Divinity Original Sin. Currently playing it docked with two Xbox controllers and it runs great at 1080p.

Yes you can, I do that with mine a lot. The one caveat though that is a real bummer is I haven’t been able to get surround sound working on it. Something limits it to stereo output. There should be some way around it, but I haven’t found it.

Could you expand on that? Not the alternative sourcing, but why the compatibility is better. Is it just something to do with Fedora vs Arch, or is there something else that makes Bazzite work better?

I source almost everything officially, but one I was trying to do was Mass Effect 2. I played 1 on the Deck and loved it, so I wanted to buy 2 and 3 only to find that they don’t sell them anymore. You have to buy this huge trilogy remaster pack with remastered graphics and huge file sizes, which defeats the purpose of a battery powered 720p device.

I couldn’t for the life of me get it unpacked and working, even if I copied the files from a Windows computer over. I assume that I’m just not good enough at Linux to figure it out but that it is possible. Would be helpful to know of a different distro would make that easier.

I thought Bazzite was immutable as well? I know I’ve faught with SteamOS a few times to make something work only to get it wiped, so that makes sense, but I assumed the same would happen with Bazzite.

How do you find it? Do you miss SteamOS for anything or does it feel the same in gaming mode?

What advantage do you see in running Bazzite on your SD over SteamOS?

There is but only on one side and, while I’ve not personally used it, the size and placement seem to make it more of a cursor aid than something that can be used well in games.

I totally agree. I want the touch pads so I can play old games that were designed for a keyboard and mouse or a shooter that works better with them. Younger gamers aren’t going to want to tinker getting an old game to run and are likely to have been brought up on a controller and don’t see it as a hinderance.

That’s why I love the Steam Deck, it was built for all the nerds out there and it’s fabulous.

I won’t consider these new devices because they don’t have touch pads, but if inwas gifted one or had a friend that had one I would definitely recommend Bazzite if they don’t play many multiplayer titles.

Great to see it taking off.

You’re right, it was called the Steam Machine, my mistake. I honestly don’t think it was very influential in pushing Linux gaming forward, it was a first attempt that was ahead of it’s time and Valve kept after it.

The market is flooded with various controllers, but they’re all basically the same. I think what Valve is going for here is not really a new controller to take the world by storm, but a companion controller to help sell the Steam Deck. In order for it to be a true companion it must match all the inputs the SD had so people don’t have to change their bindings. I play the SD docked and I have to say switching between an Xbox and SC depending on the game and adapting my bindings is annoying when it all just works on the native controls.

When Valve made the SC they were starting from scratch and went with an ambitious design, and let’s be frank, no one but a small niche of people liked it because they had grown up with thumbsticks and were unwilling to relearn. With the SD they compromised with both input schemes, which I have to say we need to be grateful for. Look at all the SD competitors and they all ditched trackpads to appeal to the general market. Valve could have done this too.

So largely I agree with you, it would be nice to have a SC 2.0, but I honestly don’t think this new leaked one will sell all that well. It’s just a companion to sell Decks and I’m grateful they are willing to try that.

I can understand where you’re coming from, but this is realistically a better option for Valve and most consumers right now.

When Valve made the original Steam Controller they were trying to kickstart the Steam Box, which at the time played PC games that were not optimized for controller input on a TV. They needed to have a very outside the box contoller to accomplish this, and so they gave the Steam Controller a try. The touchpad inputs with enough custom mapping really were revolutionary, but only for a small crowd that wanted to play Sim City on their TV.

Nowadays, every game has standard controller input. Trying to get people who are used to the joysticks to switch to virtual trackpads is a non starter, even if it could be technically superior in some circumstances. The compromise is what we have now, a full controller layout with touchpads as extras, to maintain that backward compatibility with old PC games. I think it’s the right decision, and this is personally the controller I’ve been waiting for.

I’d love to see Steam re-make the old Steam Controller to give old fans a replacement, and I hope they do someday, but they have to pick their battles as they certainly wouldn’t sell in any volume. In a previous quest for a perfect controller I came across an open source 3D printed one called the Alpakka. Maybe DIY or a startup indie company will pick up the torch where Valve left off to give a true replacement? I hope so because the right controller for the right job is a wonderful thing.

As an early season Simpsons lover, I enjoy D’ohrdle.

I think you need to take a step back and ask if ARM makes sense if you’re translating x86 instructions 100% of the time. Unless you’re hoping people will develop new games for ARM and you won’t use your SD to play existing titles much, but that seems like a 180° shift to me.

It doesn’t always scale down though. There’s always an efficiency curve so we really can’t speculate. I agree, we have to wait and see.

I wouldn’t count AMD out. The whole reason the Steam Deck is so successful is because of AMDs Mobile GPU, not necessarily it’s CPU. AMD has been able to make some very efficient GPUs lately, so I do belive with a couple new architectures and die shrinks we will get the generational leap they’re talking about.

ARM sounds nice, and it might one day be, but getting x86 translation working flawlessly WITHOUT performance/battery costs at the same time as proton is just asking a heck of a lot.

ARM does best when it’s doing ARM things. Since all games are built for x86 with nobody having any intention of compiling for native ARM, I don’t really see the point. The whole reason i like the Steam Deck is to play older back catalog games, and those are all x86. Apple pulls it off because they only translate x86 when they have to.

Yes. There are a couple different ways to do that.

We’d need a suitably powerful APU upgrade in order to make running a 1080p screen viable. Most of the reason the Steam Deck performs as well as it does is because games are only rendering at 720p.

My wishlist for a Deck V2 would be a

• Higher res screen (if it makes sense as I mentioned above)
• Higher refresh with VRR (partially handled by thr OLED 90hz but no VRR)
• Second USB-C port supporting USB4
• Fingerprint reader
• QoL improvements like smaller bezel, modern wireless chipset, etc.

AND a Steam Controller v2 as a companion with the exact same buttons/sticks/touchpads as the Deck.

You don’t have to follow that link, it just has a few more technical details than the official Ikea site. That said I’m not a shill, just a cheapskate :P

I already have a smaller travel USB-C charger for my deck which is working great, but I’ve wanted to have a few extra around in places where I dock but haven’t been able to justify the price.

People are right that you can get similar priced chargers on Amazon, but they are random Chinese brands and while I’m sure Ikea’s is a rebrand itself, I would hope a large company like them would have ensured it was decent quality and won’t burn down the houses they furnish with particle board :P

I don’t see the Deck as a critical mass device, and if Valve choses to make it one I will probably no longer be interested. The Deck is great because you can tinker to your heart’s content in an open system. That just isn’t going to fly if Valve decides they want to be the next Xbox or Switch.

Everyone is losing their shirt over ARM because Apple is producing some insanely expensive chips on it that have high performance. I’m not saying ARM doesn’t have some advantages, but I think that’s a long way out from going into something like the Deck where compatibility is everything. The switch being ARM has nothing at all to do with this conversation.

The whole point of the Steam Deck for me is playing my older games. Unless they get x86 translation working without a performance hit them I’d rather they stay on x86.

That would have to wait for a SD2 as it would need a completely new APU. I think this is the best refresh we could hope for without major changes that would warrant a new version. One thing I wish they’d been able to do is get VRR on the screen. The fact they didn’t means there must be some technical limitation.