DF Direct Weekly #48: Steam Deck Review Reaction, Nintendo Direct, Call of Duty Staying on PS5

In the week where a favoured few posted their Steam Deck hardware reviews, and where Nintendo posted a new Direct, it's down to John, Rich and Alex to sift through the revelations and present their views and opinions... of which there are many.

00:00:00 Introductions
00:00:41 Steam Deck review reaction
00:01:09 DF Bonus Q1: Did you receive a Steam Deck and what are your initial anecdotal impressions?
00:11:09 DF Bonus Q2: Do you think display cost is the (only) reason for the Steam Deck not having VRR and do you believe there's a chance we will get a revision with VRR anytime soon?
00:15:02 DF Bonus Q3: What do you think about Steam Deck having a system level FSR, so that the games don't actually have to support it?
00:23:04 DF Bonus Q4: Do you think the Steam deck as a platform would benefit more from frequent (yearly) iterations?
00:25:44 Nintendo Direct 2.9.2022
00:36:46 Call of Duty will stay on PS "beyond the existing agreement"
00:39:51 Google Stadia shifts focus to Google Stream
00:46:18 Crysis Remastered gets last patch
00:53:53 DF Supporter Q1: Alex, are you excited for Total War Warhammer 3?
00:55:46 DF Supporter Q2: Will a fast quad core like an Alder Lake i3 last for the rest of the generation since it out performs a similar 8 core to what is in the new consoles?
01:00:58 DF Supporter Q3: Are there any types of GPU cards that made a particularly strong impression on you?
01:09:23 DF Supporter Q4: Why don't the new consoles use 16x anisotropic filtering?
01:11:02 DF Supporter Q5: Do you think next-gen came too soon?
01:18:03 DF Supporter Q6: Do you think we will see Pro consoles again this generation?
01:23:25 DF Supporter Q7: Do any of you typically go in for collectors editions of games?

[craknet]

"I have a Steam Deck right down here"
*points to pants*
"Unfortunately, I can't show you the unit right now..."

[ignaspincevicius]

Great content as always, however wanted to point out that I often find these Direct Weekly videos have sync issues between audio and video (in this video it's only on Rich and Alex's VOD, John's is absolutely fine). It's a small problem, but there is a tiny delay, I wonder if that's the typical issue when recording with OBS.

[rahmed]

100% agree with Rich's choice! My GTX 970 was the biggest leap in graphics hardware that I experiences, was at an awesome price, and it still lives in my PC that I use everyday until newer cards become 'available' again.

[Cogglesz]

Never thought we'd get a podcast. Almost 50 in now?! Congrats guys! Enjoy the road to 2M

[BigMac]

1:18:00 PS5 and Series X are Zen 2 not Zen 3.

[ShadowsBehindU]

1:04:00 Let's not forget what an actual monster G80 was, in various aspects of course. Incredibly complex with a huge die size for its time, nvidia had all hands on deck to get this thing running properly. Afaik it was also the first chip since NV30 that needed a 2nd metal respin. Unfortunately, there's no way it would've made it into a (feasible) PS3 design.

[DiaUp]

Regarding screen, I think they prioritize contrast. Lowlight performance being an important part of a handheld. (I'd imagine this is why it has a light sensor, and the ability for the screen to go as dim as it can)

[AceTrainerX]

14:47 As a Wii U owner, I can attest to John and Richard's claims. That Gamepad's a freaking beast! *AND* it has awful battery life.

[digitaldoom]

The community is gonna be alot of help with the steam deck game settings and hardware settings fps/battery life details with each game.

[griffgames]

33:40 I agree John, we had some endearing non-CD, system chip-based soundtracks on PS1 and Saturn - like CCross and Shining Force 3, sounded really nice. A bit like amped-up/higher sample rate SNES music. Perfect for RPGs (although NiGHTS is a good example of dynamic streaming chip tunes as well).

Ironically, the Saturn had the superior soundchip spec on paper vs PS1, but 1) the Saturn sound drivers were tough to work with and debug outside first-party, and 2) Sony allotted far more RAM to the PS1's soundchip, ultimately making it easier to work with and more flexible (Sega had to invent a pseudo real-time decompression library 'Cybersound' I believe, borrowing the Saturn's DSP to help stream - not ideal).

Note: You go back a generation to Mega CD, and it was fun to hear all of Sonic CD's 'Past' music were pure chip tunes as well - some great ones, albeit short (and this fact kinda' defeats the "Japanese or US Sonic CD soundtrack?" argument, because the US composer never bothered to re-do the Past chip tune, so there's a massive clash there between the Past chiptunes and Present and Future redbook music - which all mesh together perfectly in the Japanese version).

[shadowroxas]

I think that every portable device with rechargeable battery should have tech to bypass the battery and use the charger as a dedicated power supply to run the device without causing the battery to wear down when in use with a power supply.

[jerryvargas]

The best idea to provide consistent battery life would be to have presets. Optimal power for Varied performance. High power for high fps but 2-3 hours of battery life. Balanced preset for 4-5 hours of battery life. Then low powered mode for 6-8 hours for indie or non graphic intense games.

[mattcy]

@26:08 spot on take. There's been a surge of speculation culture which only causes hype which only causes disappointment. People need to chill with their expectations. The Nintendo fan YouTube video creators prey on clicks with hype and speculation which only hurts the game announcements in the end. It's wild.

[PixelShade]

I honestly think Alex should dip his toes into Linux gaming. One thing I have found out with Proton, and DXVK in particular (which converts DX9-DX11 API calls to Vulkan) is that it actually has a positive effect on memory bandwidth, and stutters. APUs benefit greatly, since they have a shared memory structure. The reason being that older DirectX games require the CPU to prepare draw calls for the GPU. Hence there's a lot more traffic- and memory transfers going on between them. In Vulkan, the draw calls can be executed on the GPU directly. Proton also establishes a shader cache before running the game, reducing even the famous Unreal stuttering to an absolute minimum. And the binary x64 or x86 game code doesn't need translation at all since it is still running on the same architecture. Games like Dishonored, I have a couple of stress points which won't go past 45fps on my Vega 8 laptop in Windows (most likely due to memory bandwidth). In Linux with Proton. 60fps and no stutters.

People have this perceived notion that Linux gaming will be slower, but in fact. Proton can actually have positive performance impact (except DX12, which has a far less mature translation layer). I really hope the Steam Deck will allow the Linux's user base to skyrocket. Hopefully it will allow for an avenue of choice for gamers, especially when more devs targets Linux as a viable gaming platform.

[M.W.H.]

your work is praise worthy guys, one of the best channels out there with some of the best of the best, of the best people working in it.

[itsuadman]

thanks for answering the question about 16x af, I just couldn't find a good answer online so I thought I'd ask the experts! Thanks for making my weekend too :)

[griffgames]

1:19:50 John is right. "8K gaming" isn't on the map right now. Display adoption is tiny, content is tiny.
The PS5 and Series X will support 8K primarily for 8K video and photo support. That's the idea when you see the "8K" logo on their boxes/ store pages. Not games.
I mean, sure, you could offer a pristine native 8K version of Frogger and call it a "native 8K console game."
Or any game up through OG Xbox, possibly.
But let's be real about native 8K real-time modern AAA game rendering on console (or beefy PC).
Let's just call that... "Sounds good, but maybe next time".

[watcheem]

That Crysis story was some early year creepypasta material.

[ash_]

I'm waiting for your review on the Cyberpunk 2077 v1.5 next gen update..

[kabes]

I thought the most interesting aspects of the Deck from Phawx's coverage is the efficiency you can get by parking CPU cores on some games (which diverts more energy to the GPU), and reducing the SoC TDP to 11-12 watts. You can get like 90% of the stock performance in many games for good power savings and more battery life. Plus that system-wide FSR... 540p -> 720p more efficiency gains. Very excited, seems like a tweaker's dream.