PC Gaming Discussion

[Julius]

37 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

A GTX 950 can't even match PS4 settings?

This is gonna be one real shitty PC port, isn't it?

I'm not much of a PC player, but isn't picking apart the requirements for Minimum settings absolutely sidestepping the question of the port's quality? God of War had a GPU requirement of a GTX 960 for the same Minimum settings of 720p @ 30fps, but by all accounts that I've read and heard, it's a great way to play the game, and has been since launch. Ditto for the job that's been done fixing other PlayStation ports on PC (which weren't necessarily as well received at launch). 

More importantly, to address your first question: Remastered is the PS5 remaster of the game, with the bells and whistles that should entail (higher quality assets, etc.). It's not a PS4 game, so it's not missing out on matching PS4 settings, it's running a PS5 game on lower settings. This is not at all to speak to the quality of the port, mind you, because I don't think we really have an idea on that yet, but again, PlayStation have definitely been getting better the more of these they've churned out. God of War on PC had pretty widely known involvement from SSM, though, and I have no idea how much Insomniac is involved with the port of Spider-Man, so 

On the upside, there's only 3 weeks or so until it releases, so we won't need to wait long to find out 

Edited July 20, 2022 by Julius

[Julius]

Well, my Steam Deck reservation expired on Thursday. 

Checked the website last Monday at 14:00 with a nebulous 'Q3 - July to September' message still being in place. A few days went by, and I honestly forgot to check the site again due to being overwhelmed at work at the moment and some personal stuff going on, but no emails, no in-app notifications, and nothing - surely I've got nothing to worry about, right? 

Thursday evening rolls around, I finish eating dinner, check the site...and my pre-order reservation has expired. Absolutely gutted, I didn't even bother looking into it deeper - I decided I'd try to message Steam Support on Friday morning, but I wasn't sure if there was much they could do. 

Friday morning I dig deeper. Now, I use Outlook for my emails, and every single email I've ever received from Steam - purchases including my initial Steam Deck reservation - all landed in my 'Focused' inbox. The kicker here? The purchase email landed in my 'Other' inbox on Monday evening, after I had checked that day. I then proceed to check the Steam app, and only purchase notifications are working - the message I received from Steam which I could see on my desktop/in desktop mode wasn't available to view here. I check the time my purchase email expired, and it was at 19:03 on Thursday...and then I check my log-in history on Steam, and see that I checked the site at 19:14. 11 minutes later!

I whip up a quick message to Steam Support explaining and with a bunch of screenshots, but don't expect much in the ways of a response, so I've probably missed out - I sent them this message at 09:30 on Friday.

They responded to me by 10:00, giving me the chance to buy it again. Steam Support is godlike!! 

And now, here I am, waiting probably another week or so for my Steam Deck to show up, but I'm getting really excited to check out the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters and revisit the original Star Wars Battlefront II, as well as check out some PC classics I've never got around to playing before.

I've poked my nose around at the emulation scene on Steam Deck at the moment and it looks great, I'm not one for emulation in most cases but might consider it at some point in the future for games impossible to find/buy at a reasonable price (ahem, GameCube games), games not released over here (like the Suikogaiden games), and games which would mean I need to dig out an old console and buy cables to play them because they weren't released over here for some silly reason like the rest of its series (ahem, Suikoden V, if I can get it working), but I likely won't crack on with that until I pick myself up an SD card (which I'll be in no real rush to do). 

@Dcubed would you recommend the dock you're using for your Deck? I'm trying to figure out which ones are worth looking into while we wait for the official one, but it sounds like you're getting on with it pretty well 

[Dcubed]

Congrats @Julius! That's awesome that they sorted that for you 

I'm currently using this dock, alongside this 100w charger.  So far, no issues with either; works as you'd expect.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Dcubed

[Julius]

7 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

Congrats @Julius! That's awesome that they sorted that for you 

I've never had to deal with Steam Support before but from what I've read since it seems like they're top tier. I may have cheekily mentioned this would be my first real step into the Steam ecosystem too just to give them a little nudge 

Maybe it's just poor experiences with Nintendo's (my brother just spent two months going back and forth with them, and through multiple Switch units, to get his sorted through warranty) and PlayStation's supports, but I was expecting them to take much longer to respond, let alone actually giving me another chance to pick it up. 

Again: godlike. I like to think Gabe smiled down on me Friday morning 

10 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

I'm currently using this dock, alongside this 100w charger.  So far, no issues with either; works as you'd expect.

Awesome, cheers for linking those! Will definitely take a look as playing the Deck on the TV is a huuuuuuuuuge part of me wanting to pick one up 

[euroninfan]

@Julius do you play fortnite or and similar battle royal game on your steam deck, can you make out the distance when shooting at someone.

[Julius]

4 hours ago, euroninfan said:

@Julius do you play fortnite or and similar battle royal game on your steam deck, can you make out the distance when shooting at someone.

It hasn't arrived yet and I don't play Fortnite, but it seems to run great on the Steak Deck from what I can see on YouTube (though it does require additional setup, as you need to use the Epic Games Store to download Fortnite on PC these days!):

[Julius]

Steam Deck has arrived in one piece 

Man, I wonder what I'll buy for it first...

[Julius]

Vita means life Remote Play on Steam Deck is life 

Took around 15 minutes to set up through Chiaki with this guide on YouTube, and the results are really nice. I'll probably reserve it for slower or 2D games (though my short test with Astro's Playroom was surprisingly smooth), it'll definitely save me a penny or two moving forwards not needing to buy certain games again/multiple times if I just plan on playing them at home, and I feel could be really great for shorter grinding sessions in JRPGs. 

I've also hooked up my black Dualsense (as you can see!), love that the UI automatically updates to show the X and O rather than A and B when using it, and had a bit of a play around with Battlefront II, very much looking forward to playing through that campaign again. Also got my Logitech MX stuff hooked up too, so now I'm just going through my list downloading stuff and having a bit of a play around with Steam as someone who isn't really ingrained into the ecosystem, and it's great. The default controller options I got for Battlefront II weren't responsive, so I just went into the store and downloaded someone else's controller configuration, and it was all sorted. 

This should be a fun summer 

[euroninfan]

@Julius so what did you buy first ?

[Julius]

Steam with the Oprah energy: everyone with an outstanding Steam Deck reservation will be able to get theirs by the end of the year. 

Awesome stuff 

[Julius]

Kena: Bridge of Spirits is coming to Steam and the Epic Game Store on 27th September 2022:

The new Anniversary Update (also coming to PS4 and PS5) which includes New Game+ and new abilities, will also be dropping the same day. 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Julius

[Happenstance]

Thinking about grabbing Soul Hackers 2 next week to play on Steam Deck. Never played the first one but from what I hear this is more of a soft reboot than a sequel anyway.

[Aperson]

 

[Dcubed]

 

Looks like I was wrong about the Spiderman PC port... It's actually very very solid! And it does indeed retain its PS5 enhancements, even on low to medium settings! Runs fantastically well on the Steam Deck too.

Very nice to see!

Now.  If only we could start getting some Playstation 1st Party ports that I actually give a damn about... (Can I has God of War 1-3 on PC/Steam Deck plz?)

Edited August 24, 2022 by Dcubed

[Happenstance]

Watched a video earlier of someone playing the Steam Deck with some AR glasses and now I'm kind of tempted to get some instead of going the dock route. The Nreal Air glasses look like they'd do the job nicely.

[Ike]

How are the buttons on the Steam Deck, them being right at the edge looks weird?

[Happenstance]

6 minutes ago, Ike said:

How are the buttons on the Steam Deck, them being right at the edge looks weird?

Yeah I remember thinking they looked weird and possibly a bit uncomfortable when I first saw them but using them they feel fine, perfectly usable.

[Dcubed]

On 8/28/2022 at 12:18 PM, Ike said:

How are the buttons on the Steam Deck, them being right at the edge looks weird?

Very comfortable.  I thought the same thing at first, but the buttons and d-pad are surprisingly solid when you actually use them.

The device is surprisingly ergonomic, despite the rather large weight.  The fact that it's so large, and has those contour grips, helps a lot with the ergonomics of the device.

Edited September 2, 2022 by Dcubed

[RedShell]

I see the Judgement games have finally arrived on PC.

Man, Ryu Ga Gotoku/Sega are on a roll today!

[Hero-of-Time]

8 minutes ago, RedShell said:

I see the Judgement games have finally arrived on PC.

Man, Ryu Ga Gotoku/Sega are on a roll today!

Bodes well for the future of the series now that they are allowed on the PC.

[Happenstance]

I really should get back to Judgement at some point. I started it when it first came out then dropped off.

[Hero-of-Time]

37 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

I really should get back to Judgement at some point. I started it when it first came out then dropped off.

I still need to play it. It was one of my gaming goals that I set at the start of the year and i've yet to start it. Time is ticking away...

[Julius]

1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I still need to play it. It was one of my gaming goals that I set at the start of the year and i've yet to start it. Time is ticking away...

I played Judgment back in May after burning out on it last summer in its third chapter, and I think it's up there with 0 and Kiwami 2 in terms of being one of the stronger stories from RGG. It's another great cast, another great protagonist (is Yagami close to the greatness of Kiryu? No, but for a first new protag for them in forever, a solid first attempt), another solid story, plenty of hilarious substories; it's definitely up to the RGG standard. Combat is a little lacking, but well, guess they wanted to strip everything back as much as they could with a new protag. 

Unfortunately, I also think if you like to really dive in with these games, it's one of the easiest to burnout on. Since Yakuza 5 I've been treating these games like a JRPG and doing as much as I can as soon as it becomes available, especially when it comes to substories and the like, but Judgment simply had too much to offer in this respect – if I'm remembering right, there were 50 Side Cases (basically substories) and 50 Friendship Missions (basically the lighter substories), which compared to the 70 - 80 in bigger games like Yakuza 5, when this is definitely a shorter game by comparison? It meant you had the kitchen sink of side missions thrown at you by the end of the third chapter, at which point I think I'd spent substantially more time on side content than I had on the main story, which wasn't really true for the other games. Made for super weird pacing. Definitely has a better payoff than the other games I'd played before it, though, when it comes to the last few of those, so 

Also, I've got to say, for a detective story, it was a pretty big letdown in the twists department. In all the Yakuza games I've played, while you might have a general idea of what's going on, there's always some crazy twist out of nowhere which makes it feel more like a soap opera than a balanced story. In Judgment? I wrote down what I thought had happened about a third in and was pretty much spot on. 

Really looking forward to getting around to Lost Judgment at some point and seeing if they've tightened things up a bit, with a bit more focus I think it should be a great time. Plus, the skateboard would have been a huge help in traversing Judgment, so that's a welcome addition I'm looking forward to 

[Hero-of-Time]

Yeah, one of the reasons why I keep putting it off is because of the slog it is to 100% or platinum. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. One goal was to play Judgment and another was to platinum every game I play. Either way I'm screwed.  

[Happenstance]

Looks like the official dock for the Steam Deck has been shown at TGS