140: Wes and Norm Were Right

00:00SPEAKER- Hey Brad, how was Madison, Wisconsin?

00:01SPEAKER- Well, I can tell you the runway was pretty nice

00:03SPEAKER'cause that's about all I saw.

00:04SPEAKERActually, I think I have been, okay, let me back up.

00:08SPEAKERGod, there are so many things we could talk about here.

00:10SPEAKERDid you travel a lot in your days in the tech press?

00:13SPEAKER- A fair amount, yeah.

00:14SPEAKERLike I usually had like the low tier status

00:17SPEAKERon whichever airline I flew on most.

00:19SPEAKER- Okay, yeah, I hit-- - But I didn't have like,

00:20SPEAKERI wasn't like a, I wasn't a John Drake, let's say.

00:23SPEAKER- I hit that one year on United, or maybe two years.

00:26SPEAKERLike the, you can just go in the nice lounge

00:28SPEAKERwhenever you want and get the free food and stuff.

00:31SPEAKER- Yeah, I hit that on Virgin at Tested,

00:33SPEAKERand it was, it made the traveling

00:35SPEAKERthat we did for Tested totally like doable.

00:39SPEAKER- Yes, it was fantastic.

00:40SPEAKERNow, did you travel enough to forget

00:42SPEAKERa lot of the places you travel to?

00:45SPEAKER- No, I always remember everything.

00:46SPEAKER- Okay, oh, of course.

00:48SPEAKERSo I had the experience when we,

00:50SPEAKERwell, I was having a lot of experiences

00:52SPEAKERwhen we landed in Madison, but one of them was,

00:54SPEAKERI think I went to Madison once in like 2006 or something.

00:57SPEAKER- Isn't that where Raven is?

00:58SPEAKERSo I, that would probably be why.

01:02SPEAKER- They're in Wisconsin someplace, I think.

01:04SPEAKER- Raven, I'm pretty sure, is in Madison

01:06SPEAKERand was probably not part of Activision at that time.

01:08SPEAKER- Well, and that would've been when they were working

01:10SPEAKERon that Russian time travel game, right?

01:12SPEAKER- Oh, Singularity?

01:13SPEAKER- Singularity, no, that would've been a giant bomb, I guess.

01:15SPEAKER- Yes.

01:16SPEAKER- I don't know, that might've been a maximum PC game for me.

01:19SPEAKER- Was Human Head also in Madison?

01:21SPEAKER- Human Head I thought was Texas,

01:22SPEAKERbut that's just because they'd been around

01:24SPEAKERsince the like early, early days of first person shooters.

01:28SPEAKER- Oh, they were in Madison.

01:29SPEAKEROkay, that's, I think that's why I went to Madison.

01:32SPEAKER- Oh, there you go.

01:32SPEAKER- I think I went to Human Head for some reason

01:34SPEAKERat one point maybe, I don't know.

01:36SPEAKER- I was gonna ask you what the runway was like in Madison.

01:38SPEAKERYou talking to asphalt, you got concrete up there.

01:40SPEAKERWhat's the, did you notice?

01:42SPEAKER- Didn't really even see out of the window.

01:44SPEAKER- Oh, that's disappointing.

01:45SPEAKER- Tell you the plane was very hot

01:46SPEAKERbecause we sat there for two hours

01:47SPEAKERwithout the air conditioning running.

01:49SPEAKER- Ugh.

01:50SPEAKER- The infant a couple of rows up was not very happy about it.

01:52SPEAKER- Are you an aisle guy or a window guy?

01:55SPEAKER- I'll, an aisle, definitely.

01:57SPEAKERYeah, I love being able to get up

01:58SPEAKERwithout inconveniencing people.

02:00SPEAKER- I like being able to get up.

02:01SPEAKERI also like the ability to put my leg out in the aisle.

02:05SPEAKER- That came in very handy.

02:05SPEAKERAlso, this was a 48 seat, I counted.

02:07SPEAKERIt was 12 rows, two by two.

02:10SPEAKER- Is it like a Bombardier, an Embracer group,

02:13SPEAKERBombardier or something?

02:15SPEAKER- Probably.

02:16SPEAKERI didn't look at what kind of plane it was,

02:17SPEAKERbut it was definitely a regional commuter type.

02:20SPEAKERSo not a, not a big plane, which might explain

02:23SPEAKERwhy we were so far back in line to go back to Chicago

02:26SPEAKERafter they started letting people go back to Chicago.

02:28SPEAKER- Okay, so we should back up.

02:29SPEAKER'Cause I feel like if people don't follow you on Twitter

02:31SPEAKERand happen to be online at like six o'clock Pacific time

02:35SPEAKERon Tuesday, they have no idea what we're talking about.

02:38SPEAKER- Yes, I tried to fly back from the East Coast

02:40SPEAKERto check out of San Francisco Monday late.

02:43SPEAKERAnd left, left, my initial flight left at 5.40 PM.

02:47SPEAKERWe were supposed to go through O'Hare,

02:49SPEAKERconnect to San Francisco, like 30 minutes.

02:52SPEAKER- So that puts you back home at what,

02:53SPEAKERlike nine o'clock at night part time?

02:54SPEAKER- 10, 15 landing, I believe it was.

02:56SPEAKER- Yeah, that's my preferred East to West.

02:59SPEAKER- I did, if I had it to do over,

03:01SPEAKERI think I'm gonna start flying out earlier.

03:03SPEAKERThese end of day flights.

03:04SPEAKERIt turns out if something goes wrong

03:06SPEAKERwith your chain of flights,

03:07SPEAKERthere's not a lot more flights after that

03:10SPEAKERthat you might be able to get onto.

03:12SPEAKER- Well, look, you are riding the razor's edge

03:14SPEAKERon that kind of travel plan.

03:16SPEAKER- Anyway, they told us as we were leaving that like,

03:18SPEAKERoh, there's some thunderstorms they weren't calling for.

03:20SPEAKERWe're gonna have to zig and zag a little bit.

03:22SPEAKERAnd then by the time we're like approaching O'Hare,

03:25SPEAKERthey're like, oh, they have shut down all flights

03:27SPEAKERin and out of O'Hare.

03:29SPEAKERAlso, they appear to be evacuating

03:31SPEAKERtheir traffic control towers.

03:33SPEAKER- Yeah, about that time I started getting tweets

03:36SPEAKERfrom friends who live in Chicago that were like,

03:39SPEAKERwow, the tornado sirens aren't on again.

03:40SPEAKERI didn't think it was a practice day.

03:42SPEAKEROh, it's not a practice day.

03:43SPEAKER- Yeah, apparently it was just pandemonium in the airport.

03:46SPEAKERThey were like making people move away from the windows

03:48SPEAKERinside the airport and stuff like that.

03:50SPEAKER- Yeah, like if you think about places you wanna be

03:52SPEAKERin a tornado, like a giant airport

03:54SPEAKERwith 30 foot high plate glass windows,

03:56SPEAKERprobably not high on that list.

03:58SPEAKER- That's not great at all.

03:59SPEAKER- No.

04:00SPEAKER- Anyway, obviously they put us into a holding pattern

04:02SPEAKERand then the captain was like, oh, we're not sure.

04:04SPEAKERIf we have to circle for much longer,

04:06SPEAKERwe're gonna run out of fuel.

04:06SPEAKERSo we may have to just divert.

04:07SPEAKERBut also the part that really stopped me in my tracks

04:10SPEAKERwas he was like, he's like, by the way,

04:12SPEAKERlike every other incoming flight is in the same boat.

04:14SPEAKERWe are like, you might see a few of them

04:16SPEAKERoutside the window.

04:17SPEAKER- Oh boy.

04:18SPEAKER- In a very cheerful tone.

04:20SPEAKER- Yeah.

04:20SPEAKER- I was like, I don't think I want to see other planes.

04:22SPEAKERLike I'd be just see the lights, right?

04:25SPEAKERI don't know a ton about air traffic control practices,

04:28SPEAKERbut once everybody's put into a holding pattern,

04:30SPEAKERI mean, like, I don't know if you saw the map

04:32SPEAKERthat I tweeted out, but there appeared to be dozens

04:35SPEAKERof airplanes circling around O'Hare.

04:37SPEAKER- There were a lot of airplanes, yeah.

04:39SPEAKER- I don't know how fine grained the direction is

04:42SPEAKERfrom the ground.

04:43SPEAKERI don't know like how you avoid a mid air collision

04:45SPEAKERin that case.

04:46SPEAKER- Oh, okay.

04:47SPEAKERSo there's a couple of basic rules.

04:49SPEAKEROne is that if you're going in opposite directions

04:51SPEAKERin the same like airplane, it's a thousand foot difference.

04:55SPEAKER- Okay.

04:56SPEAKER- Always.

04:57SPEAKERSo like you'll be at 36,000 feet going east

04:59SPEAKERand there'll be at 34,000 feet going west.

05:02SPEAKER- Okay.

05:03SPEAKER- In the holding patterns,

05:04SPEAKERI have no idea how that stuff works.

05:06SPEAKERIf you really wanted to know,

05:07SPEAKERyou could sign up to be an air traffic controller

05:09SPEAKERfor the X-plane people.

05:10SPEAKER- Whoa.

05:11SPEAKER- And I'm sure you could take a whole like online course

05:13SPEAKERand learn how to be an ATC person.

05:15SPEAKER- Oh, I've heard that's the whole like role-playing thing

05:17SPEAKERwith people doing flight simulation stuff, right?

05:19SPEAKER- Oh yeah, we did a tested video early on,

05:24SPEAKERlike 2012 probably,

05:25SPEAKERwhere we went to this guy's house out in like the East Bay

05:30SPEAKERwho had put a 707 cockpit or 727 cockpit in his garage.

05:36SPEAKERLike he cut out part of the roof.

05:39SPEAKER- Wow.

05:40SPEAKER- The lentil above the garage door.

05:42SPEAKERSo the nose of the airplane would stick out basically.

05:46SPEAKER- That's commitment.

05:46SPEAKER- You could get it in.

05:47SPEAKERIt was awesome.

05:49SPEAKERHe had huge projectors in front of the windows

05:51SPEAKERand like I got to sit in the cockpit of the airplane

05:53SPEAKERand pull the yoke and had force, like it was rad.

05:58SPEAKERSwitches everywhere, everything.

06:00SPEAKERSo anyway, you could do that.

06:01SPEAKERI know a guy is what I'm saying.

06:02SPEAKERDo you want to get into the ATC game?

06:04SPEAKER- I don't know, man.

06:05SPEAKERI think my recent exposure to air,

06:07SPEAKERthe mechanics of air travel might be enough for one year.

06:10SPEAKER- So what, okay, so you landed in Madison.

06:13SPEAKERDid you eventually get to O'Hare?

06:14SPEAKERDid they just reroute you out of Madison?

06:16SPEAKER- I had a super tight connection to begin with

06:18SPEAKERthat I was already sweating.

06:19SPEAKERFirst of all, I don't think I'll ever do this again.

06:20SPEAKERMy official connection,

06:24SPEAKERregardless of any delays and diversions and stuff

06:26SPEAKERwas 42 minutes in O'Hare.

06:28SPEAKER- And you're moving, you're going from the regional terminal

06:30SPEAKERto one of the big plane terminals?

06:32SPEAKER- Yes, yes.

06:33SPEAKER- Man, that's a tight one.

06:33SPEAKER- That's 42 minutes from the little plane touching down

06:36SPEAKERto big plane taking off.

06:38SPEAKER- Yeah, that means you have 32 minutes

06:39SPEAKERfrom the time the plane gets to the gate theoretically?

06:42SPEAKER- Yes, so I was already really sweating that one.

06:44SPEAKERAnd then this happened and I was like,

06:45SPEAKERoh, now everybody's in the same boat.

06:47SPEAKERIt'll be fine.

06:47SPEAKERBut then they sent us to, firstly,

06:50SPEAKERthey sent us to Milwaukee and then halfway to Milwaukee,

06:52SPEAKERthey were like, well, Milwaukee's full,

06:53SPEAKERnow we're going to Madison.

06:55SPEAKERAnd then we stayed, we were stuck in Madison for so long

06:58SPEAKERthat my flight to San Francisco,

07:00SPEAKERI thought I was like, surely everything's so backed up,

07:03SPEAKERI'll get back to Chicago before it leaves, but nope.

07:05SPEAKER- Well, then they have to get the outgoing flights out

07:08SPEAKERso they have a place to put the incoming flights.

07:10SPEAKER- Yeah, so that did not happen.

07:12SPEAKER- Woof, so where'd you spend the night?

07:15SPEAKER- At the gate, I don't know here.

07:16SPEAKER- Oh boy.

07:17SPEAKER- Did not sleep, did not, just sat at the gate, bleary-eyed.

07:21SPEAKER- Do you have like, do you play games or anything?

07:23SPEAKEROr are you just sitting there?

07:24SPEAKER- They did have decent wifi.

07:26SPEAKER- Okay.

07:26SPEAKER- I just got on the internet and you may have heard of it.

07:29SPEAKERI've read a book off and on, it was, ugh.

07:32SPEAKER- That's a bad note, was there food open at least?

07:34SPEAKER- No, I found, the first vending machine for drinks I found

07:39SPEAKERwould not take my credit card and I had no cash.

07:41SPEAKER(laughing)

07:42SPEAKERLike if I even, if I found an ATM that's nothing but twenties

07:45SPEAKERlike I was in dire straits and then I found another one

07:47SPEAKERthat worked.

07:49SPEAKER- There you go.

07:50SPEAKER- Anyway, yes, so.

07:52SPEAKER- Well, that sounds fun.

07:53SPEAKER- I gotta, I gotta give it up for United.

07:55SPEAKERThere was one aspect of this that actually

07:57SPEAKERreally impressed me.

07:59SPEAKER- Okay.

07:59SPEAKER- So we finally got back to O'Hare and of course

08:02SPEAKERall the flights were gone and I was like, oh God,

08:03SPEAKERI've got to go find customer service.

08:06SPEAKERI kid you not, I bet there were close to a thousand people

08:10SPEAKERin that line in front of me, like it was just the line,

08:14SPEAKERthe line was like halfway down the terminal.

08:17SPEAKERI waited in that line for about 30 minutes.

08:19SPEAKERLike I've talked about this on the next Lander podcast.

08:21SPEAKERI apologize to anybody who's heard all this.

08:23SPEAKERIn this like thousand person line, the guy in front of me

08:25SPEAKERis not wearing a mask and won't stop coughing.

08:28SPEAKERI'm like, I'm just like, it's like midnight.

08:31SPEAKERI'm just like, I want to die right now.

08:34SPEAKERIt turns out they do not call attention to this.

08:37SPEAKERLike they should have had some signs up in the terminal

08:40SPEAKERor something there.

08:41SPEAKERThey had a bunch of signs up with a QR code on it.

08:43SPEAKERIt was like scan this QR code with your phone

08:46SPEAKERand you'll be directed to an agent

08:47SPEAKERyou can talk to you or something.

08:48SPEAKERAnd then I heard all these people in line just talking shit

08:51SPEAKERabout the QR code saying like, yeah, I tried it,

08:52SPEAKERit's bullshit, it did nothing.

08:55SPEAKERLike it just went nowhere, blah, blah, blah.

08:57SPEAKERLike after 30 minutes in this line, I'm like, man,

08:59SPEAKERthis fuck this, I've got to find something else.

09:01SPEAKERSo I just started Googling United Rebook Mist Flight.

09:05SPEAKERTurns out if you just open the United app

09:07SPEAKERand put in your confirmation code

09:08SPEAKERfor the flight you just missed,

09:10SPEAKERit'll walk you through this whole automated process

09:12SPEAKERin the app of like, hey, we're sorry, you missed your flight.

09:16SPEAKERHere are other flight options from that airport

09:18SPEAKERand other airports nearby if you want to look through them.

09:20SPEAKERAnd it just straight up listed every flight.

09:24SPEAKERLike I was able to say like,

09:25SPEAKERhow about San Jose airport instead of San Francisco?

09:27SPEAKERLike I was just able to like take a bunch of extra options

09:30SPEAKERfor like a broader search.

09:32SPEAKERAnd then the next thing I knew it was like,

09:33SPEAKERhere's all these flights.

09:34SPEAKERAnd I just like tapped one and it booked me on

09:36SPEAKERlike the first available flight the next morning.

09:38SPEAKER- That's amazing.

09:39SPEAKER- And I was like, I'm going to go.

09:41SPEAKERI got out of that thousand person line

09:42SPEAKERand just went and sat down.

09:44SPEAKERLike why they don't tell people

09:47SPEAKERlike why I had to Google search that

09:48SPEAKERto find out that that was such an easy option.

09:50SPEAKERI have no idea.

09:51SPEAKER- Well, I was going to say Gina taught me this years ago

09:53SPEAKER'cause she in a past life, she was a travel agent

09:55SPEAKERand she was like, look, when something goes bad at an airport

09:59SPEAKERand everybody at the airport is trying to rebook,

10:02SPEAKERthe thing you don't want to do is wait in the line

10:03SPEAKERwith all the other people that are at that airport.

10:05SPEAKERJust go call the number and talk to the person on the phone.

10:08SPEAKERAnd they might still be really backed up

10:10SPEAKERbut they won't be as backed up as the thousand person line.

10:13SPEAKEROr also those automated, there's automated kiosks

10:16SPEAKERat most airports now too.

10:18SPEAKERSo if you're not doing anything complicated

10:19SPEAKERyou just go up and hit the button, put your thing

10:20SPEAKERin boom, boom, boom.

10:21SPEAKERAnd you're done in like five minutes.

10:22SPEAKER- So I think that's why I Googled

10:23SPEAKERwas to find somebody to call on the phone.

10:25SPEAKERThat was my idea.

10:26SPEAKERBut then I just found that automated app process.

10:27SPEAKERAnd I was just like, that took five minutes.

10:29SPEAKERLike I...

10:31SPEAKER- The apps for American and United

10:33SPEAKERwhich are the two airlines I've flown most recently

10:36SPEAKERin the before times were both pretty robust.

10:40SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like one of those rare cases

10:42SPEAKERwhere they're trying to save money

10:43SPEAKERby taking humans out of the equation

10:44SPEAKERbut it actually is, it works out.

10:47SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.

10:47SPEAKERAnd then like 99% of the time

10:49SPEAKERif you're not a chucklehead

10:50SPEAKERyou'd probably don't need a person

10:51SPEAKERto help you with that stuff.

10:52SPEAKER- Yeah, I just--

10:53SPEAKER- It just, it works itself out.

10:55SPEAKER- It was, hey, it could have been better

10:58SPEAKERbut it could have been worse.

10:59SPEAKER(upbeat music)

11:03SPEAKER(upbeat music continues)

11:27SPEAKER- Welcome to "Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod."

11:30SPEAKERI'm Will.

11:30SPEAKER- I'm Brad.

11:31SPEAKER- Hey Brad.

11:32SPEAKER- I'm Will.

11:33SPEAKER- Wes and Norm were right.

11:35SPEAKER- That's the first thing you wrote in this Google doc

11:36SPEAKERand I laughed.

11:38SPEAKER- I mean, look, it's not the first thing

11:40SPEAKERI wrote in the Google doc,

11:40SPEAKERit's the second thing I wrote in the Google doc.

11:42SPEAKER- Okay, well, it's now at the top of the Google doc.

11:44SPEAKER- Okay.

11:45SPEAKER- Just don't let them hear you say,

11:46SPEAKERthey'll be mad with power.

11:48SPEAKER- So my Steam Deck came Thursday a week ago.

11:52SPEAKER- Okay.

11:53SPEAKER- And it's real good.

11:54SPEAKER- This is the Steam Deck you bought like a customer.

11:59SPEAKER- 530, well, okay, here I'm gonna,

12:01SPEAKERI sold some PUBG items on the Steam Marketplace.

12:03SPEAKER- Serious?

12:05SPEAKER- Look, I have like, I played a lot of PUBG.

12:08SPEAKER- Wait, can you, I guess I should have known

12:10SPEAKERthat you could just buy a Steam Deck with Steam credit,

12:12SPEAKERbut I hadn't really thought about it.

12:13SPEAKER- Yeah, so I sold like, I don't know,

12:16SPEAKER80 bucks worth of skins to get a little discount

12:20SPEAKERon the deckeroni there.

12:22SPEAKER- Are these skins that you paid money for

12:24SPEAKERor that just like dropped somehow?

12:25SPEAKER- These are skins that were mostly early drops

12:29SPEAKERthat I never ever use, but are rare because they existed

12:32SPEAKERwhen not many people played the game

12:33SPEAKERand they're not available anymore.

12:34SPEAKER- I see.

12:35SPEAKER- Some of them are like, some of them are codes

12:37SPEAKERthat came for like watching events and stuff like that.

12:40SPEAKERSo nothing good, nothing, you know, no hot dog,

12:43SPEAKERno corn cob skin man or anything like that.

12:46SPEAKER- Wait, have they gone down that road?

12:48SPEAKER- No, it's really, the game would be much better.

12:50SPEAKERIt turns out after playing Fortnite for a while,

12:52SPEAKERthe game with the hot dog skins, way more fun

12:54SPEAKERthan the game with all the sweaty camouflage.

12:56SPEAKER- Yeah, I can see how that might be the case.

12:59SPEAKER- Yeah, but yeah, so I got a little bit of a discount.

13:02SPEAKERI had pre-ordered the 256 megabyte SSD one,

13:06SPEAKERgigabyte SSD one, just because at the time

13:10SPEAKERwe had to do the pre-orders, we didn't know

13:11SPEAKERif the flashcards were gonna be fast enough,

13:13SPEAKERif the compact flashcards or what are they?

13:17SPEAKERSD cards, micro SD cards were gonna be fast enough.

13:19SPEAKER- Yes.

13:21SPEAKER- So I hedged.

13:22SPEAKER- Sorry, I'm pulling up a list of the mods.

13:24SPEAKER- So okay, 256 is the middle model.

13:26SPEAKER- Yeah, so there's the low end, which is no SSD.

13:28SPEAKERIt comes with like 256 gigs of MMC flashcard, I think.

13:33SPEAKER- 64.

13:34SPEAKER- 64 gigs, but you can pop that out

13:36SPEAKERand like a 512 gig SSD card or SSD card

13:41SPEAKERis like 60 bucks now for an appropriate one.

13:47SPEAKERAnd then there's a 512 gig SSD one,

13:50SPEAKERwhich seems like a goofy one to choose from where I sit,

13:53SPEAKERsince you can open it up and put your own SSD in.

13:55SPEAKER- Yeah.

13:56SPEAKER- It's a weird length, the SSD,

13:57SPEAKERso there's a limited number of models

13:59SPEAKERthat are on the market that'll actually fit in there,

14:01SPEAKERbut like you can upgrade it to a terabyte or whatever,

14:03SPEAKERrelatively easily.

14:04SPEAKER- The only thing that gives me pause

14:06SPEAKERabout that top tier model is that it has anti-glare coating

14:10SPEAKERon the glass that the other models does not.

14:12SPEAKERLike otherwise, I think it's identical,

14:13SPEAKERbut that kind of bums me out.

14:15SPEAKER- I haven't found an issue.

14:16SPEAKERI also, my bet is that there will be screen protectors

14:20SPEAKERthat you can buy that will have the anti-glare coating

14:23SPEAKERin like a matter of weeks or months, if not sooner.

14:26SPEAKER- You're probably right.

14:26SPEAKERSo when did you, I'm curious about what the mechanics are

14:29SPEAKERof getting one of these things stilled right now.

14:30SPEAKERLike when did you put the order in

14:32SPEAKERand like now it's relative to now that it's shown up.

14:36SPEAKER- Let's see, my pre-order went in on June,

14:39SPEAKERJune something of last year, I think.

14:40SPEAKER- Wow, no, that can't be right.

14:44SPEAKERIs that, did they really announce this thing a year ago?

14:47SPEAKER- Well, I'll pull it up in email,

14:48SPEAKERbut I think it was a year ago.

14:49SPEAKER- Okay, I think I'm gonna start

14:52SPEAKERhaving an existential crisis.

14:53SPEAKERIf it turns out that thing has been, let's say,

14:57SPEAKERreleased in February, when was it announced?

15:02SPEAKER- I think it was last June.

15:03SPEAKERI have the Unix time code for it.

15:08SPEAKER- I don't see.

15:09SPEAKER- So there's a Steam Deck calculator.

15:11SPEAKER- July 15th, oh my God, it has been almost a year.

15:14SPEAKER- Yeah, so I did it on July 21st, I think, or July 19th.

15:17SPEAKER- Oh, wow, so you are literally in the first wave of orders

15:20SPEAKERand you're just now getting it a year later.

15:22SPEAKER- Well, no, I wasn't in the first wave.

15:24SPEAKERI was in the, the first wave was all Q1

15:26SPEAKERand I was in the Q2 window.

15:28SPEAKER- I guess what I mean is you were in that initial window

15:30SPEAKERof people scrambling at announcement to get one.

15:33SPEAKER- So my Unix timestamp of the exact time of the order

15:38SPEAKERwas Friday, July 16th at 803 p.m. in 29 seconds.

15:43SPEAKER- How do you, how do you have, why do you have that?

15:45SPEAKER- Okay, so there's this thing

15:47SPEAKERcalled the expected order date calculator

15:49SPEAKERthat takes, you post to the time that you did your order

15:52SPEAKERand when you got the email to receive it, to buy it,

15:56SPEAKERand you put in the model number that you pre-ordered,

15:59SPEAKERyour region, and whatever their current estimate is,

16:02SPEAKERand then it's modeling out the results

16:05SPEAKERto see when people who are further down the line

16:07SPEAKERwill get their order email.

16:11SPEAKER'Cause like Valve doesn't give specific dates.

16:12SPEAKERThey're just like, you're gonna be able to order yours

16:14SPEAKERsometime in Q2, you're gonna order yours sometime in Q3.

16:18SPEAKERSo I had put it into the order calculator like a week before

16:21SPEAKERand it saves it in a cookie so I know the reservation time

16:24SPEAKEReven though it's no longer listed in Steam.

16:26SPEAKER- That's some digital detective work.

16:28SPEAKER- It is, it's, yeah, so I ordered it.

16:31SPEAKERYou get an email on Monday and it's like,

16:33SPEAKERhey, if you want this, you can buy it now.

16:35SPEAKERYeah, you had to put five bucks down when you started,

16:37SPEAKERwhen you did the initial order.

16:39SPEAKERYou get an email on Monday, it's like,

16:42SPEAKERhey, you have two days to pay, be ready.

16:46SPEAKERAnd then they shipped it.

16:49SPEAKERIt came slow from Wisconsin someplace, I think,

16:52SPEAKERand it took a week to get here,

16:53SPEAKERbut when they finally got here, everything was fine.

16:55SPEAKERI have seen people, there's a meme on the Steam Deck Reddit

17:00SPEAKERright now about the FedEx delivery people,

17:03SPEAKERsince the boxes are labeled Steam Deck,

17:06SPEAKERlike opening them up and just delivering empty boxes.

17:08SPEAKER- Yes, I've seen some people on my Twitter feeds

17:11SPEAKERsay they got an empty box and I couldn't tell

17:13SPEAKERif they were just funning around or not.

17:15SPEAKER- Yeah, I can't tell if it's a meme

17:17SPEAKERor if it's real or not.

17:18SPEAKERMy box was full, I was very excited.

17:19SPEAKERI like my FedEx delivery person quite a bit.

17:23SPEAKERThey did do a not delivered delivered thing one day,

17:26SPEAKERwhich was kind of exciting, 'cause it was like,

17:27SPEAKERhey, we tried to deliver it and there was nobody here.

17:31SPEAKERYou're like, huh, that's weird,

17:32SPEAKER'cause I don't ever leave the house

17:33SPEAKERand I was absolutely here exactly at the time

17:35SPEAKERthey said it wasn't delivered.

17:36SPEAKERAnyway, I think that's just 'cause the FedEx people

17:39SPEAKERare given too many things to deliver in one day.

17:41SPEAKER- That's entirely possible.

17:43SPEAKER- And my bet is that their little application

17:45SPEAKERdoesn't have a button that says,

17:46SPEAKERyo, you put too much shit on the truck today.

17:50SPEAKERBut yeah, so I spent about a week and a half

17:52SPEAKERwith it at this point and it's real good.

17:54SPEAKERIt has exceeded my expectations in almost every way.

17:58SPEAKER- Now let's just back up here.

17:59SPEAKERI think we talked about this with the Switch,

18:00SPEAKERbut you're in a state of television contention,

18:04SPEAKERcorrect, in your house?

18:06SPEAKER- Yeah, and my office computer is always available,

18:09SPEAKERbut also I spend a lot of time in here every day

18:11SPEAKERand there's a fair amount of time

18:12SPEAKERthat I don't wanna sit in the office

18:14SPEAKERto play a computer game.

18:15SPEAKER- You might want to be on a couch and near your family,

18:18SPEAKERbut you also might wanna be doing something

18:19SPEAKERthat they don't wanna do on the TV, right?

18:21SPEAKER- Yeah, exactly.

18:23SPEAKER- I just ask that because in my case,

18:24SPEAKERwe've talked about this, I don't love handheld gaming

18:27SPEAKERwhen a TV is an option, but that's kind of the point

18:30SPEAKERfor you, right, is that TV is not always an option.

18:33SPEAKER- Well, and also I'm able to play games on this

18:35SPEAKERthat I probably wouldn't play on a TV in the best of cases.

18:38SPEAKER- Interesting, like what?

18:40SPEAKER- Like Vampire Survivors, probably not something

18:42SPEAKERI would play on the TV.

18:43SPEAKER- Sure, yes, even when you're sitting in a computer,

18:45SPEAKERthat's like the quintessential second monitor game, right?

18:48SPEAKERIt's not something that you need to see clearly

18:50SPEAKERor like need it to be full screen or whatever.

18:52SPEAKERIt's just a time-wasting idle kind of thing, right?

18:54SPEAKERWell, not idle, I don't mean that, but you know what I mean?

18:57SPEAKERIt's not like, it's not a thing you like turn the lights off

19:00SPEAKERand like bear down on.

19:01SPEAKERIt's not like some immersive story-based.

19:03SPEAKER- Yeah, it's the kind of thing that if I'm watching,

19:05SPEAKERif something's on the TV that I wanna listen to

19:06SPEAKERbut don't necessarily care to watch,

19:08SPEAKERI will play some Vampire Survivors.

19:09SPEAKER- Yes.

19:11SPEAKER- So yeah, it's really, so the thing,

19:15SPEAKERokay, first off, screen's really good.

19:17SPEAKERThe shiny screen looks great.

19:18SPEAKERI haven't felt any concern about the anti-glareness of this.

19:21SPEAKERI'd completely forgotten that was a thing

19:22SPEAKERuntil you mentioned it a minute ago.

19:23SPEAKER- Sorry.

19:25SPEAKER- The comfort over, it's a lower resolution screen

19:28SPEAKERthan it's like, it's like basically switch resolution screen.

19:30SPEAKERIt's like 1280 by 800.

19:33SPEAKERThe comfort over long sessions is quite good,

19:35SPEAKERway better than the switch by default

19:38SPEAKERbecause it's got grippies on the back.

19:41SPEAKERSo there's like something to hold on to

19:43SPEAKERand you're not just gripping it with your fingertips

19:45SPEAKERin a way that requires you to hold on too tight.

19:48SPEAKERSo it can kind of rest.

19:49SPEAKERYou can kind of rest it in the crotch of your hands

19:53SPEAKERor you can kind of hold it by the side.

19:55SPEAKER- Sorry, I didn't realize hands had crotches, but.

19:57SPEAKER- Yeah, like the meaty part of your palm

19:59SPEAKERis what I'm talking about.

20:00SPEAKER- Sure, the saddle.

20:02SPEAKER- Yeah, it's the same place you used to tell

20:03SPEAKERif the piece of chicken's cooked, right?

20:05SPEAKERPeople loved that, by the way.

20:06SPEAKER- Did they?

20:07SPEAKER- Look, the thermometer people are correct

20:12SPEAKERin that if you don't know how to tell

20:13SPEAKERwhen a piece of chicken is done,

20:15SPEAKERusing the thermometer will get you good results

20:17SPEAKERa hundred percent of the time.

20:19SPEAKERBut the meaty part of the palm trick,

20:20SPEAKERonce you understand what you're feeling,

20:24SPEAKERthe meaty part of the palm trick is really good

20:26SPEAKERfor not having to stick it.

20:27SPEAKER- We didn't fully cover this.

20:28SPEAKERHow do you modulate the thickness of the part of the hand?

20:31SPEAKERLike is it, is it?

20:31SPEAKER- You just feel it, you don't.

20:33SPEAKER- No, no, no, I know, but like,

20:34SPEAKERwhat are the two points of comparison?

20:36SPEAKERIt's like thumb limp versus like thumb out.

20:38SPEAKER- It's like, it's like the part with the muscle down here.

20:41SPEAKER- Oh yeah, yeah, I get the part.

20:42SPEAKER- Versus like this part up here.

20:44SPEAKER- Oh, it's different parts of the hand.

20:45SPEAKER- Like if it bounces, if it pushes in, then it's not done.

20:49SPEAKER- Yeah, I think the way I have learned it is like,

20:50SPEAKERif you're, if you let your thumb go like slack, it's soft.

20:53SPEAKERAnd if you flex it out, then it's,

20:55SPEAKERI think that's the way I was.

20:56SPEAKER- Interesting, that, I don't know.

20:58SPEAKER- That trick.

20:59SPEAKER- Maybe this method, it does suck.

21:00SPEAKER- You should just use the thermometer.

21:01SPEAKER- You get a Thermopop for like 20 bucks

21:04SPEAKERfrom the Thermopen people.

21:06SPEAKER- You know what doesn't lie, numbers.

21:08SPEAKER- Numbers.

21:11SPEAKERI haven't played a ton of mouse and keyboard games,

21:14SPEAKERbut for gamepad games, the controls are fantastic.

21:17SPEAKERLike the weird D-pad positioning I was worried about,

21:20SPEAKERbut you get used to it very quickly.

21:22SPEAKER- Now, do you agree with Wes and Norm

21:24SPEAKERthat those touch pads are garbage?

21:26SPEAKER- I think that the software for the touch pads

21:28SPEAKERhas probably improved pretty dramatically

21:30SPEAKERsince we talked to them.

21:31SPEAKER- Okay.

21:32SPEAKER- So a lot of the things that we talked about with them

21:35SPEAKERdidn't seem to be an issue on final shipping hardware

21:37SPEAKERor the current software.

21:39SPEAKERLike, and I'm getting,

21:41SPEAKERsometimes I'm getting two updates a week for it,

21:43SPEAKERit seems like.

21:43SPEAKER- Wow, even now.

21:44SPEAKER- Yeah, even now.

21:46SPEAKERAnd the Proton stuff updates almost,

21:48SPEAKERit seems like a lot in the background.

21:50SPEAKERLike, so some of the updates you don't even know about.

21:52SPEAKERSome of them, it's like,

21:53SPEAKERhey, do you want to run an update on your system?

21:56SPEAKERBut so the track ball, the pad as a,

21:59SPEAKERthe pad kind of emulates a mouse sometimes,

22:01SPEAKERand it's almost like a track ball

22:02SPEAKERwhere it has some momentum.

22:04SPEAKERAnd the rumble indicates that underneath it.

22:06SPEAKERIt actually feels quite good.

22:08SPEAKERThe other place I use the track pads a lot

22:10SPEAKERare when you're using the keyboard.

22:13SPEAKERSo I don't know if you ever used

22:15SPEAKERValve's weird dual stick keyboard mode,

22:17SPEAKERwhere you like pull the trigger to select a letter,

22:21SPEAKERbut you can use the stick on like half the keyboard

22:24SPEAKERfor your left stick and the right side of the keyboard

22:25SPEAKERfor the right stick and kind of swing the cursor around.

22:28SPEAKER- I think I've tried it a couple of times

22:30SPEAKERand then kind of backed away slowly.

22:32SPEAKERSo it actually works better than any other time

22:35SPEAKERI've tried it with the pads.

22:37SPEAKER- Okay, that makes sense.

22:38SPEAKER- And it feels like I went and dug my Steam controller

22:41SPEAKERout of the bin to see the controller bin,

22:44SPEAKERnot the trash bin, English friends.

22:46SPEAKER- Yes.

22:47SPEAKER- To see like how the,

22:49SPEAKER'cause it felt like the resolution of these pads

22:51SPEAKERwas better than the ones that I had used in the past.

22:57SPEAKER- Just to touch on the system update stuff again,

22:59SPEAKERI assume there is some tier of update

23:00SPEAKERthat requires you to full on like iPhone style,

23:03SPEAKERlike, hey, we need to reboot this device for 15 minutes.

23:06SPEAKER- I would assume so, but I haven't seen,

23:08SPEAKERlike, I guess when I set it up initially,

23:10SPEAKERit was like, hey, we're gonna download some software

23:11SPEAKERand update and then it did that.

23:13SPEAKERBut I don't think it did a full reboot.

23:15SPEAKERI think it just restarted the shell.

23:16SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, I guess that's probably only

23:18SPEAKERif they're updating the underlying Linux distro.

23:20SPEAKER- 'Cause if they're kernel updates

23:21SPEAKERor something like that, yeah.

23:22SPEAKER- Right, like if they're just updating like proton libraries,

23:24SPEAKERthat's probably pretty seamless.

23:25SPEAKER- It seems like it updates the proton libraries

23:28SPEAKEReven on demand.

23:28SPEAKERLike if you download a game that,

23:30SPEAKER'cause the different games will have compatibility

23:32SPEAKERwith different versions of proton.

23:33SPEAKER- Sure.

23:34SPEAKER- And it like, you don't ever have to think about that.

23:36SPEAKERIt just kind of works unless you choose to engage with it

23:39SPEAKERat a different level, in which case it won't.

23:41SPEAKERAnd like, but for the most part,

23:44SPEAKERI haven't had to select a proton library manually at all.

23:47SPEAKER- Interesting, I'm really curious.

23:49SPEAKERAnd like, I mean, we would really have to ask them this.

23:51SPEAKERMaybe we'll get the chance to talk to them at some point.

23:53SPEAKER- I would love to talk to them.

23:54SPEAKERValve, if you're listening.

23:55SPEAKER- I have all kinds of questions.

23:56SPEAKERI really wonder if they have created an ongoing support

24:00SPEAKERburden for themselves of like constantly having to massage

24:03SPEAKERcompatibility on a per game basis,

24:05SPEAKERlike from now until eternity.

24:07SPEAKER- I mean, I think they have probably, but you know what?

24:10SPEAKERThey take a pretty substantial cut from game developers.

24:12SPEAKERSo maybe this is part of the cause.

24:14SPEAKER- It was probably, they probably can justify the labor

24:17SPEAKERthey put into that.

24:18SPEAKER- Yeah, realistically, the cost of the bandwidth

24:20SPEAKERand the storage that they're using to distribute games

24:22SPEAKERhas gone down dramatically over the last 20 years.

24:24SPEAKERAnd so if they're adding burden in other places,

24:28SPEAKERthat seems fine to me.

24:28SPEAKER- Yeah, but I guess what I mean though,

24:31SPEAKERis that it is a point of failure.

24:32SPEAKERLike this thing is super popular and I doubt,

24:34SPEAKERI'm not suggesting they're going to drop support

24:36SPEAKERfor the Steam Deck anytime soon, but like, you know,

24:39SPEAKERValve's track record for supporting devices is up and down.

24:42SPEAKERIt is possible one day that suddenly, like,

24:45SPEAKERif they stop supporting new games,

24:47SPEAKERlike there could be an issue there.

24:48SPEAKERLikely not to happen anytime soon.

24:50SPEAKER- I would think in the lifespan of this device,

24:53SPEAKERparticular, in particular, probably you're okay.

24:56SPEAKERLike, so before we knew what,

24:59SPEAKERhow this was going to actually run in,

25:00SPEAKERbefore we had people with hands on,

25:01SPEAKERmy justification for buying this was worst case,

25:04SPEAKERI can stream games from my desktop Steam install to this

25:08SPEAKERand it's going to be better than the Steam Link,

25:10SPEAKERwhich only supports 802.11n.

25:12SPEAKERI think this is a Wi-Fi, at least right now,

25:14SPEAKERit only connects to my UniFi stuff as Wi-Fi five,

25:17SPEAKERwhich is AC, it doesn't do AX yet.

25:21SPEAKERThe Steam Link went from N to AC at some point

25:24SPEAKERalong the way, so maybe it's a software update.

25:26SPEAKERI don't know, it seems weird.

25:27SPEAKER- Interesting.

25:29SPEAKER- Also it could just be that Linux doesn't support

25:31SPEAKERthe new specs as quickly as the other stuff

25:34SPEAKERor the Wi-Fi card in the machine doesn't.

25:36SPEAKER- Sure, also just to kind of put a cap on

25:39SPEAKERwhat I was just suggesting about support,

25:41SPEAKERyou can always just put Windows on it,

25:43SPEAKERlike in some theoretical unlikely to happen future

25:46SPEAKERwhere the Linux proton stuff is no longer advancing,

25:49SPEAKERlike you can always just install Windows on this thing

25:51SPEAKERand play pretty much everything.

25:52SPEAKERAnd I even see them, I saw them, I think yesterday

25:54SPEAKERon Twitter saying like, "Hey, we've got updated APU drivers

25:57SPEAKERout for sound and stuff, like make sure you stay up to date

26:00SPEAKERon hardware if you're running Windows on this thing."

26:02SPEAKERSo they are supporting that.

26:03SPEAKER- Yeah, the thing, like for me,

26:05SPEAKERhaving watched this stuff for a long time,

26:07SPEAKERlike we reviewed some Steam machines at Tested

26:10SPEAKERback in the day, there's a through line

26:13SPEAKERfrom Steam machines to the Steam controller

26:15SPEAKERthrough the index to this that is pretty visible.

26:19SPEAKER'Cause the work that they put into proton

26:22SPEAKERover the last few years is a direct result

26:24SPEAKERof the complete lack of software support for Steam machines.

26:29SPEAKERBecause they looked at that failure and clearly were like,

26:32SPEAKER"Okay, we can't expect game developers

26:34SPEAKERto support this thing when there's no market for it,

26:37SPEAKERso how do we make that work?"

26:38SPEAKERAnd they were like, "Okay, we're gonna fork WineX

26:40SPEAKERand make it work for games in a controlled

26:44SPEAKERand repeatable way across the platform."

26:46SPEAKERSo in that regard, the experience I've had so far

26:55SPEAKERis that basically if the Steam Deck says it's gonna work,

26:59SPEAKERit usually, it works like 99% of the time.

27:02SPEAKERLike I've had one game that it listed as semi-supported

27:06SPEAKERthat the performance wasn't there and I uninstalled.

27:10SPEAKERBut for the most part, like even like Elden Ring

27:12SPEAKERand stuff like that works, I'm looking to see--

27:15SPEAKER- You're not gonna name and shame that one game, are you?

27:17SPEAKER- I'm going to.

27:19SPEAKERI mean, I don't think it's their fault.

27:20SPEAKERI think it's that the game does more

27:22SPEAKERthan they're able to do with the hardware.

27:26SPEAKERI wanna make sure that I have the support level correct

27:28SPEAKERfor it though, 'cause I don't wanna blame them or me.

27:32SPEAKER- Suspense is killing me.

27:33SPEAKER- It's Hardspace Shipbreaker.

27:34SPEAKER- Oh no!

27:35SPEAKERAw, scrappy little indie game that could.

27:38SPEAKER- Well, I mean, but it's also a, yeah,

27:40SPEAKERand it's listed as unsupported.

27:42SPEAKER- Oh, well, okay, then that's fine.

27:44SPEAKERIt's on me, right?

27:45SPEAKER- Oh, I thought you meant it was a game

27:46SPEAKERthat was supposed to be supported that was not.

27:48SPEAKER- No, no, no, like I fired it up to see,

27:50SPEAKERI was downloading the games that I've been playing recently

27:52SPEAKERto see how they ran and the problem it has,

27:55SPEAKERI think is probably that it does too much CPU

27:58SPEAKERfor the APU to keep up with,

27:59SPEAKERgiven all the physics simulation

28:01SPEAKERwhen you're blowing up spaceships and stuff.

28:03SPEAKER- Sure.

28:04SPEAKER- So yeah, like it usually just works.

28:08SPEAKERI was gonna say to close the loop on the comfort stuff,

28:12SPEAKERit's too heavy to hold with one hand,

28:14SPEAKERwhich isn't surprising given how kind of long it is.

28:17SPEAKERThe extra length, the width of it isn't uncomfortable

28:20SPEAKERto hold for long periods of time,

28:21SPEAKER'cause I was worried you were gonna have to get

28:23SPEAKERto an unnatural angle to sit there with it in your lap

28:25SPEAKERor propped up on your elbows or whatever in bed,

28:27SPEAKERand that's not been a problem.

28:31SPEAKERThe onscreen keyboard works really well using the two pads,

28:34SPEAKERbut I wish that it was smarter,

28:36SPEAKERespecially in the desktop OS,

28:37SPEAKERabout popping up the keyboard

28:39SPEAKERwhen you click in the text field.

28:40SPEAKERUsually, like to get it to pop up,

28:41SPEAKERyou have to hold down the Steam button and press X,

28:44SPEAKERwhich is a little bit awkward.

28:46SPEAKERAnd usually that means that then you lose the ability

28:49SPEAKERto use the mouse, the right pad as the mouse,

28:52SPEAKER'cause it gets locked into the keyboard.

28:54SPEAKERSo you end up having to tap into the text field,

28:57SPEAKERbring up the keyboard,

28:59SPEAKERthen tap into the text field again often,

29:01SPEAKERthen do your typing and pull your trigger to hit enter,

29:05SPEAKERand then close the keyboard, which is fine.

29:08SPEAKERI did some pretty long curl strings and stuff like that

29:12SPEAKERusing that keyboard. - Curl, you say.

29:13SPEAKER- Yeah, interesting, right?

29:15SPEAKERIt wasn't a bad experience, but it wasn't,

29:17SPEAKERlike definitely would have been better

29:19SPEAKERif like when you tap into the text field,

29:21SPEAKERLinux was like, oh, clearly you wanna type something

29:24SPEAKERand there's no hardware keyboard attached.

29:26SPEAKERLet me pop up the software keyboard

29:27SPEAKERlike it would on your phone

29:28SPEAKERor something like that, for example.

29:30SPEAKER- And I guess it goes without saying

29:31SPEAKERyou were using it in handheld mode at this point?

29:33SPEAKER- I haven't, I don't have a dock.

29:35SPEAKERThe dock's not available yet.

29:36SPEAKER- Okay, well, you can,

29:37SPEAKERso you can use any USB-C video out method

29:40SPEAKERto get it onto a monitor?

29:41SPEAKER- Yes, but I don't have a-- - If you don't have one.

29:44SPEAKER- I don't have a USB-C dock.

29:47SPEAKERAnd frankly, I don't know that I need,

29:49SPEAKERlike I hooked a Bluetooth keyboard up to it for a while.

29:51SPEAKER- Yeah, so that's where I was going

29:53SPEAKERwith asking about the handheld stuff.

29:54SPEAKERYou wrote here, you're probably gonna want

29:56SPEAKERa Bluetooth keyboard if you spend much time

29:57SPEAKERin the desktop mode.

29:58SPEAKERLike the thing I was gonna ask there,

29:59SPEAKERfirst of all, does it have a kickstand?

30:01SPEAKER- No.

30:02SPEAKER- Oh, so it does not stand up

30:04SPEAKERwithout some kind of supplemental base?

30:06SPEAKER- I put it, I put a book behind it.

30:08SPEAKER- I guess that counts.

30:10SPEAKER- That's a very low-tech solution.

30:11SPEAKERBut I guess the thing I was gonna ask though,

30:12SPEAKERis the screen low resolution enough

30:15SPEAKERthat you would not wanna do a lot of desktop work

30:17SPEAKERon there anyway?

30:18SPEAKER- I was gonna say that is the thing about desktop mode

30:21SPEAKERis it exists to do things that you're going to use

30:24SPEAKERin the TV mode. - Right.

30:25SPEAKER- In the game mode.

30:27SPEAKERLike it has a full application manager.

30:31SPEAKERSo you can download stuff from repos.

30:33SPEAKERYou can download flat packs and all that stuff.

30:35SPEAKERYou can, I installed, it comes with Firefox installed.

30:38SPEAKERI installed Edge, which we'll talk about in a little bit.

30:41SPEAKERSo you can browse, but it's limited in that regard.

30:46SPEAKERAnd the touchscreen is fine for scrolling

30:52SPEAKERand selecting things and stuff like that,

30:54SPEAKERbut it doesn't give you the level of precision

30:56SPEAKERthat you probably would expect from your phone

30:58SPEAKERin terms of what it's, like it's not smart about you.

31:01SPEAKERIf you tap three pixels away from the X

31:03SPEAKERto close the window, it's not smart enough

31:04SPEAKERto know that you were trying to close the window.

31:06SPEAKERIt just taps three pixels away indefinitely.

31:08SPEAKERAnd you may not be able to get to the far corners

31:10SPEAKERof the touchscreen with the digitizer the way it works,

31:14SPEAKERwhich is why the touchpad mouse support is so important.

31:20SPEAKERSo yeah, like I don't, I can't see myself.

31:25SPEAKERSo for example, if I was gonna go on like a two week trip

31:27SPEAKERand I wanted to be able to play the Anacrusis for work,

31:30SPEAKERand I wanted to be able to do some light streaming,

31:32SPEAKERI might grab a capture USB dongle and a laptop

31:35SPEAKERand take the Steam Deck and just play games

31:37SPEAKERon the Steam Deck for work and whatever.

31:41SPEAKER'Cause it works really well.

31:42SPEAKERLike I was shocked at how well it works for most things.

31:45SPEAKERThe place it breaks down is you're not gonna use this

31:50SPEAKERas like a desktop computer without an external monitor.

31:52SPEAKER'Cause 1280 by 800 is too low resolution

31:55SPEAKERfor a modern windowed operating system, I think.

31:58SPEAKER- Yeah, and how big is the screen again?

32:01SPEAKER- I don't know, it's like seven inches, six and a half inches.

32:02SPEAKERIt's big, it feels bigger.

32:04SPEAKERIt feels as big as the Switch OLED.

32:05SPEAKER- Okay.

32:07SPEAKER- There's more bezel though.

32:08SPEAKER- Do you have an OLED?

32:09SPEAKER- Gina does, yeah.

32:10SPEAKER- Oh man.

32:11SPEAKER- It's the screen is really, really nice.

32:13SPEAKERIt's still as slow like a Switch.

32:15SPEAKER- Sure, of course, yes.

32:17SPEAKERThe Switch is past its prime, let's say.

32:20SPEAKER- Old hardware, yeah.

32:22SPEAKERAnyway, so yeah, the game support's really good.

32:26SPEAKERIf it's partially supported, it has this menu that pops up.

32:29SPEAKERYou can navigate to the menu that gives you the details

32:31SPEAKERof their compatibility report.

32:36SPEAKERAnd it will explicitly say, so for example,

32:40SPEAKERWild Wild West, or Weird West rather.

32:44SPEAKER- Very different game.

32:45SPEAKER- It's a wiki wiki whack game.

32:48SPEAKERIt's listed as playable,

32:49SPEAKERbut it has a little yellow information tile.

32:52SPEAKERAnd it says, this game sometimes shows mouse keyboard

32:55SPEAKERor other non-Steam Deck controller icons.

32:57SPEAKERThis game requires manual configuration of graphic settings

32:59SPEAKERto perform well on Steam Deck.

33:01SPEAKERBut, and then there's two check marks

33:03SPEAKERthat are like all functionality is accessible

33:05SPEAKERand using the default controller configuration

33:06SPEAKERand in-game text is illegible on Steam Deck.

33:09SPEAKERSo like the other flags that it'll give

33:11SPEAKERis sometimes it's like you have to do performance stuff.

33:13SPEAKERSometimes it's like you have to bring up

33:16SPEAKERthe Steam Deck keyboard manually, stuff like that.

33:20SPEAKERThey give a good, having looked at this on the backend,

33:23SPEAKERthey give a good report to developers

33:26SPEAKERof what you need to do to support.

33:29SPEAKERLike if they've run your app,

33:30SPEAKERif they've run your game through their process,

33:32SPEAKERthey give you a report of all the stuff that you need to do.

33:34SPEAKERThat's kind of like a cert report

33:35SPEAKERfrom a more traditional console manufacturer.

33:39SPEAKER- Interesting.

33:41SPEAKER- But it's like, this is one of those things

33:42SPEAKERwhere it's nice that there's not like a good Steam Deck

33:44SPEAKERand a bad, like the difference between the good one

33:46SPEAKERand the bad one is just storage.

33:49SPEAKER- Literally the screen coding

33:51SPEAKERand a thing you can replace yourself.

33:53SPEAKER- Well, so you can't put an SSD in the MMC only one.

33:57SPEAKER- Oh, whoa, whoa, I'm sorry.

33:58SPEAKERHang on, let me pull those models back up.

34:00SPEAKERI have those in front of me.

34:01SPEAKER- Yeah, so I asked friends at Valve

34:04SPEAKERwhen they announced this thing, I was like,

34:05SPEAKER"Hey, is there gonna be an empty slot

34:06SPEAKER"that I can just put an SSD in if I buy the cheap one?"

34:10SPEAKERAnd they were like, "No, there's no socket on the cheap one."

34:12SPEAKER- I see what you're saying.

34:13SPEAKERYes, that's an M2 connector, I assume, right?

34:16SPEAKER- So yeah, it's an M2 connector

34:18SPEAKERand it's a weird length M2.

34:19SPEAKERSo it's not like the standard PC SSD.

34:21SPEAKERYou have to get a shorter one.

34:22SPEAKER- Oh, I hadn't even thought about this.

34:24SPEAKEROkay, so I did not realize, okay,

34:26SPEAKERI thought the board was the same in all the models.

34:28SPEAKERSo I think that alone is probably the main reason

34:33SPEAKERI would have to get at least the cheapest one

34:35SPEAKERwith that socket because-

34:37SPEAKER- That's why I did it, yeah.

34:38SPEAKER- Because that's for more than just storage, right?

34:41SPEAKERWe've talked about this recently,

34:42SPEAKERlike an M2 connector, an NVMe connector

34:44SPEAKERis just a pathway to the PCIe lanes.

34:47SPEAKERSo theoretically, you can connect like any PCIe device

34:50SPEAKERto that connector.

34:51SPEAKER- Are you gonna put a fiber connection in there?

34:53SPEAKER- Maybe, I don't know, who knows?

34:54SPEAKER- 10 gigabits to your Steam Deck.

34:57SPEAKERSounds pretty good.

34:58SPEAKER- It downloads real fast, Brad.

35:00SPEAKER- I may have spoken to someone at Valve at one point

35:03SPEAKERback when this thing first started shipping,

35:05SPEAKERwho said like they would not be surprised

35:06SPEAKERto see somebody hooking like a real PC GPU

35:09SPEAKERup to that connector and trying to make it work.

35:12SPEAKER- That's interesting, I hadn't even thought about that.

35:13SPEAKERIt's not gonna be a limited number of lanes,

35:15SPEAKERbut that's still pretty cool.

35:16SPEAKER- Yeah, and I mean, that's so impractical

35:18SPEAKERfrom a portability standpoint

35:19SPEAKERthat you would just do it for bragging rights,

35:21SPEAKERbut it would still be pretty awesome

35:22SPEAKERto try to get that to work.

35:23SPEAKER- Well, depending on how the USB-C is wired,

35:25SPEAKERyou could be able to plug it into an external GPU.

35:28SPEAKERAnyway, but yeah, so there's a benefit.

35:31SPEAKERThe benefit here is that all of the devices are the same,

35:35SPEAKERso they only have to profile it

35:37SPEAKERfor one piece of hardware right now,

35:40SPEAKERwhich means if the Steam Deck,

35:43SPEAKERif the Steam software says it's gonna work,

35:45SPEAKERit's gonna work on all of them, which is important.

35:48SPEAKERSo like I played a ton of games.

35:52SPEAKERI played a lot of "Vampire Survivors."

35:53SPEAKERThat game is rad for a hand.

35:55SPEAKERIt's got real "Lumines" vibes for me and like the,

35:59SPEAKER"Hey, this is the thing that I like to play on this thing

36:02SPEAKER"if I don't know what I want to play."

36:03SPEAKER- It's the default game on the platform, pretty much.

36:06SPEAKER- We actually just, we talked about that.

36:07SPEAKERI played some "Lumines" on the Switch

36:08SPEAKERon the way out on that trip a month ago.

36:11SPEAKERAnd yeah, we were talking about how "Lumines"

36:13SPEAKERwas the game that never left your PSP, right?

36:15SPEAKERLike unless there was a reason

36:17SPEAKERto have something else in there, "Lumines" was in there.

36:20SPEAKER- Well, and it goes so, for me on "Lumines" especially,

36:22SPEAKERit goes so far as like, if the D-pad's not in the right

36:25SPEAKERplace, the game doesn't feel right to play.

36:27SPEAKER- Sure.

36:28SPEAKER- You know what I mean?

36:28SPEAKERLike I need the weird janky PSP four button D-pad.

36:32SPEAKERLike I can't, anyway.

36:35SPEAKERI played some "Elden Ring."

36:36SPEAKERLike I played a big boss fight where I had to have timing

36:38SPEAKERright and all that, and it worked shot,

36:39SPEAKERlike I was surprised.

36:40SPEAKERLike the frame rate was a little bit janky,

36:43SPEAKERbut not much worse than my PC in similar situations.

36:47SPEAKERLike frame rate on "Elden Ring," not a great thing,

36:50SPEAKERbut I killed a giant frost dragon.

36:52SPEAKERLike, you know, I had to do rolls and dodges and blocks

36:54SPEAKERand all that stuff, so.

36:57SPEAKERThe "Anacrusis," the game that I work on, runs great.

36:59SPEAKERWe're listed as unsupported, but I think that's because

37:01SPEAKERof some problems that were in "Proton" earlier this year,

37:04SPEAKERand we just haven't, I hadn't hit the button to say,

37:06SPEAKER"Hey, will you look at this again yet?"

37:08SPEAKERSo hopefully that'll update soon.

37:10SPEAKER"Dead Cells" felt a little slow.

37:12SPEAKERLike I've put 100 hours into "Dead Cells,"

37:14SPEAKERso I've played a fair amount of "Dead Cells,"

37:16SPEAKERand like it didn't feel quite as fluid and smooth

37:20SPEAKERas I would hope.

37:21SPEAKER- So a performance thing, or an input latency thing,

37:23SPEAKERor dot, dot, dot?

37:25SPEAKER- I would say dot, dot, dot, but I think it's input latency

37:29SPEAKERon "Dead Cells," and it's listed as verified.

37:33SPEAKERSo one of the things that's interesting is

37:35SPEAKERwhen you play a game that they list as verified,

37:37SPEAKERafter you get back in the menu, it says,

37:39SPEAKER"Hey, Valve's testing indicates that 'Dead Cells'

37:41SPEAKER"is verified on Steam Deck.

37:42SPEAKER"Does this match your experience playing the game?"

37:45SPEAKERAnd if you say yes, it just goes on.

37:46SPEAKERIf you say no, which I'm gonna do right now,

37:49SPEAKERit says, "Thank you for your feedback,"

37:50SPEAKERand goes on as well.

37:51SPEAKERI was curious to see if it had a little survey or something.

37:56SPEAKERBut "Hades" had similar issues.

38:00SPEAKER"Dead Cells" was very playable, it just felt different.

38:03SPEAKERIt wasn't as bad as say the Switch version of the game,

38:05SPEAKERwhich definitely feels slow compared to the PC version.

38:09SPEAKER"Hades" was a little, like I felt in "Hades"

38:12SPEAKERlike I was missing things because of input latency

38:15SPEAKERthat I wouldn't have missed if I was using DualSense.

38:17SPEAKER- Interesting.

38:18SPEAKERI wonder where that latency is in the chain.

38:21SPEAKER- I don't know.

38:22SPEAKERI mean, this is part of the problem

38:23SPEAKERwith like running the emulator and all that.

38:25SPEAKERThe other thing is I think that there's a Vulkan version

38:28SPEAKERof "Dead Cells" that I should probably try.

38:29SPEAKERI don't believe that there's a Vulkan version of "Hades."

38:32SPEAKERIn my experience, if the game offers a Vulkan version,

38:35SPEAKERyou're usually better off using that

38:36SPEAKERthan the DirectX version that runs by default.

38:40SPEAKERFor example, "Doom."

38:41SPEAKER"Doom" running on the Vulkan version

38:44SPEAKERwas unbelievable, like 2016 "Doom."

38:47SPEAKER- Yeah, like noticeably different from the DX version?

38:51SPEAKER- I didn't run the DX version, but I wouldn't have noticed,

38:53SPEAKERlike if I had hooked this up to a TV

38:55SPEAKERand had it coming out of a TV,

38:56SPEAKERI probably wouldn't have known

38:57SPEAKERthat it wasn't an Xbox One playing "Doom"

39:00SPEAKERor Xbox Series S, rather.

39:02SPEAKER- Right.

39:03SPEAKERI've done a little poking around in various GitHub repos

39:05SPEAKERrelated to all this stuff.

39:06SPEAKERYou see a lot about DXVK.

39:08SPEAKERAre you familiar with that?

39:09SPEAKER- Is that the Vulkan wrapper?

39:10SPEAKER- It is, yeah.

39:11SPEAKERIt's a translation layer from Direct3D to Vulkan.

39:14SPEAKER- Yeah, and the wrappers are usually pretty performant,

39:17SPEAKERbut they're still, like for a game like "Hades"

39:20SPEAKERwhere three frames matters.

39:21SPEAKER- Yeah.

39:23SPEAKER- So to give more context on "Hades" specifically,

39:28SPEAKERthe weapons that didn't require parries were fine.

39:32SPEAKERLike the shield, I had a real hard time

39:34SPEAKERgetting the parries right on the certain aspects

39:36SPEAKERof the shield that require parries.

39:38SPEAKERI just couldn't make work.

39:39SPEAKERAnd again, it's a game that I put like 100 and some hours in

39:42SPEAKERso I have a lot of muscle memory

39:43SPEAKERand my timing is based on standing in front of the PC

39:46SPEAKERwith the game pad.

39:48SPEAKERAnd it's entirely possible if I played 100 hours with this,

39:51SPEAKERI wouldn't even think about it

39:52SPEAKERand I would have adjusted without my,

39:54SPEAKERlike this could be my brain,

39:55SPEAKERnot the system is I guess what I'm saying.

39:58SPEAKER- Sure.

39:59SPEAKER- "Geometry Wars" is freaking awesome on this.

40:01SPEAKER- Oh.

40:02SPEAKER- Portable "Geometry Wars," Brad.

40:03SPEAKER- Oh man, man.

40:05SPEAKER- Right.

40:06SPEAKER- God.

40:07SPEAKER- And like, yeah.

40:09SPEAKER- That's the first thing anybody has said

40:11SPEAKERthat has truly made me want a Steam Deck.

40:12SPEAKERThey should just put "Geometry Wars" one out on the Switch.

40:14SPEAKERI bet that would run fine.

40:16SPEAKER- They should put "Geometry Wars" one out on everything.

40:18SPEAKER- Well, yes, I fully agree with you, but you know, man.

40:22SPEAKER- This is the old ass, this is the Xbox,

40:25SPEAKERthis is the version of "Geometry Wars"

40:26SPEAKERthat I bought an Xbox 360 for just to be clear.

40:28SPEAKER- Yeah, of course.

40:30SPEAKER- I haven't tried the sequel, which I should load up

40:34SPEAKERbecause I think that's on Steam too.

40:34SPEAKER- Did two come out on PC?

40:36SPEAKER- I believe it did.

40:37SPEAKERI don't remember.

40:38SPEAKERIt might have.

40:40SPEAKERI don't know that it did, actually.

40:43SPEAKERI don't think it did.

40:44SPEAKER- Really?

40:45SPEAKER- I believe the "Geometry Wars 2."

40:48SPEAKER- Was only on the Xbox?

40:49SPEAKER- Is 360 only.

40:51SPEAKER- Weird.

40:52SPEAKERSo Tunic played great.

40:55SPEAKERCeleste is a real timing-based jumping puzzle game.

40:59SPEAKERWas able to play that.

41:00SPEAKERI haven't put as much time into that

41:01SPEAKERas I have into "Hades and Dead Cells."

41:02SPEAKERSo it's possible, like I wanted to have a control

41:06SPEAKERto kind of mask, see if it was my brain or the game.

41:10SPEAKERAnd I was able to get good enough Celeste

41:12SPEAKERto get further than I have at any point in the past.

41:15SPEAKERAnd it pulls down all your saves.

41:16SPEAKERLike it connects to, it deals with all your saves

41:19SPEAKERjust like running Steam on multiple devices does.

41:23SPEAKERWhich I, my bet is most people probably don't do.

41:27SPEAKERBut like, as long as you close the game when you're done,

41:29SPEAKERit uploads the save.

41:31SPEAKERSo like I could turn off the Steam Deck in the living room,

41:33SPEAKERcome in here and open my "Vampire Survivor" save

41:35SPEAKERand it would be, by the time I walked around the room,

41:37SPEAKERit would be synced up on the PC usually.

41:39SPEAKER- That's pretty good.

41:41SPEAKER- And this might be the perfect platform

41:42SPEAKERfor like turn-based RPGs, like "Yakuza Like a Dragon."

41:46SPEAKERHoly shit, that game is very good.

41:48SPEAKERAnd I'm sitting and watching TV

41:50SPEAKERand occasionally paying attention to this stupid thing.

41:53SPEAKER- Oh, that game rules.

41:54SPEAKERAlthough, I mean, it's a good spectator game.

41:57SPEAKERYou know, maybe-

41:58SPEAKER- It is a good spectator game, yeah.

42:00SPEAKER- Maybe think about introducing Ichiban to the family

42:02SPEAKERbecause I found my cohabitant

42:06SPEAKERenjoyed watching that game quite a bit.

42:08SPEAKER- I don't know if I want to introduce my daughter

42:10SPEAKERto the idea of soap.

42:13SPEAKERWhat is it, soap rooms?

42:14SPEAKER- Soap clubs or whatever.

42:15SPEAKER- Soap clubs, yes.

42:17SPEAKER- I guess I can.

42:18SPEAKER- Why do only women work in this place?

42:20SPEAKER- Yes, fair, fair.

42:24SPEAKER- So yeah, the other thing that's happened

42:27SPEAKERsince we talked to Wes and Norm

42:28SPEAKERis that the outside software, as it becomes more available,

42:30SPEAKERhas gotten pretty wildly advanced.

42:35SPEAKERSo if you want to do emulation stuff,

42:37SPEAKERthere's this piece of software called MUDEC now,

42:40SPEAKERwhich you can get at mudec.com,

42:42SPEAKERthat literally you download a flat pack

42:45SPEAKERand run it on the machine.

42:46SPEAKERAnd then it runs scripts and downloads

42:48SPEAKERall of your emulators from different repos.

42:53SPEAKERIt sets them all up so that they have

42:55SPEAKERthe right aspect ratios and all that.

42:58SPEAKERThey put a nice little SNES frame around your SNES games

43:01SPEAKERand stuff like that.

43:02SPEAKER- Wow, I'm looking at this now.

43:04SPEAKERThis looks really well integrated.

43:05SPEAKERIt looks like it's based on RetroArch,

43:07SPEAKERwhich I don't know if you've kept up with that whole--

43:09SPEAKER- I like up and down on RetroArch, it turns out, yeah.

43:12SPEAKER- RetroArch, not especially popular

43:13SPEAKERin the emulation scene these days,

43:15SPEAKERbut if it works, it works.

43:18SPEAKERAlso, it looks like it's not just RetroArch.

43:21SPEAKER- No, they download all sorts of other stuff.

43:23SPEAKERThere's Dolphin and QEMU and a bunch of other things too.

43:28SPEAKER- And say it, say it.

43:30SPEAKER- Yuzu?

43:30SPEAKER- Yuzu.

43:31SPEAKER- Yuzu's on here.

43:32SPEAKER- Yuzu is in there too.

43:33SPEAKER- I tasted the forbidden fruit, Brad.

43:36SPEAKER- That is a fruit, isn't it, now that you mention it?

43:38SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, I think that's what it is.

43:40SPEAKERI think it's literally the forbidden fruit.

43:43SPEAKER- It's a citrus fruit and plants

43:45SPEAKERin the family of the Ruta Sayi.

43:47SPEAKER- Can't you, don't you also make booze?

43:49SPEAKEROh, no, that's spelled differently, the Yuzu that's booze.

43:53SPEAKERSo, yeah, so you install EmuDeck,

43:56SPEAKERand then at the end it's like, hey,

43:58SPEAKERdo you wanna put Steam ROM Manager on here?

44:01SPEAKERIf you install that from the,

44:04SPEAKERI can't remember what Arch calls their repos.

44:09SPEAKERBut if you install that, then it'll go in and say,

44:11SPEAKERokay, hey, I see you have EmuDeck on here.

44:14SPEAKERI'm gonna just grab, I'm gonna scan your folders for ROMs

44:18SPEAKERand I'll make shortcuts in Steam for all of the ROMs

44:21SPEAKERthat you have copied over to this thing.

44:24SPEAKERAnd then you have Art and my Link to the Past,

44:31SPEAKERI'm gonna hold it up to the screen so you can see,

44:32SPEAKERbut I have Art and stuff for my Link to the Past.

44:35SPEAKER- Jeez, I need to see that.

44:39SPEAKERThat's like one of the, that is one of the things

44:41SPEAKERthat I miss the most on the Mr.

44:42SPEAKERand I realize it's just something that you would,

44:44SPEAKERlet me see.

44:46SPEAKER- It's stupid.

44:47SPEAKER- Oh, wow, the video call is completely destroying.

44:50SPEAKERIt's like keying out half of the art.

44:52SPEAKER- It's all keyed out, yeah.

44:53SPEAKER- I get the idea, like if I had that on the Mr.

44:55SPEAKERit's something I would Marvel at for five minutes

44:57SPEAKERand then never think about again,

44:58SPEAKERbut still I kind of miss having like nice box art and stuff.

45:01SPEAKER- It's nice having like the banners and stuff in Steam

45:03SPEAKERwhen you have the menu pop up.

45:05SPEAKER- I had not heard of Steam ROM Manager before.

45:07SPEAKERIs that, that's not a Steam Deck specific thing, right?

45:09SPEAKERIs that something you?

45:10SPEAKER- No, you can put that on Windows as well and it'll--

45:12SPEAKER- Get use of that anywhere?

45:14SPEAKER- Basically it'll add ROMs that it detects

45:16SPEAKERto your non-Steam game section of your Steam UI.

45:21SPEAKER- Interesting.

45:22SPEAKER- I think it would probably be more useful

45:23SPEAKERif you used a lot of big picture mode.

45:25SPEAKER- Yeah, fair.

45:27SPEAKER- So, but the upshot is like if you'd plugged

45:32SPEAKERthis ROM Manager thing into a folder

45:34SPEAKERwith 5,000 SNES and Genesis games,

45:37SPEAKERyou're probably gonna have a bad time

45:39SPEAKERand mess up your Steam UI pretty bad.

45:41SPEAKERSo I would advise against that.

45:43SPEAKERI would just take like the three things you wanna play

45:45SPEAKERand keep them in the right folders all the time.

45:48SPEAKERThat Steam ROM Manager also runs on the desktop

45:50SPEAKERand it uses a different window kit.

45:52SPEAKERSo just like Steam Mouse support

45:55SPEAKERon your game pad in Windows,

45:57SPEAKERif Steam's not running in the right way

45:59SPEAKERand doesn't have the right emulation set up for the input,

46:01SPEAKERthen you end up using the touch screen to open

46:03SPEAKERto do all your mousing, which is pretty frustrating.

46:05SPEAKER- Yeah, I can see that.

46:08SPEAKER- And then the other thing that I don't think

46:09SPEAKERwe talked about with Wes and Norm at all

46:11SPEAKERis that streaming from both a Windows PC

46:15SPEAKERand from your consoles, well, xCloud on the Xbox's case,

46:21SPEAKERfrom the PS5 and the PS5's case, works really well.

46:24SPEAKER- Hang on, I'm trying to work this out in my head.

46:25SPEAKERYou're streaming directly from your boxes,

46:27SPEAKERlike your PS5 over your LAN?

46:30SPEAKER- Yes, I'm streaming from my PC

46:31SPEAKERand from my PS5 on the LAN.

46:33SPEAKER- 'Cause that's all Sony has right now.

46:34SPEAKERBut in the xCloud case, you're streaming

46:36SPEAKERfrom their data centers through what, a web browser?

46:39SPEAKER- Through Edge, yeah, for Linux.

46:40SPEAKER- Oh, that's why you installed Edge.

46:42SPEAKER- Yeah.

46:43SPEAKER- Okay, I was like, I mean, Edge is fine,

46:45SPEAKERbut I wouldn't expect you to seek it out

46:47SPEAKERunless you had a specific reason.

46:49SPEAKER- Well, and also to be clear, the Xbox,

46:52SPEAKERthe PS Now stuff launched last week, I think, didn't it?

46:55SPEAKER- Oh yes, yes, the new PlayStation Plus tiers.

46:59SPEAKERYes, but they're--

47:00SPEAKER- Operation Confused, the customer has commenced.

47:03SPEAKER- Their enhanced streaming tiers

47:04SPEAKERand so forth are out there, yes.

47:07SPEAKER- But yeah, streaming from Steam works really well.

47:09SPEAKEREven games that didn't run great on the Steam Deck,

47:11SPEAKERlike Hard Space, worked fine.

47:13SPEAKERBasically, anything with gamepad support will be fine.

47:15SPEAKERYou can do, it's funny, they try to teach you

47:17SPEAKERhow to use the gyro flick stick stuff

47:20SPEAKERwith the Steam Deck when you're doing

47:21SPEAKERthe initial configuration and install,

47:23SPEAKERwhich I still have a, I'm gonna have to just take a week

47:27SPEAKERand play something awful hard and learn how to do that,

47:30SPEAKER'cause it seems like it would be really powerful.

47:33SPEAKERBut they encourage you to keep your,

47:35SPEAKERthey have the capacitive touch sensors

47:37SPEAKERon top of the sticks and the pad.

47:39SPEAKER- On the sticks?

47:40SPEAKER- So they encourage you, so they can tell

47:43SPEAKERwhen your thumb's on the sticks,

47:44SPEAKERjust like they do with the Index.

47:45SPEAKER- Oh, I didn't know that.

47:46SPEAKER- Yeah, and so the gyro only works

47:49SPEAKERwhen your thumb is on the stick.

47:51SPEAKER- That's cool. - By default.

47:52SPEAKERSo it's interesting.

47:54SPEAKERThe PS5 streaming with Chiaki,

47:56SPEAKERI've used more than anything else.

47:59SPEAKER- I'm sorry, with what?

48:00SPEAKER- Chiaki is an open third party,

48:04SPEAKERit's like a PlayStation remote play open source app.

48:10SPEAKER- The number of apps and managers

48:11SPEAKERand compatibility layers and stuff to keep up with

48:13SPEAKERfor all of this is getting, that list is getting very long.

48:17SPEAKER- Well, so this, you had to do some real terminal wizardry

48:21SPEAKERto get the right key to pair your PlayStation with the app.

48:27SPEAKERAnd then once you did that, you just open it,

48:29SPEAKERand it's like, hey, which PlayStation do you wanna launch?

48:31SPEAKER- Oh my God, my mouth is hanging open right now.

48:33SPEAKERI have landed on the, huh, first of all,

48:37SPEAKERI've landed on the Chiaki repo on Sourcehut.

48:40SPEAKER- Oh yes, everybody loves the Sourcehut.

48:42SPEAKER- Come on down to the Sourcehut.

48:43SPEAKER- Number of Git interfaces is multiplying rapidly.

48:47SPEAKERAnyway, wow, wow, this is okay.

48:49SPEAKERA free and open source client for PS4 and PS5 remote play.

48:53SPEAKERI have to try this 'cause the Sony client is not great.

48:56SPEAKER- It works way better than the Sony one

48:58SPEAKERand it works with non Sony controllers.

49:00SPEAKER- Oh man, I'm getting this as soon as we're done recording.

49:02SPEAKER- So with the Steam Deck, it maps everything over.

49:05SPEAKERIt doesn't turn the gyro on by default, I don't think,

49:09SPEAKERbut everything else, like the normal pads work,

49:12SPEAKERthe sticks and the D-pad and the buttons and the triggers

49:15SPEAKERall work just like normal.

49:17SPEAKERWhen you touch the touch screen,

49:18SPEAKERit works like touching whichever quadrant

49:20SPEAKERof the touch screen you touch

49:21SPEAKERon whichever game you're playing.

49:22SPEAKERSo like playing Ratchet and Clank,

49:23SPEAKERyou touch it and it brings up the map.

49:26SPEAKERIt works unbelievably, it works so well,

49:28SPEAKERI couldn't tell I wasn't plugged in directly to the device.

49:31SPEAKERLike I couldn't distinguish that it wasn't local.

49:37SPEAKERAnd it's an incredibly pleasant experience to play on this.

49:41SPEAKERThe only problem with Chiaki right now

49:42SPEAKERis sometimes it's hard to get it to exit properly.

49:44SPEAKERSometimes it takes like two or three tries to,

49:46SPEAKERyou have to basically, like there's no force exit button

49:50SPEAKERin the Steam game playing UI.

49:52SPEAKERYou have to like do some,

49:54SPEAKERyou basically have to hold down the Steam button

49:56SPEAKERand long press B and then it'll force quit it.

49:59SPEAKERI think I had to restart the Steam software once

50:02SPEAKERto get it to all the way close.

50:04SPEAKERAnd then xCloud worked really well too.

50:07SPEAKERAnd Microsoft like has an actual guide

50:09SPEAKERto do it on their support site.

50:11SPEAKERSo it's like, hey, if you want to run xCloud

50:13SPEAKERon your Steam deck, here's what you do.

50:14SPEAKERAnd they basically walk you through the process

50:16SPEAKERof downloading Edge, setting up a kiosk install

50:19SPEAKERat the right resolution with the right access

50:21SPEAKERto get controls from the controller and all that stuff.

50:24SPEAKERAnd it just works.

50:25SPEAKER- That's kind of awesome.

50:26SPEAKERI really enjoy this latter day cross-platform open Microsoft.

50:30SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like, it's kind of cool.

50:34SPEAKERThe, they even give like art.

50:37SPEAKERThey even give you that right art

50:38SPEAKERto put in the UI so it all looks right

50:40SPEAKERwhen you're in the game.

50:44SPEAKERSo yeah, like everything about this has been positive

50:47SPEAKERso far, I would say.

50:49SPEAKER- I mean, gosh, when did it first start shipping?

50:51SPEAKERFebruary?

50:52SPEAKER- February or March.

50:53SPEAKER- Less than half a year they've gotten it.

50:54SPEAKERSounds like pretty good place.

50:56SPEAKERCan we circle back to emulation performance real quick?

50:59SPEAKERLike I'm sure, you know, 16 bit SNES and so forth,

51:02SPEAKERtotally fine, but like, what is the heaviest game

51:05SPEAKERyou have tried to emulate on this thing?

51:07SPEAKER- Are we talking about Yuzu or other stuff?

51:10SPEAKERSo I went through the whole thing.

51:11SPEAKER- I'm pretty sure if you own the game legitimately,

51:13SPEAKERit's still fine, unless there's like weird bios

51:17SPEAKERor other kind of questionable copyright stuff

51:19SPEAKERthat you have to dump to get it to work, I don't know.

51:22SPEAKER- So the instructions provided by the Yuzu people

51:26SPEAKERbasically tell you how to take your launch generation switch,

51:30SPEAKERhack it, pull your firmware and your keys

51:32SPEAKERand all that stuff off.

51:33SPEAKER- So at that point, maybe there is something

51:34SPEAKERthat's not quite kosher.

51:36SPEAKERI know like the original precedent was

51:38SPEAKERif you own the game legitimately,

51:39SPEAKERyou can emulate it right back in the day.

51:41SPEAKER- I mean, I was doing it for journalistic research purposes

51:45SPEAKERhere.

51:46SPEAKER- I'm just saying with, you know, like the DMCA stuff

51:48SPEAKERand like, you know, sometimes like biases

51:50SPEAKERare not freely distributable and stuff like that.

51:52SPEAKERLike maybe it's gotten murkier at this point.

51:55SPEAKERI don't know.

51:56SPEAKER- So, okay, so my experience was that 16 bit stuff ran

52:00SPEAKERreally well.

52:00SPEAKERI didn't play a ton of 16 bit games

52:01SPEAKER'cause I have the mister for that.

52:04SPEAKERBut I did like load up Breath of the Wild

52:05SPEAKERand Super Mario World and some stuff like that.

52:07SPEAKERAnd it was indistinguishable from the mister

52:09SPEAKERfor all intents and purposes.

52:12SPEAKERThe--

52:13SPEAKER- Like dolphin stuff?

52:14SPEAKER- The dolphin stuff was a little more up and down.

52:17SPEAKERSo the GameCube stuff seemed to run pretty well.

52:22SPEAKERMy guess is that that's gonna be a game by game basis

52:25SPEAKERand also that it will continue to get better

52:28SPEAKERas they tweak the dolphin settings

52:30SPEAKERfor the hardware that's in there.

52:34SPEAKER'Cause like there's a lot, dolphin emulation

52:38SPEAKERis pretty well solved at this point,

52:40SPEAKERbut also there's an infinite number of options in there.

52:44SPEAKERAnd my guess is that like, for example,

52:46SPEAKERTwilight Princess ran pretty well.

52:49SPEAKERSuper Mario Galaxy had some hinkiness with the sound

52:53SPEAKERthat has always plagued Super Mario Galaxy

52:56SPEAKERwhen I've tried to play it.

52:57SPEAKERSo, and those are, I mean, just to be clear,

53:00SPEAKERthis is using my ripped ROMs from my hacked Wii.

53:04SPEAKERSo it could also be that I did a bad job ripping the ROMs.

53:06SPEAKERI didn't go download known good ROMs, which.

53:10SPEAKERThe Yuzu stuff was incredibly involved

53:14SPEAKERgetting the keys off of your Switch.

53:18SPEAKERThe performance on Breath of the Wild was okay, but not,

53:21SPEAKERlike I don't think I would actually wanna play it

53:23SPEAKERat the settings that it defaults to.

53:26SPEAKERIt was probably running about as well

53:28SPEAKERas it did on the Switch, like 30 to 40 frames a second.

53:32SPEAKER- Fair. - Would be my guess.

53:34SPEAKERYeah.

53:35SPEAKERI am interested, I'm thrilled about that

53:38SPEAKERas a way to play old 16-bit game for sure.

53:41SPEAKERYeah, and they looked really nice on the screen.

53:42SPEAKERLike that amount of upresing,

53:44SPEAKERbasically you're just doubling lines

53:47SPEAKERand it looked really nice.

53:48SPEAKER- So no complaints about the quality of the screen.

53:49SPEAKERLike I've seen some side-by-side photos out there

53:51SPEAKERnext to the Switch OLED, like kinda backlight bleed

53:55SPEAKERor like bad contrast, by comparison, not in a vacuum.

53:59SPEAKERAnd I'm sure that if you don't have it

54:00SPEAKERnext to you to look at, it's probably fine.

54:04SPEAKER- So compared to the Switch,

54:06SPEAKERthe Switch OLED is like a Mercedes Benz though.

54:09SPEAKERLike that thing is gorgeous.

54:11SPEAKER- That's like best in class handheld screen right now, right?

54:14SPEAKER- Yeah, this one's incredibly bright for an LED LCD.

54:21SPEAKERThe backlight bleed seems to vary

54:22SPEAKERbased on the screen, obviously, as is usually the case.

54:25SPEAKERI don't have any stuck pixels, I did check that.

54:27SPEAKERI intentionally didn't load up the black screen

54:30SPEAKERfor backlight bleed 'cause I kind of don't wanna see it.

54:32SPEAKERAnd once I know it's there, I'll be able to see it.

54:35SPEAKER- Sometimes you're better off not knowing.

54:37SPEAKER- I haven't noticed anything in screens

54:40SPEAKERwith a lot of dark, for what it's worth.

54:44SPEAKERBut yeah, like I'm optimistic.

54:48SPEAKERLike the fact that people, I mean, in my circles,

54:50SPEAKERobviously still have game developers

54:51SPEAKERand a lot of game journalists and stuff like that,

54:53SPEAKERthe people who are gonna absolutely buy this,

54:54SPEAKERwhether it's good or not.

54:58SPEAKERMy hope is that this is the beginning of a new category,

55:01SPEAKERlike that this is what they wanted

55:03SPEAKERthe Steam Machines stuff to be.

55:05SPEAKER- I remember we kind of put that question to Norm, I think,

55:07SPEAKERor and Wes, I think Norm jumped in on that

55:10SPEAKERand basically said like, "Yes, this is the Taco Bell

55:13SPEAKERfourth meal of your computing environment now

55:16SPEAKERbetween phone, laptop, PC, and now this."

55:20SPEAKER- Well, it's a lovely way to play.

55:25SPEAKERAfter spending eight hours a day in my office

55:27SPEAKERand then another three or four hours a day streaming

55:29SPEAKERor doing podcasts or whatever,

55:31SPEAKERlike is my normal day these days,

55:33SPEAKERI don't really wanna come back in here and play more games

55:35SPEAKER'cause it's pretty sweaty.

55:36SPEAKERAnd like, I just don't wanna spend more time in the office.

55:39SPEAKERSo if there's a way for me to play stuff

55:40SPEAKERthat I have on the PC or that's best on the PC,

55:43SPEAKERlike Tunic or the Yakuza or something like that,

55:48SPEAKERand do that in the living room

55:49SPEAKERwhere I'm kind of hanging out,

55:50SPEAKERgetting a little bit of time with the fam,

55:52SPEAKERI'm totally gonna do that and I'm into it.

55:54SPEAKERAnd it's awesome.

55:56SPEAKERLike the openness is really cool 'cause for example,

55:59SPEAKERwhen I needed to get a bunch of shell commands over,

56:02SPEAKERI realized today I could just open up the SMB client

56:05SPEAKERand connect it to the NAS and like write the script on my PC

56:09SPEAKERand then copy it over there and just run it

56:11SPEAKERfrom a bash prompt on the SMB share.

56:13SPEAKERAnd like, that's really cool.

56:15SPEAKER- That's pretty awesome.

56:16SPEAKERIt's like, it's very exciting.

56:20SPEAKERThe openness feels really exciting.

56:22SPEAKERLike it's difficult, I don't wanna overstate this,

56:27SPEAKERbut it is difficult to explain how cool it is

56:29SPEAKERto have something that's like a switchish form factor

56:32SPEAKERthat I can do whatever the hell I want to.

56:34SPEAKER- You can open a command prompt on.

56:36SPEAKER- Yeah, exactly.

56:38SPEAKERThat I can install some weird emulators.

56:39SPEAKERAnd also the idea that like,

56:44SPEAKERit's the same as the one that everybody else has.

56:46SPEAKERSo that the person who writes the script

56:48SPEAKERto make theirs awesome, just shares that script

56:52SPEAKERand it runs on mine too.

56:53SPEAKERAnd like, that's a really powerful thing right now.

56:57SPEAKERSo yeah, I would describe myself as pretty bullish

57:00SPEAKERon this whole thing.

57:02SPEAKERPlus, like it's a $500 starter PC for games.

57:06SPEAKERLike you can't get a Steam PC for 500.

57:09SPEAKERLike it's really hard to build a $500 PC

57:11SPEAKERthat's gonna be comparable to this.

57:12SPEAKER- That would not have the portability factor

57:13SPEAKEReven if you could.

57:14SPEAKER- Yeah, now I want them to bring the Steam Deck front end

57:17SPEAKERto the big picture mode on PC Steam and the other places

57:21SPEAKERso that we have the same kind of functionality

57:23SPEAKERon the Windows side.

57:23SPEAKER- That seems like it's coming, right?

57:25SPEAKER- I have to imagine it is.

57:27SPEAKER- And then I don't know if we really want to get into it.

57:28SPEAKERI mean, there's like, now that the AMD Zen 4 chips

57:31SPEAKERare almost out, rumors are starting to pop out

57:35SPEAKERabout new APUs based on those.

57:37SPEAKERLike there's part listings are starting to show up

57:40SPEAKERfor Zen 4 based APUs, which it's probably too soon

57:45SPEAKERfor a second rev of the Steam Deck just yet.

57:47SPEAKERBut that seems like a likely candidate.

57:50SPEAKER- I was gonna say right now,

57:51SPEAKERif you order the mid range Steam Deck,

57:54SPEAKERif you put your five bucks down,

57:56SPEAKERthe availability is after Q3 right now.

57:59SPEAKER- So which is October, 2022 or later.

58:01SPEAKER- Just go place an order right now.

58:03SPEAKERLike they will at least let you get on a list.

58:07SPEAKER- Well you put five bucks down and that puts you

58:08SPEAKERon the list.

58:09SPEAKER- It's not like they are even opening windows

58:10SPEAKERjust to do that.

58:11SPEAKERLike that's an all the time thing now.

58:13SPEAKER- No, you can do that anytime.

58:14SPEAKERYou've been able to do that anytime since last July.

58:15SPEAKER- And you said Q3 if you get it right now?

58:18SPEAKER- After Q3.

58:19SPEAKERSo after October.

58:20SPEAKER- How much after is probably an open question.

58:23SPEAKER- I mean, I would assume it's not after Q4

58:25SPEAKERthey would change to say after Q4.

58:26SPEAKER- You're probably right, but you know, things change.

58:29SPEAKER- I also like, this is an anecdote.

58:32SPEAKERIt could just be that everybody hit the button.

58:33SPEAKERLike we're getting into the time.

58:35SPEAKERLike I tried to order on the first day

58:37SPEAKERand the site was down all day.

58:38SPEAKERYou couldn't actually do it.

58:39SPEAKERAnd then I just gave up and I was like,

58:41SPEAKERwell, I'll get it when I get it.

58:42SPEAKERAnd then on Friday, three days after they opened

58:45SPEAKERthe pre-orders, I happened to notice and hit the button.

58:49SPEAKERI think I'm noticing a lot more people showing up

58:52SPEAKERwith them in their feeds now.

58:54SPEAKERSo it seems like the posting on the Reddit

58:56SPEAKERhas reached a kind of critical mass.

58:58SPEAKERSo it's possible that they're ramping the speed

59:00SPEAKERat which they're able to produce it now too,

59:02SPEAKERwhich would be nice.

59:02SPEAKER- That would be nice.

59:03SPEAKERI thought I was in need of a new power supply this week

59:06SPEAKERon the topic of supply chain and availability.

59:08SPEAKERAnd even the power supply I wanted was a like ships

59:12SPEAKERin maybe two to three weeks kind of situation.

59:15SPEAKER- Just go to central computer for power supplies.

59:17SPEAKER- Oh, I guess I could do that.

59:19SPEAKER- I'm a big fan of central computer.

59:23SPEAKERSo yeah, like I hope like since they're six months out

59:27SPEAKERfrom five months out from shipping new orders today,

59:31SPEAKERI have to assume that they're not thinking about

59:33SPEAKERlike that we're not looking at a new version anytime soon.

59:37SPEAKERBut also, I mean, I hope, and they've often said this,

59:42SPEAKERthey said this with the vibes, right?

59:43SPEAKERIs that they wanted to use their weight

59:46SPEAKERto kick loose a new market, right?

59:50SPEAKERAnd I think that they'll like,

59:52SPEAKERgiven that there's already a lot

59:54SPEAKERof Southeast Asian manufacturers building comparable machines

59:59SPEAKERwith APUs, I think we'll probably see some advancement

1:00:02SPEAKERalong that path.

1:00:03SPEAKERBut the question is whether they're gonna be able

1:00:04SPEAKERto ship steam OS and all that stuff.

1:00:08SPEAKERWe'll have to see.

1:00:09SPEAKERBut I guess this is the time

1:00:10SPEAKERat which we thank our patrons, Brad.

1:00:12SPEAKER- Yeah, thank you, patrons.

1:00:13SPEAKER- Thank you, patrons.

1:00:15SPEAKERIf you would like to find out how to support

1:00:17SPEAKERbrand well made tech pod,

1:00:18SPEAKERwhich is a 100% listener supported show,

1:00:20SPEAKERyou can go to patreon.com/techpod.

1:00:24SPEAKERAgain, that's patreon.com/techpod.

1:00:27SPEAKERAnd for as little as two bucks a month,

1:00:29SPEAKERyou can join our fabulous tech pod discord

1:00:31SPEAKERwhere people talk about things like the steam deck

1:00:34SPEAKERand weird hacks.

1:00:35SPEAKERI learned about MU deck on the discord.

1:00:38SPEAKERSomebody pointed me in the right direction on that

1:00:39SPEAKER'cause that saved me, like literally,

1:00:42SPEAKERit was like hours and hours and hours of configuring

1:00:44SPEAKERthat was gone by downloading this one script.

1:00:49SPEAKERAnd yeah, it's a lovely community to hang out in.

1:00:51SPEAKERWe'd love to see you there.

1:00:53SPEAKERSo this is the part of the show

1:00:55SPEAKERwhere we thank our executive producer to your patrons.

1:00:57SPEAKERAnd I'm gonna go ahead and warn you.

1:00:59SPEAKER- Oh.

1:01:00SPEAKER- There's new name shenanigans happening.

1:01:02SPEAKER- Okay, lay it on me.

1:01:03SPEAKER- Thank you, as always,

1:01:05SPEAKERto our executive producer to patrons,

1:01:06SPEAKERincluding Paddle Creek Games, Makers of Fractured Veil,

1:01:09SPEAKERLogic Ill, I assume that's their--

1:01:14SPEAKER- Hang on.

1:01:15SPEAKER- Their like nerdcore hip hop name.

1:01:18SPEAKER- Question is, is that an existing patron or a new one?

1:01:21SPEAKER- I don't want to out them.

1:01:23SPEAKERWe have Octothorpe, Bunny Crimes, Just Wedge,

1:01:26SPEAKERJacob Chappell, Joel Krauska, The Twinkie Struggle,

1:01:29SPEAKERDavid Allen and James Kamik.

1:01:30SPEAKERThank you all so, so much.

1:01:31SPEAKERWe appreciate you.

1:01:32SPEAKER- Yes, we do.

1:01:34SPEAKER- And I guess that'll do it for us this week, Brad.

1:01:37SPEAKER- That's right.

1:01:37SPEAKERIt's getting hot around here.

1:01:38SPEAKERI don't know about how Pacifica's doing.

1:01:40SPEAKER- My fans just spun up downstairs.

1:01:42SPEAKER- We're getting into it.

1:01:43SPEAKER- We should plug last week's episode of the tech pod,

1:01:47SPEAKERwhich was about home assist, the FOS pod rather,

1:01:49SPEAKERwhich was about home assistant with Paul Eschatsen.

1:01:52SPEAKERHad a lovely conversation with him

1:01:53SPEAKERabout the future of home automation,

1:01:56SPEAKERlike why he got started doing it,

1:01:58SPEAKERhow they fund the whole thing,

1:01:59SPEAKERwhat it's like to run one of the biggest opens,

1:02:02SPEAKERlike broadest open source projects in the world.

1:02:06SPEAKERAnd I think if you enjoyed this podcast,

1:02:09SPEAKERyou will probably especially like that one

1:02:11SPEAKERand also next week's, which is really exciting.

1:02:13SPEAKER- Next one is a good one.

1:02:15SPEAKERThe next one was like one of those where I was like, man,

1:02:18SPEAKERthis was an honor just to get to do this.

1:02:19SPEAKER- Yeah, I hadn't really thought about

1:02:22SPEAKERhow much I use the tool that the next guest talks about

1:02:26SPEAKERand has worked on for a long, long time now,

1:02:28SPEAKERbut it's very good.

1:02:30SPEAKER- It is a foundational piece of internet technology.

1:02:33SPEAKER- Yes, very, very important stuff.

1:02:35SPEAKERSo that's it, that'll do, that's it, FOS pod.content.town.

1:02:37SPEAKERThank you, thank you all so much for listening.

1:02:39SPEAKERI'm glad you're back in San Francisco, Brad,

1:02:41SPEAKERjust in time for the heat wave.

1:02:42SPEAKER- Well, hey, there was a worse one approaching

1:02:44SPEAKERwhen I left, so.

1:02:46SPEAKER- Oh, that's true.

1:02:46SPEAKER- Just at least it's dry heat out here.

1:02:48SPEAKER- See you all next week.

1:02:49SPEAKER- Bye.

1:02:50SPEAKER(upbeat music)

1:02:56SPEAKER[BLANK_AUDIO]