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[Digital Foundry] Steam Deck vs Next-Gen Gaming: Ray Tracing/Flight Simulator/Unreal Engine 5 + More Tested!
- Thread starter dex3108
- Start date
They explain it in the video. In Proton they can't access hardware accelerated ray tracing and also can't run Flight Simulator so they had to wait for Windows support.
Yup.
Not to mention that there's still tons of us who haven't gotten ours yet, so any new information helps when deciding if we want to move forward with that preorder when the time comes.
I heard the explanation. The information isn't really new or anything worthwhile. It would have been more interesting to see Windows 11 performance, especially when it seems that (according to the steam decks sub-reddit) it has better performance than Win10.
I wonder if Valve is planning to do yearly spec bumps like the other handheld PCs (GPD, Aya, etc)?
Probably would have modest gains every year but the Switch is doing well and there is something to be said about having a single hardware target.
Probably would have modest gains every year but the Switch is doing well and there is something to be said about having a single hardware target.
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Windows 11 support came later, like a little over a week ago, this video seemingly took a long time to make.
that would depend on AMD making new APUs in this area. the next one is just a refreshed Van Gogh, so there won't be any improvement
Oh yeah, they had a pretty custom thing while the other players use an off-the-shelf AMD/Intel laptop APU. So it would make sense to keep producing the exact same spec for multiple years to get per-unit costs down.
Would be interesting if we see a Steam desktop with a chunky enough APU to drive VR games or games with cutting edge graphics/RT.
I don't think they will too often, maybe every few years. Sounds like they are taking a decent hit on these already. I don't know how interested they are jumping back into the red after these eventually start to break even for them as a cost. Sony, Nintendo and Xbox consoles are closed systems. The deck isn't a closed system so the cost to recoup is a bit more tricky. Plus there will be third party variants of the deck eventually as well. It will be interesting to see what information Valve releases (if they release any) about the success of the deck and it's impact to the market a couple years down the road. I hope they make more versions, but I don't know if it will have the same price vs performance as the first one since it's trying to jump-start the market.
I say this in every Steam Deck hardware thread but I am practically frothing at the mouth for these APUs to hit retail availability.
If I could ditch my current PC and put together a tiny little mini PC for my gaming that would be amazing.
If I could ditch my current PC and put together a tiny little mini PC for my gaming that would be amazing.
How is it too late when most people still waiting on their SteamDeck ? Weird statement.
Have owned the Deck for over a month know and found this a interesting video, you are making it sounds like there is no point in presenting their impressions and tests to their audience, which is wrong.
Owning the Deck for a while kinda made me realize that i actually wanna built a new HTPC with these new APUs in the core.
Switch and mobile are more than enough for my portable needs. SD is a great device but i would trade it for a more powerful settop PC in a hardbeat.
I'm still waiting on mine. I'm a Q2 order and it's killing me.
What has been lost or ruined by this video releasing now and not sooner?
People are barely getting their units, Valve is still fulfilling day 1 pre-orders. Heck, the queue for the 512 GB model in the US has moved about 12 minutes from the time pre-orders have started, according to a crowdsourced spreadsheet from Reddit.
How is this way too late? Way too late for what?
All of this information was already known, nothing was lost or ruined. Forget it about it.
as far as we know, Van Gogh is off the shelf. supposedly Microsoft looked into using it but bounced, leaving the SoC foot in the grave before Valve picked it up. since it's not a custom/semi-custom product, Valve is beholden to AMD with updates.
as for desktops, there's plenty of options to run proton on
And inversely, if you don't have a pre-order in already, you aren't getting one any time soon. You're safe to place one, do a bunch of research (or wait a few weeks for a well put together DF video) and cancel your pre-order should you chose.
Imagine how much more performance you could squeeze out of it with more power and a better fan!
The 5600G is already damn impressive in my eyes for what it's accomplishing, and what's under the hood of the Steam Deck is even better.
I actually think it was meant for OEMs. Van Gogh comes up on APU road maps but it never was released.
Probably felt Zen2/RDNA2 wasn't compelling enough for the laptop market and shelved it until Valve came calling.
given the segment Van Gogh is in, the gpu would be too powerful, but the cpu is too weak compared to the other laptop offerings. it's a weird product
If I regularly played a Switch, I would probably feel the other way around; the Steam Deck would basically render it obsolete or just an exclusive device for me. Deck basically does everything better, imo. Switch was first to the form factor and had the benefit of having "Nintendo" on the box, but I think now a Switch 2 could use more than just a spec bump to make it worthwhile beyond just Nintendo games.
Thats fair, just speaking for my personal opinion. I have a massive Switch library/backlog and the last weeks ive been busy playing Legends Arceus Triangle Strategy, Kirby and soon 13S and Switch Sports.
Just realized that i have more than enough to play on the Switch and yeah most of the games are exclusive, or good enough because i dont really invest in lackluster ports. The Deck is great but its collecting dust right now, because going from portable to Dock and vice/versa experience has been a bit disappointing, especially when it comes to external controller support. Also many games i was excited for dont really work unless you really go out of your way and try to make it work - like XIV, Genshin Impact, Lost Ark.
Its a dope device but people without a Switch and/or a massive Steam library will get way more out of it. If i didnt have a Switch it would be likely my most played system.
Then again if you are more invested in games that arent on Switch to begin with like Elden Ring, God of War or GWT, its a no brainer ofc. Its all about how much playtime you have for portable play, personally i think not many people can justify owning multiple gaming handhelds.
Its weird but after owning the Deck i started to appreciate the Switch and how streamlined the experience is. Just being able to play games without encountering issues as well as the on the fly switch between different modes.
I highly doubt they'll do it every year. For one thing, people who preordered within the first few days will probably still be getting their system ls this time next year.
I'd guess that it would be at least 2 years before we see a spec bump, and that would only be for small updates to the internals.
I'm also not sure what effect another system hardware configuration would have on Steam Deck game compatibility. I guess if the new chips are close enough it'll be fine, but they might not want to worry about games being compatible on one version of Deck and not on another.
I'm loving my Deck so far, but there are a few use cases where the Switch beats it, at least for me.
One big one for me is fan noise. I know it's seemingly a lottery if you get a loud fan or not, but mine is loud enough to bug my partner if she's sitting nearby. She says it sounds like a neighbor is drilling something outside. And it runs a lot too, even just navigating the menus causes it to kick on for a while.
My Switch's fan is barely audible even when it runs, which isn't that often.
And the other thing is that the Switch does get ports that are made specifically for it. Diablo 3 is one of my favorite games for the system, and even though I could get a controller config for it on PC, it still would lnt play as well as native Gamepad controls (at least for me, I tried years ago with the Steam Controller on PC).
That's not to say that most modern PC games have good controller support already and work perfectly on Deck, but there's definitely a few cases where I might want to play a game in my Switch instead of my Deck, not to mention the OLED model's nice screen (60 fps native res indies are especially great on it).
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I'm almost certain my Deck is going to kill my Switch time to practically zero (pretty much just a Picross machine at this point) but that's okay. Though now I wish I hadn't double-dipped on indies quite so much.
Seems like there's a lot of speculation that AMD is set on abandoning the lower end of the discreet GPU market and focusing on having nice APUs. This would be very good news. Hopefully it starts with RDNA 3 and we start seeing some truly viable APUs in the PC space.
I've been trying to get a FE 3070 for retail since it launched. I just had a Gamers Nexus video pop into my Youtube feed about an absolute PoS chip that AMD released and which "should have been sent to the landfill instead". This "crap" chip was basically trading blows with my Ryzen 2700. LOL. I guess my CPU is complete crap for the new GPUs that are coming. I'm definitely ready to get off the train and just have a tiny HTPC with a nice APU. My dream of MS ever allowing Windows on Xbox Series X is dead, but it'd be nice if Valve could source something really nice for a stationary device.
Nah this video is definitely worthwhile. Great stuff from DF as usual.