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Dulfite on 21 March 2022
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Captain_Yuri said:

So here's my thoughts on the Steam Deck after a few days of using it. I did post my initial thoughts on it if you want to read the long version here:

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9366656

But I didn't want to post it here until I used it some more to see if anything has changed but it's largely the same. So TLDR:

The Goods:
- It's very comfortable. Yes it's bigger and heavier than the switch but the ergonomics and distribution of the weight is really good.
- The speakers are insane. Better than a lot of laptop speakers that I have heard over the years.
- Suspend and Resume puts Windows to shame. Microsoft should be ashamed of themselves for not having this function. It makes me want to throw away my computer.
- Games loading from Microsd is very seamless.
- RTS and Unverified games can sometimes work extraordinarily well.
- When it all comes together, it can be an Euphoric experience.
- The battery holds up well if you tweak it right

The Bads:
- The fan is super loud because of how high pitched it is. If you are in a quiet room like in a workplace, it will be 100% distracting to others. The only good thing about it is that when you are in an empty area in Elden Ring and the fan ramps up, you know shit is about to go down. PS: The fan runs no matter what you are doing so even if you are doing something basic like watching youtube, you will hear it.
- Steam OS is janky AF
- And because Steam OS is janky AF, Windows issues mentioned in the Linus Tech Tips video makes the situation much worse.
- I tried PPSSPP with FFVII Crisis Core and oh boy, that audio crackling is not a fun experience.
- They need to revamp their verified games list because from my experience, verified games doesn't actually mean they will run well such as Sonic Generations in Seaside Hill. That shit drops to 15 fps.

Overall, I am not keeping it. It has quite a lot of reasons to like it... Hell even love it! But the main reason I bought this was because I wanted to take it to work. See I work in IT and currently, I bring my gaming laptop to my workplace and I play games on it during my downtime. My laptop is big, heavy and loud and the Steam Deck seemed like a great device to replace it. But the issue is the high pitched noise of the fan. It's loud enough to be distracting to others in a quiet place and because of that, it limits it's purpose in my use case. My laptop fans can get loud but they are loud in the white noise sort of a manor which is easy to tune out, the Steam Deck and it's variable high pitched fan on the other hand... Well based on my experiment at work, wasn't the case but it does depend on the environment.

Of course the other issue is software. I am sure a lot of it will be fixed given enough time but if there's one rule to follow in the PC space is to never buy something based on future promises so I have to judge it based on where we are at now. As great as Valve's optimization is with Elden Ring, you also have these other cases where Sonic Generations drops to 15 fps (and Horizon Zero Dawn issues based on LTT video) even though that's a verified title not to mention how terrible the desktop experience has been. If they are going to gimp Windows experience, they need to make sure their own experience is on par or better, not worse in so many areas. Like what is the purpose of having verified titles if they don't work properly or a desktop that doesn't have a proper functioning keyboard?

All in all though, I'll continue to keep my eye out because the potential of PC handhelds can truly bring a new era of PC gaming. Hopefully Valve learns from the issues of Steam Deck and fixes the loud fans and such when they release the Steam Deck 2. And by then, I'd imagine the software issues and such will also largely be fixed and the lingering questions of how new technologies like Direct Storage will perform will be answered. Till then though, I'll skip for now...

Regarding the fan noise, that is a huge deal breaker to me. If I got a Deck, I'd use it to primarily play around my family while we watch a show or something, either not listening to the games sounds or wearing a headset, like I do with my Switch when playing a single player game I'm not tremendously invested in. But if the device produced that much noise it will be really annoying to others.

I am curious, when I got my Razer Blade Advanced, one of the first things I did was try to address the heat. Did some research, found some tweaking you can do to the hardware specs via software I downloaded, which helped a little. But obviously buying a 5 spin cooling pad that propels it upward for airflow helped the most.

Anyway, back to the point, I noticed you said it would run the fans that loud even if you were just watching Youtube. On my laptop I have Razer Synapse, which allows me to manually change the fan speed. Is there not a way to do fan speed manual change on the Deck?