The DSP firmware the code comment mentions is probably a proprietary binary blob, right? That means it’s pretty much a blackbox and it’s not possible to fix the underlying issue, hence this workaround.

Let’s see how broad hardware support is. I’m planning to build a SFF PC for the TV and I know Bazzite exists but I like the slow and stable approach of SteamOS for a machine like that.

We played “Project Eden” on a (small) LAN yesterday. It supports up to 4 player coop, you play a group of “agents” (?) and it’s basically a third person puzzle-solving + shooting game.

Microsoft’s ‘VP of Next Generation’ Xbox exec will also attend.

“Please welcome Microsoft’s Idontknow Theirname to the stage!”

Idontknow Theirname: “It’s been a great pleasure to work with Lenovo to bring Xbox’ vision to life on this amazing device. […]”

“And now, please welcome Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais to the stage!”

Pierre-Loup Griffais: “Yeah the Legion Go 2 will come with SteamOS preinstalled, no Windows/Xbox bloat.”

Random disconnects. Sometimes I leave my Deck downloading something and come back later only to find out that the download stopped (connection timeout or similar errors). Steam switches to offline mode and to fix it I have to turn Wi-Fi off and back on, and sometimes only a full restart does the trick.

Thanks for the troubleshooting tips, but I’d rather not downgrade my home Wi-Fi because of one device having issues. I use many other Wi-Fi 4/5/6/6E/7 devices just fine on that access point and because I access files on a local NAS via wireless devices frequently, I kind of want the performance benefits of (up to) Wi-Fi 7.

Automatic band steering also works great with all other devices, so I’d rather not setup separate Wi-Fi networks for each band. Wi-Fi 7 can bundle bands together anyway, so I’d lose that ability as well.

I’ve read about quite a few people having issues with the OLED and 6E/7 APs, often related to 6 GHz so I’m pretty sure it’s not a defect specific to my device. You got me an idea though: maybe I can blacklist the Steam Deck from the 6 GHz band on my access point, not sure.

My white OLED has connection issues to my Unifi 7 Pro AP. So it’s still pretty messy depending on your Wi-Fi setup.

What people describe as “OLED burn-in” isn’t comparable at all to what you say “LCD burn-in” is (which doesn’t really exist in a permanent way). LCDs are way more durable than even modern OLEDs, it’s not even comparable to be honest.

That being said, it’s improved over the early days as you said and I doubt the average Steam Deck OLED will have problems over its normal lifespan. I still wouldn’t recommend OLED for heavy office use though, as you’ll be able to see degradation within months of first use.

USB-PD was very much “hammered down” in 2017. USB-PD 3.0 was introduced in 2015.

We even offered expandable storage with our proprietary MemoryStick ProDuo Max Plus Ultra, only $100 for 32 GB!

The Steam Deck leaves little to be desired, especially with the OLED model where Valve made so many small changes that just made it a great device overall.

That being said, a faster SoC would be very welcome, and architectural advancements as well as more modern process nodes would obviously allow for more performance in the same power envelope.

Some games aren’t a great experience on Deck, say Baldur’s Gate 3 in Act 3 especially, or also simply walking through a complex base in Valheim. Zen 5 vs. Zen 2 and RDNA4 vs. RDNA2 on 3nm vs. 6nm should vastly improve things.

Include adding kernel level anti cheat to that. This should just give us an option to get a full refund.

iFixit rates it “Difficult” for the Steam Deck OLED and says the time required is 2-3 hours:

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+OLED+Battery+Replacement/168676

This is a slight improvement from the original Deck’s estimated 2-4 hours:

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+Battery+Replacement/149070

It requires removing quite a few parts but the most annoying part is getting rid of the adhesive. It doesn’t have easy-to-access pull tabs or whatever.

They can certainly improve this. Either add pull tabs to the adhesive strips, or better yet use the mechanism from the iPhone 16 where you apply voltage to the adhesive to make dissolve/no longer stick. Or even better make it a screw-in battery without any glue whatsoever. Then update the routing of several cables so they aren’t in the way of removing the battery.

Understandable.

What I will say though is that I personally wouldn’t mind regular spec bumps at all. The Deck isn’t exactly a cheap device and to get the “latest and greatest” for your “investment” at any given point of purchase would help longevity.

But as I said, in this case it makes a lot of sense (for Valve). SteamOS is still under heavy development, even more basic stuff such as the update mechanism and also power management is something they’re still working to improve.

They also use a custom APU designed in collaboration with AMD, and these designs cost a lot of money. It’s not just a rebranded 7840U like the Z1 Extreme for example. This custom design makes a lot of sense in terms of focusing on gaming performance and efficiency, and it clearly shows in (very) power limited scenarios.

Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a new Steam Deck based on Zen 5 and RDNA 4 with another custom designed APU sometime in 2025 or early 2026. Zen 2 is really starting to show its age and Zen 5 is a solid leap even over Zen 4 (not talking about desktop CPUs here, but Ryzen AI 300). RDNA 4 will likely improve quite a bit over RDNA 3(.5) (with the current Deck having RDNA 2) and include some type of hardware-accelerated machine learning upscaling with FSR4, which could make a lot of sense on the Deck as long as enough games support it.

I’d also like to see a few other improvements. The OLED display is great in many aspects, but VRR would be a great feature to have. Internally I’d like to see an easier way to swap the battery, maybe using similar tech to what Apple does with the iPhone 16’s battery. Currently, swapping the battery is one of the most complex repairs on the Deck, but it’ll also be the most common a few years down the line when all these batteries really start to show their age.

I think we’ll get at least one more x86 Steam Deck generation before it moves to ARM (if it moves to ARM at all).

The Snapdragon X isn’t anything to write home about when it comes to efficiency under load, with the newest CPUs (with iGPUs) from AMD and Intel keeping up or maybe even exceeding it.

Missing built-in FDE is one of my main gripes with SteamOS. It’s why I don’t really do anything besides gaming on the Deck. It’s a portable device that could easily be stolen or lost, so this seems like a major oversight.

youtube.com/tv is/was the YouTube website optimized for big screens. It’s basically just a different layout for regular YouTube.

OP is talking about YouTube and I can watch 8KUHD just fine on Linux.

Will reflash my Deck once this hits stable as it’s acting up in various different ways.

And what would that help with?

Would be interesting to know what actually happens.