Steam Deck

The absolute worst possible time for system and game updates is when I am booting up the device or starting a game.

My Fedora and Windows OSs both give you a "update and shut down" option. This is the best time to do updates.

When Steam is a desktop program, it obviously is not involved in the OS and not aware when you are shutting down but when Steam IS the OS? Seems like a fairly obvious inclusion.

Now obviously there can be additional mandatory updates between startups, but this would at least help to minimize those.

Why is this not standard? Is this something the community could develop? Maybe via plug-in?

I’ll pickup a steam deck soon and am wondering what place is the best place to buy a steam deck in the Philippines.

Does anyone have the answer?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/5056325

Both the Steam Deck and official Dock are on sale to celebrate Valve's 20th anniversary.

Hello community!

We in the team thought we could give you a quick status update on how development is going.

GitHub link if you do not know what the project is: https://github.com/XargonWan/RetroDECK

Status update 2023-09:

We hope that everyone had a good summer and that you are ready for a tiny status update with a plethora of mixed topics.
But before we get into what we are working on we want to make a short statement.

Our commitment to Open-Source

As the RetroDECK team, we are deeply concerned by the rumors about how others have handled their dependencies and their relationship with those developers.

We would like to say this:

Emulation is a multigenerational effort of development that has lasted for decades, motivated by the pure love for video game preservation for current and future generations. RetroDECK depends on the constant development of all our dependencies (the emulators, front-end, various assets, etc...). It would be unfair to both the hard work that has been done in those projects and to the entire open-source community if we said otherwise or tried to take credit, conceal, or obscure it for our own gain.

We always strive to have the best possible relationship with the teams that generously provide and develop the third-party software we are depending on now and in the future. Everyone that works on RetroDECK is immensely grateful for the global collective effort and work that has been done. Without these projects and those passionate people RetroDECK would not be possible.

We also want to add a word for the developers of the third-party projects:
Please feel free to reach out to us, talk to us for any reason and share your ideas. We value your feedback and suggestions, and our door is always open for collaboration and improvements. You are the backbone of our project, and we appreciate your contributions.

You can find more about our dependencies on the wiki and how to donate to them or us:

https://github.com/XargonWan/RetroDECK/wiki/Donations-%26-Licenses

//The RetroDECK Team

Now on to the new stuff:

Two new developers and one tester have joined the team

We are incredibly happy that three new members have decided to join us. All of them have been active in their contributions and helping the community. They bring exciting innovative ideas and skillsets to the project.

Adding individual ROMS to Steam and launch them with RetroDECK

One of our new developers is looking into adding individual ROMS to Steam and hopes to have this done for the next big major release 0.8b - Bonsai Banana. This will allow you to list the ROMS you want as a separate game in the Steam interface and thus have different power profiles for each game.

It is something many of you have requested and given feedback about.

Dynamic viewports / scaling system

Another new developer is looking into making a dynamic scaling / viewport system for the various emulators and cores to match the borders and resolutions to the most common screen types.
This would allow better desktop screen support and better handling on undocked / docked Steam Deck resolutions.

The goal is simple but complex:

The borders and scale of the games should look nice and proper on your external screen when you plug in your movable device.

Better external controller hotkey support

As part of the Controller Unification Project and with the addition of the SELECT button as a hotkey trigger in 0.7.1b. We now have a better understanding of Steam Input’s controller template system and should be able to make a template for common external controllers with the button bound hotkeys combos that use SELECT as the trigger.

However, the entire radial menu system is a bit harder as many controllers do not have touch input or a logical and comfortable way to navigate it. We will investigate if it is feasible to port the radial system to controllers with touch and those without.

Status on the Multi-user system

We are still working hard on the Multi-user system, but it might not be ready for 0.8b as we had hoped. There are tons of complexity, and we want to make it right. Some parts of the development team have other IRL priorities that take preset over RetroDECK development (new baby incoming and fatherly duties).

That is all for this month

A minor patch 0.7.2b will be out soon with a emulator update refresh and some bug fixes.

See you next month.

Check out our:

Discord

Github

Wiki

Donations

Btrfs is a filesystem (like FAT, NTFS, and ext4), but has some distinct advantages:

• Increased storage - thanks to compression and file deduplication, Btrfs can save you considerable amounts of storage. I have 517G of files on my Deck's SSD, but it only uses up 410G of storage to hold those files. Compressing your filesystem can also shorten load times, especially for slower memory devices like the SD card.

• Snapshotting - save snapshots of the file system and easily roll back if there's a problem.

Converting to Btrfs is easy to do, and doesn't require having you to resetup/reconfigure your deck. The linked gitlab project will do the conversion, keep all your existing files and settings, and set all the Btrfs configurations for you. The file conversion will persist through updates, and it will setup automatic deduplication of files on the drive. It also allows the Deck to automatically mount Btrfs converted SD cards, and to format new cards in the same format.

Only potential downside I know of is that Btrfs is case sensitive, where the default ext4 on the Deck uses casefolding. Basically this means that Btrfs will treat File.txt and file.txt as two different files. I've never run into any issues with this, but I've heard it can cause issues with some specific mods that inconsistently capitalize their files. There's also always some risk whenever you make dramatic changes to your filesystem, but I haven't really heard of anyone having problems with this. You do have to make sure you have at least 10-20% of your storage free (and a min of 10-20GB free for smaller drives) to make sure it has room for the conversion.

Overall I've been using Btrfs for over 6+ months on my deck, and it's been great. I highly recommend it. I'm not an expert on it, but I'll do my best to answer any questions on it.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/4967725

A new variation of JSAUX's 12-port RGB dock that comes in White is now available to purchase. It has USB-C, USB-A 3.2, a HDMI, a DisplayPort, Ethernet, 3.5mm audio jack, and USB-A 2.0 ports.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/4929803

Western Digital is creating new SSDs specifically in the form factor used in handhelds like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally. These come in 500gb, 1tb, and 2tb options.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/4903492

A new Steam Deck Client update was pushed out today that brings in some new fixes, Indonesian language support, and more Desktop mode fixes.

So I've been looking for a nice relaxing and/or easy game. Placid Plastic Duck simulator is now on sale. Steam says it's Playable, but it isn't listed as having controller support. Does anybody have experience with this game on Deck? Does it require keyboard mapping? Is there a community layout?

Other not really game specific questions I wouldn't mind an answer for:

• Is there a way to check for community layouts for a game without owning it?
• Does buying a game that doesn't have a demo and then refunding it because its compatibility isn't great count against me in some way? The refunds policy seems to mention something about abuse, but without a demo I have no other way of knowing.
• Any recommendations for relaxing games that are great on Deck? Journey was okay, but didn't capture my attention. I loved RiME.

Best wishes and thanks in advance!

In the leaked info, we know that Valve has an upcoming device that will use the same APU as the current Steam Deck. We don't know if this will be a new VR headset or a Steam Deck hardware refresh. Even though using the same APU means there won't be a performance increase, there could be various other improvements in an upgraded Deck like a better screen, etc. What would you like to see in a partial hardware upgrade?

Two issues have plagued the official dock for me:

1. After waking up from sleep, HDMI is black unless AC adapter is unplugged and re-plugged

2. Wake on Lan doesn't work because the deck going to sleep seems to put the dock to sleep, the Ethernet lights turn off

I solved both using a smart plug. I have a Sonoff (S40 Lite) and a TP-Link Kasa, both have Python packages to control via terminal which led me to choose them.

To enable Power on AC attach:

Shutdown the steam deck fully (not sleep). Hold Volume '+' button and power on to go to BIOS. Go to setup, power, Power on AC Attach and enable.

I set up SSH keys for the steam deck from my phone using Termux on Android. I power it off using an ssh command from my termux, then use a python command to turn off the smart plug as well (you can use the web app or smartphone app just as well, using python just let's me link it all into one command)

To turn on, I just turn on the smart plug and seems to fix the HDMI black screen issue too!

I made this app to help me keep track of the different games I have on each of my SD cards. If you have 2 or more SD cards that you swap between and you're ever trying to remember which one has which, this app will help you out.

Right now it's a completely stand-alone app that I recommend launching through Steam. I might one day look into making a version as Decky loader plugin that more people might use.

As there's no official game-pad layout I would just switch to the 'Web Browser' layout provided by Valve as it has a mouse scroll wheel bound to the left track-pad and the mouse cursor on the right.

The first thing you'll probably notice is there's some resolution bug with the app where if you launch it in Desktop Mode, the font and dividers are much much larger than they should be. Otherwise, if you launch it in gaming mode, the mouse cursor can only reach about 40% of the display area for some reason. ¯\(ツ)/¯ If you have any clue on what might help, please feel free to reach out on GitHub or here

Since I last posted about my app, I've added a search bar to help filter the list for any specific game you might be looking for; and also improved the UI and coloring.

Thank you for reading my whole post, please share it to any friends you think might find it helpful or interesting.

I had an old MSI gaming laptop from 2016 which was amazing for me (I always had slow, 2nd hand laptops before) and now I've sold it and my PS Vita in order to buy a Steam Deck. I want to play Elden Ring, the Souls series, Sekiro and some indie games like Vampire Survivor. I also want to emulate games (Gameboy gen up to PS2 gen). Would that be a good investment or should I just go for a PC? I travel frequently because of my job.

Bazzite is an alternative operating system for the Steam Deck and for Desktop PCs that closely emulates SteamOS, with numerous additional features and improvements on top. We use immutable Fedora as a base, and allow packages to be layered and kept through updates unlike stock SteamOS. You can even print and change the language from English if you want.

The Linux kernel has been updated for some new hardware that still includes the AMD Van Gogh APU, which is currently only used in the Steam Deck. Popular speculation is that Valve will release an updated Steam Deck, one that still uses the same APU (so same performance), but had other changes to the hardware. Possibly different screen, larger battery, etc.

Possible code name for the hardware is Galileo.

If you want more/better info, I'd recommend reading the linked article.

I'm looking into purchasing a steamdeck for my kids. Ican I attach my 2 old Xbox controllers to it, so the kids can play together?

Most multiplayer articles talk about playing with remote players.

Also, should I go for a more expensive version? It seems like I can swap the SSD myself.

For a little more context, I use an 8bitdo Ultimate Wireless controller. The one that works on the Switch, PC, and the Deck, with my Deck docked to a TV while playing for this to happen. Haven't tried to recreate the issue undocked, because I don't use the Nintendo layout undocked.

I've had a few games where I press a face button (ex. The A button), it acts like I press the correct button for a second, but then immediately after it presses the Xbox counterpart. Like, when I press A, it presses B right after, which makes it really hard to navigate menus.

The layout works well with most games I've tried, but I've had these issues in Cyberpunk 2077 and 30XX.