Steam Deck (handheld from Valve) - shipping is 4-8 days from NL to UK

[amc]

I am so fucking hungover today. Watching some good quality YouTube content (Sean Seanson, check him out, well worth a sub) and I'm totally in the mood to game, just not on the big screen. So, got some great junk food knocking about, a little hair of the dog and said vids plus a bit of Horror stuff on Shudder for later, and the Steam Deck sorting my gaming needs.

 

Got some good gear to be getting on with but think I'm going to buy the Vampire Survivors game everyone loves.

 

What a time to be alive.

[Siri]

My tenure with Covid last month was basically laying in bed, watching whatever guff was on YouTube while playing Diablo 2 on the deck whenever I had any physical energy.

 

Covid aside, it was the best time I could have had for a week indoors.

[bradigor]

I got review code for PGA 2K23 and it is another game from a major publisher that doesn't have good UI options to scale to a small screen. 

 

Three 3-Click swing meter is very tiny and difficult to make out. There is a lot of screen real estate left to allow you to increase the size but no option to do so. 

 

Shame, but hopefully we are this being addressed over the course of the next few years.

[Mogster]

10 hours ago, Popo said:

I imagine one would have to revert the setting when one wants to play handheld again too. I hope this is something Valve can address in a future update.

On my Windows desktop at least, switching to a lower resolution monitor usually results in the game adjusting itself automatically. The higher res options simply don't appear any more. I think games should remember their high res options as well when you switch back, as that's the option that should be written to some config file somewhere.

 

Also if a game display is set to borderless window instead of full screen then it will always be whatever the Deck's output res is set to.

[StephenM]

I’m getting some weird stuttering/framerste stuff on a Master System game — any ideas? I tried turning off framerate cap which someone mentioned but didn’t seem to help. 
 

Been years since I tried any of this stuff so not sure if I should be tweaking in Retroarch…

[Opinionated Ham Scarecrow]

£79 for the official stand 🤣

[jonamok]

Does the official dock do literally anything the newer JSAUX ones don’t?

[Strafe]

3 minutes ago, jonamok said:

Does the official dock do literally anything the newer JSAUX ones don’t?

There’s no AC adaptor with the latter as far as I know. Getting another wall plug with the dock sweetened the deal for me by quite a bit.

[Paulando]

5 minutes ago, jonamok said:

Does the official dock do literally anything the newer JSAUX ones don’t?

It has a DisplayPort out.

 

EDIT: and a plug, yeah.

 

I bought the more expensive JSAUX one from Amazon recently and it’s great tbh. Looks much better in real life as it isn’t silver plastic like it looks in the photos, it’s metal, so it has a nice weight and quality feel to it.

[simms]

19 minutes ago, jonamok said:

Does the official dock do literally anything the newer JSAUX ones don’t?

I think the official dock has the ability to receive firmware updates so I guess issues can be resolved and can be improved upon.  If Valves support for the deck is any indication it will receive great support.   To be fair not sure if any of the unofficial docks can receive firmware updates.

 

Spent a good amount of time on the sofa with my deck yesterday playing Stardew Valley.  It was so relaxing just what I needed after a hard week at work.

[kempstar]

Deck arrived yesterday, and the right stick is drifting. Trying to play a game and its constantly dragging the screen downwards. I tested this in the controller calibration, and it shows that the right stick is going slightly downwards, when centered.

 

Can this be fixed? Is this a known issue?

[Scruff]

2 hours ago, simms said:

I think the official dock has the ability to receive firmware updates so I guess issues can be resolved and can be improved upon.  If Valves support for the deck is any indication it will receive great support.   To be fair not sure if any of the unofficial docks can receive firmware updates.

 

Spent a good amount of time on the sofa with my deck yesterday playing Stardew Valley.  It was so relaxing just what I needed after a hard week at work.

 

I think the JSAUX one can too? I bought one for my eldest (the updated one) when it launched but it's not being used yet so I can't confirm but I'm sure I read a story a few weeks back about them (JSAUX) updating the firmware for it.

[Gotters]

good dock comparison vid just gone up here (if you can ignore the monstrous leather sticker he has covered his beautiful deck in), i've got an official one in the hands of GLS at the moment on its way to me.

 

 

[Strafe]

28 minutes ago, kempstar said:

Deck arrived yesterday, and the right stick is drifting. Trying to play a game and its constantly dragging the screen downwards. I tested this in the controller calibration, and it shows that the right stick is going slightly downwards, when centered.

 

Can this be fixed? Is this a known issue?

Try some contact cleaner on the stick, may have some dust caught in it.

[Popo]

2 hours ago, simms said:

I think the official dock has the ability to receive firmware

I can confirm this. 

[kempstar]

20 minutes ago, Strafe said:

Try some contact cleaner on the stick, may have some dust caught in it.

Do you mean take it apart?

[Popo]

23 minutes ago, Gotters said:

good dock comparison vid just gone up here (if you can ignore the monstrous leather sticker he has covered his beautiful deck in), i've got an official one in the hands of GLS at the moment on its way to me.

 

 

Thats a very useful guide. Sounds like the Ivoler dock is best bang-for-buck, with the caveat that the official dock will get the best ongoing support. It would be nice if he had tested them for input lag, as I actually think this is the most important feature; even if that just means quickly saying there is none, as you’d hope would be the case. 
 

Overall I feel pretty satisfied with my purchase, even if it is significantly more expensive than the third party options! I’m such a sucker for ‘official’ branding. 

[Siri]

1 hour ago, kempstar said:

Deck arrived yesterday, and the right stick is drifting. Trying to play a game and its constantly dragging the screen downwards. I tested this in the controller calibration, and it shows that the right stick is going slightly downwards, when centered.

 

Can this be fixed? Is this a known issue?

 

No, it shouldn't be drifting if you just got it.

 

Have a go with software calibration. If the software doesn't work because the later updates breaking something, you can follow this tip. If that doesn't fix it, I'd complain to Valve.

[Siri]

In other news: Xenia Canary has been doing some fixes to the Vulkan renderer - it's still not fully ready yet, but there's enough done that Goldeneye works pretty well now, with none of the menu fuckery I had before when trying it. There's a guide in this Reddit post here.

[robotattack]

1 hour ago, Scruff said:

 

I think the JSAUX one can too? I bought one for my eldest (the updated one) when it launched but it's not being used yet so I can't confirm but I'm sure I read a story a few weeks back about them (JSAUX) updating the firmware for it.

 

The JSAUX has updatable firmware, but you have to do it through Windows.

[Ketchup]

Does anyone else find the sticks either too tall or the position just not great? Using the deck for first person shooters is okay but just doesn’t feel as comfortable as a normal controller or even a Wii u game pad.

[thesnwmn]

15 minutes ago, Ketchup said:

Does anyone else find the sticks either too tall or the position just not great? Using the deck for first person shooters is okay but just doesn’t feel as comfortable as a normal controller or even a Wii u game pad.

 

I don't think the ergonomics are great. Bit too big and bulky overall for me. Too much to hold to use bumpers comfortably. And the sticks need a concave top imo.

[kempstar]

1 hour ago, Siri said:

 

No, it shouldn't be drifting if you just got it.

 

Have a go with software calibration. If the software doesn't work because the later updates breaking something, you can follow this tip. If that doesn't fix it, I'd complain to Valve.

Thanks, yeah that didnt work 😥

[kempstar]

5 minutes ago, kempstar said:

Thanks, yeah that didnt work 😥

Edit: Wait…. Yes it did!

[Siri]

1 hour ago, Ketchup said:

Does anyone else find the sticks either too tall or the position just not great? Using the deck for first person shooters is okay but just doesn’t feel as comfortable as a normal controller or even a Wii u game pad.

 

I'm finding it fine if my hands are just on one set of controls/buttons, but quickly shifting to something else doesn't feel quite right because of shifting where the weight rests on my hand to keep a good grip on it.

 

The sticks themselves should have been grippier, either by having a more concave design or some sort of lip/texture. I'm used to it now to the point it feels weird on normal pads, but it's a valid point to be critical of.

[T Pot]

2 hours ago, Siri said:

 

 

The sticks themselves should have been grippier, either by having a more concave design or some sort of lip/texture. I'm used to it now to the point it feels weird on normal pads, but it's a valid point to be critical of.

you can get wee skins and grips that go over them to make them less slippy but still support the capacitive touch pads that is on each one

[BubbleFish]

Received my deck on Friday and been playing with it the past two days. It’s rather brilliant, isn’t it! Really impressed with how good the games look and play and I’ve been hoovering up games on CdKeys at 80%+ discounts.

 

I do find the sticks a wee bit slippy too so if anyone can recommend a set of caps?

[Siri]

Apparently, Emudeck 2 is now out.

 

Of course, I already updated everything a few hours back for Goldeneye 😧

[bradigor]

6 hours ago, Siri said:

In other news: Xenia Canary has been doing some fixes to the Vulkan renderer - it's still not fully ready yet, but there's enough done that Goldeneye works pretty well now, with none of the menu fuckery I had before when trying it. There's a guide in this Reddit post here.

 

Before I mess around. I assume PGR 3/4 still borked? Same with other previously not working titles such as Burnout Crash?

[Siri]

I would imagine nothing has changed elsewhere, the only thing that really fucked over the Goldeneye beta was missing text on the pause menu. There's not a lot of information about Xenia Canary running Vulkan on YouTube like there is with DX12, and it will likely stay that way until they've declared actual parity.

 

Edit: in fact, here's a checklist of what the Development team need to fix on Vulkan. There's a lot left to fix!