Valve Software announced the Steam Deck today. This is a handheld gaming PC comparable in power to a PS4. Shipping OS is Arch Linux but it can be wiped and be replaced with a different OS if you wanted to. Reservations to pre-order start tomorrow, Friday. I think I will try and snag one. Valve is being smart about it, only accounts which have a purchase history before June 2021 and are willing to pony up a refundable reservation fee can pre-order one during the first 48 hours. This will completely defeat bot scalpers. I posted this here because even though only IGN and a few others have seen it in person https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLtiRGTZvGM , the anti-glare etched glass for the premium model is of interest to me and might be good. We'll find out later! Edit: And this thing will probably have custom video drivers too which will be interesting.

Yeah this will be interesting. Also apparently Nvidia are working with ARM processors now too. So hopefully different driver / software mashups might help some of us out.

Has anyone received a Steam Deck yet? Curious to hear an impression of the display.

Nobody here has received it yet.. but Linus from techtips said that the screen is 68% sRGB. So, better than the first Switch displays, but not at all comparable to the OLED Switch display. People have complained about fan noise whine which will get better at an unknown point in time, whether that is with using Win 11 instead which has more sensor support, or Linux getting more support for the sensors so the fans can control the ramp. I have an old NUC as my main PC, and I do hear the fans ramp-up from several feet away with some sites, etc. so I imagine it'll be the same with the deck.

I had a Steam Deck (anti-glare screen) for a couple of days and unfortunately had the same eyestrain issues I have with my other LED devices (iPhone/iPad/LED TV). My main issue is a burning sensation that kicks in after a few minutes of usage, luckily I don't have any other symptoms even though this is already quite annoying.

eyepainsilverberry All LED devices? Dang. What devices are usable for you currently? I'm hoping the steam deck works for me even though the battery life won't be great.

Clokwork Yeah, all LED devices unfortunately. I am using an old Apple Cinema Display, which has a CCFL backlight, and I can look at it for hours and hours without problems. The Sony LED TV is also tolerable, the eyestrain is not as bad, I guess because I sit farther away from it.

Steam Deck

KM

eyepainsilverberry sounds like a spectrum issue. The Sony TV might have, at least partly, a Quantum dot backlight ("Triluminos"). I, too, can't really use White LED (only if the brightness can be regulated down to extremely low levels like let's say < 10 cd/m²), and the spectra I seem to tolerate is AMOLED and "Quantum Dot" (technology varies). Provided there is no flicker or only very minor flicker, and also not what we suspect is temporal dithering. It is difficult to find devices which have all 3 of those factors right.

eyepainsilverberry

KM I had an LG OLED TV and an iPhone 12 (with OLED screen) once and my symptoms were terrible. Is there a difference between AMOLED and OLED? The Sony TV is an X900H and it doesn't use Quantum Dots apparently. Anyway, this is kind of off-topic.

Clokwork I also turned off HDR on the Sony TV and reduced the brightness as much as possible. Even without symptoms, I don't get the appeal of HDR and super high brightness levels.

Clokwork

I can't watch any OLED television. I have not tried Samsung's latest iteration which isn't fully relying on white light like the LG OLED panels, but the quantum dot implementation means a much brighter image which is part of the problem for me. The rabbit manufacturers are chasing is brightness to meet some of the HDR standards. The last thing I want is a super bright panel. Yay UST projectors.

KM

eyepainsilverberry yes, there is a difference: Today's OLED TVs typically use White OLED.
I have the X800G, I think. Setting the brightness too low on this TV is a bad idea if you're sensitive to flicker. My advice is to use Game Mode and brightness 5+ (with brightness sensor disabled) or brightness 35+ (with brightness sensor enabled). There are also other settings to take care of which are found in one of the TV threads I posted in.
The Steam Deck's usability might depend a lot on its settings, too. You can't change the spectrum, but there might be a setting that has the least amount of flicker and temporal dithering.

You can check a display or lighting for its spectrum with a cheap handheld spectrometer. I got mine from eBay for $7 or so. My experience so far is that if the spectrum has thin distinct lines, then, in terms of brightness issues, it is potentially much better than White LED (which shows a rather continuous rainbow spectrum). AMOLED, Quantum Dot, CCFL, they all have those thin lines in common.

Clokwork

Hmm. I didn't think about video settings on the Steam Deck. Since the screen can't even show full RGB, I'd hope they are not trying to use temporal dithering, but who knows. One of Linus Tech Tip videos basically said it's a tablet display.

KM You can check a display or lighting for its spectrum with a cheap handheld spectrometer. I got mine from eBay for $7 or so. My experience so far is that if the spectrum has thin distinct lines, then, in terms of brightness issues, it is potentially much better than White LED (which shows a rather continuous rainbow spectrum). AMOLED, Quantum Dot, CCFL, they all have those thin lines in common.

That's pretty fascinating! Thanks for sharing your findings. There just may be a chance the new Samsung OLED may be usable. I'm very skeptical though.

Sunspark

I finally got around to opening the steamdeck today. I recommend doing it with the window open and a fan because the smell of new electronics is strong as hell and it takes many hours for that to outgas. The reason I am making a point of this right off the bat, is because I know some of you will feel sick from new electronics smell and blame it on the screen. So have ventilation as a best practice. The case for it is also very strong smelling, I have it outside and it'll stay outside all night too.. needs to outgas. Has that strong new carpet smell.

First impression, the screen is smaller than I expected for some reason. The backlight is VERY blue (about 8000K). It does have a customizable night mode setting for the interface so you ca make it warm, though that doesn't apply to games themselves, you would need to create a custom colour profile and add them to the game as a 3D lut or something--some people have done this. The colour gamut coverage of the panel is not high (68% of sRGB). Not great, not terrible but combined with the anti-glare, the general look is a bit dull and unsaturated. I didn't observe flickering, and while I know some of you will complain about strain, part of it is because it's blue and the pixels are a different size than you're used to. The screen I have is the etched semi-matte one (512 gb model).

I haven't played games on it yet, I think the device is useable but there is some degree of getting used to it. Haven't connected it to my monitor yet.. it comes with a KDE desktop but you need a dock to connect to an external monitor and I don't have one. Some people have installed Windows on it, but driver support for it is not fully present yet.

joelj

Just to add to this, while it's a fantastic device, I'm getting migraines from using for more than half an hour and as a result am now only using attached via HDMI to a TV or monitor (which is fine), it's a shame because the screen looks great but I'm sure it must use PWM of some sorts

Sunspark

joelj What dock are you using?

Sunspark

joelj It's strange, I saw a video awhile ago with wild amounts of flickering on the deck, but yesterday I looked at my CCFL monitor with my non-flagship phone, and it is able to see the moving PWM lines on my monitor between 0-98, and not visible 99-100. I looked at the SD, even at the lowest setting my phone can't see flickering. So that likely means the rate is higher or not present.

I do however think I can see FRC dithering in action.

I have the 512 matte screen on mine, but uhh, I haven't actually gotten around trying to play a game on it yet heh but futzing about it both in the steam mode and the desktop mode didn't seem bad. I suppose I will see how it is when I actually try playing something.

It is true though that the backlight is very very blue and it's not that easy to shoehorn a colour profile in. It's just a cheap tablet screen.

joelj

Sunspark just a cheap (£15) adapter that powers it and gives me HDMI output (and with two USB-A so I can use some old Xbox 360 USB sticks with it) – https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09QKFGNS8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Sunspark

I finally got around to playing on the deck. I do wish the screen was a little better (only 68% sRGB coverage but you don't really notice it and basically what you get on a cheap laptop), but the matte screen that comes with the 512 is usable for me. I put 13 hours into a standard platformer on the deck's screen. Maybe it would be different with a FPS type game. I don't know if the glossy screen used by the 64/256 models is the same panel or a different one. It's also possible that there's been a panel change because some people have been complaining about bubbles and having to cure the screen with 15 minutes of UV before using it safely (what?) which was not at all the case with earlier shipments.

It is possible to configure the night mode overlay in such a way that it adjusts the colours so it's not so blue, and closer to 6500 kelvin. Night mode does work in games also so it's one setting that you can toggle on and off.

I'll get a dock eventually, will be interesting to see how it is on my monitor.

thorpee

Sunspark
That's great news. Can you turn off the device updates?

thorpee

You can install the OS the Deck uses on any PC using holoiso https://github.com/theVakhovskeIsTaken/holoiso

When I get a chance I want to try it with a GTX970.

Edit: looks to run better with ATI cards.

Sunspark

thorpee I think so, but so many bug fixes and active development are occurring at the current time, that I don't think one really should.

Re: GTX970, you can, but the GPU in it is an AMD so the driver will be completely different. I wouldn't bother tbh because nothing in the display chain will be the same, the driver and the display both. They're using Wayland for the overall system, the KDE desktop mode is still using X.org.

I hope they release a good dock for it eventually, I want to see how the output to my display is and tbh, it'll be easier on my eyes/neck if I can sit more comfortably.

Sunspark

I have had the dock for awhile now. I'm outputting it to the DVI port on my monitor using the HDMI output on the dock.. which is too bad because the displayport output is busted at the current time and I have a bunch of displayport adapters.. there'll be an update in the future for that. While not perfect, it is usable in desktop mode. Desktop mode is still using X11 (this is not permanent, they'll probably change it to Wayland in the future) but I find launching the non-3D game I am playing in desktop mode feels just fine, many many hours no problem. I have tried it in Wayland mode on my monitor as well, and while playable, I find it is subtly not as comfortable as when it is in X11 mode. Curiously, I think there is a certain amount of display compatibility at play as well.. e.g. on the deck's screen (my panel is made by BOE), wayland is fine and of course, the dock probably does its own processing for the output to the monitor.

If my regular older PC was to break I would probably just switch over to using the deck as a PC in the short term.

That said, I do not say for anyone to go get one unless they want to, because this is a moving target. Updates are being published for the OS and firmware (both the deck and the dock), so anything can change. Drivers, kernel, etc. It's not a static system.

thorpee

Sunspark

Thanks for your update.

Let us know if they release an update that changes it. If nothing changes after a new hardware revision comes out it might be worth picking up a secondhand one.

artdyl

Hi Guys,

Recently did received my Steam Deck 64 GB, and I can tell that it gives me eye strain and neck pain. What is also interesting, same happening even with external display. Noticed one thing, that it easier for my eyes if to use it in Night Mode.

Trying to figure out, what is exactly cause of this eye strain, I know that Steam Deck has PWM and it's frequency 1080 HZ, but I do not think that I'm sensitive to PWM, or at least probably I'm sensitive to some frequencies.

List of usable devices, which do not cause issues for me:

Iphone X (240 hz PWM)

Ipad mini 5 (about 4000 HZ PWM)

Sony Led TV (720 HZ PWM)

MacBook Pro 14 Retina 2015 (No PWM)

Devices which give me eye stain and headaches:

MacBook Pro 16 2019

MacBooks on M1 with MiniLed

Macbook Air M1

All Oled Iphones

LG OLED 55B8PLA

So I'm interesting if some one have same issues with Steam Deck? And also thinking is there sense to try/test 512 GB model, steam support telling that all models have the same screen panel, only difference in 512 model is anti glare screen.

Sunspark

If you're having an issue with an external display, then it's probably the driver. It's an AMD RDNA2 APU. You could try making a Windows-to-Go boot drive and booting from that instead and installing the Windows driver and see if it's any different.

artdyl

Sunspark Thanks for suggestion, I had thoughts regarding that, but unfortunately I did already send steam deck back and requested refund. But still thinking to try 512GB, it not so bright and probably there I can try to see how it will be on windows.

Does anybody solve eye strain issue by installing Windows on Steam Deck?

hayder1983

artdyl I have no eye strain with my steam deck. I have the 256GB with glossy display.

artdyl

hayder1983 Just curious, what devices is usable for you and what is not, I mean laptops, phones, TV's etc?