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Valve discontinues the most affordable Steam Deck — $399 LCD version on the way out as new starting point is $549 (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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A shame imo

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[–] 8 points 10 months ago (14 children)

Hmph, I assumed a cheaper oled model would be introduced, or maybe hold off until whatever new version they release

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  • [–] 22 points 10 months ago (11 children)

    until whatever new version they release

    I suspect it will be a while before we see Steam Deck 2.0. The Steam Deck is plenty strong for what it needs to be, and the AI bubble means components are not inexpensive.

    Also, for anyone who doesn’t know, if you have a gaming PC you can install Moonlight on your Deck and Apollo (or Sunshine) on your PC and stream the PC to the Deck. As long as you have WiFi 6 or 6e you should have minimal latency, and you can get significantly better graphics and battery life on the Deck. Really makes gaming in bed or on the couch even better!

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    The new generation of consoles is probably coming in the next 2 years or so, I imagine that they will refresh soon after that since new consoles tend to bump up minimum game specs.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago (7 children)

    Steam also has a built-in streaming feature that doesn't require any additional software.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    Yep! And Steam Link is fine, but Moonlight/Apollo gives you more options and, in my experience, better quality.

    So for example I can tell Moonlight to have Apollo send 1440p to the Steam Deck, so that after chroma subsampling I still end up with an entirely unique pixel for each on the Deck. That alone makes things look more crisp. I can also have Apollo set up such that my PC uses Moonlight as the only display when I’m using it.

    (There are far more options I haven’t really dug into.)

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (3 children)

    after chroma subsampling

    Cool info, but I'm not sure about this part. Do you mean downsampling instead? Because chroma subsampling doesn't make sense in this context.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (2 children)

    In 4:2:2 subsampling (or lower), information is lost. It’s not much information, but if I’m streaming 1280x800 or 1280x720, each pixel is partial defined by the ones around it.

    If I stream 2560x1440, when reduced to 1280x720 each pixel is the combination of those 4 subsampled pixels. Meaning each individual pixel is independent from its neighbors.

    It doesn’t sound like it should mean much, and maybe I’m wrong entirely about the reason for the lower detail when streaming 1280x800, but the difference was apparent to me (at least when I tested it with Cyberpunk 2077). I could very well be wrong, I’m not an expert. There could be other causes. But either way streaming at 1440p looks better on the 1280x800 screen than streaming 1280x800. (Except with 1440p the aspect ratio means small black bars at top and bottom).

    Now that I think about it, I might be able to turn off the subsampling in the stream. Might be a good way to test it if I can.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    And if you DON'T have a steam deck but have a decent smartphone, a razer kishi or similar provides a great comparable budget setup. I use moonlight and a Kishi 2 with my Pixel 6 and it's a great couch/bed experience over wifi.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    IMO next major sale they do a decent discount on the low end OLED and even if they sell at minimal profits that's ecosystem lock-in and a boost for Linux in the household.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    By the sound of it, it was minimal profit at base price, and while things should get cheaper to manufacture and sell over time, hardware prices are rapidly increasing. I wouldn't be suprised if they need to increase their prices to break even, going forward - esspecially given that if its too cheap, buisness or industry customers might start buying it.

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