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First Person Shooters (Games) Entertainment Games

Valve Promises Steam Deck Will Run 'The Entire Steam Library' At 30+ FPS (arstechnica.com) 59

Posted by BeauHD from the what-we-like-to-hear dept.
Valve expects that its recently announced Steam Deck portable gaming console will be able to run "really the entire Steam library" on its 1280x800 LCD screen at frame rates of 30 fps or higher. Ars Technica reports: That's according to a recent IGN video interview in which Valve Hardware Engineer Yazan Aldehayyat said that "all the games that we wanted to be playable had really good [performance], a really good experience" in Steam Deck testing. Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais expanded on that statement by saying that "all the games that we wanted to be playable" means "really the entire Steam library." "We haven't really found something we could throw at this device that it couldn't handle yet," he added.

Griffais said initial prototype testing for the Steam Deck focused on older games in the Steam catalog and that there were "games that were coming out last year that just couldn't really run very well on the previous types of prototypes and architectures we were testing." On the finalized version of the hardware, though, he said the company has "achieved the level of performance that is required to run the latest generation of games without a problem." "The entire Steam catalog is available to people who have this device," Aldehayyat added. "That's where we knew we had a product that was going to deliver the experience we were looking for."

Aldehayyat attributed Steam Deck's wide compatibility in part to "future-proofing" internals that include a custom APU incorporating AMD's latest generation of GPU and CPU technology, as well as 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM. Griffais added that the performance scalability of modern PC games helps Steam Deck achieve a playable frame rate at its native 800p resolution (which is relatively low compared to desktop gaming PCs). "If people are still valuing high frame rates and high resolutions on different platforms, I think that content will scale down to our 800p, 30 Hz target very well," he said. "If people start heavily favoring image quality, we might be in a position where we might have tradeoffs, but we're not in a position where we really see that yet." In a follow-up tweet late last week, Griffais clarified that the 30 fps target is the "floor" for what Valve considers playable: "games we've tested and shown have consistently met and exceeded that bar so far. There will also be an optional built-in FPS limiter to fine-tune perf[ormance] vs. battery life."
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Valve Promises Steam Deck Will Run 'The Entire Steam Library' At 30+ FPS More

Valve Promises Steam Deck Will Run 'The Entire Steam Library' At 30+ FPS

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  • Will it now. (Score:3)

    by Revek ( 133289 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @08:24AM (#61625041)
    Will it run KSP with a five hundred part rocket at 30FPS. My I7 with 64gig and a gtz1060 won't.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      It probably will run the title screen fine at 30 pfs.

      They didn't say which parts of the titles will run at 30fps..

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Revek ( 133289 )
        Oh it will run the hell out of the title screen. So yeah, that is the out for them.

    • Re:Will it now. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @09:05AM (#61625157)

      It's pretty obvious that any really graphically intensive and not very well optimized game is not really going to be runnable on that hardware at any meaningful framerate.

      But this is GPD Win/Aya Neo/Switch competitor. Not a competitor for a desktop. It's really weird that they're trying to entertain the "but muh 4k RTX 3090 desktop performance" crowd considering what they're actually trying to offer. They should just straight up state that this is a hand held, and if you're a really hardcore gamer you should get it as a complimentary piece of hardware to your expensive desktop to be used on the go, not as a replacement for it.

      • Re:Will it now. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dnaumov ( 453672 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @09:47AM (#61625291)

        The power envelope for 4k/60hz is quite different from 720p/30fps.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          When you have the point in your hand, holding it, staring at it lovingly. And you still don't get it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Revek ( 133289 )
        Its not the graphics. Its the processor. Very little of the game is ran through the GPU. The FPS drops due to the physics of too many parts being processed.

    • Re:Will it now. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Brain-Fu ( 1274756 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @10:01AM (#61625363) Homepage Journal

      Apparently this Deck runs SteamOS, which is Linux-based, and uses Proton to play the Windows games on it. Proton is also what is used to get Windows games to run on Ubuntu, which is what I am running on my gaming rig.

      And the simple fact is there are plenty of Windows games that don't run well or at all under Proton. Unless Valve has a new version of Proton that it hasn't released yet, there is no way they can live up to this "entire steam library" claim.

      • having a flagship product that forces Linux support and Proton compatibility onto game studios is almost certainly going to improve things for those tiny few who insist on gaming from Linux.

        • Gaming is one of the few things Microsoft still has a stranglehold on and thus one of the few things that force people to use their crap. Personally, the only reason I still have a machine that can boot Windows is that exact problem.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by strech ( 167037 )

        And the simple fact is there are plenty of Windows games that don't run well or at all under Proton. Unless Valve has a new version of Proton that it hasn't released yet, there is no way they can live up to this "entire steam library" claim.

        This is true, but in my experience these days (Kubuntu), all my proton issues come from:

        1. Anti-Cheat and similar technologies;
        2. Media Foundation Library issues.
        3. Individual breaking updates

        And the third is the rarest (just whatever the hell AoW: Planetfall added with its last update); 95% of my issues are the first two. Almost all the broken titles in the steam top 100 are due to anti-cheat - Black Desert Online (possibly) and breaking updates for Football Manager and Eternal Return as exceptions. Proton-GE is

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Revek ( 133289 )
        Sure I run proton but KSP has a linux client and it doesn't matter what version or processor you run KSP will lag if you get too many parts in the bubble at one time.
      • I read somewhere that they worked quite a bit on Proton for the release of the Deck but it will still probably have problems with some Windows games

      • That alone means that it will certainly NOT run the entire Steam library on 30fps, because there are still games on Steam that do not run at all on Linux [protondb.com].

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Apparently this Deck runs SteamOS, which is Linux-based, and uses Proton to play the Windows games on it. Proton is also what is used to get Windows games to run on Ubuntu, which is what I am running on my gaming rig.

        And the simple fact is there are plenty of Windows games that don't run well or at all under Proton. Unless Valve has a new version of Proton that it hasn't released yet, there is no way they can live up to this "entire steam library" claim.

        I suspect one of two possibilities.

        1. The games will run on another computer that can handle it, either locally (your gaming boxen in another room) or remotely (someone else's datacentre). Either way, quality will suffer.
        2. This will be quietly forgotten about and/or backtracked to say "we meant most games" or "all games meeting this criteria".

      • It would be wonderful if they actually meant it since it should mean more games would be playable under linux. So far, I'd guess about 30-50% of the Windows games I've tried works on Linux. Proton is great when it works but it is very much hit and miss. I would love if it became better so I could finally ditch that stupid Windows partition...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fazig ( 2909523 )
      Which i7 do you have?
      Steam Deck will come with a Zen 2 quadcore. Given benchmarks that I've seen for the Zen 2 quadcore parts at those clocks, it should be roughly equivalent to an i7-7700k gaming performance.

      If you have newer Intel, it's unlikely that Steam Deck will do better at KSP. If you have an older i7, like 4th gen, it might even do a bit better, if you keep the graphics quality down.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Revek ( 133289 )
        Its a 8700k. The problem is that no matter what kind of graphics card you have the majority of the physics for KSP happens in the processor. When you get enough parts in the bubble it will lag and the FPS goes to 1 or to two FPS.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by fazig ( 2909523 )
          Pretty much all the gameplay relevant physics in any game happens on the CPU. And you can hardly multithread such a simulation if you want it to be responsive to player inputs in real time.
          However, even if the CPU is busy running a billion of rigid body collisions per second, you could still make it look like the game is bottlenecked by the GPU, simply by increasing the resolution and anti-aliasing to ridiculous levels, as well as adding tons of post processing (possibly from 3rd party tools like ReShade).

  • My 10+ year old laptop has a resolution of1360x768.

    I guess if the display is small enough WXGA may be ok, but there are probably a bunch of WUXGA tablets around already. I mean it's 2021

    • There is a big layer in Steams Future Proofing their products. Games are often designed to push the current hardware to its limits, often by taking advantages of bugs and side effects.
      For example PC's with CGA Displays, hooked via Composite Were often able to get 4bit color depth out of a 2 bit color depth video resolution. Because the Composite Display had a lot of rainbow effects and blurring going on. So if the game maker dithered two colors together you can get a new color. Other older systems, chan

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Remind me, what is the relationship between screen size and screen resolution?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      Your laptop is at least 15"+ I would assume.

      The Steam Deck is 7".

      So it's probably about twice as "fine" a resolution to your eye than your monitor is from the same distance. The pixels are smaller than your laptop screen, and there are virtually as many of them... so per square inch, there are almost certainly more pixels.

      It's a handheld, it's not trying to be "the ultimate screen". It's for a quick knock-about game while you're out and about or lying on the sofa.

    • Re:1280x800? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @10:52AM (#61625535)

      I mean it's 2021

      And? Do you play with a magnifying glass strapped to your head? Thank god it's 2021 and manufacturers realise that there's no point in masturbating over screen resolution on a tiny portable handheld device. It's about time phone manufacturers did the same.

  • Storage?? Some games may be to big for it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @08:56AM (#61625131)

    Storage?? Some games may be to big for it

    • This says: [arstechnica.com]

      The hefty-looking console, which is 11.7 inches long (compared to 9.4 inches for the default Switch with Joy-Cons), will launch at three price points, differentiated by built-in storage capacity, higher SSD speed ratings (jumping from default eMMC storage to a pricier NVMe protocol), and differently tempered glass on its screen. Those upgraded versions will cost $529 (256GB) and $649 (512GB, "anti-glare etched glass"). Both pricier bundles include a carrying case.

      All models will have the same AMD-powered combination of a four-core Zen 2 CPU and a RDNA 2 GPU, which Valve describes as a "custom" APU. Each model also includes 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, a 40 Whr battery (guaranteeing "2-8 hours of gameplay" on a single charge), a microSD card slot for expandable storage, and a 7-inch, 1280x800, 60 Hz touchscreen LCD.

      eMMC is trash, and it doesn't show the default config's storage. The newer article from the OP says that the NVME portion is modular ... implying that the rest isn't.

  • Many of us who use Steam also mod our games. Titles like The Elder Scrolls and the Fallout franchise have a plethora of mods available to do anything from simply upgrading the polygon count to adding content. It would nice if it were possible in the portable format.

    • It should be possible. It runs SteamOS 3.0 which is a Arch Linux derivative. And they've demoed that you can quit to the Linux desktop so it's not locked in. So if you can do it in Linux you can do it on the Steam Deck. Alternatively they've also said you can install Windows on it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mccalli ( 323026 )
      This is exactly why I game on the PC. I don't use the PC as a PC, I have other machines for that. Mine's a pure gaming console, but the number of mods I've faffed around with in Skyrim, Elder Scrolls Online...even things like Outrun 2006.

      Be really interested to see if nexusmods does a Vortex port - seem to remember they toyed with the idea but don't know if it happened (and their website is loading blank for me at the moment). ModManager 2 as well. If so...fantastic.

  • Steam Deck. Doesn't anyone at Valve pay attention or care anymore about potential trademark issues? Elgato might have something to say about potential consumer confusion about another piece of computer hardware being named so similar to their existing Stream Deck.

  • This is why we can't have nice things: Cheaters and pirates.
    Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) and DRM are the two big things holding back the Steam library from running on Linux.

    It's my understanding that the Steam Deck will be using Proton. There's a page up for Proton, the Linux compatibility layer that allows many Windows games to run on Linux.
    https://www.protondb.com/ [protondb.com]

    Of the top 10 most popular games, just three run natively: CS: GO, DOTA 2 and Team Fortress 2.
    Of the remaining 7 games, two have Gold compatibility st

  • Valve expects that its recently announced Steam Deck portable gaming console will be able to run "really the entire Steam library" on its 1280x800 LCD screen at frame rates of 30 fps or higher.

    Oh yeah?

    Will it also run "Half Life: Alyx" and all my other VR games?

  • Re (Score:1)

    by Ultimer ( 8105522 )
    It would be better if valve promised to release half-life 3 for the new year, damn them. While I'm waiting for the third part of HL, I have already managed to pass several lives in Minecraft, and also Read More [exactlyhowlong.com] about how long it takes for the turtles to hatch in this game. I think that about 300 real turtles could have been born since the release of Half-life Alyx.

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