• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Valve announces a new portable, Steam Deck

And at 1.6 tflops even at 800p, this thing is not going to perform the way they think.
TFlops really shouldn't be compared to 'desktop' parts directly - there's a lot of other concessions mobile parts make that lower the throughput (like the memory subsystem, among other things). And if this will need ~30W to reach that number it'll run for less than 2hrs on the battery listed too. We already have devices that go over 1TFlop in this form factor and it's not as smooth sailing as Flops would indicate.
Basically I'd keep my expectations low even for 'PS4 settings' - it'll run better in CPU limited scenarios sure, but sustained graphics throughput will likely be a challenge even at 720p. That said - hitting PS4 gen parity is already a rather large step up from the most popular competing device in the market.
 
Last edited:
This a little video I made of an AMD apu from 2019 less powerful than this running switch games on the latest yuzu emulator.
so this big boi is going to a beast for what it is.
 
It's about time Nintendo gets their teeth kicked in
Michael Jordan Lol GIF by ESPN
 
It's hard to hear. I understand. A rising tide lifts all boats as they say. Nintendo will benefit from getting their shit kicked in.

I agree, I actually liked their WiiU output much more that what we have on Switch right now.

But this isn't it. I've seen these kind of remarks since the original GB started getting "competition".
 
I wonder what publishers like Ubisoft must be thinking after leaving Steam for Epic if this becomes a massive success.
 
FSR is supported on Vega APU's (3000g/4000g/5000g) so it would be a no brainer that it'll be supported w/ the 6000g series (RDNA 2 APU's).



It's 2-8 hours w/ 4hrs on Portal 2. All depends on settings, game, brightness etc just like the Switch. Not all games= same battery life.
Which game makes Switch run for 2 hours?
It's hard to hear. I understand. A rising tide lifts all boats as they say. Nintendo will benefit from getting their shit kicked in.
This will do nothing to Nintendo, guaranteed! Forums have a knack to not know what mass market will purchase…
 
Last edited:
wait, you are telling me you can play every single steam game you own, offline (except updates) on this portable handheld console, am I correct?
 
At first I just shrugged it off but frankly if this can play games like phasmophobia and halo mcc without any hiccups (halo for sure should be able to be played just fine) I may have to get one
 
Last edited:
Which game makes Switch run for 2 hours?

This will do nothing to Nintendo, guaranteed! Forums have a knack to not know what mass market will purchase…
Obviously Nintendo will be fine but this has received a hell of a response already. This is a saving grace for people who wanted a more capable portable, and has me reconsidering where to buy my indies and some 3rd parties which I previously preferred to have on Switch. I think it'll do better than many think.
 
What games really need NVMe speeds? PUBG, battle royales? What do you guys think, will the storage be replaceable? Do I bet it all and get the eMMC and save $250 for a 2TB NVMe drive? I feel like the only thing that might be replaceable is the storage... Some Surface tablets were like this, but they used shorty NVMe SSDs, which are not commonly purchasable...
Storage is not replaceable. You can always get an external drive or memory card.
 
Ah, bummer. This thing needs more storage by default, then
Yeah that is kind of putting me off. If your drive dies than your entire system is useless, can't go to the store and buy another one. I get that its a portable and you don't want people inside the machine, but at least let the internal storage be user upgradeable.
 
Be curious to see if this could be used for emulation.
You could load up Retroarch natively from Steam. ROMs and ISOs could be loaded on an inserted SD card. Otherwise, you could load a dedicated Linux distro like Lakka. Or install Windows on it and load your favorite modern emulator like Yuzu and play Switch games.

This is gonna be an emulation beast, full stop.
 
Which is less stressful:
(A) Make games for a platform that has fixed hardware and software, that is guaranteed to be the same for every individual console out there
(B) Make games taking into account every possible combination of GPU, RAM, CPU, HDD or SSD, OS version and input devices available?
This is the biggest myth of the industry. PC development has existed throughout (and long before) console development. It's not this arduous, nigh-impossible thing that weird platform fanboys make it out to be. Development for consoles and PC is pretty much exactly the same - the main difference is on PC they leave settings unlocked for hardware scaling. They aren't testing for "every possible hardware combination"; that's not necessary. They have data on what hardware is in the wild and what targets they should go for to ensure their game runs well for the maximum amount of players. Console versions of these games are simply tested internally for optimal settings and then locked. It's the exact same thing, except it can never scale and you don't have any personal say in how it performs.
 
Maybe this is all the prodding Sony need to come out with a new Hand Held.
I assume you meant "Steam Deck" like handheld? I'm not sure how would that work as each game has to be "optimized" on console.
I doubt Sony can just port the games to handheld without involvement of the developers.
 
Obviously Nintendo will be fine but this has received a hell of a response already. This is a saving grace for people who wanted a more capable portable, and has me reconsidering where to buy my indies and some 3rd parties which I previously preferred to have on Switch. I think it'll do better than many think.
It won't in reference to other consoles, will be shocked if it did more than Vita…even more so not until we see this in stores to actually buy…
Good thing I'm not a forum then. They'll sell as many of these as they can make.
Oh ok, you don't expect this to make any significant dent then…
 
Last edited:
All this thing makes me think of is how Sony can make a similar portable device with an AMD APU with the PS5 OS and the entire PS4 library will run on it without any porting required by developers.

  • AMD APU 6nm or 4nm for power efficiency
  • Zen2 4 cores 8 threads 2.1GHz - 3.5GHz
  • RDNA 2 8 CU 1.75GHz - 2GHz ~ 1.8TF - 2TF
  • 10GB RAM
  • 8 inch 1080p 60Hz screen
  • 128GB SSD expandable with 1TB SD Card
  • Wifi 6, Bluetooth 5.1 and or 5G
  • Compatible with PS4 natively
  • PS5 and PS3 games via PS Now
  • Compatible with PS1, PS2, PSP, PS Vita games via emulation
  • Compatible with PSVR2 via USB C.
  • 5 Hours battery
  • $399
That is an easy 100 million device seller there.
 
Last edited:
Yeah I really wish they'd put at least 128GB eMMC in the base model just so it could fit at least 1 heavy AAA game on internal storage.

The base model is clearly designed for streaming and lighter games, so the size is probably OK given the fact that it comes with a microSD card slot.

I'm wondering if the NVME is user replaceable. I doubt it.
 
Too big, too powerful, and sure to be full of little Windows annoyances. They'll never learn.
It's not Windows out of the box. It's a Linux distro.

Your concern is still valid though, Linux annoyances are even worse. But I'll get it anyway, this might be the closest I can get to comfy couch gaming on PC. I've just streamed through Steam Link and Nvidia Shield so far and while it works it's certainly not perfect.
 
Pretty cool, but having to deal with the OS to install Windows etc. will not be ideal for the average consumer.

Should've just slapped Steam, GamePass, Youtube, Netflix, TikTok, Onlyfans Apps on that thing and sold billions.
 
Last edited:
Pretty cool, but having to deal with the OS to install Windows etc. will not be ideal for the average consumer.

Should've just slapped Steam, GamePass, Youtube, Netflix, TikTok, Onlyfans Apps on that thing and sold billions.

Ummm, you can download any of those on this.

The average consumer is not buying this.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom