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

[Strafe]

15 minutes ago, Siri said:

 

 

IIRC, there's a per-game setting to enable the maximum resolution to be anything higher than 1280 x 800. But even if you do that, there really isn't a lot of games out there that properly support ultrawide without mods, from my time using one with the big computer at home.

 

Could always check if there's software on the monitor itself to do PiP, I guess.

Sekiro wouldn’t let me push the resolution any higher than the highest (1080x720 I think) available on steam deck. Neither did Guilty Gear Strive.

 

What’s PiP?

[Strafe]

1 hour ago, Gotters said:

interesting, apparently MS put some back end changes in just now to upgrade gamepass streaming  on linux/deck.

 

 

Is this saying that Chrome is better than MS Edge now? I have game pass xcloud running on the latter.

[Mogster]

4 minutes ago, Strafe said:

Is this saying that Chrome is better than MS Edge now? I have game pass xcloud running on the latter.

I don't think so, but I think Chrome is available by default on SteamOS now so it would save you installing Edge as well. You'd certainly hope Edge would at least match Chrome for GP streaming on Linux, for obvious reasons.

[Strafe]

5 minutes ago, Mogster said:

I don't think so, but I think Chrome is available by default on SteamOS now so it would save you installing Edge as well. You'd certainly hope Edge would at least match Chrome for GP streaming on Linux, for obvious reasons.

I’ll stick with Edge then so I don’t have to faff around anymore!

[Mogster]

11 minutes ago, Strafe said:

I’ll stick with Edge then so I don’t have to faff around anymore!

I guess this might mean you no longer need to bother with the user agent spoofing extension though, which would be nice.

[Strafe]

23 minutes ago, Strafe said:

Sekiro wouldn’t let me push the resolution any higher than the highest (1080x720 I think) available on steam deck. Neither did Guilty Gear Strive.

 

What’s PiP?

I’ve tried Death Stranding and Spider-Man Remastered, which both have ultra wide support.

 

I couldn’t get Death Stranding to go into ultra wide and wasn’t able to change the resolution at all.
 

Spider man did, sort of, but didn’t go full screen, it gave me the wider aspect ratio but stuck huge black borders on the top of the picture and still on the sides.

 

The steam OS performance frame rate counter stays in the top left of the screen so I assume the deck is outputting at full screen but the games themselves won’t do it. 

 

 

[Strafe]

Just now, Mogster said:

I guess this might mean you no longer need to bother with the user agent spoofing extension though, which would be nice.

What’s that?

[Mogster]

1 minute ago, Strafe said:

What’s that?

GP streaming used to default to some relatively low quality setting on Linux, which I assume this update has addressed. You could install Chrome/Edge extensions that spoofed a Windows user agent though, which meant you could stream at full quality as the servers would think you were running Windows.

 

The reason for this was purely practical, as Microsoft hadn't implemented a way to optimise for the various Linux distros users might be using, so just took the quick option of defaulting to the lowest quality across the board. Hopefully that's changed now.

[Strafe]

I seem to remember there was an extension I read about for MS Edge that did that but never got around to installing it.

 

I’ll leave as is and do it on Chrome and see if I get any improvements on quality and frame rates (for some reason steam OS was telling me today that fortnite was running at 45fps though using the in game counter it was doing 60)

[Siri]

54 minutes ago, Strafe said:

I’ve tried Death Stranding and Spider-Man Remastered, which both have ultra wide support.

 

I couldn’t get Death Stranding to go into ultra wide and wasn’t able to change the resolution at all.
 

Spider man did, sort of, but didn’t go full screen, it gave me the wider aspect ratio but stuck huge black borders on the top of the picture and still on the sides.

 

The steam OS performance frame rate counter stays in the top left of the screen so I assume the deck is outputting at full screen but the games themselves won’t do it. 

 

 

 

Oh, I didn't mean the in-game settings - SteamOS has a thing under each game (like the compatibility tab to change proton versions) that lets you force the game to see the deck at x resolution, instead of the game just detecting the resolutions that the handheld LCD can run at.

 

Edit: and PiP means Picture in Picture. These sorts of monitors have a mode to divide the space so you can at least have the deck running on one part of the screen and the other showing another device's output, instead of just a whole load of nothing.

[Jamie John]

1 hour ago, Fry Crayola said:

 

You're always going to get that disconnect, because the only solution is Microsoft maintaining everyone's connection and keep the instance running when they stop using it. The equivalent of having a taxi idle outside your house when it brings you home, because you think you might want to go somewhere tomorrow.

 

They might be able to do work to speed up some back end processes, but the dream of being able to wake the machine up and instantly be right back playing a game that is actually running on a server miles away is an extremely distant one.

 

I wouldn't mind so much if the game immediately went into re-connect mode as soon as you resumed the console, but I was finding I was having to reload the Game Streaming App (or webpage, really), load the Xbox dashboard, select the game I wanted to play, then connect. This was every time I turned the Deck back on from suspend mode. I probably set it up wrongly.

[Siri]

I don't think I had any problems with just putting the deck on standby after I exited a session, tbh.

 

That way, I just turn the deck on and I'm at the game select screen and get on with it.

 

Speaking of xCloud - tried it again, and it's still a very laggy experience via my mobile hotspot (it's fine on home WiFi).

 

Of course, I finish up and I immediately realise I should look at the settings. It's outputting the WiFi at 2.4ghz instead of 5ghz so no wonder it's looking and acting shit  I'll have to try again while I'm waiting for my flu jab.

[Fry Crayola]

23 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

 

I wouldn't mind so much if the game immediately went into re-connect mode as soon as you resumed the console, but I was finding I was having to reload the Game Streaming App (or webpage, really), load the Xbox dashboard, select the game I wanted to play, then connect. This was every time I turned the Deck back on from suspend mode. I probably set it up wrongly.

 

I don't think you've set it up wrongly at all. The big problem there is the web page needs reloaded. That'll be because your connection has timed out, because of course your machine is turned off. But the back end doesn't know your machine is turned off, only that there's no ping from your end. As far as its concerned, that could just as easily be because you've closed the browser window. So if that connection is gone, what reason do Microsoft have of keeping the session for anything other than a short length of time to handle brief disconnects?

 

There are things you mention though that may be easier improved, such as setting up a suspend and resume system within the Xbox cloud system that skips the whole dashboard and dumps you back with what you were playing last. It'd take some of the hassle away. Having their own dedicated program instead of piggybacking on a web browser might also enable an automatic reconnect when you turn the system back on. It'll not be instant, but it could potentially be input-free.

 

But I doubt there's enough incentive for them to do that yet.

 

Although thinking, maybe you can still do that in a web browser. I'm no web developer. 

[ThePixelbarks]

Very close to switching over to win11. I want my gamepass stuff, I want viva piñata, and I want FFXIV with damage meters.

[Flanders]

Got my Steam Deck delivered yesterday morning, was playing a fully functioning HD version of Metroid Prime by the evening. Absolutely outrageous, I haven’t played on a PC in years and have never emulated a game in my life but the Deck just instantly makes that whole ecosystem accessible even to total luddites. 
 

Also, Nintendo are utter ballbags for holding off on the Prime trilogy remasters all these years. Absolutely beautiful games that just sing in the higher resolution.

 

[Jamie John]

11 minutes ago, Fry Crayola said:

There are things you mention though that may be easier improved, such as setting up a suspend and resume system within the Xbox cloud system that skips the whole dashboard and dumps you back with what you were playing last.

 

Yes - this would be great. I'm sure you can (or could) do that on the actual console; go straight back into the game you were playing without going to the dashboard. You could definitely do it back on the 360. I think, anyway...

[bradigor]

3 hours ago, Gotters said:

interesting, apparently MS put some back end changes in just now to upgrade gamepass streaming  on linux/deck.

 

 

I assume just leaving mine as is (Edge Beta) will be fine too. Can't be arsed with messing around at the moment. 

[Yiggy]

Stupid dock question. 
 

If I plug the dock into my 4k TV will it output games in their 800p resolution? To be clear this is what I want to happen just like the switch does so the TV just upscales it. Effectively making it just like the Switch dock?

[Strafe]

3 minutes ago, Yiggy said:

Stupid dock question. 
 

If I plug the dock into my 4k TV will it output games in their 800p resolution? To be clear this is what I want to happen just like the switch does so the TV just upscales it. Effectively making it just like the Switch dock?

Yes. Well, it did on my monitor anyway.

 

It’s not quite the same as the switch dock though, plugging into one pumps up the clock speed so it can do higher resolutions or frame rates (the screen is 720p, it can output up to 1080p in docked mode). The steam deck dock doesn’t do anything other than pass a signal to and from the deck.

[deerokus]

15 minutes ago, Yiggy said:

Stupid dock question. 
 

If I plug the dock into my 4k TV will it output games in their 800p resolution? To be clear this is what I want to happen just like the switch does so the TV just upscales it. Effectively making it just like the Switch dock?

 It should do but you can manually override if things go wonky (or if you know the game can run fine at 1080p etc).

[alex3d]

HELP please

 

My Steam Deck desktop mode looks like this. How do I restore it to the standard format?

 

[Strafe]

Looks like desktop mode resolution is wrong. Change it in the settings on desktop mode.

 

 

[Mr. Gerbik]

Steam Phone 

[alex3d]

4 minutes ago, Strafe said:

Looks like desktop mode resolution is wrong. Change it in the settings on desktop mode.

 

 

thanks

[alex3d]

These ********** launchers. (Older) Ubisoft games are almost impossible to play on SD. Tried to get Driver: SF running but to no avail. Uplay / Ubi Conncet, whatever this stupid stuff is called refuses to work on it.

 

 

[Mr. Gerbik]

AC Odyssey worka really well through Xcloud if you have a decent connection fwiw

[deerokus]

Ubisoft games aren't worth the time or effort anyway.

[bradigor]

This is your friendly reminder that it is fine and good to pirate Ubisoft games.

[Bonzai1888]

44 minutes ago, alex3d said:

These ********** launchers. (Older) Ubisoft games are almost impossible to play on SD. Tried to get Driver: SF running but to no avail. Uplay / Ubi Conncet, whatever this stupid stuff is called refuses to work on it.

 

 

Try launching in desktop mode, i had the same issue but can play driver san francisco no bother (unless it has changed in the last month).

[Bonzai1888]

22 hours ago, Siri said:

 

TBH, I'm not sure how you're not using Chrome now - when Valve updated SteamOS itself, they changed the default browser from Firefox to Chrome. It's already on mine, with a shortcut as well. I had to redownload Firefox to even use it again.

 

Anyway, it's simple - once you've downloaded whatever browser on desktop mode via Discover (the app store), open up Steam on Desktop Mode as well, click the plus sign on the bottom left corner and add a non-steam game.

 

You'll get a list of programs - select Chrome from there, click OK. it'll now be in your Steam library - and when you go back into SteamOS, there will be an entry for Chrome in the non-steam games subsection.

 

Again though, there might be two entries already!

It is randomly edge, firefox or chrome, does my nut in.

 

I have a shortcut now for chrome that looks broken but does actually work.