this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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Steam Deck

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Why more PC gaming handhelds should ditch Windows for SteamOS - Ars Technica (arstechnica.com)
submitted 10 months ago by Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz to c/steamdeck@sopuli.xyz
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[–] M500@lemmy.ml 46 points 10 months ago (4 children)

The suspend feature is wildly important for me.

If I had to boot a game and shut it down each time, I’d only pickup the device when I had set aside time to game.

Since I can suspend and resume whenever, I pickup my steam deck all the time. I can play in the car and just suspend when we arrive or I can play for a few minutes while waiting for a meeting to start.

I can play while my wife gets ready.

Sometimes meets get canceled or there is traffic, so gaming sessions can really stretch out into a longer play time.

If I couldn’t suspend, I wouldn’t have played in those moments.

[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Yeah same, being able to stop playing immediately is huge for me. There are a lot of games I would struggle to play through without it.

Diablo 4 not playing nice with suspend (due to the always online requirement) was the main reason I couldn't get into it and didn't buy it after the free to play week ended.

[–] makuus@pawb.social 6 points 10 months ago

I feel like this really the killer feature.

I’ve seen a ton of digital ink spilled on all manner of positives, such as how amazingly-portable it is, or how it’s been doing wonders for the advancement of Linux gaming.

But, I’ve yet to see anybody—outside you—speak about how amazing the suspend/resume is. And, that for me, is the reason why I play on a SteamDeck almost exclusively these days—even though I have a small collection of games I can play on Mac. I have such small windows of opportunity, and appreciate I can still play a game, even for a little as a few minutes.

[–] Overzeetop@sopuli.xyz 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

My experience with suspend has not been good - causing glitching and requiring shutting the game down and reloading from a previous save whenever I suspended in a cut scene. As a result I haven't used it much due to those first couple of trials; maybe it's better now.

[–] BobGnarley@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I have noticed a slight reduction in framerates when loading back in from a suspended state but only on certain games. Namely High On Life

[–] Overzeetop@sopuli.xyz 2 points 10 months ago

I was in the middle of Witcher 3 when I got my deck, and pausing during a cut scene (and some are feature film length, it fells like) caused the video to go slide-show and the audio to get choppy, and there was no recovering the game. I basically had to go back to the previous save and play back to that point. PITA. Something similar happened in one other game (can't remember at the moment) and I just gave up suspend unless it was something simple / mindless like Yoku's Island Express.

[–] lyam23@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If you don't use suspend mid game, what do you do? Do you shut the device down in between gaming sessions? Or do you just save and exit the game and suspend the OS level?

[–] Overzeetop@sopuli.xyz 1 points 10 months ago

Usually I just suspend in-game to the game's menu, then hardware-suspend. That's pretty reliable.

[–] silentknyght@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I used to like suspend. How is your battery life while suspended? If I left mine in suspend for more than a few hours, it'd die, or I'd pick it up and there wouldn't be enough battery to continue playing without also charging.

[–] azenyr@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Mine just lasts literally weeks, but I never tested it. It is so worry-free that I sometimes go multiple days without picking it up and when I finally do it has like 85% of battery and I don't remember how much it had when I suspended it so I never even think about it. The TLDR is that the suspend in Linux works magically.

[–] Jrockwar@feddit.uk 1 points 10 months ago

Unlike the Switch, which drains 70% of the battery in 3 days of standby. Every time I pick it up I have to charge it, it feels like such a chore that the SD has taken its place completely.

I kinda regret having bought a Switch.

[–] silentknyght@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

You're talking about sleep/suspend directly from playing a game?

[–] M500@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago

It seems to be a hit randomly and depends on the game, but I only play around the house, so it’s never been a big deal. I also try not to suspend unless I’ve saved already just in case, but I’m willing to take the risk.

[–] stanka@lemmy.ml 41 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I never considered one of the windows-based portables. In fact when I saw that the steamdeck was linux based and was well received, I jumped.

Once I saw how well it worked, I stopped dual-booting my laptop and get to live in linux all the time.

If the article is correct and the market is starting to push this way, that is great news for linux, linux-gaming, and everyone.

[–] vexikron@lemmy.zip 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Yeah I am baffled at this point anyone at all would consider a MSFT portable PC.

Linux has finally actually arrived, Proton works amazingly well compares to just a few years ago and honestly Valve as a manufacturer of gaming peripherals has a shockingly good track record for solid build quality, even if some of their devices are not super popular.

Oh right did anyone mention you can emulate basically anything other than current gen consoles on a Steam Deck, and the operating system is not going to fight you on that?

[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think a lot of people would be more interested in the SteamOS over windows on handhelds if they got to try SteamOS first and see how smooth it is. But without full knowledge on it, a lot of them either assume they'll like windows more because they already know how to use it, or they assume it's steam UI only with no desktop mode (even if people won't actually use desktop mode much, they want it as an option).

[–] vexikron@lemmy.zip 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I am shocked, shocked I tell you that MSFT using PC Gamers still have not realized they are MSFT fanboys basically exactly the same way you had console fanboys a decade ago.

But, but, they spent so much time learning how to do so much weird esoteric bullshit to make Windows actually run games well, and nearly none of that translates over to a Linux system!

You mean my decades of mastery of an increasingly enshittifying Operating System is... worthless?

That a better alternative exists if I would only take the time to do literally any work to learn something actually out of my comfort zone?

...

I think the modern equivalent of Socrates getting old and complaining about the youths being disrespectful and dancing too lewd of dances is basically people who styled themselves as early adopters and technologically savvy in their childhood and early adulthood, and then just entirely gave up on that while basically simultaneously still claiming to be tech savvy but also being inherently afraid and dismissive of any /actually/ useful new tech innovations.

[–] vithigar@lemmy.ca 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Gaming has been literally the only thing keeping me on windows for at least a decade now, and with SteamOS/Proton reaching their current levels of compatibility I finally feel like I can make the switch with my next PC and not have to worry about it.

I could put linux on my current gaming tower, but I'll fully admit that it's just easier not to. It's a comfortable shoe at this point that I can't be bothered to change while I already have it. Though if my hand was forced and I had some kind of catastrophic drive failure and lost my OS volume linux is probably what would go there in its place.

There are two other "PCs" in my home that I own, my Steam Deck and a NUC that I use as a home server. Both run linux.

I'm fortunate in that basically nothing I play uses invasive anti-cheat garbage, which is still a huge compatibility problem. It has skeeved me out on windows for a long time, and I've avoided games that use many of them. I had many friends disappointed that I wouldn't join them in Star Wars: The Old Republic back when that first came out precisely because I wouldn't tolerate how invasive the anti-cheat was.

But there are lots of gamers for whom Proton still isn't enough. A single game they want to play that won't run is a dealbreaker. Or the only game they want to play won't run. An OS that won't run the game(s) they want to play isn't fit for purpose for them, and those people are a huge proportion of gamers.

[–] vexikron@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Well, honestly at this point, generally speaking, the kinds of games that currently are hugely popular and only work on Windows?

They usually have very toxic communities.

They usually are expensive.

They are often addicting and they are often designed to coax players into more and more microtransactions and are thus unethical.

They are nearly always a kind of gameplay that is actually not very original, or engaging or challenging for anyone who has a good amount of experience with a wide variety of games, but draw people in due to featuring a popular IP characters/setting/world.

There are nearly always alternative games that take aforementioned extremely unoriginal at this point game mechanics and actually improve on them, but are less popular due to being a less recognizable IP.

Do you see where I am going with this?

You are talking about the most stereotyoically gamer type people that give basically all people who enjoy games but also have a personality outside of that a hugely bad rap.

These are, generally speaking, the idiots that keep shelling out money to hugely exploitative game studios that consistently release buggy unfinished garbage, or are widely known to have horrible working conditions for their employees, or both.

These are the people who I was talking about, the ones that just need whats comfortable, need that latest version of their favorite IP game, number 7 or 9 in the series.

Now, I am being hyperbolic and I realize that there are exceptions to this, there are actually good games that are still basically currently Windows only because they dont have a large enough staff to keep updating their games and also make multiplayer work on linux.

But, if you look into the technicals of that situation... in many cases the technical fix for this is actually so easy that I have seen people literally submit all of the code for this directly to the devs, or if its closed source a comprehensive overview of how to implement something... and they just do not notice it or say that nobody plays on linux so who cares.

But they are likely to change that stance when they see more and more SteamDeck and Linux Desktop users.

I will be completely fine if all of the COD 386 players are still using Windows in 5 years when someone has figured out how to do a more fun, less bullshit, less toxicity inducing shooter on Linux, or something analogous to that.

Let them keep paying for their own suffering while others move on and... you know. Have fun. Playing games. Remember when games were fun, and engaging instead of soul crushing addictions that ruin you and your life?

[–] vithigar@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Do you see where I am going with this?

Kind of? I agree that leaving those games and their communities behind isn't necessarily a bad thing, but they make up an enormous portion of the gaming market. I can't speak for you, but I'm not going to write off literally millions of people as unsalvageable losses just because they play a game or participate in a community I don't like. I'm sure lots of them don't really like their communities either.

or say that nobody plays on linux so who cares.

And there's the problem. They're right. Even now after all the progress Valve has made it just doesn't make economic sense to invest the time to fix these things. Opening the doors for the players of these toxic and addicting games to at least have the option of using linux is another step in alleviating that.

A rising tide raises all ships, whether you like the source of that tide or not.

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[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah I am baffled at this point anyone at all would consider a MSFT portable PC.

Gamepass is still amazing if you are primarily in the MS/Xbox ecosystem. And not all games work in Linux. And, increasingly, modding (for what few games "support" it) is dependent on third party applications that are rather annoying to set up under linux.

Oh right did anyone mention you can emulate basically anything other than current gen consoles on a Steam Deck, and the operating system is not going to fight you on that?

Does Windows "fight you on that" either? Also, it has been a minute, but I want to say that some of the better emulators are still "windows only" and best run through proton?

I love my steam deck and it (and the ever increasing stupidity of win10) was a big part of finally migrating my personal (gaming) computers over to fedora. But if I were even ten years younger and still cared about competitive gaming and all the bullshit out of Riot et al? It would still be a no go.

And now it has put me in a REAL weird position with stuff like the Yakuza/LAD games since I got into those on Gamepass but would love to grind on the go and... (although, apparently there are save decrypters for Kiwami 2 and 7... but still no good way to get HDR to my big display from my PC).

Linux gaming is (FINALLY!!!) viable. But it is still not perfect and depends on your interests.

[–] vexikron@lemmy.zip 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

You're right, its not perfect, but the ball is now rolling down the mountain, picking up more and more snow.

The technical foundations are now clearly evidenced to be viable, all problems that remain more or less revolve around whether or not a developer decides to intentionally not support linux via a Windows Only AntiCheat that is actually a RootKit or not.

And thats up to momentum of overall users on linux, which is up to other kinds of games making the platform more relatively popular, which we already see happening but of course cannot predict everything about.

Maybe some kind of game developer who is a bit jaded with MSFT for various reasons will make a significantly popular Linux Exclusive game. Who knows?

But yes uh Windows does often fight you in ways when you try to emulate. Most of these ways can be overcome by reasonably competent Windows users, but its far more straightforward on say, a SteamDeck.

In this case it comes down to the experience of the noob user, who will be scared and confused by the experience of maybe i went to a bad website and downloaded a virus, windows is asking me to make sure i know what i am doing and i dont, wow this sure seems risky!

On SteamDeck and SteamOS its less confusing and scary.

Also, theres the whole Pluton thing which I am still baffled people do not know about. The latest gen of AMD and i believe now also Intel CPUs are designed with a basically below ring 0 bit of always active, network enabled microcode than runs below Windows, even below the BIOS/UEFI, and this is a physically seperate part of the CPU that is not possible to physically remove without destroying the CPU.

The whole point of this is advertised as being necessary for security, but it actually isnt. It interfaces with Windows in a way it /almost/ certainly cannot on Linux, and its capable of accessing literally everything on your computer.

It is highly likely that what it will actually be used for is DRM at a below the OS level.

Oh you wanna install known binary with know signature of latest release of an emulator? Nope, not allowed, no matter what you do.

It hasnt happened yet, but the security minded section of the linux community have basically already worked out that its entirely capable of doing this and its absolutely within MSFTs uh, philosophy or market strategy or whatever to do this.

Its also literally documented to have been developed as a result of MSFT not being able to figure out how stop XBoxes from being hard modded and softmodded to allow it to run emulators, amongst other things.

Anyway in regards to emulators on linux vs windows, so far in my experience ive had great luck using linux native emus, usually work better tham windows ones through proton in most cases for st least me personally.

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

But yes uh Windows does often fight you in ways when you try to emulate. Most of these ways can be overcome by reasonably competent Windows users, but its far more straightforward on say, a SteamDeck.

Do you have any examples of that? The only thing I can think of is the weirdness with permissions and Program Files. And... let's not throw any stones regarding (user friendly) file permissions, where to install an application, etc.

In this case it comes down to the experience of the noob user, who will be scared and confused by the experience of maybe i went to a bad website and downloaded a virus, windows is asking me to make sure i know what i am doing and i dont, wow this sure seems risky!

As opposed to the newbie who was told everything works perfectly with no issues and then can't play Valorant or whatever? That has ALWAYS been the problem with linux gaming. The evangelists overhype everything and people very rapidly find the frustration points. If you go in knowing what those are, you can make an assessment. If stuff that "should work" doesn't? You assume even more problems will occur and reinstall windows.

As for the giant wall of speculation on hardware level DRM: Uhm... if anything, that would be an argument to stick to windows if you are "a gamer". Since most people, as has been demonstrated time and time again, don't actually care about that kind of stuff.

Because, you are right, it is about "momentum". And we have decades of "Oh, Linux is amazing and all of your games will work perfectly and fuck Microsoft for these ideological reasons that nobody cares about. Oh, that game doesn't work? You must be wrong or it isn't a good game". And every single time it becomes "Well, I don't particularly care about what a bunch of paste eating children think is the most important issue in the world and I want to play my favorite video games so..."

Honesty is the key. That is WHY the Steam Deck worked so well. Valve basically said "A lot of games, maybe even most games, work but you should check the store page to confirm". And Valve very much under-promise on that. The vast majority of games DO work but even something like "You have to hit steam+x to bring up the keyboard" will prevent it from being Verified.

But we still have the evangelists who vague post and mostly preach ideology who insist on over promising at every step.

[–] vexikron@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 months ago (7 children)

Well I was talking specifically about the ease of setting up emulation on in particular SteamOS vs Windows.

Its complex on both compared to say installing a game from Steam on either Windows or SteamOS, but installing Emus is more user friendly on SteamOS than on Windows.

Also its fairly easy to see if a game will work on SteamOS. You look for the little SteamDeck verified icon.

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[–] peter@feddit.uk 1 points 10 months ago

I'm glad that Linux is getting backing from a huge company in this way. However, at its core the steam deck is a Linux based device with a heavily tailored UI running on known hardware with 1st party drivers. Consumers have been using Linux in this way for years without realising it. Sure, this one gives you far more control than you normally get but (in my opinion) the problems with Linux desktop come from support for a wide range of scenarios and peripherals. That hasn't improved enough for me to switch last time I tried.

[–] Alexc@lemmings.world 12 points 10 months ago (5 children)

I just realized something…

At some point, Valve will release a Steam Deck 2 - It will be slimmer and even better than the first. Maybe in a couple of years I am guessing

Then that will be it because other companies will be releasing cheaper devices with their Steam OS. Steam simply cannot compete with them on price, and the feature set (other than faster chips) will mostly be locked in.

In short, there will be now Steam Deck 3 - Gaben strikes again

[–] Icalasari@kbin.social 5 points 10 months ago

Nah, we'll get Steam Deck 2 Episode 2, then Steam Deck Alyx

[–] vexikron@lemmy.zip 4 points 10 months ago

Half Life 3 - Hybrid Action Shooter / Alternate Reality Game.

Is that random person you are walking past in AD 2038 a PMC guarding your local refugee camp after climate change has destroyed the world's economy?

Now theyre a Civil Protection Officer!

Then the game instructs you to find a real life crowbar and present it to the Steam Deck 3 camera for verification.

HEV suit voice: You know what to do.

[–] peter@feddit.uk 1 points 10 months ago

Hear me out... Half Life 3 will be released but it won't be a game it will be a handheld console

[–] vanderbilt@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Steam can definitely compete with them on price. It runs steam out of the box; and they can expect to make some sales on that. OEM margins are already razor thin, and Valve has a major leg up on them.

[–] Lipriv30@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago

I have a feeling that the steam deck 2 will be on par with PS6 given how the steam deck is on par with the PS4 now and can play some PS5 games.

[–] Heavybell@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I am really hoping some wizard makes Steam OS work on the Legion Go.

[–] potustheplant@feddit.nl 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Valve promised quite a while ago that they'd release a public version of SteamOS and they haven't yet. Until they release it, the ball's on their court.

[–] vikingtons@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

From what I understand (and definitely dont take my word for it at all) the 'SteamOS on other systems' initiative has taken a bit of a backseat.

Its unfortunate since so many newer & excitingly capabale handhelds are offering such a poor OOTB experience with win11.

[–] gnuplusmatt@reddthat.com 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Don't bazzite and chimera OS work on legion Go? They carry a lot of steamOS patches and features

[–] Heavybell@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Yeah, trying ChimeraOS now. So far so good.

[–] tormeh@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 10 months ago (3 children)

As much as I love Valve I think it'd be weird for a 3rd party handheld to boot directly into the Steam UI. I get that there aren't any viable alternatives atm, so I guess this is where we are. Wouldn't hurt with a more store-neutral solution, in the end.

[–] vexikron@lemmy.zip 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

If I am not mistaken, you /can/ have that be a thing, as I am fairly sure the actual SteamOS is open source and Valve would /probably?/ allow that to come stock on a potential alternate handheld...

But kind of their whole thing is it is optimized for the hardware set up they are using.

So... you could theoretically have an or multiple competing Not Valve but Yes SteamOS Decks, but from the standpoint of the economics of building a market viable gaming machine, Valve would still probably have a serious edge in that market for a while.

Almost like Valve actually understands the entire tech industry better than nearly any other tech company or something.

[–] peter@feddit.uk 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm fairly sure valve has openly said they plan for SteamOS to be used by other handhelds

[–] vexikron@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 months ago

Had not heard that, interesting!

[–] priapus@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That might happen if any other launcher chooses to natively support Linux. Right now Steam is the best option.

[–] tormeh@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, Heroic or whatever just isn't good enough. Joe Random doesn't want that kind of jank on his gaming appliance.

[–] priapus@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago

Honestly, I disagree with Heroic not being good enough, I think it's the only other launcher on Linux that is. It's very polished and everything has worked out of the box for me. The problem is simply that it's unofficial, no company would ship it on a gaming device.

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[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 3 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

We can only hope this is the start of a trend, as Valve's gaming-focused operating system brings many advantages over gaming portables (and maybe desktops) that run a full Windows installation.

In an increasingly competitive portable PC gaming market, being able to cut out that significant cost over Windows-based alternatives could be a big deal.

Our review of the ROG Ally highlights just how annoying it can be to have to fiddle with Windows settings on a touchscreen running "an awkwardly scaled" version of the OS.

That comes through in many little ways, like a built-in "suspend" mode, tons of battery-optimization features, and menus that are designed for a small screen and joystick navigation.

That's a huge change from the desktop-focused "Steam Machines" era of the mid-'10s, when early versions of SteamOS could only run the relative handful of games that developers bothered to explicitly port to Linux.

That's also a huge change from the Steam Machines era, when Ars' testing showed that many SteamOS games ran significantly worse than their Windows counterparts on the same desktop hardware.

The original article contains 651 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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