Recently, the launch of steam deck has attracted people’s attention to the handheld. Steam deck is equipped with a SoC chip customized by V society to AMD, that is, AMD’s van Gogh APU. The CPU part adopts Zen 2 architecture, with 4 cores and 8 threads, and 2.4 ~ 3.5GHz; GPU adopts rDNA 2 architecture, with 8 Cu and frequency of 1.0-1.6ghz. Equipped with 16GB lpddr5 memory, 64GB, 256gb and 512gb capacity are optional, and microSD expansion card is supported.
Steam deck adopts steamos 3.0 independently developed by valve. Through the built-in proton compatibility hierarchy technology, the game can be executed on steamos without further transplantation by developers.
On February 25, steam deck was officially put on sale. The price of steam deck is 64GB US $399 (about 2521.68 yuan), 256gb US $529 (about 3343.28 yuan) and 512gb US $649 (about 4101.68 yuan) respectively.
It is reported that G Pang, founder of V club, mentioned in an interview that steam deck can become a platform for virtual reality and augmented reality in the future.
“The next iteration will focus more on the possibilities offered by mobile platforms and how they go beyond the known scope of traditional game environments, such as desktops or laptops,” said g Pang
G fat refers to computer vision, which may mean spatial tracking of VR head display. Of course, computer vision contains more than these, such as the recognition and classification of objects in the physical environment, and it is a key technology in augmented reality.
The camera with a fat deck should be integrated with a digital camera, so it can be used to capture it.
“You take your PC and develop something more portable. We’re not there yet, but this is the first step in this direction,” said g Pang The vision of V club is to create a game device with the best of both worlds: the (approximate) computing power of PC and the mobility of smart phones and tablets.
At the same time, it is also similar to G Pang’s view on portable VR. G Pang believes that in the future, handheld computers can provide power for VR head display and realize portable VR solutions.
Is it really appropriate for the handheld to provide power or platform for VR head display? The steam deck chip is currently too weak to display steamvr games at an acceptable frame rate.
Assuming that steam deck can run steamvr games perfectly, is the power enough to support the use of pcvr head display for more than two hours? At present, steam deck has built-in 40wh rechargeable lithium battery with a endurance of 2 ~ 8 hours. If it provides power for VR head display, it may be difficult to support long-term experience.
Again, assuming that the power is sufficient, what are the usage scenarios of steam deck + VR head display? According to G Pang’s view, steam deck can provide the advantages of PC + mobile phone in the future, but VR is not suitable to carry around, and the current use scene of VR head display is still mainly family and studio.
The handheld may not be perfect if it is matched with pcvr. The current handheld does not have the ability to support the operation of pcvr. Secondly, the purpose of pcvr itself is to provide power through PC to achieve a better experience. At the beginning of the design of pcvr, I didn’t expect to use it through the handheld, and the frame rate may be affected due to the lack of power during the use of notebook computers.
Is it appropriate to use VR while charging the handheld? The answer is no! The original intention of the handheld is to facilitate portability and experience PC games anytime and anywhere. If you use VR while charging, wouldn’t it be better to use the PC directly.
The combination of handheld and pcvr is similar to a car, but uses the wheels on the truck. Although it can run, it will not be fast, but it will be more difficult.
Is it more suitable for handheld and all-in-one machines? The battery life of the handheld machine itself can reach more than 2 hours. In addition, the all-in-one machine does not need the power support of the handheld machine during streaming, so there is no problem when the handheld machine + all-in-one machine is used for more than two hours.
In addition, the all-in-one machine itself has a processor and battery. For the handheld machine, it only needs its game platform. The combination of handheld machine + all-in-one machine is more suitable for g fat’s expectation. However, at present, there are problems with some header display streams, so it still needs some difficulties to truly realize the portable VR solution.
However, the advantages of handheld + all-in-one machine are significantly higher than pcvr. If the all-in-one machine is lighter and thinner in the future, handheld + all-in-one machine may be a better choice. But when the content of all-in-one machine is richer, why do you need a handheld to provide content?
Our view:
The combination of steam deck and VR is not an absurd idea, even a little ahead of schedule, but it is only a transition on the road of VR development. Handheld + VR is developing in the direction of portability, but g fat seems a little too confident. The most portable way of VR in the future is light and thin, discarding the handle and long endurance.
The way of handheld + VR is similar to that of some current ar glasses, which require mobile phones to provide computing power and power, which is not only contrary to the characteristics of the product itself, but also inconsistent with everyone’s understanding of “portability”.
Handheld + VR may help us bring the VR experience outdoors to some extent, but it will never achieve a perfect VR experience beyond pcvr. VR all-in-one machine itself has been designed for portability. Should we really go against the original idea?
Sina statement: Sina’s posting of this article for the purpose of transmitting more information does not mean that it agrees with its views or confirms its description.