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Last post Author Topic: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC  (Read 128478 times)

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #175 on: September 14, 2022, 02:30 PM »
I'm really tempted to get this Kingston 512 GB M.2 2230 SSD for $51. It's supposedly the OEM drive that Valve use in the 512 GB Deck, according to a random person on Reddit. If true, that would put the 64 GB Deck on par with the 512 GB Deck, minus the laser-etched screen, and for $200 less than the 512 GB Deck cost. That's an expensive screen. . .

Pre-post edit: After making the realization of what I wrote in those last two sentences, I was convinced to get it. 🤓 I came back to update this post saying I'd bought it and realized I hadn't even submitted it yet. :D

The drive arrived. I'm not sure if counterfeit (lower capacity than advertised) NVMe drives is a thing like it is with USB/microSD drives, so I used f3 (Fight Flash Fraud, or Fight Fake Flash) to test it and it appears to be the full capacity. Now I'm going to watch a video or two on how to properly take apart the Deck to access the internal storage and replace it and re-flash the OS and all that.

Well, in any case, it will be interesting to see your progress  ;D :Thmbsup:

EDIT: Just don't be this guy

https://www.reddit.c...280_nvme_to_my_deck/

What the smurf? :o
« Last Edit: September 14, 2022, 03:23 PM by Deozaan »

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #176 on: September 14, 2022, 04:09 PM »
I just finished installing the new drive and flashed the OS. Just booting into Steam OS literally as I begin typing this. I'm not sure if it really is the same OEM drive as my 512 GB Deck because they report slightly different sizes.

The newly upgraded Deck reports a maximum of 463.4 GB from the Storage menu, whereas my original 512 GB Deck reports a maximum of 465.3 GB. Even so, that's close enough for me! Now I can scavenge the 256GB microSD card I had put into what was the 64 GB Deck and use it for even more storage on mine. 🤓 Though, with it being slower, I'll have to remember to put only smaller things on it, such as ROMS or small indie games, or personal documents/project files from Desktop Mode.

I have no problem opening up a desktop PC or even a laptop, but I was pretty intimidated about opening up the Deck. I did have a little bit of trouble because I don't have a "professional" screwdriver/repair kit with all the accompanying tools. The first screwdriver I tried was too pointy for the shallow notches of the screws and didn't always catch, so I couldn't spin it. The next screwdriver I tried worked better but the bit was too large to fit into the deeper holes. Then I got out my "precision/jeweler" screwdriver set, but they're tiny little things I can never get a good enough grip on to apply torque with any real force. So I had to use some pliers to grip the precision screwdriver while forcing it down into the screw-hole and finally loosened everything up enough to get all the requisite screws out.

Then the next hard part was separating the back of the plastic shell from the front. I don't have a spudger so I grabbed a LEGO separator tool which did the trick, but I noticed after the fact that it did ever-so-slightly damage the plastic of the Deck at the location where I first stuck it in. But it's so slight that I doubt anyone else who uses the Deck would ever notice. Then, to separate the shell on the outside of the triggers, I had to push the LEGO tool down the crevice near the trigger and the seam between the front and back of the shell and twist/pry it slightly to get it to separate enough to insert a flathead screwdriver (because I didn't have anything else to use as a spudger) to gently pry it apart the rest of the way. Once I got it started like that I was able to use the LEGO tool to finish going around the sides and bottom of the device up to the other trigger, which required the same trick as before, though with less force. The whole thing would definitely be easier if you have a nice electronic device repair kit with decent screwdrivers and a couple of spudgers.

Once I got it open it was pretty smooth sailing, with the only other hiccup being that the 64 GB drive had a little metallic sleeve around it for some kind of shielding. The 512 GB drive is slightly thicker than the 64GB drive so I couldn't get the shield on without loosening it a little bit. That just involved pulling back the adhesive, putting the drive in the shield, and then re-adhering the shield back together. Then I put everything back together and flashed the OS and it's good to go. All in less than an hour even with my minor setbacks. In fact, it took me almost as long to write this post as it did to actually change out the drive and boot the Deck back into Steam OS. 😅

In short, even though I was intimidated at the prospect of opening it up, I feel it wasn't that big of a deal now that I've done it and I would have no problem opening it up again if necessary.

Now, what to do with the spare 64 GB EMMC module I have? I wish I had a more modern computer with a few empty M.2 slots I could put it in. . .
« Last Edit: October 12, 2022, 01:41 AM by Deozaan »

wraith808

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #177 on: September 14, 2022, 04:31 PM »
That's pretty amazing, Deo! I'd still never do it LOL

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #178 on: September 14, 2022, 10:50 PM »
I had no intention of opening up the Deck, but the 64 GB storage was just too restrictive and I felt more and more that it had to be done. With some trepidation I followed this video guide and found that it was a piece of cake in hindsight.



Now that I've done it, I almost regret paying so much for the 512 GB Deck, when I could have just gotten another 64 GB model, a 512 GB SSD, and a matte screen protector and had a device on par with the 512 GB Deck while paying about $200 less. (Which I could spend on accessories!)

wraith808

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #179 on: September 15, 2022, 12:57 PM »
Given that it's new hardware, I never regret not modding because of warranty.

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #180 on: September 16, 2022, 08:43 PM »
Valve have been very gracious about their warranty, repairing or replacing units even if the customer opened it up. If I run into an issue that requires me to send it back for replacement/repair under warranty, I can just open it up again and put the 64 GB drive back inside.

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #181 on: September 18, 2022, 03:29 PM »
Again, this is slightly off topic, but for more gameplay videos of horde survival games, including one that's completely free, here's a Let's Play channel called PlayFrame showing off Vampire Survivors and HoloCure.


Vampire Survivors - I am addicted now


HoloCure - Welcome to VTube Survivors

wraith808

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #182 on: September 18, 2022, 06:07 PM »
You really do like those games LOL

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #183 on: September 19, 2022, 03:33 AM »
I haven't played HoloCure, but I've been definitely been enjoying Vampire Survivors, Nomad Survival, and Boneraiser Minions since first getting into the genre. There's something really fun/satisfying about playing them and discovering/unlocking new stuff. :D 🤓

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #184 on: September 19, 2022, 10:46 AM »
By the way, Vampire Survivors 1.0 will be releasing soon, meaning the game will be coming out of Early Access. In preparation for that, it's also going to be getting a price increase in the coming days.

I've already gotten over 13 hours of fun out the game, and I expect I will probably at least double that, if not triple or more. Not bad for only $3.

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #185 on: September 26, 2022, 01:16 PM »
Support for multiple user accounts was a big concern of mine early on, as I haven't found there to be a lot of information about it online. Most of the YouTube videos I've seen that focus on the Deck seem to be made by people who don't have to share it with anybody else. Switching accounts isn't quite as seamless or fast as it is on, say, the Nintendo Switch or the Wii U before it. It feels slightly buried in the UI but it's not too bad. I think Gaming Mode is basically just a new Steam Big Picture Mode interface, and when you change accounts it appears to completely restart the Steam client, if not the entire device. It takes about 25-30 seconds to completely change accounts once they're on there.

It does not make a new Linux user account, so all the Desktop Mode stuff appears to be shared. Same Downloads folder, same Documents folder, same Desktop icons/files, etc. If your browser is set up to restore tabs when it launches, it will restore the tab(s) that the last person had opened. That kind of data sharing is not ideal, IMO. I don't necessarily want someone else to be able to access and edit/overwrite my files, whether intentionally or not. That said, there are probably workarounds to most of the issues. For example, internet browser profiles are a thing that exist, so each person could probably just have their own icon on the desktop that launches their browser profile.

I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but it just occurred to me that I can still create more Linux user accounts on the Steam Deck in Desktop mode. So I can have the general purpose, shared user account that comes with the Deck by default, and I could also have a separate, private/personal--and password protected!--account for when I'm intending to use Desktop mode for "serious business" and the like. And I suppose it has the added bonus of providing separating the gaming aspect of the device from the desktop "work" environment, so that if I'm using it for work there's more effort required to get into a game and therefore hopefully less of a chance I'll get distracted and not get anything done.

wraith808

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #186 on: September 26, 2022, 04:02 PM »
By the way, Vampire Survivors 1.0 will be releasing soon, meaning the game will be coming out of Early Access. In preparation for that, it's also going to be getting a price increase in the coming days.

I've already gotten over 13 hours of fun out the game, and I expect I will probably at least double that, if not triple or more. Not bad for only $3.

Didn't get it in time, but it's only $5. I also figured out by accident that I can wake up my Steam Deck with the Xbox controller.

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #187 on: September 26, 2022, 11:37 PM »
Didn't get it in time, but it's only $5.

The reason for the price increase before the game released out of Early Access is because the developer has expressed a desire to list the game in upcoming holiday sales and Valve require that the price of a game doesn't change within a certain amount of time before being listed in a sale. In short, if you don't mind waiting a bit, it will be on sale soon™. But personally I feel it's worth $5. I've put 30 hours into it and I'm still not finished playing it yet.

I also figured out by accident that I can wake up my Steam Deck with the Xbox controller.

Cool. How?

Is it connected wirelessly via Bluetooth? Or wired? Or with a wireless dongle? I ask because I have an Xbox One controller, and it has a compartment for batteries, but I've always only used it wired via USB because it was my understanding that I needed to have a special/proprietary dongle to get it to work on my computer wirelessly. I've never actually tried putting batteries in it to see if it worked over Bluetooth. 😅 Well, and my PC doesn't have Bluetooth anyway, so that's another reason I didn't try it. But if it comes with Bluetooth I may start connecting it to my Deck wirelessly instead of having to drag so many cords around when I dock it to the TV.

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #188 on: September 27, 2022, 03:55 PM »
Cool. How?

Is it connected wirelessly via Bluetooth? Or wired? Or with a wireless dongle? I ask because I have an Xbox One controller, and it has a compartment for batteries, but I've always only used it wired via USB because it was my understanding that I needed to have a special/proprietary dongle to get it to work on my computer wirelessly. I've never actually tried putting batteries in it to see if it worked over Bluetooth. 😅 Well, and my PC doesn't have Bluetooth anyway, so that's another reason I didn't try it. But if it comes with Bluetooth I may start connecting it to my Deck wirelessly instead of having to drag so many cords around when I dock it to the TV.

Wired. I have it connected to my jsaux dock wired to charge it, and before I take it off the charger, I press the xbox button and it turns on.

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #189 on: September 27, 2022, 07:01 PM »
I have it connected to my jsaux dock

Speaking of which, JSAUX released a firmware update to their docks to increase compatibility with some displays or something.

https://www.gamingon...ck-docking-stations/

Ironically, the updater only works on Windows.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2022, 07:21 PM by Deozaan »

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #190 on: October 06, 2022, 05:05 PM »
The Deck is no longer backordered, so new orders will ship out shortly after the order is placed.

The Steam Deck got an update in the past 24 hours fixing a lot of things related to external displays, and now the Docking Station is officially for sale.

It's kind of pricey at $90 but it does include a power brick (exactly like the one that comes with the Deck).



EDIT: Replaced video link since Valve unlisted it after people noticed a split-second of footage showing a Nintendo Switch emulator. ;D
« Last Edit: October 08, 2022, 12:42 PM by Deozaan »

wraith808

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #191 on: October 06, 2022, 10:06 PM »
Yeah, I already ordered it. I wasn't going to, but then saw it came with a brick, and that put the price into better perspective.

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #192 on: October 10, 2022, 11:07 PM »
Call me Britney, because oops! I did it again!

It seems I forgot the password I set on the other Deck when I was trying to get them both set up to use the SMB share some weeks ago. But this time I found a way to remove the password from the account instead of just wiping the drive and starting over from scratch.

I posted my solution as response #13 in this Steam Community thread:

Somehow set a password and forgot it... (archive link, in case the original dies somehow).
The details of which are based on a Reddit thread (archive).

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #193 on: October 11, 2022, 11:22 AM »
The reason I needed the Desktop mode password again was because I decided to try out a plugin called Decky Loader. A short preview of it and some of its features is shown in the following video:



Installation was pretty straightforward once I had a working password. The only hang-up I had was that the instructions say to "reboot back into Game mode [from Desktop mode]" which I interpreted to mean clicking the link to return to Game mode but I had to actually fully reboot the Deck before it showed up.

https://github.com/S...omebrew/decky-loader

I got it installed and installed a few plugins with it but haven't really done much with it yet.

I did briefly try out the GameFaqs plugin because I thought that might be nice to have relatively quick access to while in games. It seems functional, and it has a nice feature where it detects the name of the game you're currently playing to help you search for GameFaqs guides for it. There's also an option to view the guide in full-screen which is kind of useless IMO because when you make it full-screen it doesn't remember how far you were scrolled in the guide so you have to scroll back down to your place. And when you exit out of the guide back into the game it closes the full-screen part, which if you open again is scrolled all the way to the top again. So there's no real quick and easy way to view the guide in full-screen. But the sidebar view does remember the scroll position, so while it's a bit cramped, it works well enough, as long as you're not trying to view any fancy ASCII tables or charts that would be too wide for it and get jumbled due to word-wrapping.
« Last Edit: October 11, 2022, 10:11 PM by Deozaan »

wraith808

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #194 on: October 11, 2022, 01:41 PM »
If you have prime, there's a special today on 1TB memory cards at $127 instead of $249 and I've had my eye on it for a while - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09X7MPX8L

I got one. It won't be here until November, but that's fine.

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #195 on: October 11, 2022, 10:18 PM »
Nice tip! I guess I missed it because for me it says it's $162.70 and not eligible for Prime, only available from 3rd party resellers, etc. But that's OK because even $130 is still a bit much for me to be spending on an SD card at the moment. :)

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #196 on: October 12, 2022, 01:29 AM »
I just finished unlocking all achievements and all the characters and things in Vampire Survivors.

I spent 53 hours on the game to get to this point, and there are some characters I haven't even played yet, so I feel pretty satisfied with my $3 purchase! It's now my top 15th game as far as recorded playtime in Steam! :D I think I'll take a break from the game and maybe go back to Nomad Survival, which just released out of Early Access recently.

That said, Vampire Survivors is scheduled to release out of Early Access in a couple of weeks, and I believe there will be more new content to experience and unlock, so I may come back to it soon. :D
« Last Edit: October 12, 2022, 11:35 AM by Deozaan »

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #197 on: October 14, 2022, 10:51 AM »
Valve have recently made it much easier to customize boot videos, with evidence that soon™ they will even have custom boot videos available in the Points Shop, and this is the only logical outcome:

Help!! I've set my boot video to Shrek and now I can't use my Steam Deck until it's over!

Deozaan

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #198 on: October 16, 2022, 10:55 AM »
JSAUX recently released a dock with a slot for an M.2 drive, but what interested me was when I learned that they also have made available a script which will auto-mount the drive when you connect the Deck to it. Taking a look at the script, I found they have just grabbed it from someone else who goes by scawp, so I looked into the original source here:

https://github.com/s...Mount-External-Drive

And it appears that scawp has also made a few other Deck tools/scripts and tutorial videos:

https://github.com/s...team-Deck.Tools-List

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Re: Valve Announces Steam Deck: A Handheld PC
« Reply #199 on: October 19, 2022, 04:24 PM »
That's pretty cool. I'm not sure I'm going there... 1.5 TB should be more than enough for what I really need on my deck. But it is cool to see!