News Steam Deck Is Reaching Its Limits in Games Like Plague Tale: Requiem

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The reason I never liked Steam Deck is the fact it was built around graphical performance.

The Steam Deck is bulky, big, heavy, noisy and has poor battery life.

When I buy a handheld I want:
-long battery life
-low weight and portability
-no noise or loud fans

❤‍ my Switch.
👎 Steam Deck.
 
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PlaneInTheSky said:
The reason I never liked Steam Deck is the fact it was built around graphical performance.

The Steam Deck is bulky, big, heavy, noisy and has poor battery life.

When I buy a handheld I want:
-long battery life
-low weight and portability
-no noise or loud fans

❤‍ my Switch.
👎 Steam Deck.
Click to expand...
You're absolutely right. Portability and Long Battery Life are top priorities for a handheld device.
As for the performance, the main goal is efficiency, and to maintain a fanless design and a great battery. life.
Dense, Efficient and Low Frequency Cores are the way to go for this application.
 
I returned my deck for excatly these reasons. I could see real quick while totally awesome atm (july 22) it wouldn't age well for new games. Sadly I look like I made the right call, for now.

I want a hand held portable PC experience but one that will last a good 3-4 years before going belly up on new AAA games. Until Valve or another pull this off... my switch will have to make due for now.
 
PlaneInTheSky said:
The reason I never liked Steam Deck is the fact it was built around graphical performance.

The Steam Deck is bulky, big, heavy, noisy and has poor battery life.

When I buy a handheld I want:
-long battery life
-low weight and portability
-no noise or loud fans

❤‍ my Switch.
👎 Steam Deck.
Click to expand...

It's not built around graphical performance? It's built around utility. Just because it has better graphic performance as a byproduct to help it do it's job doesn't mean that's what it's built for. It's clearly built for being able to use it however you want. As a handheld, a computer, an emulator, and those are just the ways I've used it. The Switch can't have that utility based on it's lack of graphic output-- it's the limiting factor. The switch is purely for real portable gaming (while I still think its a mediocre for being a portable device alongside of Steam Deck. Sorry, it's no comparison to older portable Nintendo devices) and lacks in any form of utility.

You're missing the entire point of the steam deck if you think it's for taking with you on the go like the Switch. You don't buy a Steam Deck for that. They're for taking your PC games to the bed or couch without having to sit at your computer all day. Somewhere comfortable. You can take it on the go, but as you said, who wants to carry something that size around? (Still more comfortable to hold than the Switch, though) It's extremely convenient in that regard. I can play thousands of games wherever I want.


The fan is also not loud at all and that's simply never been an issue. I'm lucky if I can hear it at all unless it's silent in my room and I have the sound all the way down (which I would never do while gaming). Maybe you have a faulty device, because this is simply not true.

Battery life is of course an major issue if you're playing AAA games or anything graphically intensive, but we're still in the first iteration of the handheld. Did we forget the battery woes of first generation switch? It was awful as well. In fact, it was the same as the Steam deck and offered zero of the pros other than than being lighter and smaller. (2.5-6 hours) I can easily get 6 or so hours with the Steam Deck. Not fantastic, but if I stay away from AAA gaming the battery life is satisfactory, comparable to most Laptops.

Both handhelds have their ups and downs, sure. As an adult that doesn't need to "game on the go" anymore (never does that opportunity present itself) the Switch does absolutely nothing for me anymore. Not when I can play my Switch games more reliably on a different console, which is just ludicrous.
 
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HaHaYeahNo said:
You're missing the entire point of the steam deck if you think it's for taking with you on the go like the Switch.
Click to expand...
Then Valve was missing the entire point of giving the Steam Deck its form factor, and so did you when you bought it.

If you didn't buy a Steam Deck for taking it with you on the go, then you should've bought a desktop instead. It would've offered you significantly more utility and power for less money.

You clearly like your Deck, and that's perfectly fine, but please don't avert your eyes from reality. If you feel like you made a mistake buying a Deck, feel free to admit it. Pretending it's a good device despite being bad at what it was designed for, just because it's good at what it wasn't designed for, is called a sunk-cost fallacy.
 
Nolonar said:
Then Valve was missing the entire point of giving the Steam Deck its form factor, and so did you when you bought it.
Click to expand...

Not really? Honestly, the place I want to play games most is laying on my back right there on my best aged/comfy couch, or on my adjustable bed.

How does the Steam Deck miss that point? Seems like a dead on hit of the target.
 
ezst036 said:
Not really? Honestly, the place I want to play games most is laying on my back right there on my best aged/comfy couch, or on my adjustable bed.

How does the Steam Deck miss that point? Seems like a dead on hit of the target.
Click to expand...
I've actually done that before, both with my Switch and with a smartphone. It's not an enjoyable experience. While you're lying, you'll need to lift your arms so you can see the screen. This will tire your arms very quickly and can be quite painful, too. Try to put your hands down, and you're going to hurt your neck instead. It works fine for ~10 minutes depending on the weight of your device, but any longer is no good, and the Deck is even heavier than the Switch.

If I had the means, I'd much rather mount a TV or screen above my bed/couch, so I can play with a regular gamepad in my hands resting on my laps or stomach. Until then, I prefer sitting. And placing a TV or screen in front of the bed or couch is easy.

Heck, even for that specific use case the Switch is still superior to the Deck. I can detach the JoyCons from the main unit and use a smartphone holder to keep the screen in front of my eyes. With the Deck, I'd have to invest in an additional gamepad to do that, and that's assuming I can even find a smartphone holder that can support the weight of a Deck.
 
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You're missing the entire point of the steam deck if you think it's for taking with you on the go like the Switch. You don't buy a Steam Deck for that.
Click to expand...

what kind of baloney is that

Capure.jpg
 
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Between the Deck and Switch, I prefer the Deck. The Switch is indeed much more portable than the deck, while still having a lot of great games. However, the battery life, even if better than the Deck, was never that good, and many of the games I want to play aren't available for it. For the games that are available for both, I lower the graphics setting on the Deck and am able to get close to the same battery life. I think the Deck strikes a good balance between something like an XBox 1 and the Switch. IMO, if not strictly for portability, the base Deck is a better buy being so close in price to a Switch. It can even play Switch games with emulators, and in some cases it plays them better. If I'm out and about, I'm actually not walking around with my switch either. I used to take it while traveling, and I can do that
 
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I think the Steam Deck is a great first product for this kind of market. There have been plenty of more powerful handheld devices which come from Chinese companies, but they've all largely started at twice the cost. Tradeoffs obviously had to be made to deliver the balanced performance and price. The CPU choice Valve made is the reason I didn't buy one, so I'm unsurprised that this is where it is being held back. I'm not totally sure what their options are there as AMD has only done 6/8c CCDs for their most recent architectures, but even moving to Zen 3+ would be fantastic for performance and efficiency.
 
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Using plague tale requiem is not a good comparison, the game is extremely poorly optimized and it's also extremely demanding on the hardware (tho it looks beautiful, cant deny that), worst combo ever.
If you know what deck is and what is aimed for then it's actually great, specially for emulation (dolphin ftw)
 
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You guys should try some optimisations by the youtuber cryobyte33. I get that you're testing the out of the box experience, but the deck has so much more performance capability then you think. Thanks to him I can play Witcher 3 for 3 hours, or on 50 fps with the right settings. Am also yet to find a switch title that I cannot play on yuzu on the deck. Except for Tunic, but that's already a crappy port on the switch itself. Even the notorious Zelda botw maintains 30 fps.
 
One side of me kind of agrees with the article, but on the other I knew very well this was going to be the case all along, but on the other side I know the Deck is more of a showcase for Valve than anything else. It's just a very good showcase of what an all-encompassing handheld could be with SteamOS. There is an AyaNeo being built with better hardware based on the Deck if you think you need the "better" hardware.

Personally, when I stop playing games from 5, 6 or more years ago, I'll worry about the Deck's performance. Or when I can't stream from my main PC into it. Or it can't emulate the games I like playing on the go. It definitely need more battery though, and Valve is working on it.

Also, it can run all the games, just to be clear, as long as they run in Proton. Don't forget there's a compatibility layer in play as well, so games which are too new, they won't always run at their best in SteamOS. Not that is matters as an end consumer, but something to keep in mind with the Deck and SteamOS.

So far, I think the Deck is a great device when you give it the proper use.

Regards.
 
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As far as I knew, Plague Tale: Requiem
isn't selling the best.
Click to expand...

Actually, it is selling exceptionally well.

It had already sold 1 million copies 2 weeks after launch, and it is still selling very well on Steam.

etyryryryr.jpg


It is also "well deserved" like the article said. Very favorable scores from both reviewers and users. I personally love the game.

gfhfhfhfhf.jpg
 
Funny to read the comments here so much ignorance.
Steam Deck is a great machine that does exactly what its designed to do, and it does it very well.
I play it all the time from old classics like Final Fantasy VII to the Witcher 3 and other games like Tales of Arise.
I have yet to find a game it cannot run properly. Yes sometimes you go in and tweak the settings but that is just PC gaming in general.

The Steam Deck can also get great battery life if you take advantage of the tools they provide you.
I can limit TDP and framerate and when playing FF7 (with gfx mods to make it more modern) can easily get 8-10 hours of battery life out of it.

As for my switch, has not been touched once since I got the Steam Deck.
Biggest difference maker in the Steam Decks favor over the Switch is ergonomics. The Switch controls SUCK compared to the Steam Deck.
 
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PlaneInTheSky said:
Easily 8 to 10 hours?

Do you think people are idiots and can't fact check in 2023?

No one is getting that out of their Steam Deck.
Click to expand...
That's both true and untrue. But it is more misleading since the average is below 6 hours.

I've mostly been playing indie platformers and get 6+ hours on it at 40FPS cap with medium brightness. Play something like Doom and you'll get half that (depending on settings, more or less).

This is a useful resource to get an idea of hours you can get out of a game with what settings: https://sharedeck.games/
 
To piggy back on the general topic though, the Steam Deck vs Nintendo Switch is overly compared. They've both mentioned that they don't see each other as competition.

In some regard, they do compete, but in my eyes the Steam Deck is great competition to a gaming laptop + handheld controller. It is far more portable, has as good or better battery life than a gaming laptop, and is much more comfortable to play in a non-desk setting (i.e., on the couch, in a plane, in a car).

That said, I played my Switch for a few sessions of gaming a month, but I haven't picked it up since I got my Steam Deck (comparison of use anecdote).

It's been the virtual console that I wished the Switch had, in addition to helping me work through my backlog.

I've been using external power banks to charge/maintain my Steam Deck on longer trips, and I haven't had any inconvenience doing so.

I don't think there has to be a winner in the Steam Deck vs Nintendo Switch battle. Everyone can be a winner here.
 
PlaneInTheSky said:
Easily 8 to 10 hours?

Do you think people are idiots and can't fact check in 2023?

No one is getting that out of their Steam Deck.
Click to expand...

You are ignorant as my original post indicated.

Playing FF7 even with the mods to update graphics allows me to set the TDP to 4 watts and then I cap the framerate at 30fps.
Add in lower screen brightness and presto bango you get 8+ hours of battery life.
 
The Steam Deck reminds me of the Sega Game Gear. That thing loved to eat AA batteries, which was a problem since it took 6 at a time. I tried to play it on bus rides to and from school a long time ago. The batteries got too expensive though. Rechargeables helped, but were not easy for kid me to keep consistently charged.

Steam Deck is a good idea for its niche. I'm not sure that buyers really expect or demand to be playing new-release games on it. There are so many other PC games to play that aren't demanding AAA titles.
 
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