, but everybody just loves it--better give it another chance.
• I'm currently on a ps3 kick, but skyrim legendary edition is really ugly. Better buy it on switch.
• Oh wait, I'm dumb, I own it on steam already. 
• Oh wait, it won't let me grind my sneak ability on a secondary monitor while I'm using the computer for actual computer things.
• Let me get that steam thing I use for youtube in bed.

That is hilarious! It’s been a while since I played, but is there some other skill that can be upped just by button presses? I may be thinking of an older Elder Scrolls game when jumping everywhere upped a physical skill.

 

just set up a drinking bird to press a button….

[ClassicGMR]

I recently grabbed Persona 4 Golden during the Steam sale. I played through it on the Vita way back and absolutely loved it. I've already got 80 hours in on it. It's better than I remember it being.

 

I also bought Forza 4 with a gift card during the sale. This game runs perfectly on the deck!

 

I now have to begin the arduous task of moving EmuDeck to the SD card slot. My SSD is filling fast. Forza 4 alone is 100GB of space. Man I hope this is as easy as it sounds.

 

 

[Reaperman]

anybody else suddenly getting terrible battery life? Just me?

 

I usually use the steam deck to watch youtube in bed, or while I'm playing games on other systems 🙄

And lately I've noticed I get maybe an hour out of it. Browser I use is brave, and I've tried setting a per-game profile with low CPU and GPU, but it doesn't seem to help.

Outside of the regular updates, the only change is that I bought it a 512gb samsung card to replace a slower 512gb sandisk card.

 

Basically I'm wondering if the regular update broke something and others are seeing it too.

Edited March 5 by Reaperman

[Reaperman]

okay, it's looking like this is a known thing. a battery life/health calibration mismatch(?).

 

I start up youtube on a fresh battery @21:42 with per-game cpu+gpu cranked all the way down.

 it reports '21 minutes left' in (this image) 9 minutes later (21:51). 5.1w consumption...

four minutes later (21:55) it reports 46% battery in (this image). I've stopped youtube at this point.

I boot into desktop mode, (this image) shows the battery health warning.

I restart and sit on the big picture mode default menu. it bottoms out at 0-3% (variable) by 22:03, 20 min from full charge,

but doesn't shut off, just keeps going.

 

If shut down, it won't turn back on if it thinks the battery is low, without the power cable being briefly attached.  and it can get pretty naggy with those low battery alarms/notifications/chimes.

 

These symptoms started abruptly late last week

(This article), and the video below seems to have the same issue.  have not tried this "fix"--sounds bad for the battery to drain it to zero.

 

Edited March 7 by Reaperman

[roots.genoa]

But it doesn't seem to fix the problem for good, though. 😒

[Reaperman]

On 3/7/2023 at 2:14 AM, roots.genoa said:

But it doesn't seem to fix the problem for good, though. 😒

it sure doesn't work very long. 🤣

A few charges later it goes back to completely not working. It's not the 100% most annoying thing, since it doesn't sleep at it's imagined low-power (like they did at launch).

 

if I take it somewhere I have to plan carefully, because I only get to power on/unsleep once.

(unless I briefly plug it in)

Edited Friday at 11:03 PM by Reaperman