WiteWulf wrote:Bit of thread necro, but I know a few of us have Decks now they’re easier to get hold of. Quick question: does anyone have an opinion on A1 vs A2 SD cards for storage expansion? Eurogamer/DF (duh) say go with the A2, but they’re otaku tech fetishists. Elsewhere I see a lot of people saying the only obvious difference, on the steamdeck, is better write speeds and, hence install times, but no appreciable difference in read speed and actual game load times.
And two seconds googling and something I didnt know
It'll affect your install times if you're on fast Internet. With an A2 card, the CPU becomes the bottleneck if you're 'net is fast enough (decompressing, whatever) during downloads. With a slower A1 card that will be the bottleneck. In my experience, downloading a 60gig game to an A2 card for me (gigabit fibre, real speed of 55-65MB/s) takes about 12-15 minutes. The same game onto an A1 card can take more than an hour.
Gaming you won't see a difference. And if you're on slower net, it won't matter either.
WiteWulf wrote:
Are Integral any good? I usually only buy Samsung or Sandusky…
WTF is "Sandusky", you piece of shit spellchecker?
Thanks for the advice though, folks. That Google result of Deckard's is basically what I'd already found. I know that 'deck already forces storage of shaders onto the NVMe, so SD card speed won't affect that. I think they've done a very good of optimising this stuff, and my gut feeling is that A1 will be fine for most stuff, and what /doesn't/ run well on A1 won't be any better on A2; it'll need to be on NVMe to work at it's best.
Sadly (and a little unsurprisingly) The Last Of Us Pt1 sounds very poor on the Deck, despite Valve putting some effort in. Apparently it takes an hour after install to finish generating the shader cache!
You can already easily install it on a Deck through emudeck, but it sets a very interesting precedent to have a piece of software that relies on ROM dumps to operate actually on the Steam store
Just watched Linus run through the ROG Ally. He came out really liking it, although the "minor" issues he lists seem to be a solid reason to avoid it. Interesting to see another mainstream brand take on the format though. Would be really nice to see Valve taking notes and making changes ready for SD2 (if they decide to go down that road at all - this is Valve, after all, they seem to follow the Google business model of being willing to ditch anything at little to no notice). The Ally has a 1080p, 120hz screen with VRR, better venting, better sound, runs quieter...
But it doesn't have touchpads, the software looks astonishingly awful and it's not user-reparable.
Every extra cycle of performance these manufacturers add takes away battery life, that's why the Deck keeps winning out, imho (that and price). If you're happy only playing for an hour at a time, or connected to mains, that's fine.
FWIW Valve have been quite open about the hardware upgrade path: they've said the next version, when it comes, will almost certainly be no different in terms of CPU/GPU horsepower, but may be more energy efficient and will likely have a bigger/better screen. The screen already has a sizeable black border around it, so you could add an additional 1" diagonal in the same case.
The problems I have with the ROG Ally and all the other competitors you can get for the Deck are:
1) Like mobile phones when comparing Samsung to Apple, they make money selling hardware, so there will always be new slightly better versions popping up to tempt you/make you feel your old device is lacking. Steam doesn't have to be like that as they make money on you being in their ecosystem so they can be slower more controlled on the hardware and sell closer to cost.
2) Windows! The Deck just works, ok, it doesn't always just work as it needs to make the game run on Linux, but in general, it's much closer to a console experience and more pick up and play. Windows is just a faff on a handheld. I have one of the first Aya Neos, it's a lovely device and not far of the deck in performance and once stuff is installed it's all good. But any time you have to interact with Windows you want to cry. Yes I could hook up a monitor and keyboard to install/tweak stuff, but I just don't want to.
I think the Deck has sold well, so developers are starting to take notice and target the Decks compatibility/controls/capabilities so I'm quite happy to be in that ecosystem and would also by a v2 without much thought. The few extra fps on the competitors isn't worth it right now when you look at the tradeoffs.
Misfit wrote:
I think the Deck has sold well, so developers are starting to take notice and target the Decks compatibility/controls/capabilities so I'm quite happy to be in that ecosystem and would also by a v2 without much thought. The few extra fps on the competitors isn't worth it right now when you look at the tradeoffs.
There is no doubt whatsoever that after many years of others trying, Valve have finally made this format of handheld PC properly viable. And it will be driving some devs crazy. Why spend all that time/money/effort building graphical showcases for a small portion of the potential audience when most people are happy with "good enough" graphics on a device like this? The market has essentially declared that the Ninty model of staying a gen or two behind on graphics is absolutely workable
I really hope that someone builds a model with a screen above hands rather than in-between. Choosing between neckache or armache isn't exactly an attractive proposition to me :-/
Rhythm wrote:
I really hope that someone builds a model with a screen above hands rather than in-between. Choosing between neckache or armache isn't exactly an attractive proposition to me :-/
Maybe GPD Win Max 2 (like a small laptop, but has two-handed gaming controls too) or GPD Win 4 (screen slides up)?
My fave handhelds have been the DS and the PSP Go, so yep, they're much closer to what I'd be after. Not saying one design is right or wrong, just would like the option.
Yeah, Steam's decision to *not* push ahead with CPU/GPU upgrades and create a console-like bit of stability in the performance stakes seems to be appreciated by some devs. I was honestly surprised to see how many are dialling in Deck specific performance settings presets in their games, along with updates to address screen text size (another reason for me hating on Nintendo so much, as this rarely happens on Switch game ports).
WiteWulf wrote:Yeah, Steam's decision to *not* push ahead with CPU/GPU upgrades and create a console-like bit of stability in the performance stakes seems to be appreciated by some devs. I was honestly surprised to see how many are dialling in Deck specific performance settings presets in their games, along with updates to address screen text size (another reason for me hating on Nintendo so much, as this rarely happens on Switch game ports).
It is nice to see Deck specific settings and must be nice for pc devs to be able to tune the settings for a specific machine so can't see the resolution changing anytime soon (no doubt that helps avoid CPU/GPU more cycles upgrade push).
It's been nice playing some older games on the deck as resolution isn't that far off some of the top specs the older ones were designed for. Do find I play on my deck more than my gaming PC and it is a nice experience certainly more comfortable than the switch (for me at least)
"England is funny, but sometimes she scares me"
Tony Wakeford
