Digital Foundry Steam Deck review

[Goukosan 2,316]

43 minutes ago, Remij said:

Any comparisons I can look at?

 

 

For starters, Steam Deck's screen only has 68% sRGB coverage.    John from DF called these results alarming  (watch from 11:30) and says that's comparable to cheap lower end screens. 

 

 

 

The launch model Switch has full 100% sRGB coverage. 

 

 

 

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/detailed-review-of-switch-screen-quality-and-compared-to-3ds-by-erica-griffin.1369087/

 

And secondly, In the DF review you posted DF said the brightness level is not suitable to play outside the house.   

Edited February 25, 2022 by Goukosan

[Goukosan 2,316]

3 minutes ago, TLHBO said:

Is this where Sheep pretend they play their Switch outside all the time even though wr know that's not true?

 

Is this where you deflect from any critique of the deck without actually responding? 

 

Nothing is wrong with the launch units having sub standard screens per se.. As time goes along and the prices of components drop im sure vavle will  release models update the screens.

 

 

[Remij 4,745]

7 minutes ago, TLHBO said:

Yeah outside of the 1001 reasons why I think Windows would suck, I personally wouldn't install any OS on this as you would lose the "native" feel. It wouldn't feel as fluid loading into a desktop, not to mention mose desktops aren't designed for a small 800p screen.

 

Their comment on shaders makes it sound like they have pre-caching disabled. Its definitely something they should enable.

Yea the sickest thing about Valves implementation here is that games which use DirectX will have their shaders cached through Proton, so Valve can essentially create fully compiled shaders and distribute them along with the games.

 

Not even DirectX in windows allows them to do that... at least not yet.

[TLHBO 2,205]

1 minute ago, Goukosan said:

 

Is this where you deflect from any critique of the deck without actually responding? 

 

Nothing is wrong with the launch units having sub standard screens per se.. As time goes along and the prices of components drop im sure vavle will  release models update the screens.

 

 

Because nobody plays their handhelds outside, this isn't the 90's, and for one thats aimed at more of an adult market, and has a very short battery life with you sheep love to remind us about, I don't think it not being too good outaide is that big of a deal.

[Remij 4,745]

8 minutes ago, Goukosan said:

 

 

For starters, Steam Deck's screen only has 68% SRGB coverage.    John from DF called thes results alarming  (watch from 11:30) and says that's comparable to cheap lower end screens. 

 

 

 

 

The launch model Switch has full 100% sRGB coverage. 

 

 

 

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/detailed-review-of-switch-screen-quality-and-compared-to-3ds-by-erica-griffin.1369087/

 

And secondly, In the DF review you posted DF said the brightness level is not suitable to play outside the house.   

Ah I see.

 

I think I'd rather have a comparison done by the same outlet to ensure like for like testing.

 

So the display colors are a bit better... but that doesn't mean that the actual processing of those colors on Switch is better than on the deck.  The display may be capable.. but it doesn't mean you're getting a more vivid accurate picture from the Switch.

[Goukosan 2,316]

12 minutes ago, TLHBO said:

Because nobody plays their handhelds outside, this isn't the 90's, and for one thats aimed at more of an adult market, and has a very short battery life with you sheep love to remind us about, I don't think it not being too good outaide is that big of a deal.

 

You can spin it how ever you want, it's a portable.... portability is its greatest asset.   Not being able to play it outside is a negative for some people, not all people..never claimed it was.  

 

The sRGB coverage is also quite low, playing indoors will not change that aspect now will it? 

 

I have yet to critique the batter life, it's what I expected it to be given the chip set. 

 

Valve cut costs on the screen, that's an undeniable fact.   You can deny it all you want won't change a thing. 

 

And before you run to your patented bbbbbut teh sheep.  I didn't bring up the Switch comparisons, Remij did. 

 

I simply pointed out the screen in the deck could be better. 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Goukosan

[Goukosan 2,316]

8 minutes ago, Remij said:

Ah I see.

 

I think I'd rather have a comparison done by the same outlet to ensure like for like testing.

 

So the display colors are a bit better... but that doesn't mean that the actual processing of those colors on Switch is better than on the deck.  The display may be capable.. but it doesn't mean you're getting a more vivid accurate picture from the Switch.

 

Mind you that's the launch model Switch from 5 years ago (they don't make these anymore) , and the LCD screen in the Switch has been improved since then. 

 

I won't even compare the screen to the OLED switch because that won't even be fair. 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Goukosan

[jehurey 3,299]

2 hours ago, Remij said:

Is it any worse than the original Switch?

And this is where we're finally landed at.

[Remij 4,745]

1 minute ago, jehurey said:

And this is where we're finally landed at.

lmfao... the answer is no.  One site has one metric worse.. compared to another site.

 

Let me know when an actual site with some credibility makes a comparison.

 

This right here.... THIS is where we're at

 

[jehurey 3,299]

Just now, Remij said:

lmfao... the answer is no.  One site has one metric worse.. compared to another site.

 

Let me know when an actual site with some credibility makes a comparison.

 

This right here.... THIS is where we're at

 

 

SO you're at 2013 base level PS4 hardware

 

with a worse LCD screen that the 2017 launch model Switch

 

And 90 minutes of battery life

 

Its got an even worse LCD than the ORIGINAL 2017 Switch at launch?

 

Let's be honest. TRULY, for once, be honest.

 

If the Switch 2.0 came out last year, as many were speculating..............and its hardware baseline was pretty much 2013 base model PS4 graphics, and a 1080p screen. And since its a Nintendo product, it would probably be launched at around $399.

You wouldn't remotely impressed with a product like that coming out in the 2021, would you? You would say "its not next-gen". Correct?

[jehurey 3,299]

The Verge review is very positive, but basically admits that the hardware is underwhelming, and especially the software is a mess

 

 

Let's go into their review, a bit, shall we?

 

Quote

Bad Stuff

• Unfinished, buggy software
• Noisy fan almost never stops whining
• Some of the most popular games still don’t work
• Two hours or less of battery life at highest fidelity

 

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Let’sLet’s get one thing out of the way: it’s easy to look at pictures of the Steam Deck, see a Nintendo Switch, and imagine yourself magically playing a gigantic library of PC games that “just work” without messing with graphics settings or controls.

That’s not the Steam Deck that exists today — and not just because the Steam Deck is an absolute chonk that can practically fit a Switch between its grips. (It reminded me a little of Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer swallowing Princess Leia’s Tantive IV.) No, today’s Steam Deck expects you to tweak more and forgive more than your average PC, not less

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Speaking of the battery: it’s a weak spot, but it’s not as bad as I feared. I got just under two hours of Control on the Deck at 60fps and around 60 percent brightness, but nearly four hours when I set it to 30fps or in moderately less intensive games. And I never had to wonder how much time I had left or how to extend that battery life because the Deck can instantly report its own total power draw: if you see 20W in MangoHud, you know you’ll get roughly two hours out of the Deck’s 40Wh pack. Control drew 12 watts at 30fps, Max Payne 2 drew 10W at 60fps, and Nidhogg drew only 6W. Not all games fit that formula, though; I saw Resident Evil 2 pulling over 20W at 30fps, and many games crossed the 24W mark at 60fps. You should know that downloading games at high speed dramatically stresses the system, too, drawing just as much electricity and causing stutter when I tried to play Call of Juarez simultaneously.

Quote

But I worry about what happens after a year or two as the battery ages, particularly since iFixit shows it’s not easy to remove.

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What doesn’t satisfy me is the Steam Deck’s fan. It never stops whining, the ramp-up can be jarring, and while Valve’s designers tell me they’re still optimizing the curve and improving the ramp rate, they say “high end games that max out the APU will likely not see a ton of improvement.” On the plus side, the fan does the job: I never saw the Deck throttle or felt the Deck’s grips or controls get hot.

Quote

WhenWhen the Steam Deck works, I finally feel like I can take PC gaming with me. I fire up the new God of War or XCOM 2 or Streets of Rage 4, let my fingers melt into the fantastic controls, feel the rousing music come out of the truly excellent stereo speakers, watch smooth gameplay on the remarkably good 7-inch 1280 x 800 screen, and sigh with delight — knowing I can get through my long-neglected PC games one bite-size session at a time.

But the operative word is “when.” Because the Steam Deck’s software is coming in hotter than any gadget I’ve ever tested — every single day I used the Steam Deck, I was dodging error messages, bugs, crashes, black screens, UI glitches, regressions, even entire feature changes from Valve on the eve of release.

Quote

I lost track of how many times I had to reboot the system or reconnect a device because Bluetooth or Wi-Fi or an SD card stopped working as expected. A few games I downloaded never finished installing, randomly stopping in the middle or retroactively running out of space. Some games told me their “content” was “locked” when I tried to move them, or that they grabbed “corrupt update files.” Sometimes parts of my library, or all of the games on my SD card, would temporarily go missing. I destroyed one card after the Deck seemingly froze while formatting it, and I stupidly reset the console (never ever do that while writing to flash). There were times I couldn’t reach the Steam servers to download save games or verify ownership of a title — and let me tell you, it really sucks to find out you can’t play a single-player game like Control or Red Dead Redemption 2 on the go because of DRM. (My phone hotspot worked in a pinch.)

 

Occasionally, the whole system would lock up. Sometimes the UI would break or scale badly while connecting or disconnecting an external monitor. And while I didn’t have a lot of problems playing or installing games to SD, I did have lots of issues transferring between the SD and internal drive — and unusually long transfer times during which the Deck wouldn’t let me do anything else with the system. Games I’d already installed would suddenly need new updates or need to randomly re-verify a gigabyte or three worth of contents, and I had to download Elden Ring a second time after I’d already preloaded it. Even when the Steam Deck has no Wi-Fi, it pauses a long time before launching games, presumably to see if it can download a cloud save.

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But as I type these words, Valve has yet to fix Bluetooth, which never fails to lag, skip, and fail to reconnect after waking from sleep, and a recent update introduced a new issue where the Deck no longer reconnects to Wi-Fi, even though I have auto-connect checked and the password saved. The auto-brightness adjustment has never worked properly for me, despite Valve’s tweaks. The last update seemingly broke the download progress indicator, and... I think you get the picture.

Quote

In an interview, Valve candidly told The Verge that it knows many things won’t be ready on day one; it’s had to focus on showstopper bugs and hardware production while deprioritizing other work. “So many things will be coming out immediately after launch, in the weeks after launch,”

Quote

But it’s not great if, say, you want to hear how well the Steam Deck runs Windows before you buy one because I never got to test that — Valve’s promised GPU drivers have yet to materialize.

So, on launch day, as far as we know, we don't know anything about Windows performance or just how usable Windows is going to be on the Steam Deck, even though it was a major point of all the defenders implying that the hardware was flexible to do anything.

Quote

And you might actually care how well the Steam Deck runs Windows — because, despite Valve’s best efforts, the single-most frustrating thing is the one everyone saw coming a mile away: right now, you won’t quite know whether a game will actually run on Linux until you’ve downloaded it, installed it, patched it, let it install the first-time-launch dependencies, and hit play.

And they go on to say that the third party and Valve's own game testing status websites..............are just not accurate

 

Quote

But in practice, I couldn’t completely rely on any of those sources when it came time to play. They’ve all got holes. Duck Game is certified gold on ProtonDB, but listed as unsupported on Steam Deck, and it didn’t run for me. Valve’s database shows Persona 4 Golden is completely unsupported, too, even though Valve did the legwork to fix it and I played a few minutes without issue. And I definitely disagree that Deathloop “plays great” on Deck “right out of the box,” considering the low frame rate and stuttery Xbox gamepad emulation I saw when I tried to play. Valve also lists its own Half-Life 2 as a “great on Deck” title, but the default control scheme didn’t work for me at all (though a custom one totally did).

 

And even if the listings were accurate today, there’s a chance they won’t be tomorrow — like how Cyberpunk 2077 was working, even after the big patch, and as of publish, I can’t run it at all.

Quote

If you’re looking to play some of the biggest games in the world, which often use anti-cheat software, you may need Windows as well. Remember my PUBG analogy at the beginning of this story? PUBG doesn’t run at all, nor does Destiny 2 or Apex Legends or GTA 5 or Lost Ark. My very first night with the Steam Deck, I discovered it won’t run the most important games I play with my friends — Halo Infinite and Back 4 Blood — and none of these are a fluke. When we contacted the biggest game developers about whether they’d deign to enable anti-cheat now that Valve offers built-in support, most of them declined to even answer the question. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney was braver, explicitly telling me why Fortnite won’t — because the rewards don’t justify the work it’d take to convince themselves they aren’t letting cheaters in.

Quote

I don’t blame Valve for shipping the Steam Deck before it’s fully ready. I might have made the same choice myself, considering Valve’s got at least half a year’s worth of preorders to fulfill before a single new customer will experience the Deck. That’s a lot of early adopters who’ll likely be willing to endure some bugs to be part of the club. Also, the Deck’s impressive performance might not be that impressive for long, since their RDNA 2 integrated graphics are beginning to make their way into thin-and-light laptops and presumably other portables to come. Valve probably doesn’t want to sell stale chips.

Quote

But if early access isn’t your beverage of choice, you might just want to wait for a Steam Deck 2. Because Valve, no big believer in the Osborne effect, is already strongly hinting that a sequel is inbound. Valve has repeatedly said that Steam Deck should be a “multigenerational product,” including in a new interview with The Verge. Valve founder Gabe Newell went one better in a chat with Edge, saying that “the second iterations” will be more about “the capabilities that mobile gives us, above and beyond what you would get in a traditional desktop or laptop gaming environment.”

 

I said it once, and boy was I right.

 

Valve simply doesn't know how to run a real hardware platform.

 

You can tell that this is the first time that they're dealing with programming for stability and compatibility with WiFi hardware communication.

 

External hardware functions that Microsoft has to do all of those thankless Windows Compatibility and firmware that has taken them decades and decades to perfect. Valve never dealt with any of that stuff.

 

And when somebody is tinkering with the product, and eventually causes some hardware firmware to go wrong, Valve isn't going to be able to provide you with nothing more than a "database library" that doesn't answer shit, and a link to a SteamCommunity forum.

 

It just isn't a consumer-end product. They have no such aspirations. Plain and simple.

[Remij 4,745]

1 hour ago, jehurey said:

SO you're at 2013 base level PS4 hardware

 

with a worse LCD screen that the 2017 launch model Switch

 

And 90 minutes of battery life

 

Its got an even worse LCD than the ORIGINAL 2017 Switch at launch?

 

Let's be honest. TRULY, for once, be honest.

 

If the Switch 2.0 came out last year, as many were speculating..............and its hardware baseline was pretty much 2013 base model PS4 graphics, and a 1080p screen. And since its a Nintendo product, it would probably be launched at around $399.

You wouldn't remotely impressed with a product like that coming out in the 2021, would you? You would say "its not next-gen". Correct?

 

 

 

"bubu if the Switch 2 came out last year "    

[jehurey 3,299]

44 minutes ago, Remij said:

 

 

 

"bubu if the Switch 2 came out last year "    

LOL he avoided that question, hard.

[Goukosan 2,316]

3 hours ago, Remij said:

lmfao... the answer is no.  One site has one metric worse.. compared to another site.

 

Let me know when an actual site with some credibility makes a comparison.

 

This right here.... THIS is where we're at

 

 

Linus has no credibility now? He is reputable enough for DF to factor in his hardware analysis.  

 

Turns out the system currently can't download games in the background or in sleep mode.  It has to be on the entire time for the games to download. 

 

Obviously that will be patched in the future, but that should have been available at launch. 

 

[TLHBO 2,205]

It's so obvious the sheep are hurting inside. I'm not even sure why, the deck and switch are like apples to oranges aside from the handheld form factor.

[jehurey 3,299]

11 minutes ago, Goukosan said:

 

Linus has no credibility now? He is reputable enough for DF to factor in his hardware analysis.  

 

Turns out the system currently can't download games in the background or in sleep mode.  It has to be on the entire time for the games to download. 

 

Obviously that will be patched in the future, but that should have been available at launch. 

 

you can't even install windows at launch, because Valve doesn't have the drivers ready.

 

 

[jehurey 3,299]

Just now, TLHBO said:

It's so obvious the sheep are hurting inside. I'm not even sure why, the deck and switch are like apples to oranges aside from the handheld form factor.

LOL he can't defend it, so he's now outwardly revealing what he WISHED would happen.

 

Yeah, it didn't work.

[TLHBO 2,205]

Just now, jehurey said:

LOL he can't defend it, so he's now outwardly revealing what he WISHED would happen.

 

Yeah, it didn't work.

One is a handheld PC and it's obvious how PC-like it os now that its on peoples hands.

 

One is a locked down console.

 

Should we be directly comparing Switch to a PC?

[Goukosan 2,316]

Just now, TLHBO said:

It's so obvious the sheep are hurting inside. I'm not even sure why, the deck and switch are like apples to oranges aside from the handheld form factor.

 

Talking objectively about the deck has nothing to do with Switch.   If I was baiting or bothered by deck you would have a point, but I'm neither. 

[TLHBO 2,205]

1 minute ago, Goukosan said:

 

Talking objectively about the deck has nothing to do with Switch.   If I was baiting or bothered by deck you would have a point, but I'm neither. 

Really? Because you sheep have been pretty feral im every Deck thread since last Summer. Jerry is probably setting up for an 8 hour shift on the forums tonight