Battery Life

[Vyle80r]

Is there an option for the Steam Deck to apply the best settings for battery life based on the game I am playing? I'm lucky if I get 2 hours of gameplay on the LCD model playing anything. It's a bit disheartening coming from the Nintendo Switch that provided me with a little over 6 hours of gaming.

The portability function of the Steam Deck feels less than satisfactory.

[DaBa]

And how would they know that? The deck already limits it's resource use, plus you can manually tell it to do it even more if you prefer to have more battery life over performance, you know on the menu on the right where you adjust brightness and other stuff. Plus, the battery is as big as it can be, we're pretty much limited by our current technology, the batteries aren't getting better fast enough to keep up with the increased power demand of hardware.

By the way, I have no idea what game you were playing on your Switch, but it definitely doesn't last 6 hours at full performance. Mine didn't even last 3 when it was brand new, playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 on a train.

[Wolfgang]

Thb, the Nintendo Switch hardware is not only less powerful than the one in the Steam Deck but it also is engineered to be as long lasting as possible power wise.
The Switch won't reach the performance of the Steam Deck.

[DaBa]

Originally posted by Wolfgang:

Thb, the Nintendo Switch hardware is not only less powerful than the one in the Steam Deck but it also is engineered to be as long lasting as possible power wise.
The Switch won't reach the performance of the Steam Deck.

Switch is basically a gaming tablet if you look at it's specs, it's not even a comparable device to a Steam Deck. And yeah you are right, with the Switch battery life was a really high priority. With Steam Deck it's still important but they didn't want to compromise on hardware just to achieve higher battery life. The whole point of the deck was to provide a portable PC gaming experience that will be able to handle most modern (at the time) video games. And it did just that, I played Elden Ring on that thing when I was traveling and it was a really good time.

Besides, nowadays battery life is a relatively easy problem to solve for devices like Steam Deck. Just buy a powerbank that's capable of charging it fast enough and you're good to go. A wire going into your backpack isn't going to detract from portability of the device.

[Vyle80r]

Originally posted by DaBa:

And how would they know that? The deck already limits it's resource use, plus you can manually tell it to do it even more if you prefer to have more battery life over performance, you know on the menu on the right where you adjust brightness and other stuff. Plus, the battery is as big as it can be, we're pretty much limited by our current technology, the batteries aren't getting better fast enough to keep up with the increased power demand of hardware.

By the way, I have no idea what game you were playing on your Switch, but it definitely doesn't last 6 hours at full performance. Mine didn't even last 3 when it was brand new, playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 on a train.

Hell, I don't know how they would do it, that's why I asked. It doesn't seem too far of a stretch that Steam could have Steam Deck profiles for various games like a beauty profile or performance profile. At least, for games purchased on Steam. If GeForce Now can detect your hardware on a PC and auto set the best settings for said PC, its in the realm of possibility.

It was Breath of the Wild. The only game on Switch that could keep my attention that long. It lasted 6 hours multiple times. On a few occasions I could squeeze another desperate 15 minutes by killing wifi and turning the screen brightness an eye straining percentage.

[Vyle80r]

Originally posted by Wolfgang:

Thb, the Nintendo Switch hardware is not only less powerful than the one in the Steam Deck but it also is engineered to be as long lasting as possible power wise.
The Switch won't reach the performance of the Steam Deck.

This is definitely true. I don't expect 6 hours. It's just that 2 hours is that sweet spot, at least for me, when I am entering the zone lol. I don't have a better term for it and calling it "zone" is so cheesy.

[mackster]

If you are trying to play satisfactory (the game) on the deck its a challenge. For one, controller support isn't there (from the devs) and its not really optimised as yet, and won't be until probably 1.0 or above.

I have tried the game and while it plays, it is a sub-optimal experience on the deck.

[Fenix]

Originally posted by mackster:

For one, controller support isn't there (from the devs) and its not really optimised as yet, and won't be until probably 1.0 or above.

They stated 1.0 won’t have controller support. After release is still a maybe.

[Vyle80r]

I haven't played Satisfactory yet. No luck mapping the controller to mouse and keyboard buttons as temporary workaround? It is a bit of a head scratcher that any modern game gets released without fully implemented controller support. I remember back in the day when controller support for a PC game was rare. I've always preferred to play a PC version of a game if it is released on PC because the graphics looked better but, also for using mods. I also prefer chilling back with a controller in my hand instead of sitting at the desk with m&k. There are some exclusions where I preferred a m&k like with a game like Rollercoaster Tycoon for instance.

Unfortunately, controller support was not always an option in those earlier days. I used to use Pinnacle Game Profiler which eventually became Padstar. Padstar would let you bind controller inputs to mouse and keyboard buttons. It was actually very robust. The original Witcher game on PC had no controller support.