Steam Deck isn’t a cutting-edge PlayStation Vita successor though - it’s so much more than that.
The cheap, powerful handheld Nintendo hasn’t delivered yet with Switch Pro?
The ultimate mobile gear for retro gaming?
There’s still the sense that Steam Deck is very much a work-in-progress.
SteamOS and software updates arrived throughout the review period, sometimes changing the experience dramatically.
When it works, however, it’s a marvel.
In pre-launch opportunities and other marketing, Valve has perhaps downplayed expectations.
When I first saw footage of Control running, it seemed to be struggling to hit 30fps.
Obviously, resolution drops from console-standard 1080p to the mobile-orientated 720p or 800p.
We know it’s big, but does that impact playability?
I’ve found that extended gameplay sessions see the Joycons' squared off edges dig into your palms.
Combine that with little support and I often end up with numbness and pins and needles.
The controller set-up is neat, comfortable and feels good.
Yes, it’s large.
The audio-video experience offered by the handheld is both good and bad.
However, fan noise is undoubtedly intrusive.
You’re going to need it.
Steam Deck is significantly thicker than Switch - dramatically so.
Its audio is excellent but screen quality is average.
Switch’s OLED display is in another league altogether.
The Steam UI is feature complete right down to cloud saves working just fine.
And yes, a performance menu offers up a bunch of monitoring and tweaking options that are worth investigation.
There’s also system-level support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution - FSR.
Proper game implementations work on the 3D content, leaving HUD elements at native resolution.
From what I can tell, the system-level FSR upscales everything.
It’s impressive stuff, but again, further work is required.
The Steam UI scales according to resolution, becoming busier the higher your display’s pixel-count.
This is how the Deck-recommended layout looks on a 1440p display.
However, I actually found that the Steam Deck’s GPU offered anything between 51 to 61.5 percentmoreperformance.
Unlocked performance: PS4 1080p vs Steam Deck at 720p and 800p.
At the same quality controls and boosted by the lower resolution, Steam Deck can actually deliver higher frame-rates.
I’m talking about battery life.
I could regale you with tests on various games, but I honestly think they’re a bit pointless.
Valve does give you a useful performance metrics overlay which does all of the maths for you.
On the flip side, I could run Cuphead at 60fps for well over six hours.
Yes, crucially, Steam Deck’s 30fps limiter endeavours to deliver consistent frame-pacing.
The Deck’s system-level 30fps cap isn’t perfect, but it’s getting there.
Here’s Dark Souls 3 with the even frame-pacing the PS4 and Xbox One versions do not deliver.
There is one final warning though.
Steam Deck looks like a console, but it’s not a console.
It’s still very much a PC.
Balancing options, figuring out battery life on any given game - it’s all on you.
And yes, don’t expect every game to work.
Yes, the notorious PC port of Batman Arkham Knight can run fairly consistently on Steam Deck.
The 30fps cap is most stable, with only occasional streaming-related stutter.
Do ultra controls work with dynamic resolution scaling?
Aside from some occasional background streaming stutter, yes it can!
Yes it can, on max options, no less - excluding Nvidia exclusive features, of course.
The list goes on.
There’ve been many challenges in reviewing Steam Deck and many frustrations over the last couple of weeks.
