Discussions and news about gaming on the GNU/Linux family of operating systems (including the Steam Deck). Potentially a $HOME away from home for disgruntled /r/linux_gaming denizens of the redditarian demesne.
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One of the appealing things about the Steam Deck is its repairability. Valve even made the analog sticks modular, published a teardown video, and partnered with iFixit to make replacement parts available, IIRC.
It would be hard to convince me that a device that doesn't beat the Deck in this area is "today's best". It's important.
The ROG ally is extremely easy to repair and replace parts.
As someone who owns neither but is impressed by this new boom in handhelds, I'm just happy that there are multiple options that are repairable and modular.
I'll stick with the deck. I'd rather a Linux first approach and to support the people putting in the work.
Agreed. It's hard to believe anyone still recommends Asus after the whole GN debacle.
Steam Deck has the OLED display, better efficiency/battery life, is hundreds of dollars cheaper, is supported by a company that actually cares about it's customers, and doesn't need to mess around with installing a different OS.
Agree. Asus never really put much of an effort to support Linux, for example, for the big companies, fwupd, we only see Dell and Lenovo support.
Steam Deck is more than software and a slightly old APU, its also the controlls and build quality. Tbh I dont think any company can truly surpass the Steam Deck.
People have the wrong ideas. Steam Deck LCD was a pure test object anyway, where they saw that there was a market, which is why Valve also released the Oled version. Valve has left the hardware open so that you can also install other OS. Valve may also see competition there, even if the competition releases more powerful hardware. Valve's hardware is still secondary and steam, which is installed everywhere, is still their core product. The better hardware the competition brings, the more power-hungry games people will buy.
Steam Deck vs .... is just nonsense.
As always, I’m not going to be able to play half my usual games without touchpads.
Analog sticks do not make a good mouse replacement.
That's why I loved the steam controllers...
I really love the deck's layout, the original steam controller only having one analogue stick killed it in my opinion. I could never get used to trackpads joystick emulation in games that were designed for an Xbox controller.
Valve leaked a Steam Controller 2 thumbnail in their SteamVR drivers recently:
GamersNexus proved that ASUS is a scummy company and the ROG Ally isn't a great product
The Ally and Ally X are very different products, but yes.....Asus is scum.
And Asus is still going strong with the shitty prebuilt GN reviewed yesterday that was the worst prebuilt GN had ever reviewed.
No touchpads. OOTB experience questionable and Bazzite is a community project, compared to first party support from Valve for the Deck.
And the display isn't definitely better. Yes it's 120 Hz, higher resolution and VRR, but the Deck's OLED has proper HDR support and 90 Hz is probably enough for this type of device (as is the resolution, although I'd take a higher res screen as well for 2D games). The main thing that the Deck's screen is missing is VRR imo.
I'm running bazzite on my steam deck and I love it, it gives me more compatibility with uh... alternatively sourced games. It may be a community project, but it's brilliantly done
Oh Bazzite is great, no doubt about it.
But it's not endorsed/supported in any way by ASUS so ROG Ally (X) compatibility isn't a given. ASUS could release a firmware update tomorrow that breaks compatibility (very unlikely of course).
Plenty of comments have already addressed the touchpads. But the other thing that only the steam deck does right now, is the symmetrical joysticks at the top of the device. Personally, I find having the right joystick farther down on a heavy handheld absolutely brutal for ergonomics, and it's the reason I never touch my Switch Lite
When will literally any media outlet notice that the touchpads are what make the Deck really special?
I see this type of comment somewhat often and I’m always left a little confused about what I’m missing. The only time I ever use the touch pads is in desktop mode, which is not that often. What games use the touch pads?
Anything which does not have controller support. Civ, for example. Lots of other similar strategy titles. They function as a great mouse replacement. I've even used them for first person shooters, where a trackpad in trackball mode can be more accurate for aiming versus a controller.
The right one, that is. The left is more often used for custom menus.
But the fact remains: you are restricted to games with controller support without the touchpads.
Games with partial controller support. I mean, I can hold the guide menu button and then use the right stick to move the mouse, but it sucks balls in comparison to just a quick swipe of the track pad. It makes the game feel fluid instead of wonky. For more complex games they act as controller augments. You can configure anything you want. When I use my PS controller, it just feels like it's missing a necessary feature without the touch pads. I think most people think of the track pads as a replacement for L3 and R3 and they were in the past. Now though, we have gyro and flickstick. To me, gyro and flickstick over track pads.
No touchpads? Not even a contender lmao
I'm sure Valve loves the fact that more people are locked into the Steam store.
Steam is great, and there's workarounds for using other installed games/stores, but... kinda feels bad that this stuff is so integrated into the Valve/Steam experience.
Don't get me wrong, I use my steam deck... a lot... and I buy most of my games on Steam... I just wish GOG and Epic integration was a little more integrated, just so I don't feel so locked in to one company. (yes, I'm aware of heroic launcher, and other options, but they're still just hacked on extra steps that don't always work)
There's nothing stopping epic or GOG from distributing a flatpak for their experiences/stores, the question is where are they?
Heroic Games Launcher and Lutris both have Epic and GOG integration.
While I would love to have an official GOG Launcher on Linux, it would probably not work as well as Heroic’s integration.
I'm aware, I just like to gently remind people that the stores they want to shop from, seemingly don't want their money. I view the deck as a kind of linux trojan horse for gaming, SteamOS on more devices could at least convince GOG that linux is worth supporting.
Epic has an axe to grind and I expect nothing from them.
Neither of the companies want to support Linux. Simple as that. Or else their launchers would work on Linux without needing third party ones. They don't see Linux user base as big enough to be worth the effort.
Thing is, unlike other vendor lockins, it's on GOG and Epic for not providing a launcher. It's super easy to install alternate launchers on the Steam Deck, it's just Epic and GOG haven't released official ones yet...
Agreed but that's just life in Linux in general. If epic and gog don't want to do the work to have a legitimate option in Linux (makes sense given market share), we'll keep doing the best we can with the hacky options while supporting the platform that is putting in the work.
No one is locked into the Steam store. Any of the others could release a Linux handheld if they wanted to.
First they would have to make an interface that works in a console like way, and then actually make the launchers work on Linux. But this would require effort, and neither care about actually supporting customers.
Epic is far happier being customer hostile.
The possibility of needing to deal with Asus tech support kinda ruins this whole thing.
It won't surpass the Deck for me until they put trackpads on it!
Mm, yes, because I'm gonna spend $1100 on something far overpowered for its usecase
Yup. I got my Steam Deck for $530 or something at launch and I'm still loving it. If it breaks and I can't cheaply fix it, I'll buy their OLED model for $550 and still be less than Asus' device. Yeah it's less powerful, but it's not half as powerful.
If Valve releases a faster Deck, I'll probably get it because the first has worked so well and was priced well. I'm happy competitors exist, but I don't need a top of the line handheld, because I can always play more intensive games on my desktop.
I'll be honest, the Ally as a complete product is not appealing to me whatsoever. Yes, it's much faster and better on paper, but it's not better in reality. Admittedly Bazzite makes it a lot better, but it still has way too many drawbacks, compared to Deck. Even more so, it can be said about whatever MSI made