The microchip supply crisis has hampered plans to exit Steam Deck , Valve’s new handheld console, which should have launched this December. Everything seems to indicate that it will finally come out next February 2022 . Meanwhile, there is not a day that we do not receive new information with a dropper from this revolutionary new portable console. The last thing we know is that we can get the console out of sleep in less than two seconds.
SSD isn’t everything
Steam Deck has promising hardware and incredible power if we compare this console with other devices of its size, such as the Nintendo Switch. Many of you will think that by equipping an SSD with good read and write rates, we will have solved the ballot of speed and load times . However, this depends on other factors , such as the operating system , the system architecture, and the overall optimization of the computer.
According to Valve, their engineers have been working hard so that you can resume your games in less than two seconds thanks to the latest operating system update they have compiled. In their tests, they have made uploads of all kinds of video games. Despite this, the popular modder , Durante, who already has the console in his hands, has said on the MetaCouncil forum that he hopes Valve will test the 100 best games of all time . In this way, they could ensure that the Windows ports for the Steam Deck have the quality they expect from them. Despite this, this expert is pleasantly surprised by the speed of the console, and is very positive about Proton .
Architecture also influences
We are used to grabbing a handheld console, waking it up in seconds, and playing games. It is a key factor in a product of this type. However, there Steam Deck does not have it so easy. All portable consoles that we know of use ARM processors. And it’s funny how Valve swims against the tide in this regard. In the last year we have seen Apple make a transition from x86 to ARM with its range of computers. Steam Deck, for its part, does the opposite, and bets on x86 , which, although they are processors that provide incredible power, require a lot of hardware and optimization. Getting out of sleep is a much more complex task on a processor of this type than on a console, smartphone or tablet that uses a SoC with ARM architecture. In fact, this is one of the most surprising factors about MacBooks with Apple Silicon, and that is that they wake up practically before you lift the lid.
SteamOS, a system that is staying in the bones
Of course, SteamOS optimization doesn’t just influence load times. Although the console has not yet been released, Valve has managed to reduce its size from 24 to just 10 GB . This is certainly great news, as the entry-level Steam Deck with eMMC memory only has 64GB of storage. Little, if we talk about current games, but enough if we consider that we can expand the space using microSD cards . This reduction in system weight will also translate into less resource consumption, especially RAM.
