Why more PC gaming handhelds should ditch Windows for SteamOS - Ars Technica
Why more PC gaming handhelds should ditch Windows for SteamOS - Ars Technica
Next up: Could SteamOS 3 be coming to a desktop gaming rig near you?
The suspend feature is wildly important for me.
If I had to boot a game and shut it down each time, I’d only pickup the device when I had set aside time to game.
Since I can suspend and resume whenever, I pickup my steam deck all the time. I can play in the car and just suspend when we arrive or I can play for a few minutes while waiting for a meeting to start.
I can play while my wife gets ready.
Sometimes meets get canceled or there is traffic, so gaming sessions can really stretch out into a longer play time.
If I couldn’t suspend, I wouldn’t have played in those moments.
Yeah same, being able to stop playing immediately is huge for me. There are a lot of games I would struggle to play through without it.
Diablo 4 not playing nice with suspend (due to the always online requirement) was the main reason I couldn't get into it and didn't buy it after the free to play week ended.
I feel like this really the killer feature.
I’ve seen a ton of digital ink spilled on all manner of positives, such as how amazingly-portable it is, or how it’s been doing wonders for the advancement of Linux gaming.
But, I’ve yet to see anybody—outside you—speak about how amazing the suspend/resume is. And, that for me, is the reason why I play on a SteamDeck almost exclusively these days—even though I have a small collection of games I can play on Mac. I have such small windows of opportunity, and appreciate I can still play a game, even for a little as a few minutes.
My experience with suspend has not been good - causing glitching and requiring shutting the game down and reloading from a previous save whenever I suspended in a cut scene. As a result I haven't used it much due to those first couple of trials; maybe it's better now.
I used to like suspend. How is your battery life while suspended? If I left mine in suspend for more than a few hours, it'd die, or I'd pick it up and there wouldn't be enough battery to continue playing without also charging.
Mine just lasts literally weeks, but I never tested it. It is so worry-free that I sometimes go multiple days without picking it up and when I finally do it has like 85% of battery and I don't remember how much it had when I suspended it so I never even think about it. The TLDR is that the suspend in Linux works magically.
It seems to be a hit randomly and depends on the game, but I only play around the house, so it’s never been a big deal. I also try not to suspend unless I’ve saved already just in case, but I’m willing to take the risk.
I never considered one of the windows-based portables. In fact when I saw that the steamdeck was linux based and was well received, I jumped.
Once I saw how well it worked, I stopped dual-booting my laptop and get to live in linux all the time.
If the article is correct and the market is starting to push this way, that is great news for linux, linux-gaming, and everyone.
Yeah I am baffled at this point anyone at all would consider a MSFT portable PC.
Linux has finally actually arrived, Proton works amazingly well compares to just a few years ago and honestly Valve as a manufacturer of gaming peripherals has a shockingly good track record for solid build quality, even if some of their devices are not super popular.
Oh right did anyone mention you can emulate basically anything other than current gen consoles on a Steam Deck, and the operating system is not going to fight you on that?
I think a lot of people would be more interested in the SteamOS over windows on handhelds if they got to try SteamOS first and see how smooth it is. But without full knowledge on it, a lot of them either assume they'll like windows more because they already know how to use it, or they assume it's steam UI only with no desktop mode (even if people won't actually use desktop mode much, they want it as an option).
Yeah I am baffled at this point anyone at all would consider a MSFT portable PC.
Gamepass is still amazing if you are primarily in the MS/Xbox ecosystem. And not all games work in Linux. And, increasingly, modding (for what few games "support" it) is dependent on third party applications that are rather annoying to set up under linux.
Oh right did anyone mention you can emulate basically anything other than current gen consoles on a Steam Deck, and the operating system is not going to fight you on that?
Does Windows "fight you on that" either? Also, it has been a minute, but I want to say that some of the better emulators are still "windows only" and best run through proton?
I love my steam deck and it (and the ever increasing stupidity of win10) was a big part of finally migrating my personal (gaming) computers over to fedora. But if I were even ten years younger and still cared about competitive gaming and all the bullshit out of Riot et al? It would still be a no go.
And now it has put me in a REAL weird position with stuff like the Yakuza/LAD games since I got into those on Gamepass but would love to grind on the go and... (although, apparently there are save decrypters for Kiwami 2 and 7... but still no good way to get HDR to my big display from my PC).
Linux gaming is (FINALLY!!!) viable. But it is still not perfect and depends on your interests.
I'm glad that Linux is getting backing from a huge company in this way. However, at its core the steam deck is a Linux based device with a heavily tailored UI running on known hardware with 1st party drivers. Consumers have been using Linux in this way for years without realising it. Sure, this one gives you far more control than you normally get but (in my opinion) the problems with Linux desktop come from support for a wide range of scenarios and peripherals. That hasn't improved enough for me to switch last time I tried.
I just realized something…
At some point, Valve will release a Steam Deck 2 - It will be slimmer and even better than the first. Maybe in a couple of years I am guessing
Then that will be it because other companies will be releasing cheaper devices with their Steam OS. Steam simply cannot compete with them on price, and the feature set (other than faster chips) will mostly be locked in.
In short, there will be now Steam Deck 3 - Gaben strikes again
Nah, we'll get Steam Deck 2 Episode 2, then Steam Deck Alyx
Half Life 3 - Hybrid Action Shooter / Alternate Reality Game.
Is that random person you are walking past in AD 2038 a PMC guarding your local refugee camp after climate change has destroyed the world's economy?
Now theyre a Civil Protection Officer!
Then the game instructs you to find a real life crowbar and present it to the Steam Deck 3 camera for verification.
HEV suit voice: You know what to do.
I have a feeling that the steam deck 2 will be on par with PS6 given how the steam deck is on par with the PS4 now and can play some PS5 games.
Hear me out... Half Life 3 will be released but it won't be a game it will be a handheld console
Steam can definitely compete with them on price. It runs steam out of the box; and they can expect to make some sales on that. OEM margins are already razor thin, and Valve has a major leg up on them.
I am really hoping some wizard makes Steam OS work on the Legion Go.
Valve promised quite a while ago that they'd release a public version of SteamOS and they haven't yet. Until they release it, the ball's on their court.
From what I understand (and definitely dont take my word for it at all) the 'SteamOS on other systems' initiative has taken a bit of a backseat.
Its unfortunate since so many newer & excitingly capabale handhelds are offering such a poor OOTB experience with win11.
Don't bazzite and chimera OS work on legion Go? They carry a lot of steamOS patches and features
Yeah, trying ChimeraOS now. So far so good.
Does it have a user accessible UEFI? If so, has anyone had any luck booting HoloISO or Chimera on it?
As much as I love Valve I think it'd be weird for a 3rd party handheld to boot directly into the Steam UI. I get that there aren't any viable alternatives atm, so I guess this is where we are. Wouldn't hurt with a more store-neutral solution, in the end.
If I am not mistaken, you /can/ have that be a thing, as I am fairly sure the actual SteamOS is open source and Valve would /probably?/ allow that to come stock on a potential alternate handheld...
But kind of their whole thing is it is optimized for the hardware set up they are using.
So... you could theoretically have an or multiple competing Not Valve but Yes SteamOS Decks, but from the standpoint of the economics of building a market viable gaming machine, Valve would still probably have a serious edge in that market for a while.
Almost like Valve actually understands the entire tech industry better than nearly any other tech company or something.
It would be better if I could boot up and chose my launcher just like I choose Netflix, HBO, or Hulu from my Roku home screen. Of course, that could be accomplished with a custom front end / explorer in Windows, but since MS is pushing more into the OSX "we own the experience" with tons overhead and reduced customizable UI, and none of the other launchers support Linux, it's pretty much just a pipe dream.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
We can only hope this is the start of a trend, as Valve's gaming-focused operating system brings many advantages over gaming portables (and maybe desktops) that run a full Windows installation.
In an increasingly competitive portable PC gaming market, being able to cut out that significant cost over Windows-based alternatives could be a big deal.
Our review of the ROG Ally highlights just how annoying it can be to have to fiddle with Windows settings on a touchscreen running "an awkwardly scaled" version of the OS.
That comes through in many little ways, like a built-in "suspend" mode, tons of battery-optimization features, and menus that are designed for a small screen and joystick navigation.
That's a huge change from the desktop-focused "Steam Machines" era of the mid-'10s, when early versions of SteamOS could only run the relative handful of games that developers bothered to explicitly port to Linux.
That's also a huge change from the Steam Machines era, when Ars' testing showed that many SteamOS games ran significantly worse than their Windows counterparts on the same desktop hardware.
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