Really looking forward to that feature. I sometimes have self imposed restrictions on where I can save in certain games because if I don't I'll have no idea where I was going and what I was...
Really looking forward to that feature. I sometimes have self imposed restrictions on where I can save in certain games because if I don't I'll have no idea where I was going and what I was supposed to do.
Could you give an example of this? That sounds like it might be useful for me to implement too. Though I guess I have the notes available now as well. I've just lost track of where I am in games...
Could you give an example of this? That sounds like it might be useful for me to implement too. Though I guess I have the notes available now as well.
I've just lost track of where I am in games so many times! You play for a couple hours then don't get around to it again for weeks and then have no idea what's going on.
I tend to stop play at a stage where I have no immediate pending tasks. To provide a more specific example, I'm currently playing an RPG and try to only save and quit when: I'm not in the middle...
I tend to stop play at a stage where I have no immediate pending tasks. To provide a more specific example, I'm currently playing an RPG and try to only save and quit when:
I'm not in the middle of a story quest.
After I've completed a sidequest.
After I've done party management (Level ups + moving members in and out).
After checking passive tasks don't need my attention (Game allows you to set party members to train for x time, I try to set it so I save right after setting this.)
This way whenever I start a session I know I can just pick a quest and get going without having to worry about forgetting/missing anything. Obviously this depends on the game and I'm more likely to use it for games where there's many different things to do and the game doesn't natively give you a way to track and organise those things.
Small things like this make me think that Steam will never have any close competitors. Valve constantly adds awesome stuff to their client (eg. remote play together, steam link) even though they...
Small things like this make me think that Steam will never have any close competitors. Valve constantly adds awesome stuff to their client (eg. remote play together, steam link) even though they don't have to because competition offers pretty much nothing compared to them.
I started taking longer breaks in games, sometimes even months or years (Cyberpunk and NMS for example), so I forget what I was trying to do. This looks like a feature that could help me write a...
I started taking longer breaks in games, sometimes even months or years (Cyberpunk and NMS for example), so I forget what I was trying to do. This looks like a feature that could help me write a note to future llehsadam telling him what I was thinking and where I was planning to go.
I've been using the beta for a few months. It's mostly good. The UI changes are solid. My biggest complaint right now is that big picture mode has become a buggy mess and is actively frustrating...
I've been using the beta for a few months. It's mostly good. The UI changes are solid.
My biggest complaint right now is that big picture mode has become a buggy mess and is actively frustrating me. Navigation bugs and games launching in the background without respecting controller input are worst of them.
I've been mainly using big picture lately to play games and I feel the pain. Right now my main issue is that launching games causes the mouse to be captured in a weird way so that I cannot...
I've been mainly using big picture lately to play games and I feel the pain. Right now my main issue is that launching games causes the mouse to be captured in a weird way so that I cannot interact with the OS properly if I alt tab. Fortunately the old big picture mode is still accessible if you add -oldbigpicture as a launch option to Steam.
I've also been on this for long enough that I forgot what the old version looked like somewhat - it's definitely been a positive change overall. I initially had a couple of those bugs you're...
I've also been on this for long enough that I forgot what the old version looked like somewhat - it's definitely been a positive change overall.
I initially had a couple of those bugs you're talking about but after some updates between drivers, OS, and Steam, I've largely had no real issues of note.
Genuinely pleased that Steam has made a largely positive change in my experience. Glad more people will get to see that, too!
It's definitely a lot snappier. The loading of different "pages" of the client is fast. I've kinda just accepted that the Steam client is slow, so this is a nice change. I also like the new...
It's definitely a lot snappier. The loading of different "pages" of the client is fast. I've kinda just accepted that the Steam client is slow, so this is a nice change. I also like the new notifications section. I saw a similar new notification area on the Steam Deck, as well.
The notes seems like an awesome feature. Some of my favorite games are ones where it's helpful to take notes of things you discover, and while some of these games feature in game note tools it is...
The notes seems like an awesome feature. Some of my favorite games are ones where it's helpful to take notes of things you discover, and while some of these games feature in game note tools it is nice to have a digital pen and paper available.
Also I can imagine some players making guides for others using these tools for more complex games.
Holy what?!!! Having a functional TWM on windows is something I would have dreamed of back when I still alternated between windows & linux! Like, I wouldn't go back, but if this had been available...
Holy what?!!! Having a functional TWM on windows is something I would have dreamed of back when I still alternated between windows & linux! Like, I wouldn't go back, but if this had been available at the time, I might not have left #^-^;#
On the one hand, nice. I can see how that would be productive. On the other hand, I just don't know that I'd be able to stand Microsoft's intrusiveness anymore. Have you heard of the APX package...
On the one hand, nice. I can see how that would be productive.
On the other hand, I just don't know that I'd be able to stand Microsoft's intrusiveness anymore.
Have you heard of the APX package manager? It's a tool from VanillaOS that's very similar to WSL (Vanilla is immutable for stability, then uses APX and flatpak for it's packages)
A tiling window manager is a great way to improve a keyboard centric workflow. When the windows tile themselves it brings a couple of benefits: You never have to go to the mouse to move or resize...
A tiling window manager is a great way to improve a keyboard centric workflow. When the windows tile themselves it brings a couple of benefits:
You never have to go to the mouse to move or resize a window
You always use every inch of monitor real estate. When I pay for 27 inches, I want to get 27 inches #^-^;#
You never have windows "hiding" where you can't find them.
I don't know for certain if it applies for this window manager, but for most TWM's on Linux and Mac, you can get directional keyboard shortcuts to change which window is focused (like, you might have CMD + ⬅ to shift to the window on the left of the present one. Just another way to keep your hands on the keyboard.
Not applicable in this case, but in some TWM's on Linux, you can set it to hide / reduce the titlebars / borders of applications, because they aren't needed anymore, freeing up yet more screen real estate.
I was just too used to using yabai when I switched from macOS to Windows, and like a lot of people, I couldn't go back to any different kind of window management after experiencing tiling window...
I was just too used to using yabai when I switched from macOS to Windows, and like a lot of people, I couldn't go back to any different kind of window management after experiencing tiling window management, so I slowly created ^ for myself and it turns out a lot of people were waiting for something like this on Windows too!
Nice, been in the beta since it launched and it's been perfect. My favourite thing is the screenshot manager is way better, and has an 'open folder' thing. No more clicking Manage, then Show on Disk.
Nice, been in the beta since it launched and it's been perfect. My favourite thing is the screenshot manager is way better, and has an 'open folder' thing. No more clicking Manage, then Show on Disk.
I've been on the beta for a while, and it's quite nice. The new overlay is a welcome change, as the old one always felt clunky to me, even when it was new. Pretty much the only feature I want that...
I've been on the beta for a while, and it's quite nice. The new overlay is a welcome change, as the old one always felt clunky to me, even when it was new.
Pretty much the only feature I want that they still haven't added is the ability to exclude tags when making library categories (e.g. include RPG and exclude Pixel Graphics).
I expected never to use mine, but I've been playing on pretty much nothing else for the last couple of weeks. Partly that's down to weather, as I don't relish the thought of sitting next to a...
I expected never to use mine, but I've been playing on pretty much nothing else for the last couple of weeks. Partly that's down to weather, as I don't relish the thought of sitting next to a beastly gaming PC when it's 90°/32° out, but partly it's because it's so damned easy to just pick up and play for a minute, then put it back down.
Nah. Just like $470 or so. Get the base model, then go to iFixit and buy the cheapest mobile device repair kit they have. Then go to the vendor of your choice and pick up a single-sided 2230 M.2...
Nah. Just like $470 or so. Get the base model, then go to iFixit and buy the cheapest mobile device repair kit they have. Then go to the vendor of your choice and pick up a single-sided 2230 M.2 drive and do the SSD upgrade yourself. You'll also need a USB thumbdrive and a USB-A to USB-C adapter.
The Steam Deck is a remarkably repair/upgrade friendly machine. I should know. I've been a professional hardware technician for about a decade, and I can't remember the last time I saw a device that was as easy to work on as the Deck.
If you want advice, let me know. I'm always happy to help people take ownership of their devices.
Ok well now that is interesting to me. I already have all the basic supplies as I've replaced batteries on my phones and MacBooks. What about the screen? Is there any noticeable benefit to the...
Ok well now that is interesting to me. I already have all the basic supplies as I've replaced batteries on my phones and MacBooks.
What about the screen? Is there any noticeable benefit to the anti-reflective one?
I haven't heard that it's an amazing difference between the two displays. I haven't had any problems with my shiny one. The display and battery are the two components that aren't very...
I haven't heard that it's an amazing difference between the two displays. I haven't had any problems with my shiny one.
The display and battery are the two components that aren't very repair-friendly, owing to adhesive. The battery is probably not such a big deal, but I have a hunch that the display would be tricky. I've always hated working with displays held in place with adhesive. Never felt like I really got the hang of it.
Everything else is a piece of cake, though. Nearly all the components and daughterboards are affixed with standard screws and connected using standard ZIF cables, except for the haptics, which are connected using two-pin headers that kind of clip in. I've seen the header type before, but I'm blanking on the name for it. It's been a long day.
The shell itself is held together with standard Phillips #0 screws in two lengths, and with plastic clips that are pretty easy to pry apart using an opening pick or a nylon scribe tool. Then you just disconnect the battery, swap the M.2 drives, and then do it all in reverse. The official iFixit walkthroughs make a point of saying you might want to buy a backup shielding foil for the drive, but you'd really have to screw up to wreck the one that's in there. It's sturdy enough.
The OS is a cinch to install as well, especially if you've ever set up a Raspberry Pi or the like. Same deal. Steam has a download page for the official OS image. Burn it to the thumbdrive with Rufus, select the drive from the boot options menu and the installer takes care of the rest.
Of course, it is an x86_64 machine, so if you really wanted you could dual boot Windows and SteamOS, or any other distro for that matter. I haven't done that myself because I don't play anything with Windows-only DRM or anti-cheat, and "I need more Microsoft Windows in my life" is something that has never been uttered by an IT technician except in jest. But the option is there if you feel like it.
Edit: I forgot to mention that you really REALLY want to upgrade the M.2 drive if you buy the base model. The eMMC works fine, but if you use SD cards for game storage or are like me and enjoy installing games more than playing them, the shader caches and compatdata for Proton will fill that 64GB up PDQ.
The only caveat is it needs to be a K-keyed, single-sided 2230 M.2. If you got one that claims to be Microsoft Surface, Steam Deck or Switch compatible, you should be good. As for the OS install:...
The only caveat is it needs to be a K-keyed, single-sided 2230 M.2. If you got one that claims to be Microsoft Surface, Steam Deck or Switch compatible, you should be good.
As for the OS install: I had a little trouble getting out to install properly with the USB thumbdrive, so I just used a micro SD card I had lying around and had no problems. I don't know if that's because my adapter was crap or if it was because the Deck had to power it or what.
Everything is the same as far as the actual installation goes, but you'll likely need a micro SD to USB 3.1 adapter if you end up needing to install from SD.
Edit: I actually got a PCIe 3 x4 drive, and it works beautifully. The Deck can run the hypothetically faster PCIe 4 x4, but I doubt you'd see much performance improvement. You probably won't be playing games that need to load massive textures or anything, since the display res is a bit too low to make much use of that.
It arrived yesterday! I replaced the SSD in-between meetings and everything went smoothly; a very easy process. In fact, it was easier to replace the SSD than it was to figure out how to get...
It arrived yesterday! I replaced the SSD in-between meetings and everything went smoothly; a very easy process. In fact, it was easier to replace the SSD than it was to figure out how to get TeamSpeak working lol
Haven't had much time to play with it, but so far it seems pretty cool. Thanks again for all your suggestions!
If you are gonna replace SSD in Deck anytime soon please remember to remove microSD card before removing the back cover or your card will most probably break in a half.
If you are gonna replace SSD in Deck anytime soon please remember to remove microSD card before removing the back cover or your card will most probably break in a half.
I second @promunk’s comment. I initially saw steam deck as a cool toy, which would be used sparingly but fun to mess with. I have a pretty decent spec gaming PC, but the ability to play games in...
I second @promunk’s comment. I initially saw steam deck as a cool toy, which would be used sparingly but fun to mess with. I have a pretty decent spec gaming PC, but the ability to play games in the same room as my wife on the sofa, whether in handheld or docker mode, is great. There’s just something about playing your games in a different setting that makes made me open to trying different games or giving some more of a chance than I had before.
It’s also great for when I go travelling and kills a lot of time at airports. I definitely recommend, as long as you like tinkering or tweaking tech. Most things work straight out of the box but there might be some config required for a few games, especially if you’re trying to play stuff outside of steam (e.g Epic)
Dude my Steam deck is a total game changer on flights. I travel across the atlantic at least a couple times a year and that flight ends up feeling super long, but being able to game during it,...
Dude my Steam deck is a total game changer on flights. I travel across the atlantic at least a couple times a year and that flight ends up feeling super long, but being able to game during it, even if it's not the whole flight, absolutely makes it go way faster.
Honestly I didn't think I'd use a Switch all that much, and yet here I am, playing Zelda in bed because it's cold outside (southern hemisphere!) and I don't want to go anywhere. I imagine the...
Honestly I didn't think I'd use a Switch all that much, and yet here I am, playing Zelda in bed because it's cold outside (southern hemisphere!) and I don't want to go anywhere. I imagine the Steam Deck is just that but... more.
I have a Switch and I did get good use out of it, but I also have gone through huge periods of not using it. These days I really use it just as a regular console for Mario Kart than something I...
I have a Switch and I did get good use out of it, but I also have gone through huge periods of not using it. These days I really use it just as a regular console for Mario Kart than something I carry around with me. Maybe that would change if I had access to my entire Steam library.
As someone who was in that scenario: I would weigh things carefully. The hardware is fantastic and the software is great for gaming. But if you (like me) are the type to buy games and then not...
As someone who was in that scenario: I would weigh things carefully. The hardware is fantastic and the software is great for gaming. But if you (like me) are the type to buy games and then not play them, you may find you only use it infrequently. 90% of the time, mine is just serving as my media server.
Not trying to make you empty your wallet, but I got a Steam Deck and have absolutely loved it. It's not suitable for every game imo (Elden Ring doesn't run well enough for me to want to play it on...
Not trying to make you empty your wallet, but I got a Steam Deck and have absolutely loved it. It's not suitable for every game imo (Elden Ring doesn't run well enough for me to want to play it on there, for instance), but it does really well at a lot of things. I've used mine quite a lot. It's really nice to be able to go play in bed or the living room or whatever, and the huge upsides over my switch are:
Not everything will work, but you have access to your entire Steam library without buying another copy. No Switch tax.
Cloud save syncing for like everything back to my PC. This is a feature on a few switch games too but for some reason is not implemented by the vast majority of developers.
All in all I'm super impressed with it and would recommend it to anybody that has a desire to play stuff portably sometimes.
I feel that way about every cool handheld. I don’t travel at all for work aside from a short drive and I feel like that’s all they are good for. I know some people play at home but it’s just not...
I feel that way about every cool handheld. I don’t travel at all for work aside from a short drive and I feel like that’s all they are good for. I know some people play at home but it’s just not worth the hand cramps for me when I have a nice big TV to play my games on with comfortable controllers.
I love my 3DS but it has mostly collected dust. Just can’t recapture that feeling of playing a handheld from my youth when you’re a passenger in every car ride and your small hands just fit these things better. Actually now my neck is hurting just thinking about it…
For what it's worth, I would also like a mini launcher. I launch games from my start menu and then when I'm done I close Steam afterwards. Even just an option to have Steam auto-close would be...
For what it's worth, I would also like a mini launcher. I launch games from my start menu and then when I'm done I close Steam afterwards. Even just an option to have Steam auto-close would be really nice.
Many a moon ago I loved tinkering with Rainmeter, but since then I'm fortunately no longer on Windows. That's cool that Rainmeter can do it though, I've always been super impressed with all its...
Many a moon ago I loved tinkering with Rainmeter, but since then I'm unfortunately no longer on Windows. That's cool that Rainmeter can do it though, I've always been super impressed with all its capabilities.
Mostly flawlessly, though that's largely because of some personal preferences I think. I tend to not play newer games (1-2 years-ish old), am completely happy playing at 1080p 60FPS on the lowest...
Mostly flawlessly, though that's largely because of some personal preferences I think.
I tend to not play newer games (1-2 years-ish old), am completely happy playing at 1080p 60FPS on the lowest of low settings (if that's what it takes to get 1080/60), generally don't care much about graphics (I played through S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl, a game from 2007, not too long ago and thought "this looks pretty good"), and I have a pretty high tolerance for "issues". Whether that's bugs or game mechanics being dumb or straight up crashes, I can deal with it all.
Combine all these things with a very high apathy towards PvP-based competitive games and you end up with pretty much the best case target demographic for Linux gaming. Single-player and co-op PvE games are my jam.
I'm also very into tinkering with my system, so the whole Linux experience aside from gaming is a million times better than I would ever be able to get on Windows, but I also understand that it's absolutely not for everyone. And at the end of the day it doesn't matter what the OS is if you just wanna play some games.
I was just curious. I dual boot Windows 11 and Ubuntu 23 right now. I will do general web surfing and all that on Ubuntu. I will even do a small amount of programming and managing my server in my...
I was just curious. I dual boot Windows 11 and Ubuntu 23 right now. I will do general web surfing and all that on Ubuntu. I will even do a small amount of programming and managing my server in my home using Ubuntu. But beyond that I have always found that I have to settle for a less experience than I would get on Windows. I am just waiting for the day to ditch Windows permanently, but Linux as a whole is just not there yet.
I did the same thing years ago, and I felt the same way too. Until the day came that I decided that to properly switch, I had to burn that bridge and live with it for a while. After which I came...
I did the same thing years ago, and I felt the same way too. Until the day came that I decided that to properly switch, I had to burn that bridge and live with it for a while. After which I came to the conclusion that, for me, Linux was definitely already there.
Unfortunately I use a lot of Adobe Products as well as Solidworks and AutoCAD so a complete migration to Linux is unlikely to happen for me for quite a while. I one day hope I can. All this AI...
Unfortunately I use a lot of Adobe Products as well as Solidworks and AutoCAD so a complete migration to Linux is unlikely to happen for me for quite a while. I one day hope I can. All this AI integration into the OS is really turning me off as of late.
It's not quite there, but Flow launcher has a plugin for steam which lets you launch games from there without steam fully running. The store would still require opening the application though.
It's not quite there, but Flow launcher has a plugin for steam which lets you launch games from there without steam fully running. The store would still require opening the application though.
I got New Vegas around 2019ish. And I kept on getting the infinite loading screen bug. And because of that I really did not like it. But I had reinstalled it I think a year later with a help of a...
I got New Vegas around 2019ish. And I kept on getting the infinite loading screen bug. And because of that I really did not like it. But I had reinstalled it I think a year later with a help of a walk through of how to get the mods working to fix some of the issues. It is by far one of the best gaming experiences that is available. I really do not want to know how it was just when it was just released without any of the mods that fixes many of the bugs.
Same boat. Limped this game along at 15 fps on an old laptop 10 years ago or so. It was fun then, even better at 60 fps, with the always crash after 2 hours. But before I rip it apart with mods,...
Same boat. Limped this game along at 15 fps on an old laptop 10 years ago or so. It was fun then, even better at 60 fps, with the always crash after 2 hours. But before I rip it apart with mods, I'm just cruising through the default mode. And of course, I can't load a game without loading a new game first. Because this game is still buggy as shit.
are you running low on cpu cycles or ram? It's already pretty light, at least for me. Currently it's using 200MB of ram and less than 0.1% on CPU. My thinking on that is if 200MB of ram or less...
are you running low on cpu cycles or ram? It's already pretty light, at least for me. Currently it's using 200MB of ram and less than 0.1% on CPU. My thinking on that is if 200MB of ram or less than 1% of CPU is a resource concern, the problem is bigger than just having steam running, and if you do any gaming on more than 1 device I personally love the cloud sync and auto-updates happening without me needing to spend any time on it directly.
I know it's not quite the same, but have you looked into using launchers like Playnite or GameHub? You can get them to be pretty minimalistic if your concern is mostly an aesthetic one (because,...
I know it's not quite the same, but have you looked into using launchers like Playnite or GameHub? You can get them to be pretty minimalistic if your concern is mostly an aesthetic one (because, of course, the full-fat Steam will still run in the background when you start a game).
That's what I really loved about the old GOG download manager or whatever it was called. You could just download your games in an efficient manner and play them however you wanted. Galaxy was a...
That's what I really loved about the old GOG download manager or whatever it was called. You could just download your games in an efficient manner and play them however you wanted. Galaxy was a really cool idea on paper but ended up just being an absolute mess.
Steam on the other hand I actually find to be worth it for the most part. Some of the features are kinda whatever, but things like workshop support and the notes feature are actually really nice in my opinion. Of course, the best thing would be to provide a choice, but unfortunately I think that's probably not gonna happen.
I do think it's worth pointing out that even Steam's own DRM is optional for developers to use and therefore Steam isn't automatically always acting as DRM for every title released on it. For...
I do think it's worth pointing out that even Steam's own DRM is optional for developers to use and therefore Steam isn't automatically always acting as DRM for every title released on it.
For example, you can find a list of DRM-free releases on Steam here. Usually it's a lot of the same stuff that is also on gog, etc and these games will typically launch from their exe without complaint even if Steam is closed. Their list isn't 100% comprehensive, so definitely experiment a bit yourself if something seems like it could be DRM-free or if you know it's also been released on itch.io or gog or something of that nature cause it might work.
Much like how you would have to log into gog.com and download+archive the installer to really have your own personal DRM-free backup, to do the same with Steam you would install the game from the client, and then zip the game's subfolder from steamapps and back that zip up wherever you're keeping your DRM-free gog installers. It's not as user-friendly either in terms of determining what's DRM-free and the process of backing it up, but it's a thing for sure.
Maybe it's not that likely, but if the games you're playing appear on this list you could try just replacing the desktop shortcuts Steam made to launch the game through Steam with shortcuts that point straight to the game's exe.
That notes feature is so minor but such a game changer. No more endless Google docs I keep forgetting about and recreating!
Really looking forward to that feature. I sometimes have self imposed restrictions on where I can save in certain games because if I don't I'll have no idea where I was going and what I was supposed to do.
Could you give an example of this? That sounds like it might be useful for me to implement too. Though I guess I have the notes available now as well.
I've just lost track of where I am in games so many times! You play for a couple hours then don't get around to it again for weeks and then have no idea what's going on.
I tend to stop play at a stage where I have no immediate pending tasks. To provide a more specific example, I'm currently playing an RPG and try to only save and quit when:
This way whenever I start a session I know I can just pick a quest and get going without having to worry about forgetting/missing anything. Obviously this depends on the game and I'm more likely to use it for games where there's many different things to do and the game doesn't natively give you a way to track and organise those things.
Small things like this make me think that Steam will never have any close competitors. Valve constantly adds awesome stuff to their client (eg. remote play together, steam link) even though they don't have to because competition offers pretty much nothing compared to them.
If they could implement a spreadsheet into the notes, then my min/maxing heart would be forever grateful.
I started taking longer breaks in games, sometimes even months or years (Cyberpunk and NMS for example), so I forget what I was trying to do. This looks like a feature that could help me write a note to future llehsadam telling him what I was thinking and where I was planning to go.
I've been using the beta for a few months. It's mostly good. The UI changes are solid.
My biggest complaint right now is that big picture mode has become a buggy mess and is actively frustrating me. Navigation bugs and games launching in the background without respecting controller input are worst of them.
I've been mainly using big picture lately to play games and I feel the pain. Right now my main issue is that launching games causes the mouse to be captured in a weird way so that I cannot interact with the OS properly if I alt tab. Fortunately the old big picture mode is still accessible if you add
-oldbigpictureas a launch option to Steam.I've also been on this for long enough that I forgot what the old version looked like somewhat - it's definitely been a positive change overall.
I initially had a couple of those bugs you're talking about but after some updates between drivers, OS, and Steam, I've largely had no real issues of note.
Genuinely pleased that Steam has made a largely positive change in my experience. Glad more people will get to see that, too!
It's definitely a lot snappier. The loading of different "pages" of the client is fast. I've kinda just accepted that the Steam client is slow, so this is a nice change. I also like the new notifications section. I saw a similar new notification area on the Steam Deck, as well.
The notes seems like an awesome feature. Some of my favorite games are ones where it's helpful to take notes of things you discover, and while some of these games feature in game note tools it is nice to have a digital pen and paper available.
Also I can imagine some players making guides for others using these tools for more complex games.
Really glad this is finally out, because now Steam plays very well with my tiling window manager! No more minimum window width, woo!
Holy what?!!! Having a functional TWM on windows is something I would have dreamed of back when I still alternated between windows & linux! Like, I wouldn't go back, but if this had been available at the time, I might not have left #^-^;#
Haha honestly I just use Windows as a stable DE for Linux now since I spend all of my time inside a NixOS WSL2 instance!
On the one hand, nice. I can see how that would be productive.
On the other hand, I just don't know that I'd be able to stand Microsoft's intrusiveness anymore.
Have you heard of the APX package manager? It's a tool from VanillaOS that's very similar to WSL (Vanilla is immutable for stability, then uses APX and flatpak for it's packages)
What's the user case for the window manager?
A tiling window manager is a great way to improve a keyboard centric workflow. When the windows tile themselves it brings a couple of benefits:
I was just too used to using yabai when I switched from macOS to Windows, and like a lot of people, I couldn't go back to any different kind of window management after experiencing tiling window management, so I slowly created ^ for myself and it turns out a lot of people were waiting for something like this on Windows too!
This is a nice update. The UI feels similar enough, but also fresh. Navigating the main Steam windows feels very responsive too.
Nice, been in the beta since it launched and it's been perfect. My favourite thing is the screenshot manager is way better, and has an 'open folder' thing. No more clicking Manage, then Show on Disk.
I've been on the beta for a while, and it's quite nice. The new overlay is a welcome change, as the old one always felt clunky to me, even when it was new.
Pretty much the only feature I want that they still haven't added is the ability to exclude tags when making library categories (e.g. include
RPGand excludePixel Graphics).I think this is a good update, though i don't like how they got rid of themes. (or at least i heard)
Every time I read about the Steam Deck I have a near-uncontrollable urge to buy one even though I know with 100% certainty I will never use it.
I expected never to use mine, but I've been playing on pretty much nothing else for the last couple of weeks. Partly that's down to weather, as I don't relish the thought of sitting next to a beastly gaming PC when it's 90°/32° out, but partly it's because it's so damned easy to just pick up and play for a minute, then put it back down.
I'm a big fan.
My man, are you trying to make me throw away $600?!?
Nah. Just like $470 or so. Get the base model, then go to iFixit and buy the cheapest mobile device repair kit they have. Then go to the vendor of your choice and pick up a single-sided 2230 M.2 drive and do the SSD upgrade yourself. You'll also need a USB thumbdrive and a USB-A to USB-C adapter.
The Steam Deck is a remarkably repair/upgrade friendly machine. I should know. I've been a professional hardware technician for about a decade, and I can't remember the last time I saw a device that was as easy to work on as the Deck.
If you want advice, let me know. I'm always happy to help people take ownership of their devices.
Ok well now that is interesting to me. I already have all the basic supplies as I've replaced batteries on my phones and MacBooks.
What about the screen? Is there any noticeable benefit to the anti-reflective one?
I haven't heard that it's an amazing difference between the two displays. I haven't had any problems with my shiny one.
The display and battery are the two components that aren't very repair-friendly, owing to adhesive. The battery is probably not such a big deal, but I have a hunch that the display would be tricky. I've always hated working with displays held in place with adhesive. Never felt like I really got the hang of it.
Everything else is a piece of cake, though. Nearly all the components and daughterboards are affixed with standard screws and connected using standard ZIF cables, except for the haptics, which are connected using two-pin headers that kind of clip in. I've seen the header type before, but I'm blanking on the name for it. It's been a long day.
The shell itself is held together with standard Phillips #0 screws in two lengths, and with plastic clips that are pretty easy to pry apart using an opening pick or a nylon scribe tool. Then you just disconnect the battery, swap the M.2 drives, and then do it all in reverse. The official iFixit walkthroughs make a point of saying you might want to buy a backup shielding foil for the drive, but you'd really have to screw up to wreck the one that's in there. It's sturdy enough.
The OS is a cinch to install as well, especially if you've ever set up a Raspberry Pi or the like. Same deal. Steam has a download page for the official OS image. Burn it to the thumbdrive with Rufus, select the drive from the boot options menu and the installer takes care of the rest.
Of course, it is an x86_64 machine, so if you really wanted you could dual boot Windows and SteamOS, or any other distro for that matter. I haven't done that myself because I don't play anything with Windows-only DRM or anti-cheat, and "I need more Microsoft Windows in my life" is something that has never been uttered by an IT technician except in jest. But the option is there if you feel like it.
Edit: I forgot to mention that you really REALLY want to upgrade the M.2 drive if you buy the base model. The eMMC works fine, but if you use SD cards for game storage or are like me and enjoy installing games more than playing them, the shader caches and compatdata for Proton will fill that 64GB up PDQ.
I bought a base Steam Deck and a 1TB SSD. Will let you know how it goes!
The only caveat is it needs to be a K-keyed, single-sided 2230 M.2. If you got one that claims to be Microsoft Surface, Steam Deck or Switch compatible, you should be good.
As for the OS install: I had a little trouble getting out to install properly with the USB thumbdrive, so I just used a micro SD card I had lying around and had no problems. I don't know if that's because my adapter was crap or if it was because the Deck had to power it or what.
Everything is the same as far as the actual installation goes, but you'll likely need a micro SD to USB 3.1 adapter if you end up needing to install from SD.
Edit: I actually got a PCIe 3 x4 drive, and it works beautifully. The Deck can run the hypothetically faster PCIe 4 x4, but I doubt you'd see much performance improvement. You probably won't be playing games that need to load massive textures or anything, since the display res is a bit too low to make much use of that.
It arrived yesterday! I replaced the SSD in-between meetings and everything went smoothly; a very easy process. In fact, it was easier to replace the SSD than it was to figure out how to get TeamSpeak working lol
Haven't had much time to play with it, but so far it seems pretty cool. Thanks again for all your suggestions!
Awesome! I hope you enjoy yours as much as I've enjoyed mine.
If you are gonna replace SSD in Deck anytime soon please remember to remove microSD card before removing the back cover or your card will most probably break in a half.
I second @promunk’s comment. I initially saw steam deck as a cool toy, which would be used sparingly but fun to mess with. I have a pretty decent spec gaming PC, but the ability to play games in the same room as my wife on the sofa, whether in handheld or docker mode, is great. There’s just something about playing your games in a different setting that makes made me open to trying different games or giving some more of a chance than I had before.
It’s also great for when I go travelling and kills a lot of time at airports. I definitely recommend, as long as you like tinkering or tweaking tech. Most things work straight out of the box but there might be some config required for a few games, especially if you’re trying to play stuff outside of steam (e.g Epic)
Dude my Steam deck is a total game changer on flights. I travel across the atlantic at least a couple times a year and that flight ends up feeling super long, but being able to game during it, even if it's not the whole flight, absolutely makes it go way faster.
I heard you can look at porn on it too.
Honestly I didn't think I'd use a Switch all that much, and yet here I am, playing Zelda in bed because it's cold outside (southern hemisphere!) and I don't want to go anywhere. I imagine the Steam Deck is just that but... more.
I have a Switch and I did get good use out of it, but I also have gone through huge periods of not using it. These days I really use it just as a regular console for Mario Kart than something I carry around with me. Maybe that would change if I had access to my entire Steam library.
As someone who was in that scenario: I would weigh things carefully. The hardware is fantastic and the software is great for gaming. But if you (like me) are the type to buy games and then not play them, you may find you only use it infrequently. 90% of the time, mine is just serving as my media server.
Not trying to make you empty your wallet, but I got a Steam Deck and have absolutely loved it. It's not suitable for every game imo (Elden Ring doesn't run well enough for me to want to play it on there, for instance), but it does really well at a lot of things. I've used mine quite a lot. It's really nice to be able to go play in bed or the living room or whatever, and the huge upsides over my switch are:
All in all I'm super impressed with it and would recommend it to anybody that has a desire to play stuff portably sometimes.
I feel that way about every cool handheld. I don’t travel at all for work aside from a short drive and I feel like that’s all they are good for. I know some people play at home but it’s just not worth the hand cramps for me when I have a nice big TV to play my games on with comfortable controllers.
I love my 3DS but it has mostly collected dust. Just can’t recapture that feeling of playing a handheld from my youth when you’re a passenger in every car ride and your small hands just fit these things better. Actually now my neck is hurting just thinking about it…
I'm in the same boat. I very rarely want to play games outside the house, and inside my house I have way better options.
For what it's worth, I would also like a mini launcher. I launch games from my start menu and then when I'm done I close Steam afterwards. Even just an option to have Steam auto-close would be really nice.
Rainmeter has a great widget that does almost exactly this.
Many a moon ago I loved tinkering with Rainmeter, but since then I'm
unfortunately no longer on Windows. That's cool that Rainmeter can do it though, I've always been super impressed with all its capabilities.You game on Linux presumably? How has that experience been?
Mostly flawlessly, though that's largely because of some personal preferences I think.
I tend to not play newer games (1-2 years-ish old), am completely happy playing at 1080p 60FPS on the lowest of low settings (if that's what it takes to get 1080/60), generally don't care much about graphics (I played through S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl, a game from 2007, not too long ago and thought "this looks pretty good"), and I have a pretty high tolerance for "issues". Whether that's bugs or game mechanics being dumb or straight up crashes, I can deal with it all.
Combine all these things with a very high apathy towards PvP-based competitive games and you end up with pretty much the best case target demographic for Linux gaming. Single-player and co-op PvE games are my jam.
I'm also very into tinkering with my system, so the whole Linux experience aside from gaming is a million times better than I would ever be able to get on Windows, but I also understand that it's absolutely not for everyone. And at the end of the day it doesn't matter what the OS is if you just wanna play some games.
I was just curious. I dual boot Windows 11 and Ubuntu 23 right now. I will do general web surfing and all that on Ubuntu. I will even do a small amount of programming and managing my server in my home using Ubuntu. But beyond that I have always found that I have to settle for a less experience than I would get on Windows. I am just waiting for the day to ditch Windows permanently, but Linux as a whole is just not there yet.
I did the same thing years ago, and I felt the same way too. Until the day came that I decided that to properly switch, I had to burn that bridge and live with it for a while. After which I came to the conclusion that, for me, Linux was definitely already there.
Unfortunately I use a lot of Adobe Products as well as Solidworks and AutoCAD so a complete migration to Linux is unlikely to happen for me for quite a while. I one day hope I can. All this AI integration into the OS is really turning me off as of late.
It's not quite there, but Flow launcher has a plugin for steam which lets you launch games from there without steam fully running. The store would still require opening the application though.
Got new vegas on epic. It was free. 5 minutes of overlay pop ups asking me to link to epic. So annoying and apparently impossible to remove. Ugg
I got New Vegas around 2019ish. And I kept on getting the infinite loading screen bug. And because of that I really did not like it. But I had reinstalled it I think a year later with a help of a walk through of how to get the mods working to fix some of the issues. It is by far one of the best gaming experiences that is available. I really do not want to know how it was just when it was just released without any of the mods that fixes many of the bugs.
Same boat. Limped this game along at 15 fps on an old laptop 10 years ago or so. It was fun then, even better at 60 fps, with the always crash after 2 hours. But before I rip it apart with mods, I'm just cruising through the default mode. And of course, I can't load a game without loading a new game first. Because this game is still buggy as shit.
Isn't the current Small Mode basically just that?
Fair, although it does seem to reduce RAM usage pretty drastically, so whatever it runs in the background seemed fairly negligible to me.
are you running low on cpu cycles or ram? It's already pretty light, at least for me. Currently it's using 200MB of ram and less than 0.1% on CPU. My thinking on that is if 200MB of ram or less than 1% of CPU is a resource concern, the problem is bigger than just having steam running, and if you do any gaming on more than 1 device I personally love the cloud sync and auto-updates happening without me needing to spend any time on it directly.
I know it's not quite the same, but have you looked into using launchers like Playnite or GameHub? You can get them to be pretty minimalistic if your concern is mostly an aesthetic one (because, of course, the full-fat Steam will still run in the background when you start a game).
That's what I really loved about the old GOG download manager or whatever it was called. You could just download your games in an efficient manner and play them however you wanted. Galaxy was a really cool idea on paper but ended up just being an absolute mess.
Steam on the other hand I actually find to be worth it for the most part. Some of the features are kinda whatever, but things like workshop support and the notes feature are actually really nice in my opinion. Of course, the best thing would be to provide a choice, but unfortunately I think that's probably not gonna happen.
I do think it's worth pointing out that even Steam's own DRM is optional for developers to use and therefore Steam isn't automatically always acting as DRM for every title released on it.
For example, you can find a list of DRM-free releases on Steam here. Usually it's a lot of the same stuff that is also on gog, etc and these games will typically launch from their exe without complaint even if Steam is closed. Their list isn't 100% comprehensive, so definitely experiment a bit yourself if something seems like it could be DRM-free or if you know it's also been released on itch.io or gog or something of that nature cause it might work.
Much like how you would have to log into gog.com and download+archive the installer to really have your own personal DRM-free backup, to do the same with Steam you would install the game from the client, and then zip the game's subfolder from steamapps and back that zip up wherever you're keeping your DRM-free gog installers. It's not as user-friendly either in terms of determining what's DRM-free and the process of backing it up, but it's a thing for sure.
Maybe it's not that likely, but if the games you're playing appear on this list you could try just replacing the desktop shortcuts Steam made to launch the game through Steam with shortcuts that point straight to the game's exe.
Top comment. Not exactly a minority. 😂😉