I hope you aren’t literally still using an actual HDD.

What emerging players? You can’t just whip up a competitive GPU in a jiffy, even if you have Intel money.

Also, unless they are from a different planet that has its own independent supply chain, they’d have to deal with the very same memory shortage and the very same foundries that are booked out for years.

Gaming laptops are notorious for dying from overheating. These things need to be meticulously maintained if you want to use them for their intended purpose for long.

Which is totally fine. Not every game has to support older hardware. Games are allowed to use “newer” tech.

Worth noting that I played Indy at 1600p/60 on an RTX 2080, which is a card from 2018 that I bought used for 200 bucks two years ago. This card can still run every single game out there and most of them extremely well, despite only having 8 GB of VRAM.

The whole debate is way overblown. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t games that could run a whole lot better, but overall, PC gamers with old hardware are still eating good.

This heavily depends on the game. Which game were you testing?

In my experience at least, small Indies and last-gen or earlier ports from console are fine, but games with frequent loading times and those designed for SSDs benefit from being installed to the internal storage.

Expedition 33

I haven’t tried this game on the Deck yet, so I can’t confirm these work, but have you looked at how other people have achieved 30 fps on protondb?

https://www.protondb.com/app/1903340?device=steamDeck

Another option would be to lower difficulty, if you haven’t already. IIRC, the parry window is much wider on easy.

The friends we asked also gave split opinions

Classic too many cooks problem. Best stick to one person who seems like they know what they are talking about. Don’t look at me, I’m just pretending. ;)

but I’m not sure about ventilation then

The more, the merrier. Map out a clear path for the air to travel through the device, from the least hot to the hottest component and out again. Larger fans are quieter at the same amount of air moved than smaller ones. Cable management gets more important the smaller the case is, so make sure to pick a modular power supply and tuck everything that can be tucked away neatly out of sight and out of the way of the airflow.

Without SteamOS it seems I’d need a keyboard/mouse out for every boot too.

You can configure Steam to immediately launch in Big Picture mode on any operating system it supports. There are many ways of achieving this, but here’s a simple script for Windows:

https://github.com/jazir555/GamesDows

For couch PC gaming, I would also recommend getting one of (I have amassed several over the years, for some reason).

I’m also not knowledgable about specs, but I figured when, say, Borderlands 4 is not playable at 4K 60fps, then I could just deal with Full HD 30-40fps, which would be enough.

I would recommend waiting until it’s out and people have thoroughly tested it. Within a few days of it reaching the hands of customers, there should be plenty of videos, articles and forum reports on how well it performs with all sorts of games, including particularly demanding ones like Borderlands 4. Digital Foundry are the best address for this kind of performance analysis.

The closest solution is PS5 Pro or PS6 when it comes out (and they fit on shelf, never checked size)

The PS5 (Pro or not) is absolutely humongous. I would be surprised if the PS6 ends up being any smaller. It’ll probably fit onto your shelf, but not in it.

but, no Steam library then. Or mods, emulation. All in all, it seems I’m in an extremely specific situation where buying SM seems optimal.

Looks like it. This computer will undoubtedly be an emulation powerhouse, just like the Deck. If the price is right and if it doesn’t have any teething issues at launch (which I doubt, given how mature the Deck was right away), then it might just be the ideal PC for you. If it’s pricier than expected for the performance, then you might want to return to me and we can discuss a SFF build as an alternative, if you want.

One thing I would recommend is buying the base model and upgrading storage yourself, since this is likely where Valve will charge more than what it would cost to perform the upgrade yourself. There are no other spec differences between the models and it’s likely that they’ll sell the base model close to cost, like the Deck. Based on what I’ve seen, upgrading storage should be trivially easy, far easier than on the Deck.

Which games are you struggling with on the Deck?

What kind of issues did your friend have building a PC? It’s a rather straightforward process, really. You can make mistakes, of course, but if you prepare your build carefully, maybe get a second or third opinion from people with experience and knowledge, read a tutorial or two, then few things can really go wrong. I’m willing to help with the selection of components and some tips on the building process, if you want (I’ve been building PCs for decades, if that counts).

I get the appeal of the “Gabecube” (I hope this name sticks) for you though, but keep in mind that it is a relatively limited system in terms of power, quite a bit below current-gen consoles by current estimates and especially limited by its relatively small amount of VRAM. It should be able to play every Linux-compatible game for now (the most demanding at low settings only), but sooner or later, the limited GPU (which can not be upgraded, unlike on a normal PC), will result in games just not running well enough or not even booting, similar to certain newer games on the Deck. It is considerably more powerful than the Deck though.

It really depends on the price whether or not it’s a good low-end gaming PC. Hardware prices are not exactly ideal at the moment (RAM is the current sticking point, but GPUs aren’t cheap either), so if the Deck manages to be more affordable than a comparable budget build - kind of like the base-model Steam Deck has been a very impressive value proposition - it might be worth it.

There are games, but few exclusives (just 18 the last time I checked). If you want to play modern games and don’t want a PC, it’s fine for that, without really being special in any way. It is a difficult value proposition for owners of the previous gen, since the jump in visual fidelity is much smaller than between prior generations (an inevitability that isn’t Sony’s fault) and since the previous generation is still being at least partially supported and was strongly supported for a very long time. However, over time, most have clearly made the jump and with the release of GTA VI (timed exclusive for PS), the system will see another significant boost.

Mods are not really a factor on consoles. Very few console gamers care about them. Xbox has slightly better support with fewer restrictions, but there are only a handful of games with support (mainly Bethesda RPGs). It clearly hasn’t helped the competition from Redmond.

Both games released and even the N64 port of Daikatana is more fun on original hardware than Star Citizen ever will be.

Sure, but what play is being performed here? These men are more than powerful enough to go against Trump, yet every single one of them is playing the part of the obedient subject to the mighty king. The message of this bizarre play is that Trump is in charge, that he demands, in return of leaving you and your business alone, acts of what can only be described as public debasement.

That’s unsettling for a long list of reasons.

That’s a single risk you (hopefully) willingly accepted when you decided to use an extremely niche browser.

Been there, done that, eventually discovered the errors of my ways and returned to Firefox.

Somewhere above 720p upscaled to 1080p with the help of FSR should work for 60 fps. The lower render resolution is likely enough to compensate for the lack of VRAM. This is all theoretical, of course.

How’s your CPU situation?

Use supersampling. Either at the driver level (works with nearly all 3D games - enable the feature there, then select a highest than native resolution unital) or directly in games that come with the feature (usually a resolution scaling option that goes beyond 100 percent). It’s very heavy on your GPU depending on the title, but the resulting image quality of turning several rendered pixels into one is sublime. Thin objects like power lines, as well as transparent textures like foliage, hair and chain-link fences benefit the most from this.

Always keep the limits of your hardware in mind though. Running a game at 2.75 or even four times the native resolution will have a serious impact on performance, even with last-gen stuff.

Emulators often have this feature as well, by the way - and here, it tends to hardly matter, since emulation is usually more CPU-bound (except with very tricky to emulate systems). Render resolution and output resolution are often separate. I’ve played old console games at 5K resolution, for example. Even ancient titles look magnificent like that.

Also for decades, Linux has had awful drivers for graphics cards (among other things) and godawful usability. It’s not like Linux would have taken over the desktop computer market in 1998. Have you ever tried installing a vintage distro? It’s a nightmare.

It can mean that, but it’s also possible that he already had psychological issues. While the entire thing stinks and my first instinct is to assume foul play as well, it’s still important not to jump to conclusions. The reason is simple: If there’s a real case of corporate murder, then people will take it less seriously due to past conspiracy theories.

Just pirate the game. She won’t get a penny and you can play one of the better recent open world games. I’ve never particularly liked Harry Potter, even before the author showed her true colors, but I still enjoyed this game.

This is perhaps the one game in development right now that could release at any time this year, next year or the year after that and it would still perform incredibly well. It’s pretty dead-set on being the largest entertainment launch in history. In other words: They can give it all the time it needs. The only worry from Rockstar’s and Take 2’s perspective is that they need to coordinate it with the behemoth of a marketing campaign that will be accompanying its release. There won’t be a last-minute delay, but if it needs more time, they need to realize this months ahead. So far, it seems to be on track or else the CEO wouldn’t release statements like these.

Since there is no PC release at launch and since it’s only targeting four different hardware configurations for the time being (both variants of the current-gen PS and Xbox), they don’t need to worry about making it run reliably on a wide variety of systems. Just like every other AAA developer, they are probably cursing Microsoft for releasing the cut-down Xbox Series S, but given what they have achieved in the past with hardware far less powerful, I doubt that Rockstar’s tech wizards will have too much trouble with getting GTA VI to run on this affordable console.

You are right about crunch though. Rockstar is notorious for this, always has been. I hope they’ve learned their lesson by now, realized that all crunch does is make people burn themselves out for worse results, but who knows, given how secretive the firm is.

GTA V and RDR2 weren’t broken upon release, so why assume the worst with this game?

Counterpoint: There are early access games that have been under continuous active development for many years, but are also worth playing in their unfinished state. BeamNG.drive - a highly realistic physics-based driving simulation and sandbox - for example has been available for purchase for almost ten years and since then, it has seen quality updates in regular intervals. While this isn’t the developers’ only revenue stream (they are also making simulation software aimed at professionals), word of mouth and the resulting influx of new players is enough to finance the development.

Yup. One of several reasons why the Shield TV Pro is still the best streaming box. Using a smart TV after having gotten used to this device is painful.