Steam Deck Docked: Can Valve’s Portable Produce Visuals Fit for a 4K TV?
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- The Steam Deck is the premiere handheld gaming PC, but can Valve's design - and AMD's low-power APU - produce visuals suitable for a 4K TV in docked mode? Oliver Mackenzie investigates how up-scaling tech and careful game selection can produce impressive results - and reveals a few issues that can hamper the docked experience.
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One thing the deck needs is dock specific settings. We need to be able to set external resolution, TDP and whatnot based on if the Deck is docked and powered. Otherwise docking the deck means changing a bunch of shit in menus for every damn game only to change it back once you're undocked.
I believe in Valve. The latest update fixed a bunch of docked issues. The Steam Deck is the best tinker toy released in years.
I mean, do you need to set TDP in Docked mode? Realistically it just needs to ignore all overrides (bar resolution overrides which you can set in docked and undocked mode, btw) leaving everything at max in docked, and reverting to the users settings undocked. Which is, what it does.
You can already set game specific profiles so just make a docked version of existing profiles. Also, why? It's docked. Just set everything to max all the time unless you never dock it.
Yeah it needs profiles and being able to choose when to automatically apply those profiles
Very unfortunate that Valve still has not implemented this kind of feature.
Current beta updates now disable the screen when docked and allow you to render the Steam UI at a lower resolution, which helps greatly with hitching/freezing while outputting 4k. I think Valve will mostly have the software ready by the time their official dock is available.
So idk much about this but got the steam deck to pair with my 4k OLED LG tv. I don't understand how the beta update helps.
That's still pretty sad even if it is cheap. It's literally you get what you pay for, and the console itself is still a loss.
@@Spencerwalker21 running two screens at once takes extra resources. Running the OS behind the game costs resources too.
@@RelentlessOhiox It's not a console tho it's a PC it's nowhere near as locked down as consoles are.
@@RelentlessOhiox This is a Series S in portable form, it delivers similar performance for it's target resolution which is fine for it's display size. It delivers better performance and visuals than the PS4 Pro when tuned for 800p! You are deranged spamming your troll comments.
Remember that all of this is happening at less than 30 watts. Absolute monster of a device.
It even has the option to limit its power usage between getting the apu tdp between 3 and 15 watts and gpu frenquency between 200 to 1600hz.
Although you won't play at 4k with this settings.
@@Prodzick So I like to play Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst, the PC port of a Dreamcast game from ages ago. Thanks to being able to control the TDP, I can set it down to 3 watts, the game still runs at full 1280 x 800 res and performs at the proper frame rate, and I get a chunky 5 hours of pure gaming battery life from that. And that's with the screen at max brightness. If I was willing to lower the res and brightness, I bet I could squeeze like 6-7 hours out of it!
Hardly the most graphically intensive game, but goddamn it's cool having a portable PSOBB that just works.
@@Xbob42 Wouldn't be a good idea to take a brake at one point 😄 ?
@@Prodzick I think you can only limit the APU tdp which is 15w; the rest is the screen brightness, fan speed, memory modules, etc.
@@claylomax My mistakes i edit to much from my comment.
Anyway what I meant was that you can go lower than 25W.
Not kidding you can go as low as 3W with a slider in the TDP settings.
Valve probably delayed the dock to work out the software kinks before it gets to users hands, which I can agree with. Steam Deck should be as seamless as possible for casual users so the adoption rate picks up.
Yeah, that makes sense honestly. There isn't really anything from a hardware perspective in their dock that should be a huge challenge that would warrant a delay. It has to be that they want the software to be on par with what people expect and want out of the docked experience.
It makes sense, but not for "adoption rates" they currently can't keep up with demand.
@@harrydavey9884 mm, it took me 15 minutes to place an order and that led me to having to wait 2 months after launch to get mine
@@Plumtopia i assume, you're in the US and didn't order the 512?
@@harrydavey9884 yea I got a 256
Just in case someone is watching this later, a lot of the HDMI issues were resolved in update 3.2.2.
What HDMI issues were they having? Just curious.
I’ve had a Steam Controller sitting around collecting dust for like eight years now. I’ve never really had a time when I felt it was appropriate to use. Now I finally feel like I can get the most out of it, and I am very excited.
@DigitalFoundry - Deathloop will load, but there's a trick to it. Turn off the FPS cap, and it will play. Use the in-game frame limiter instead. I've verified this workaround myself.
13:45 You can bring up an emulated mouse by holding down the Steam/PS/Xbox/Home button on your controller and using the right joystick, with the triggers functioning as your primary mouse buttons (right is left and left is right though,) which will get you through the vast majority of mouse menus without having to touch the screen,
One thing that really surprised me was Forza Horizon 5 on steam Deck.
I was able to run the game on the high preset at 1152p at a locked 30 fps.
Extremely impressive stuff
30fps in a racing game is sort of unplayable though
@Emsye unplayable at 30fps? Looks like you've never played PS3/PS4 and Xbox 360/Xbox One in your entire life.
@@wizzenberry Forza Horizon 2 on Xbox 360 is capped at 30 fps. Don't lie.
@@wizzenberrystill he has a point. 30fps is fine with most people
@@wizzenberry how you gonna tell other people what works for them? Lol
Too bad you didn't test the other scaling filters techniques from SteamOS and compare them to FSR for 1080p/4K.
for the docked experience, I'm pretty sure we will get all the SteamOS updates with the official dock release.
I really appreciate this video and this is the first time I’ve seen anyone else touch on the frustrating docked experience. I’ve found a couple things myself:
1. For controller use (especially Xbox) where a mouse screen pops up, if you hold the Xbox button the right stick becomes a mouse cursor and right bumper becomes left click
2. If you have a 1.4 USB-C dock like me, an mClassic will allow you to do 1080p 60 on games instead of 4k30, even with current firmware.
3. The colorspace is always Full RGB 0-255. Not sure if that’s a toggle in the beta firmware but it really should be.
To call the docked experience even without the official dock frustrating is a bit of a stretch. It's a bit annoying but nothing that ever takes more than a second to fix.
Finally got my Deck last week. It really is an impressive piece of tech.
For the price? Maybe. For a handheld? It's shit.
@@RelentlessOhiox in your dumb opinion, sure.
Im super jealous. Anxiously awaiting my Q3 order email.
@@RelentlessOhiox you seem super salty man. Did Valve pick on you in high school or something? jesus christ.
@@mitcHELLOworld Nah that's what you call a Nintendo shill.
Back in the day when my GeForce 2 was struggling to play half life 2, I never imagined one day I'll be playing that game at 4k 60fps on a handheld.
30 years from now people will laugh at the idea of anything less than 8k120 on a console.
This is cool 'for science' but really, a last gen console or current gen console serves much better for TV use. Unfortunately the big issue remaining is the games libraries don't cross over of course.
This is not only cool ''for science''. This is cool for people that are interested in getting a steam deck to know how good it's capable of running on a 4k screen, even though it's clearly not its main use.
A living room console is of no interest for these people (which I'm a part of, as you may have guessed).
The video was not titled ''is the steam deck the best way to play on a 4k tv ?''. The answer is that it's clearly not. But because it's not the main use/selling point of the device, doesn't mean it shouldn't be covered.
i dont really like to take my gaming laptop around the house or connect it compared to a smaller device like the switch.
For docked play, Steam Deck needs to be able to run its APU at 25w at the least, 30w would be more ideal. The GPU can easily pick up 30-50% in perf that way, which can help run the upscalers and 1080p natively.
Considering how hot the cpu gets I don't think 25w docked is possible without running the fans way too loudly
Since most TVs lack the capability of giving good upscaling for 720P content, I think it's worth you guys doing a analysis on each consoles internal upscaler and how each consoles hardware scaling compares to TV, especially with so many backwards compatible 720p content on Xbox One, and since PS5 is backwards compatible with a wide library now, maybe it's worth looking at PS5 and Series consoles hardware upscaling across a variety of digital content and then stack it up against TVs Since monitors have no upscaling capabilities.
When you say "most TVs" are you talking about 1080p panels? Because 4K is an integer multiple (3x) of 720p, so it can be integer scaled.
@@AlanTwoRingsCorrect me if I'm wrong, display tech is a very complicated rabbit hole, but doesn't interger scaling itself require the TV or connected Devices GPU to do? Example, if I hook up a PS3 to a 1440p monitor and force the internal resolution to 720p (since most of its games render at 720p), would the pixels fill in and give a cleaner look since 1440p Is double of 720p and not a weird step up, in theory it should look cleaner right?
I've been reading about it a lot lately and apparently, the PS3 hardware based scaling was inferior to the Xbox 360s, even though both ran content mostly at 720p, both allowed for 1080p output and PS3s 1080p output support was smoothened by 2010, but I hear the Xbox 360s internal scaler scaled to 1080p TVs much better than the PS3 did.
I'm confused as to what's the best solution. If I were to run a backwards compatible Xbox 360 game that runs and renders at 720p on my Xbox Series S, would it be better to force the resolution to 720p and let the TV do the job and hope it interger scales? Or let the console do the upscaling in favor of the TV?
@@Pruflas-Watts Very few panels document how they perform their upscaling but it is obvious that none use integer scaling even when that would be appropriate. Because integer scaling would only work using specific resolutions the panel instead has a default resample it always uses like a lanczos filter which can add input lag. The only panel I know of that actually supports integer rescaling is the eve spectrum monitor. Otherwise with a PC you can use integer scaling through your GPU. Your TV may or may not look better than the console / PC upscaling, because that depends on the panel’s scaler. However, a TV will almost certainly have worse input lag than letting the console do the upscaling even if it looks better.
@@l0ki838 Thank you for the insight! I switch back and fourth between a TCL R646 65" 4k TV and a Gigabyte M28U 4k monitor and use PC, Xbox Series S, and PS5 pretty regularly and have a PS4 PRO and jailbroken PS3 and I started to explore scaling recently but haven't come across a lot of information about modern consoles internal scaling capabilities.
@@Pruflas-Watts On the PC there are quite a few choices now. If you have an Nvidia GPU depending on the game and resolution (and gpu,) you can let your panel do it, traditional gpu upscaling, nvidia image scaling with various amounts of sharpening, amd fsr, integer scaling, or dlss. All have pros and cons so I can’t advise much other than trial and error as you would really need specialized equipment to properly evaluate which method is objectively best (and even then it would vary based on the game as dlss implementations can be excellent or terrible.)
Why are there so many troll comments and hate towards the deck? its a game changer for me when it comes to PC gaming. People expecting 3080 perf from a mobile device?
A lot of these troll and hate comments pop up literally seconds after the video drops.
So I'd assume it's bots and really sad people with no life.
No but it is what it is, it wasn't supposed to provide a 4k experience and it's no wonder that it cant. I don't get why anyone would game on a mobile device unless you're constantly in transit, but the visual/performance experience is always gonna be inferior.
@@omarcomming722 So let me tell you, after 8 hours in an software dev/IT job, it becomes impossible for me to constantly sit on a chair or even on a couch. I have both current gen consoles, but I rarely game on them more that 1+ hour stretch. I lie on my bed the way I want and game on the steam deck for hours at a time. And on a 7 inch display you don't notice the visual compromises.
@@omarcomming722 i don't think people in general care about state of the art visual and performance as much as they think they do ....if that was the case..no way switch could keep up with hardware weaker than last gen consoles ....it's only when your life revolves around gaming and nothing else ,you start noticing and caring about stuff like this...and i dont mean it in a locking yourself in your mom's basement playing games all day...i meant stuff like people who stream games or have UA-cam channels revolving around games and their technical aspects
It's a trash device compared to other high end PC. The price point is moot when Switch is often being compared with based on that.
I'm loving my steam deck it pretty much plays every game I throw at it and they all look good on the 800p screen. Docked experience was kind of bad for me though the ui lags alot and it's not as seemless as something like a switch could use some work.
Good to know! I was only gonna get this and play it docked
@@ivanguzman9630 If you're only gonna play docked I'd spend the $500 on a pc, you'll get better performance.
The Dock is in a MUCH better spot now, most of the issues here have been resolved, it’s how I generally play 90% of the time now.
would you recommend a steam deck to someone that travel a monthly at a time then? is a dock worth it to play games on a tv in good quality?
@akitaway8791 steamdeck is the way to go if you travel or don't travel. It's a Swiss army knife piece of tech that has so many uses. It's a brilliant PC
@@reekhavoc2932i’m thinking of buying it after not gaming on a pc for 2 years, I’ve been really hoping to go back to my favorite PC games but I’m fearful of the performance when docked as some games just don’t fit for a small screen (like Red Orchestra 2) I fear I’ll end up spending a good chunk of money when I should have just opted to save more and buy a Gaming PC
I love the Steam deck! I'd love to see a Steam box that uses a really powerful custom SOC but in a desktop setup that's not as constrained. The actual OS/features are nice and it'd make a great TV-connected PC just for gaming.
I've been telling everyone it's time to bring it back with steam OS and at a better price. I'd pay ＄1000 for one if it ran good enough.
I'm more interested in Valve iterating in this design with an even better AMD chip in 1-2 years.
Much less R&D etc... but given how fast the APU space is moving right now they could easily give quality of life upgrades a la Switch OLED.
Maybe bring out a better dock with cooling to allow the unit to go further in docked mode... who knows.
What is clear is even with the closed pre-order system there is demand for the system and Valve has a success on its hands, and we all know the 2nd / 3rd revision of hardware is where things get interesting.
@@nonnygb An upgraded APU and smaller bezels+OLED would be an incredible upgrade.
Valve won't be able to sell you something significantly cheaper than you can just assemble yourself. "Here's an awesome PC, and it's $200 below cost!" will have lots of people buying for other purposes, like office machines, etc. Even with the Steam Deck, if I could order one without a waiting list, my whole family would buy them to use as HTPCs, office PCs, etc. The value is too good.
@@AFistfulofXanax Difference is, Valve(and game developers) can make specific optimizations and features tailored to that hardware. We are have seen that with Deck in Elden Ring.
I highly doubt people buy the deck to play 4k 60 on a tv. Got mine last week and i’m thrilled with it. Being able to play portable AAA at 30 or 40 FPS made me play more in the last week than in the past 6 months. The only issues are battery life and noise fan but both are minor and beareable. What a great piece of hardware.
why waste your time on low resolution gaming?
I'm literally doing that right now on my second monitor, haha. It has plenty of power to play older games in 4K. 1 teraflop of performance was unthinkable in 360/PS3 generation and earlier, tons of games play very well.
@@ivan4087 how much they paying you to spam the same comment everywhere? Why waste your time on low resolution wages?
@@itsd0nk aha. so you just bought that useless console to play low resolution games, while you could play high resolution games on gaming PC. lol
@@ivan4087 Nope. Not even planning to ever buy it. I just don’t understand people who go around evangelizing, whether they’ve been paid to do it or tricked into doing it. It’s not very intelligent.
Docking in general is pretty buggy. If I dock before going into desktop mode, my 2 displays don't work. If I dock in desktop mode and go back to gaming mode before undocking it usually just crashes and reboots.
I love seeing far it is possible to push weaker hardware. I even tend to lag behind with PC upgrades just to see how long it can last with decent performance.
Agreed, similarly I love LowSpecGamer videos.
Im curious if there have been any improvements since June 2022 (mainly with the UI and compatability) with Steam OS that improve the Steamdeck on a docked 4k tv.
Valve should spend some time developing a Dock mode. This could provide a small overclock and a higher tdp
The official dock is out, we need a new video
Great in-depth analysis! If I had to guess, I'd say the Steam Deck Dock being delayed might be because the software doesn't seem ready to provide a smooth docked experience. They won't risk attracting bad press coverage by releasing an official dock with so many issues still needing to be ironed out.
It seems that every time you cover the Steam Deck you find some case shader compilation stutter that exists in Windows being eliminated by Valve's Proton implementation, but then simultaneously run into hardware limitations that cause other issues. I'd be interested in seeing some comparative Linux and Windows benchmarks on the same high end hardware to see how the two operating systems stack up when hardware is not limiting them.
My steam deck gets here on Saturday, so pumped!
Do you have any accessories?
The machine is looking pretty decent for indie and older games and for playing AAA games using modest settings on the go.
I hope it helps promote Linux as a viable alternative to Windows.
The steam decks gpu is already the top gpu on Linux according to the steam hardware survey
But Linux isn't a viable alternative to Windows.
@@Jonatan606 have you actually used it? It's completely a replacement. It's no harder to use than the early days of Windows 7. If you can't manage that then a ChromeBook might be more your speed. What I would say is certain software isn't compatible. If Premiere or local Gamepass for example is a deal breaker than don't use it. The OS is fine. However there are alternatives or a Linux version of pretty much everything bar some expensive professional tools.
Windows 10 got removed off my machine for good last year.
@@eagle_rb_mmoomin_418 Yes, I have used it. Ran into several incompatibility issues so safe to say it is not a replacement to Windows
It already did.
this video deserves an update! please
I’m still rocking a 768p 32” TV lol, it’d literally be easier for the Deck to play on my TV than at its own screen’s native res
Hah! Yeah I have a 768p plasma that accepts 1080p max so I guess i get free performance without as many upscaling issues :)
I thought I was alone HAHAH
The Vizio TVs from that era of display were so good. Had one for most of the 360 days.
@@itsd0nk mine’s an LG, but it’s served me well since we got it in 2013 or so. The speakers are kinda fucky - they seem to be inconsistent for volume. The first game I remember playing on it was the Xbox 360 version of CoD: Ghosts lol.
Note: they fixed all the issues related to docked mode now that the official dock is purchasable
If Steam deck releases console, it's like a dream come true for players who have large steam library.
It’s called a pc
@@ihmpall PC could sky rocket your bill to the roof plus you need mouse and keyboard to start steam first and big picture it before you can use your controller. Laptop does the same but use lesser power consumption. Steam Deck can't handle 4k graphics on AAA games. Console is a 1 device low power consumption and if turned on its game on. If you think you're that knowledgeable think twice.
They did it was called the steam machine it didn't do well
@@jovelt18 you can have big picture launch at startup. It's in the settings... If you think you're knowledgeable think twice
@@cavejohnson5796 Oh, someone can't move on but still can't grasp what I'm trying to say. Try harder on your reading comprehension, then get back to me again after another month. Hahaha! God! Wanted a comeback but still failed. Hahaha!
Death loop works, playing it now, the loading screen just takes forever if you use the Steam OS frame rate lock option. Turn it off and use in game FPS lock instead, and Deathloop is flawless.
Just the fact that people are even looking at the Steam Deck and considering "Can this handheld gaming console give a good experience at *4K*?" is a win. Hybrid usage like this is not a common use case for handhelds, historically, so it's cool to see things are getting close enough for there to even be a curiosity about it. Now I want to see a head-to-head of the Steam Deck and the Nintendo Switch both running the same games docked to a 4K display, comparing image quality and performance.
Would be dope if Valve could work with Nvidia to utilize their hardware on Steam Deck 2 so they'd be able to utilize DLSS, but I don't see that happening so FSR 2.0 is the best we'll get for it most likely..
AMD really needs to hurry up and implement some form of AI Computing cores into their hardware in the future, and release a Deep Learning Upscaler of their own. Perhaps this might be what FSR 3.0 will become if they ever release hardware to back it up.. Then FSR 3.0 can detect whether the hardware is capable of utilizing the AI cores, and if not, it just scales like it does in FSR 2.0.
I feel like in 10 years or so, everything will be using AI upscaling by default.
My understanding is that Nvidia has been working on A.I for a long time. AMD on the other hand has not.
They may catch up though.
There's no denying that A.I has a huge potential regarding image reconstruction.
I would be really curious to see a portable device powered by an Nvidia SoC using DLSS indeed.
Are there plans for a follow-up video in the future?
Now, redo this video but! With the *Steam Deck OLED*
The biggest change is with the screen, so I can't really see it being worth re-doing this video. I expect the results would be mostly the same when it comes to an external display.
I play it docked most of the time, some games actually work better in 1080p, and Elden Ring plays great on my 55 inch on High settings. 👍
There are a few glitches but it's still amazing this is possible.
Is there any weird stretching or anything like that with 1080p output? I won't be playing anything in 4K anyway so that's mostly what I was hoping to find in this video.
@@pmurph1 No stretching that I've seen, it's native so everything looks correct, though I think gaming mode if docked has some upscaling effects. I mainly play in desktop mode.
What are your ER settings? Last time I played it, it froze and lagged. Not a decent experience.
Sometimes switching from one version of Proton to another has leftover files that can prevent a game from running. This might be what happened to you with Deathloop. Making a clean prefix should alleviate this.
It should be mentioned that the UI and sniper scope views for DX:HR was made for 720p and does not scale up when you use higher resolutions(making text unreadable at 4K and scoped weapons unusable) and SE couldn't be bothered to fix it. I would recommend running the game at 720p and use FSR(not a perfect solution but at least you get to experience the game as intended).
I really wish there were timestamps/chapters in this video...
This video in my opinion highlights portable play more than docked. Every games settings seemed to be quite well passed the screens native res.
Just to add my two cents - I’ve probably only played less than one hour but I’ve had no issues at all running death loop on my steam deck using steamOS
These videos take so long to produce and Valve is moving so fast with this thing that by the time they have a video finished it's already obsolete in various ways.
in ghostwire the upscaled look is not bad in may opinion. It looks like there is filmgrain on top of a softening filter. it has its owne unique style. i like it!
Steam Deck 2 needs to have eGPU support for docked gameplay.
The real best use case of the steam deck is as an addition to an existing pc setup. Not the only use case, but the best for sure. With auto cloud saves and easy sleep mode, the steam deck is best for people who already have a better pc to plug into their TV
I have a feeling that devies similar to the Switch or Steam Deck will have docks will built in DLSS or FSR in a few years.
The steamdeck can already used FSR even on none supported game with some tweaking.
Official support for external GPU would be something new.
The Tegra T239 from Nvidia should allow for DLSS on those kind of devices
There's already built in FSR 1. For whatever reason AMD decided not to make FSR 2 global
@@chickenpasta7359 because FSR 2.0, just like DLSS, needs motion vector data from the engine itself, rather than a simple post process effect. It’s a bit more integrated with the game engine to inform the different “layers” of the post processing to draw the upscaled frames. So you can’t just DLSS upscale a video input or apply it globally to a random frame buffer’s output. FSR 1.0 *does* work that simply though. It just looks at each frame individually and does a basic upscale of the pixels as a basic improved version of bilinear upscaling.
Steam deck is the best bang for buck ever!!!
@@mikeuk666 for really
@@mikeuk666 Why not?
The PS5 or Series X are better in my opinion, being portable is cool but the battery doesn't last that long.
Modded vita has something to say here lol
@@mikeuk666 then what?
My docked experience has been underwhelming to say the least ... Plenty of issues both in beta/preview and stable branch. Valve needs to give this more love. The sluggy UI is fixed but BT controller disconnects, input lag and lackluster streaming performance keep holding it back.
Say what you want about the Switch, but that thing is hassle-free at 1080p on a 4K screen
Does a wired or 2.4ghz dongle help. I was going to just wire up a series elite 2 controller I want those back paddles
i have 2 switches and i loved the system..but i only play thrid partly titles..cant wait to mess with the deck on tv output. and yes i have a gaming laptop that i can connect to tv. Its the evolution of hybrid gaming...and since steam is running so many variables, it makes sense since the switch is just a simple ecosystem.
I just want it to work. I think for sure, Im going to get one and use it like my Switch. I just like how simple it is. And since there is a Dock, Im going to really look into one.
I've been testing it for about 2 weeks now and I can say that you should definitely avoid using experimental if you have stuttering issues with certain games when docked.
4K does not work very well and you should definitely find a way to cap it at 1080p as I found that to be the most performant.
FSR stretching to 4K causes severe performance issues and even linear scaling isn't good enough to fix the issues with the 4K output
A lot of the issues should be solvable for docked play but for now, Valve seems to be more focused on other areas of the Deck.
4k seems overkill unless you're playing really old games, 1080p would be a much better match as that would work quite well on many newer games and more so on games from a decade ago.
For me, portable gaming is where it's at with the Deck, that's the main reason most would buy it but it is a shame that Valve didn't give a docked option to allow an external gpu attachment, that could have boosted gpu performance a lot whiles docked, being as it's an APU with cpu and gpu being shared, it could also free up the cpu to run faster and that 16GB of memory could be used as system memory as the external gpu uses its own remember.
I think that was a massive missed opportunity from Valve and who knows, maybe we'll see something like that for the Steam Deck 2.
AMD haven't supported eGPU with their APUs. The new 6000 series APUs apparently do.
@@eagle_rb_mmoomin_418 I'm not sure AMD needs to be involved with this, I remember a modder being able to do it with the Steam Deck, I suspect Valve could do it but if Valve did get AMD involved, it likely would benefit AMD in that it could be AMD external gpu's that work with it, which I'm sure AMD would like, especially if the Steam Deck really takes off because many gamers might contend with buying a Deck as their main gaming PC at home with an external gpu.
@@paul1979uk2000 it was a youtuber. They plugged a bridge into the PCI bus that the SSD is plugged into. That's not an eGPU. That's a bastardised lash-up version of a GPU plugged into your Desktop. However it 'apparently' only works with AMD cards. The reason it works with AMD GPUs is that Linux OSS drivers contain functional drivers for Intel and AMD GPUs.
@@eagle_rb_mmoomin_418 True but you would have to imagine that Valve would have many options in being able to do something like that but in a cleaner, easier package for consumers, I suspect AMD would be onboard with it if it's just with AMD gpu's as it would mean more gpu sales for them.
I suspect there is a market for such a thing that will buy something like the Steam Deck but also want to use it as a power user on the big screen with more gpu power.
In fact, the Steam Deck would be a lot more appealing for many gamers, all you would need to do is upgrade the gpu and Steam Deck every few years, I suspect that would work out cheaper than building a PC whiles getting a lot of the same benefits of a gaming rig and personally if I was to do it, I would go for an upper mid-tier gpu, I think going beyond that will be tricky for the cpu to keep up un feeding it, but either way, it gives gamers the option to have a lot more gpu power for when they want to play on the big screen.
Have a decent hub, connect a mouse, keyboard and gamepad, as well as storage you want and I can imagine some gamers would buy the Steam Deck over building a PC as it does a lot of the same thing but for much less money,
@@paul1979uk2000 you do understand until the deck supports thunderbolt or USB4, that means the APU then it's impossible. Valve are not to rearchitect their main board, case design, air flow etc for this. They will just wait for little Phoenix in 2023/24
CRTs are the way to go with docked gaming on the Steam Deck lol
Nah, not really, 720p or 1080p HDTVs would do just fine.
please valve, freaking fix this. My 4k screen will show no signal every time I launch a game from game mode. We need screen output settings, system wide. to set a stable 1080p 60hz connection and keep it, even if the screen technically supports 4k.
My TV still has a TrueHD 1080P sticker on it
I want my Steam deck to dock it like a Switch. Mainly focusing on bringing my deck to play some coop or multiplayer games on the go instead of lugging my PC/laptop. Then hit up some single player games on the go when I want. I see the criticism on just buying a SD just to dock it the whole time. Hoping it gets better, mainly cuz I like to emulate older games like Fuzion Frenzy portably.
nothing wrong with docking it...with my 2 switches (1oled) was played mainly docked. I love the deck...and the prices of the games that were on "sale" on switch is basically full price for steam library. For a portable the digital library is the best as far as aging goes and not being tied to a specific console...so my account of 13 years...i have alot to play.
Loving the steam deck videos, so pumped to get mine later this year that I legitimately watch these videos two or three times!
Don't really care much about dock mode for the Steam Deck , I mainly got one just for portability mode and it's does great at that, God of War, Horizon zero dawn, Red Dead redemption, FF7 remake, Sunset Overdrive, Killer Instinct, Forza, Halo on the Go is just amazing
I plan to get a dock for the Steam Deck..
Having both options on a console like the Switch and a little pc like the Steam Deck sounds really appealing
I think docked mode will continue to have some teething issues until Valve officially launch their own dock, because then their attention can focus on that side of the software.
The only thing I can't get behind in this video is DF general critique against FSR 2.0... The fizzling artifact is specifically an artifact in the God of War implementation, if you look at the fan made Cyberpunk FSR 2.0 plugin, you don't get ANY fizzling artifacts at all, it doesn't exist there! So, in the end it has to do with how it has been implemented with the temporal passes in the engine rather than the tech itself.
Unreal's TSR and FSR2.0 are basically the same technology as AMD helped Epic develop it... and DF's exaggeration about the fizzling artifacts was a cherry picked example done by Alex in order to promote DLSS. He did it by removing motion blur (which is an integral part of the temporal post-processing pass) and turning down the playback speed to 1/16th. When playing the game at normal framerates with motion blur enabled it is actually REALLY hard to notice. My brother got up close on his 4K TV really looking for it and he couldn't see it... I could, but it was SO brief that it didn't impact the gaming experience one bit.
I think Alex and DF needs to tone down their affinity towards nvidia. because it is getting ridiculous at this point and the trustworthiness as an objective tech outlet is plummeting as a result.
@@hyperhighdrosis I never said FSR2.0 is better than DLSS. 🙃
@@hyperhighdrosis Well, I on the other hand is actively questioning DFs objectivity these days. Most of their sponsored coverage comes from nvidia. Their Q&A almost always revolve around nvidia, and when they eventually feel pressured to talk about an AMD-topic, it is transform to revolve around nvidia instead. Alex was even positive about DLSS 1.0 (which was objectively a terrible technique), at the same time he downplayed the importance of open sourced solutions like FSR 1.0 in which he pretty much explained what spacial scaling is, and not what FSR 1.0 was. Alex has mentioned in a QA that he has NEVER owned an AMD/ATi GPU. So it could just be that Alex is heavily invested in the nvidia marketing and news feed. But I don't think that's the only thing.
This is tinfoil territory, but with some pretty substantial weight behind it. There has been a change in direction of DF ever since the RTX-series launched. This is the time where I believer DF became embassadors of nvidia, focusing their whole channel on RT and AI. Their coverage pretty much follows Nvidia's editorial direction guidelines (which surfaced when they weren't satisfied with Hardware Unboxed coverage of the RTX3000-series). DF is extremely uncritical of everything revolving RT and DLSS. And sometimes someone on the team awkwardly mentions "The power of AI" without having any real weight behind it or even any understanding what can be done with AI algorithms in gaming. (and no, DLSS 2.0+ is NOT an AI technique, it's a temporal technology that is accelerated using matrix calculations on the tensor cores... not AI)
Since the release of RTX3000-series, even more changes have been made. NVIDIA now has, I kid you not, 90% of screen time on the channel. mentionings of AMD branding, products is actively avoided. In the coverage of the Matrix demo AMD branding was never mentioned (like RDNA2 or Ryzen) instead they generalize and refer the tech to the console names (which was never the case in the PS4/XBO era, back then they gladly talked about GCN- and Jaguar- cores). However, they did manage to mention both RTX, DLSS and nvidia in that video, although it was rendered on AMD hardware. this is just one example, and it is subtle. How Rich is downplaying the importance of a 16GB VRAM buffer, even downplaying its importance in the 6800 review (meanwhile being unenthusiastic in general). yet on the RTX3050, he is very happy and says it should be seen as a "nicely added bonus"... it's just so weird. there's such a lack of consistency....
But it all boils down to the subtle narrative that everything revolves around nvidia... when in the PC space that is far from the truth. AMD has helped graphics development immensely with their GPUOpen stack. They were the ones helping Epic with their TSR solution, They open the gates for open source advanced upscaling like FSR 1.0 and now 2.0, for any GPU. AMD is also developing frameworks of how to more efficiently implement RT. yet, we hear nothing about it.... only about nvidia....
DF today is a very nvidia-centric channel. I'm a game developer myself I am well versed with both manufacturers... and one thing is certain. DF, alongside many other tech tubers has a very single sided coverage of what is happening in the PC space, and it mainly has to do with how nvidias marketing works and how they get brand ambassadors and partners around the internet.
Wait why do you have motion blur and film grain on??
They are getting there! Few more updates and more docks at HDMI 2 and this will be good!
2.1
@@RelentlessOhiox HDMI 2.0 does 4K60 and Steam Deck probably can't physically output 4K120 so there's not really a point.
@@AFistfulofXanax No it does not output 4k true at 60 and thank you for doubling my point.
@@RelentlessOhiox I am literally sitting here staring at my 4K second screen which says it's being fed a 60hz signal, and on the screen is my Steam Deck's desktop displaying a display settings dialogue that says it is outputting 3840x2160 @ 60 hz. You need a dock and TV/monitor capable of it. Works fine. Maybe you're thinking of 4K120 which requires HDMI 2.1.
@@AFistfulofXanax Its telling you lies. Want like literally a hundred articles and proof? Maybe stay off the Xanax?
To me it seems pointless to get the sream deck to play hooked up to a tv especially for a 4k tv , as handheld in portable mode the device is great , if your going to play docked majority of the time , it makes more sense to get a pc / console
It makes a lot of sense considering you can hook it up to a TV to watch movies and play party games. There are a lot of party games on Steam and you can hook any controller to it, so no need to take your entire pc tower or buy a switch.
Please more Steam Deck content!
Honestly the TSR artifacts in Ghostwire Tokyo looks a LOT like how a lot of PlayStation 2 games looked when they had too much detail. I don't hate it, for what it is.
I’ve played a large portion of Deathloop on my Steam Deck.
I really appreciate the time you invested into this! Thanks for answering my questions
Steam Deck 2 (if it will ever be released) needs a 16 CU RDNA2/3 APU and an OLED 800p display. Maybe pull in changes from ChromeOS to bring HDR support to general Linux public, and we have a winner!
Great timing I just got my steam deck this week 😎👍🏻
I like this video but I don't like its conclusion 😭 Docked play is one of the main reasons I want my deck
just play games on gaming PC. nerd. dont waste your time on low resolution gaming
I wish there’s a 40fps test on Steam Deck to see how far we can get without sacrificing much of a fluidity.
15:00 it doesn't change the resolution or upscaling maximum unfortunately.
It only tells the game what resolutions it's allowed to use
What do you mean? If you set it to 4K in steamOS, and then change the game to 4k, is it not at 4k?
@@Begohan1234 at that point, in your example the game is rendering in 4k. The "per-game" setting in SteamOS is effectively the max resolution games are allowed to go up to with rendering, so changing it doesn't automatically mean the rendering resolution of the game itself has changed as well, you still need to change that separately.
@@Begohan1234 what I mean is that the display resolution will not change but the end game resolution will be told how high or low it's allowed to go.
So if you set the properties to be 720P then your display resolution will still remain the same but the game will be locked to 720p and below in terms of rendering.
Also this is pushing 60fps. If you try and keep a locked 40fps, that's the sweet spot if you still want good graphics and smooth gameplay.
That's nice for handheld but that isn't the same on a TV set.
Deathloop has been working np on my end, but I do be on beta channel so maybe that's why
1080p looks great on a 4k display *IF* the game doesn't rely on blurry TAA.
Not at all imo, it looks atrocious regardless of AA unless you're talking about DLSS.
@@omarcomming722 Have you tried Switch games that don't use any AA? I think you might be in for a surprise (I recommend using sharpness of 20 if using an LG OLED).
I agree. I’ve done it plenty of times
I noticed a 'nearest-neighbor' option in the scaling settings, while it will be pixelated, 1080p integer scaled up to to a 4k screen would look good IMO
But if were talking about pc games you can just turn of AA right? Then 1080p would look good on 4k display?
Richard says you guys just love cutting edge tech and that's the main reason for being nitpicky and edgy towards anything that isn't pushing the boundaries basically; AMD since a few years, and now the Steam Deck are right there on the cutting edge, but the amount of low key bash these two get on a regular basis on DF is outstanding.
So it's like a PS4 with more tricks up it's sleeve and a better CPU. Great deal considering you can run all of those old games at high res and you don't have that option on console. It's impressive in its own way.
Handheld device running AAA PC versions of games is crazy.
I ll wait for a version 2, hopefully not bigger than switch oled but with the same screen.
You’ll be waiting forever because when the second comes out, you’ll be in line and by then, the NEXT NEXT version will come out
@@ghostcoffee1099 i dont care about next next version, i just want a oled screen and hopefully a little better gpu along with it.
@@Lancelotxxx I have an OLED its nice...but i play on the deck now...side by side..colors and blacks are different, but i could care less...world warz on switch the oled wont help same with dying light and its framepacing issues on the 2nd map.
I would like you to do a video showing if the steam deck can play anything in VR. I mean my GTX 1050 can play minor VR titles so I'm curious if the steam deck can
What can your 1050 play?
@@zaidlacksalastname4905 VRchat (small world's)
Big screen,
It can kinda handle Phasmophobia if I turn settings way down.
Star Trek bridge crew
That's about all I tested on my 1050 laptop
I use my desktop for everything else
Can you please cover Madison, no man's sky and Bayonetta switch ports/games?
Watching this on a 4k TV, it's soft but I'm impressed. The 6600U devices will make this much better.
I think you mean 6800U as the 6600U GPU is comparable to steam deck.
@@djayjp no I mean 6600U. The 6800U is far bigger cost. I think takes too much wattage to push 8 cores. 6c12t seems like a nice middle ground with room to push the GPU
@@_TheElMan I'm just saying your original claim is incorrect--the GPU is virtually the same performance.
@@_TheElMan That's not at the same 15W as the deck.
They should add a nice cooler and allow higher clocks/higher wattage when using the official Dock, whenever it releases.
If I get one its mainly for older PC titles and indie games so I think I will be good.
Yes
Steam Deck 2 with USB 4 port and official eGPU dock option from Valve!
I think Valve got a little ahead of themselves advertising docked gameplay. Maybe they'll surprise me, but working out the kinks of PC titles switching video outputs and peripheral inputs and everything just seems like a huge undertaking.
Maybe they'll surprise me and workout more kinks than I thought possible, but people expecting Nintendo Switch-like seamlessness with your average PC game seems pretty crazy to me.
The bigger thing with switching video inputs is that games on the Deck don't directly interact with the physical monitor, they interact with the virtual one made through gamescope, and gamescope only changes the properties of the virtual one either if a game has been relaunched, and the user has set the virtual monitor to have a different max resolution when the Deck is connected to an external display. This gets rid of the wonkiness that PC games traditionally have with external displays while running, but it also means the "seamless resolution switching" that the Switch has isn't a thing.
Seems like the times you need to record b-roll is scant, but it might be time to invest in decent lighting if you plan on doing more b-roll.
Thanks for making this video. I’ve wanted to know this for months now.
There are fools, damned fools, and people trying to get 4k out of consoles. The hardware isn't here yet without compromising framerates or effects.
1:03 LIGHTNING
my take on docked handheld devices is that it should have tb3/4 support for external gpu or type c for charging and exposed extra pcie lanes extra connector on side for dock with mxm slot or dock with dgpu already integrated, something like 6700S, 6650/6700M, 1-1.6 tflops is just too weak to run 1080p, especially because you run on bigger screen and you need to run on higher detail, 5 to 6 tflops is the minimum for 1080p
Maybe by the time the Steam Deck 2 comes out they'll go for the Switch method. Dock easily and boost the performance when it doesn't need the battery.
If you want the best Docked experience on a 4K TV, play in desktop mode, you can even mess with the OpenGL settings for lower latency.
Very helpful video! I had a lot of assumptions about Docked Deck and controller support.
Interesting followup anecdote. I purchased the Satechi 'dock adapter' mentioned in this video. Every time I removed it from the Steam deck the plug on the adapter made a very unsettling series of crackling noises. I finally came to my senses and I'm going to return it...maybe I'll wait for the official dock :)
You are kind of misrepresenting the experience by your inexperience. You dont have to poke at the screen in docked mode. Hold the steam button and use the trackpad and triggers like a regular mouse. Also Protondb is where you should go if a game isn’t working. Deathloop works you just cant use steam decks internal frame rate limiter.
Rayman origins is running great at 4k 60 too !!
I have to agree with the findings of this video. Docked play is just way to cumbersome and you have to switch resolutions back every time you decide to go back to handheld play.
Having bought the Nexdock and installed dual boot Windows, Steam Deck shines running most things. Would love to hear what you think of Windows games performance on the Deck.