I used Linux before Steam came to Linux, those were the good old days where every game required tinkering in WINE. I actually didn’t have a Steam account until it came to Linux, and then I played only a handful of Linux-native games (Rocket League was one of them).
When Proton came to Steam, a whole new world opened up, and now I can basically assume a game will work and I’ll be right more often than not.
So from my perspective, it wasn’t a rocky start at all, but a gradual widening of my gaming library. I’ve since played a ton more games, so I’ve rewarded Steam for the effort.
I spent ages thinking that I’d found a title that didn’t work, getting barely double-digit frame rates in the 3D hub area.
And about two months later I realised that what I’d actually done was lock the laptop into low power mode with the CPU and GPU being way underclocked and locked to that regardless of load. One metaphorical switch flip later, 60+ fps.
Technically you can, but anytime the shaders need to update it’ll download the full shader cache back to the boot drive so there’s a lot of back and forth
No its Just that at some point disk speed provides marginal improvments for most games, especialy since most games were designed with hdd drivers in mind . And sd vs ssd in steam deck are at that point.
There are exceptions to that, but they are pretty rare ( alghtough i cant remember one right now but i know i watched one comparison where nvme disk provided actual reasonable benefit compared to sata so i imagine its even bigger with sd card ).
So unless you play very specific game a lot that you know benefits from fast disk speed then it dosent really matter that much.
It wasn’t always that way, but I’m glad proton is great now!
I only read of the rocky starts, i got mine with the recent steam sale at 10% off for the 64GB. Just need to get it a bigger SSD and I’ll be all set!
I used Linux before Steam came to Linux, those were the good old days where every game required tinkering in WINE. I actually didn’t have a Steam account until it came to Linux, and then I played only a handful of Linux-native games (Rocket League was one of them).
When Proton came to Steam, a whole new world opened up, and now I can basically assume a game will work and I’ll be right more often than not.
So from my perspective, it wasn’t a rocky start at all, but a gradual widening of my gaming library. I’ve since played a ton more games, so I’ve rewarded Steam for the effort.
I spent ages thinking that I’d found a title that didn’t work, getting barely double-digit frame rates in the 3D hub area.
And about two months later I realised that what I’d actually done was lock the laptop into low power mode with the CPU and GPU being way underclocked and locked to that regardless of load. One metaphorical switch flip later, 60+ fps.
I just picked up the corsairs mp600 1tb and an nvme enclosure to clone my drive for about 130 all together.
A 1tb microSD card is a pretty good compromise. Its just as fast as ssd storage and significantly easier to install.
Yeah until you can’t fill up the SD because the boot drive is full of shaders.
256 GB deck should be the baseline tbh, even with an SD card
From what i know you can put shaders on sd card.
Technically you can, but anytime the shaders need to update it’ll download the full shader cache back to the boot drive so there’s a lot of back and forth
I would have to disagree that any sdcard is as fast as an SSD.
Maybe a really fast sdcard and a really slow SSD?
Edit: oh maybe that is a steam-deck-specific thing? It’s the SSD connection over USB2 or something?
No its Just that at some point disk speed provides marginal improvments for most games, especialy since most games were designed with hdd drivers in mind . And sd vs ssd in steam deck are at that point. There are exceptions to that, but they are pretty rare ( alghtough i cant remember one right now but i know i watched one comparison where nvme disk provided actual reasonable benefit compared to sata so i imagine its even bigger with sd card ). So unless you play very specific game a lot that you know benefits from fast disk speed then it dosent really matter that much.
I would think it would at the very least improve loading times?
I wouldn’t call it no difference.