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Steam Deck Supports Ray Tracing, VRS, and Other Stores; Programmer Compares It to Xbox Series X in Performance per Pixel

It really should be compared with the Switch in my opinion. It doesn't make sense to compare it to the XSX or the PS5.

I am interested in it for emulation purposes though. Pretty sure it will do very well there.
I honestly don't think it'll be used primarily as a gaming device on its own, mosty used to play the games on PC, without being by your pc. Ad-hoc/basic gaming would be done on this device, with the potential of high end gaming with local wifi, etc.
 
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Rikkori

Member
Do you seriously think they would sell tens of millions of this per year? Like legit you think that? You think this would outsell every console?

Bananas. Absolutely bananas.
Don't be so literal, ofc I don't think it would outsell the consoles, but for sure they could do a cool 10 mill for launch year, or at least 2nd year, particularly if they had enough for a retail presence. Switch did 30 mil last year after all. The bigger issue is they simply can't get that much supply but the sales knob is much easier to turn if you'd have had it. The strength of the device is not just as a switch alternative but particularly as a mini-PC in general too, and that's why the sales potential is so great especially since PC hw prices have stagnated at the lower end for years now.
 
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I honestly don't think it'll be used primarily as a gaming device on its own, mosty used to play the games on PC, without being by your pc. Ad-hoc/basic gaming would be done on this device, with the potential of high end gaming with local wifi, etc.

In that case I would rather play those games on my PC. Trying to use remote play had always resulted in lag that I can never deal with. It might be OK for some people though.
 
In that case I would rather play those games on my PC. Trying to use remote play had always resulted in lag that I can never deal with. It might be OK for some people though.
What kinda router do you have, to induce that amount of lag in local play? You must have a super outdated network system to have input lag on "lan" settings. That should never be the case.
 

GHG

Gold Member
I honestly don't think it'll be used primarily as a gaming device on its own, mosty used to play the games on PC, without being by your pc. Ad-hoc/basic gaming would be done on this device, with the potential of high end gaming with local wifi, etc.

Exactly, it's primary a supplementary device for people who already have a steam library. They know that, hence the requirements for pre-ordering were for existing steam customers only.

It might get a few new people in to the Steam ecosystem but the vast majority of people getting this will be PC gamers.

I'm just excited to be able to have a dedicated PC gaming handheld device that I already have 1000+ games to throw at.
 
Exactly, it's primary a supplementary device for people who already have a steam library. They know that, hence the requirements for pre-ordering were for existing steam customers only.

It might get a few new people in to the Steam ecosystem but the vast majority of people getting this will be PC gamers.

I'm just excited to be able to have a dedicated PC gaming handheld device that I already have 1000+ games to throw at.
I figured it would only be steam users buying this, more or less users trying to get a better version of steam link, on a handheld.

On the other hand, having everything at your finger tips is monumental to say the least!
 

LiquidRex

Member
I
Not sure why LiquidRex LiquidRex gave you the empathy emoji, as this could possibly be better than steam link, while being able to run games without needing a host, aka running games natively without having a PC.
I empathize with how disappointed many of us are with how Nintendo have handled things of late... The OLED Switch was a slap in the face...

Emoji now switched to💪
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Don't be so literal, ofc I don't think it would outsell the consoles, but for sure they could do a cool 10 mill for launch year, or at least 2nd year, particularly if they had enough for a retail presence. Switch did 30 mil last year after all. The bigger issue is they simply can't get that much supply but the sales knob is much easier to turn if you'd have had it. The strength of the device is not just as a switch alternative but particularly as a mini-PC in general too, and that's why the sales potential is so great especially since PC hw prices have stagnated at the lower end for years now.

It has enjoyed a warm reception, and there is certainly demand, but I am not sure if it's 10 million units in a single year levels of demand, and I question Valve's commitment to even attempt to manufacture more than a few million of them this year and the next. I would love for Valve to prove me wrong so that the Steam Deck becomes a new ongoing thing - but, well, it's Valve.
 

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
I wonder if it would be just better to wipe it and put windows on it. Worried a bit about it being Linux and using that emulator.

Vomit Puke GIF by The Late Late Show with James Corden
 
What kinda router do you have, to induce that amount of lag in local play? You must have a super outdated network system to have input lag on "lan" settings. That should never be the case.

I'm only talking about remote play from my PS4. I never tried it with my PC. I'm only assuming the experience would be similar with this device.
 
It doesn't need to be as powerful as the beefy gaming PCs or next gen consoles, this thing has reasonable price points, for what it can do.
Indeed. I mean, if the switch is any indication of what people will settle for to get that mobile gaming action, the Deck has nothing to worry about —how many units did the Witcher 3 sell for the Switch?
 

yurinka

Member
Plus a OS that takes more from the system, plus an abstraction layer similar to emulation.

I agree it will delivery very similar to PS4… most games in 1080p 30fps or 900p 60fps… or in Deck terms 800p 70-80fps… low/mid settlings like PS4.
No, the raw teraflops are aprox. like PS4 but this is using Zen 2, RDNA2 (so RT, VRS, vertex shaders..), 16GB of DDR5 etc. So will look way better than a PS4. Just compare this RAM to a PS4 or Series S.

In addition to this, due to the portable display being way smaller than a TV, the loss you get for getting smaller resolution and less detail is less visible than in a big tv.

I'm pretty sure we'll see (properly scaled/optimized on PC) games looking better on this portable display than on a Series S connected on a tv.

Tim's response to Epic creating their own OS...

Having Windows, Linux and SteamOS they don't need their own OS. And well, they have enough work with their store and games. In fact, I can see official SteamOS support coming for XBL, Epic Store, GOG, itch.io, Origin, Ubisoft Connect, Stadia, Luna, PS Now, etc. after a few months if they see it sells well, and maybe even day one some of them.
 
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GHG

Gold Member
I'm only talking about remote play from my PS4. I never tried it with my PC. I'm only assuming the experience would be similar with this device.

PS4 remote play is absolute dogshit compared to steam link and Nvidia gamestream.

If you can do steam link/gamestream/moonlight via lan then you'll typically struggle to notice the latency. Over WiFi it's obviously a bit worse but it's still streets ahead of playstation in-home remote play.

Don't assume, the technology for PC in home streaming is much better than it is on console.
 

TLZ

Banned
the issue Nintendo has is that Nvidia's mobile efforts have been extremely stagnating for the past 7 years. the last big chip upgrade they made was the X1... technically the X2, but that one is designed for cars and not necessarily for mobile devices
And this is where we can call this a showcase from AMD. They're showing what is possible with their hardware. This is a good kick up Nvidia's butt to try do something about it.

Also for Nintendo to see what is possible out there using different hardware. That's only if Nintendo were interested in the first place. They can use this Deck card to negotiate with NVIDIA what AMD can offer and possibly jump ship.

Let's see how this all goes.
 
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ethomaz

Banned
No, the raw teraflops are aprox. like PS4 but this is using Zen 2, RDNA2 (so RT, VRS, vertex shaders..), 16GB of DDR5 etc. So will look way better than a PS4. Just compare this RAM to a PS4 or Series S.
It is less TFs PS4 but the IPC is 25% better due being RDNA2.
It doesn’t use DDR5 at all… it uses the slower LPDDR5.

Series S is way better machine… it is not even comparable.

BTW it is mix of downclocked AMD 5400U CPU with downclocked AMD 5800H GPU… the way stronger AMD 5890H games at 720p low at 60fps… some games you need to drop yo 480p or 360p for 60fps.
 
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Kumomeme

Member
now Nintendo has no excuse to not release new Switch in this league of capabilities. especially with Nvidia backing them.

also this made me curious about AMD gpu in upcoming Exynos soc and rumoured google's whitechapel cpu.
 
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MrFunSocks

Banned
I just like the fact Valve showed the world you can have such power in handheld form for $399. A slap across Nintendo's stingy face. I hope now Nintendo's next system will be at least as good as this.
Valve don’t have shareholders to keep happy like Nintendo do. Nintendo always sells hardware at a profit, it’s where they make a fortune, whereas others have sold at a loss until basically this gen and the last. If Nintendo came out and lost a hundred bucks per sale their shareholders would be furious.
 

Kagero

Member
I hope they can deliver. It’s what I was saying in the other thread. If this can hit one x level graphic on a 720p screen I’ll be more than happy. Looks like it should be able to do that with RT. Noice! So happy I got the pre order in.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
Don't be so literal, ofc I don't think it would outsell the consoles, but for sure they could do a cool 10 mill for launch year, or at least 2nd year, particularly if they had enough for a retail presence. Switch did 30 mil last year after all. The bigger issue is they simply can't get that much supply but the sales knob is much easier to turn if you'd have had it. The strength of the device is not just as a switch alternative but particularly as a mini-PC in general too, and that's why the sales potential is so great especially since PC hw prices have stagnated at the lower end for years now.
I don’t think they’d have a hope in hell of selling 10 mill in a year. While it might be “cheap” for a low end gaming pc that’s portable, it’s still very expensive compared to the consoles. The 512gb is the only one really worth buying, and it’s like almost twice the price of the series X and PS5.

I just can’t see the market for a low powered low resolution handheld pc that’s twice the price of the top tier game consoles being anywhere near 10 million sales a year.
 

Marlenus

Member
It is less TFs PS4 but the IPC is 25% better due being RDNA2.
It doesn’t use DDR5 at all… it uses the slower LPDDR5.

Series S is way better machine… it is not even comparable.

BTW it is mix of downclocked AMD 5400U CPU with downclocked AMD 5800H GPU… the way stronger AMD 5890H games at 720p low at 60fps… some games you need to drop yo 480p or 360p for 60fps.

Cezanne uses Vega and has lower memory bandwidth than the steam deck (which sounds like Van Gogh). This thing is faster and has more bandwidth than my 2200G which is pretty impressive.

On that note my 2200G is fine for the games I play (it can also play civ 6 and SW:TOR at 4k) so I a tempted to see if this could replace my entire PC.

It will also be an amazing portable emulation device.

I will be interested in seeing how much you can OC that GPU by since RDNA2 clocks really well and 1.6Ghz seems to be really far down the frequency curve.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
Correct me if I'm wrong, but unlike with PS5/XSX, on Dock YOU are the one who tweaks the graphical settings up to you liking, manually adjusting the details and resolution.

If so then yeah, the math does stack up, 4K vs 800p is 8x the pixels, 1/8th of 12TF is ~1.5TF, which the Dock has.
 

TLZ

Banned
Valve don’t have shareholders to keep happy like Nintendo do. Nintendo always sells hardware at a profit, it’s where they make a fortune, whereas others have sold at a loss until basically this gen and the last. If Nintendo came out and lost a hundred bucks per sale their shareholders would be furious.
Considering they sell a crap ton of games, I'm very surprised they don't sell at a loss, or even breakeven. They can easily make up for it with 1 first party game like Smash or Animal's crossing. Out of the console makers out there they should be the ones who could easily do it and not feel a dent.
 

pasterpl

Member
My prediction is that 90% of users will install windows 11 on this.
also, serious question, do we think this will support eGPU?
 

Nikodemos

Member
Considering they sell a crap ton of games, I'm very surprised they don't sell at a loss, or even breakeven. They can easily make up for it with 1 first party game like Smash or Animal's crossing. Out of the console makers out there they should be the ones who could easily do it and not feel a dent.
They made it an unwritten internal policy to never sell hardware at a loss pretty early in the company's history. The only time they came close to selling at a loss was right after 3DS's launch, when it sort of stumbled out the gate, and they had to cut the price and institute the Ambassador Program.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
1.6 RDNA 2 teraflops = 2 GCN (PS4) teraflops, plus a whole host of other architectural improvements, and it supports all DX12 Ultimate features. It also has a CPU that dogs on the PS4's CPU by orders of magnitude, and it only needs to target around half the resolution that the PS4 does.

With VRS I can see it hitting a stable medium/60 on all last-gen titles. This thing is gonna be great.

So you're only gonna be playing last-gen games on it then? For those it should be pretty great, agreed, but I would really worry about how it's gonna handle proper next-gen games that are already mostly sub-4K on XSX/PS5 and at times as low as 900p or even 720p on XSS.
 

UnNamed

Banned
You can have a rtx3090 and a Threadripper in your portable device, but in the end you're limited to 15W TDP, 1/4 a Series S. That'd why I expect this performance from Steam Deck, so for example 720p/60 over 1440p/60 on Series S.
 
What crazy stuff this dev is smoking? I want it.


This Steam Deck wont even beat Series S in performance let alone SX or PS5 lol..



This better portable option

 
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Genx3

Member
Too bad the Steam deck didn't go with an Nvidia GPU featuring DLSS.

I guess Valve figured that going with a similar architecture as the XSX/XSS would allow the deck to get better optimized games as devs get familiar with the architecture.
 

Md Ray

Member
1.6 RDNA 2 teraflops = 2 GCN (PS4) teraflops, plus a whole host of other architectural improvements, and it supports all DX12 Ultimate features. It also has a CPU that dogs on the PS4's CPU by orders of magnitude, and it only needs to target around half the resolution that the PS4 does.

With VRS I can see it hitting a stable medium/60 on all last-gen titles. This thing is gonna be great.
Those architectural improvements are great but 1.6 RDNA TF = 2 GCN (PS4) TF doesn't mean the real world performance will be on the same level as a PS4 GPU. Steam Deck isn't using the power-hungry GDDR type memory so it'll very likely be bandwidth constrained like the Ryzen APUs on PC. You only have to look at something like 5700G which has a 2 TF Vega iGPU but perf-wise it falls below PS4-level. In DOOM Eternal it manages around 54fps at 80% of 720p, Low preset. And it's at 65W... Steam Deck has like what 4-15W for the APU, on top of that the GPU seems to have highly variable compute power judging from the listed 1.0-1.6 GHz clock speed.
 
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DavidGzz

Member
I mean, the issue is... if a game on Series X drops the resolution down to 1440p or 1200p, that's not amazing but not the end of the world

if the Series S goes below 900p, or even 720p... that's really on the edge of being ok

now with this system that is about half as powerful (not even half), dropping from 720p down to 480p will be BARELY ok for many people, and it will look pretty shit in modern games.

it has the benefit of being a handheld system with a comparatively small 7" screen and not a system you will play on a 55" 4K TV, but still, there is a limit at which games will stop looking decent and start to look N64-esque.

so while that sounds great at first glance "same power pixel for pixel as a Series X", what that really means is extremely low resolution games as soon as you play anything more recent and don't want to drop settings to low.

Why wouldn't they just scale back other things before needing to lower the resolution that much? Like effects on low, or a lower level of detail at a distance. The Switch ran The Witcher 3, I think the Deck will be fine for the whole gen.
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
• The GPU is about as fast in raw performance as a base PS4, but it's a much newer and more efficient architecture (the same as PS5/XSX), and it only needs to target 1280x800. In other words, it has about the same raw GPU performance per pixel when targeting 1280x800 as the Xbox Series X has when targeting 4K (slightly more actually).

• The CPU is basically half a XSX/PS5, with slightly lower clock.

• 16 GB of RAM (really neat), 4x Switch, same capacity as PS5

Obviously there will be a bit of overhead (varying from basically nothing or even better performance to significant overhead) for running games on Proton compared to Windows, but this is the performance you should expect.


Not a game developer, but i dont think game optimization its that simple.
Seems way optimistic here.
 
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