I want a screen off mode period. There have been times I’d like to stream a game using the deck to control but have the video on a TV or monitor. Just make turning the brightness all the way down turn the screen off. I’m a bit surprised I have to wish for that.
Now it would be nice if they could add a download all updates button (if only for Steamdeck)
Going into that download screen and telling 20 games to download now before I’m going on a flight or something is a pain in the arse
I hate having outstanding updates for no real logical reason and it annoys me so much to go into the downloads screen and regularly queue up updates for the way too many games I have installed.
It makes perfect sense if you’re a systems engineer.
Downloading games costs bandwidth.
Steam services millions of customers daily.
Valve, correctly, decided to do a bit of load-balancing by prioritizing updates by how recently and frequently you play them, and spreads them out.
This is nicer to their systems, and its nicer to most people who don’t live alone and have to share internet with other human beings in their home (or at work).
You’d think it would be no big deal, bandwidth is “infinite” and “free” in most peoples minds. But there is a maximum throughput, and there is a cost in energy, time, performance, and money.
Load-balancing, people. It saves lives.
Hopefully this leads to being able to queue game installs remotely without the Deck having to be on. And if it can wake up when charging to do the same, even better!
Screen off ≠ off. The deck will always have to be on and out of sleep mode to do anything like that.
Well obviously.
Even still, it is perfectly feasible for Valve to implement an install queue that we can add to from a phone that starts downloading only when a given Deck turns on. Maybe even put a device’s required or scheduled game updates on that interface too for us to manage and for the Deck to pull on wake.
Secondly, the Deck’s might not actually have any hardware to turn itself on on a schedule like phones do, but at least if it had a remote download queue, we could automate sending our own Decks WoL packets every now and then and have them automatically install new games.
Plus, the Decks can turn themselves on from S4 when plugging in at least, so maybe even with the current hardware there are things Valve can do here that I can’t imagine.
Having a power-saving download mode is only the first step. There’s still a lot of useful features we’ve long been requesting left to do that can be achieved, and I’m hopeful more of them will!
Well obviously.
You may be surprised how not obvious this is to some people, hah. But your suggestions are interesting. I feel like Valve is just constantly adding surprising features with the on-board tech. Would be cool if that stuff got added.
