Valve announces the SteamDeck

Soldato
Joined
26 Apr 2004
Posts
9,358
Location
Milton Keynes
Well perhaps unsurpringly the Rocoren unfortunately was not behaving nicely when it arrived.

Wouldn't even negotiate 45w fast charging with my phone when first plugged in or the car was switched on (let alone the 140W it's meant to be able to do...), you'd have to unplug the cables from it completely, wait 20 seconds or so and then plug back in for fast charge to suddenly work. Needless to say as this was being quirky from the word go, it didn't fill me with hope it'd perform as expected, or last, so I've requested a return on that and have ordered something slightly lower spec from Baseus, who I've seen thumbs upped for good chargers before. I was tempted by a Ugreen as they're usually solid, but I saw Ugreens higher spec model seemed to be suffering from issues with overheating/struggling to deliver its rated peak power output so skipped them.

The Baseus model is still meant to be able to do 100w via PD/USB-C/PPS and is meant to support 15V/3A as needed for the Steamdeck. Slightly more reassuringly it makes a deal about supporting numerous laptops in the listing and a decent number of reviews mention success with laptops; it seems maybe it uses some of the same chips as the likes of the Rocoren, but Baseus have limited it a bit more by restricting it to max 100w when only the USB C is plugged in, or 65W on the USB C and 30W on the USB A when both are plugged in, and they've not tried to cram in a 3rd connector. Many of the reviews mentioned it stays fairly cool even when doing a high wattage charge, and was more reliable than other similar/chinese chargers they had tried, so will see how this one goes when it arrives. 100W max is also much less likely to cause issues with the power socket (12V x 15A fuse usually, but some cars its 10A).

Baseus do also do a higher wattage charger, but the reviews looked more mixed on that, plus it was twice the price, and I really don't need more than 100W USB-C right now.

Edit: Initial signs with the Baseus are MUCH more promising than they were with the Rocoren, despite the more conservative headline figure of 100W v 140W, as soon as I start my car and power kicks in, it negotiates super fast charging with my Samsung phone (which is up to 45W depending on how low the battery is). It has a little display to show power draw so I may take my work laptop out, use the battery a bit, and then see if it's able to deliver approximately 100W as promised. Assuming both these work, I see no reason the Steam Deck won't, as the unit is also meant to support the necessary 15V/3A as the Steam Deck desires, and, if, unlike the higher wattage units, it run's fairly cool, it should hopefully continue to work for quite some time, as not suffering heat related fatigue in the same way! :)
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
26 Apr 2004
Posts
9,358
Location
Milton Keynes
Hope the deck 2 has accessories like a nice stand with egpu so it can be easily placed on the dock…feel like it’s more and more possible now
An e-GPU dock, especially if Valve vet, recommend and incorporate drivers for GPUs (even if AMD only), would be wonderful; for those who want the balance of portable and power when at home.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
26 Apr 2004
Posts
9,358
Location
Milton Keynes
Yeah, could genuinely be a good option for those who only play games via Steam with their PC, assuming Steam Deck 2 will likely come with something like an 6/8 core CPU by the time that comes out, assuming they're able to optimise a CPU's power consumption as far as they were with the Steam Deck :)
 
Associate
Joined
4 Jul 2009
Posts
1,004
Yeah, could genuinely be a good option for those who only play games via Steam with their PC, assuming Steam Deck 2 will likely come with something like an 6/8 core CPU by the time that comes out, assuming they're able to optimise a CPU's power consumption as far as they were with the Steam Deck :)
I feel like the market for eGPU would be more of an enthusiast sector, which is going to include more people who are willing to tinker and install other software than not. Maybe I'm wrong, but considering GPU prices you're not getting something that kills a console without spending considerably more than a ps5 or Xbox.

For me it would just mean not having to maintain two computers to play games on.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
26 Apr 2004
Posts
9,358
Location
Milton Keynes
It'd be enthusiast, but would have a chance with the more mainstream users of the dock also, especially if the dock/card were bundled, prebuilt, together, at a somewhat reasonable rate, with drivers vetted and built directly into SteamOS, with seamless swapover.
Thankfully the Switch has actually gotten people quite used to the concept of portable, with more performance when docked; this would just be a more advanced version of that.

Even Nintendo themselves considered it, it seems, as there were patents floating around for a standalone Switch '+' dock with a built in processing to boost the power of the switch. If it is done in such a way as to be relatively user friendly, and not necessarily REQUIRING hands on (sell the docks with and without GPUs in), I could see there being a market.

Frankly I also think the market could bare the Steam Deck and dock being more expensive than a PS5/Xbox, because, again, like a Switch, you're getting a hybrid portable/docked solution, you cannot easily do that with the PS5/Xbox :) An eGPU with a vetted, driver integrated, seamlessly switching midrange AMD graphics card, which should be substantially powerful than the APU, would be quite attractive to the right audience.
 
Last edited:
Associate
Joined
30 May 2005
Posts
294
Location
Pembrokeshire
Does anyone have a recommendation for a Type-C OTG Adapter/Cable for the Steamdeck?

I have a 1Tb NVME drive that i was going to buy a enclosure for but with the Steamdeck only having 1x USB-C i cant use it while its charging. I used to use OTG on previous handhelds/phones with no issue and was wondering if there was similar available that would work over Type-C.

I have seen things like this but not sure if anyone has had any experience:



Thanks.
I'm using this hub
Anker 332
with a random cheapy stand was about £7
similar to what I bought

The hub allows power through and gives you a lot more options than a Adaptor/cable, just a thought!
 
Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2002
Posts
11,293
Location
Derby
Thanks. i will look into it. I have got a dock so might just get a extension cable for the Type-C so i can have the drive plugged into that and have the deck a bit further away.
 
Associate
Joined
4 Jul 2009
Posts
1,004
New steam family update brings the ability to play different games simultaneously.
It's a fair bit less flexible than before, with a year wait before joining or creating a new family after leaving, and slots being occupied for a year after someone leaves, but otherwise seems to be a pretty good move!
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: TNA
Associate
Joined
25 Sep 2012
Posts
2,313
Location
Scotland
I joined a family with my brother but am having an issue where after installing a game from his library and I try to start the game, the page where it usually says launch is instead a black box with an error message and a button to reload the page. Anyone else see this?

I am on the beta branch.
 
Soldato
Joined
1 May 2013
Posts
9,713
Location
M28
Want to clone from existing dual boot (steamos/win11) 512GB to a new 2TB nvme. Was going to use clonezilla to do the drive but what to use to resize for a 50/50 split between each os, would the steamos kde partition tool be good enough?
 
Associate
Joined
4 Jul 2009
Posts
1,004
Want to clone from existing dual boot (steamos/win11) 512GB to a new 2TB nvme. Was going to use clonezilla to do the drive but what to use to resize for a 50/50 split between each os, would the steamos kde partition tool be good enough?
Does the KDE partition manager allow you to manage NTFS partitions out of the box? I know there have been improvements to NTFS support in the last year for arch, so it's possible that this would work. In the past I had to use the ntfs-3g (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NTFS-3G) package to do anything useful with NTFS.
I'm not sure if there are other considerations to make when dealing with dual boot on Steam deck, but you probably have a better idea than me if you've done it already.
Otherwise I was going to suggest extending the Linux partition, then boot into windows and extend the NTFS partition from there.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
11 Oct 2009
Posts
16,591
Location
Greater London
What SSDs have people swapped with? I've seen WD/Samsung/Sabrent/etc used but no idea which to go for. Never thought I would reach the limits of my 256GB + 512GB microSD, doesn't help that I've been using it as a desktop/laptop replacement.
 
Caporegime
Joined
8 Jan 2004
Posts
32,046
Location
Rutland
What SSDs have people swapped with? I've seen WD/Samsung/Sabrent/etc used but no idea which to go for. Never thought I would reach the limits of my 256GB + 512GB microSD, doesn't help that I've been using it as a desktop/laptop replacement.
I put a cheap Firebat SSD in. The Steamdeck only supports Gen 3 drives and drive performance makes little to no difference when it comes to FPS so cheap and cheerful is fine.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
27 Oct 2005
Posts
13,702
Location
Netherlands
I've decided I want a handheld in any case.

Steam Deck Oled appears the way to go, for me battery life is more important than anything else.
I don't midn running 800p, higher res is only worse imho for such a low performance device.

Do we expect this to be on offer on the summer sale or winter sales?

I'm basically deciding between buying a 1tb OLED model of 2nd hand to save 100, a 512gb model new now (but fear 512 gb is too little, thats just 3-5 games these days), or wait for summer or winter sales. And am I missing an abvious competitor with better battery life? I've already decided I also want at least wifi 6.

I don't need it now but I am tempted to game in the garden, because I'm a lazy **** who doesn't like carrying around my notebook +controller outside.
I do want it before I go off to Asia for 1-2 months early next year. Especially on the plance. And a handheld like this makes the difference between an annoying long flight and ''where did the last 12 hours go?''.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom