GasBandit
Staff member
With a dock, a Steam deck literally becomes a full fledged desktop PC. Albeit running linux, but it is a real PC.
My steam deck has basically replaced my need to upgrade my 2013 gaming PC.
The Tech Random Crap Thread
- Thread starter DarkAudit
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My steam deck has basically replaced my need to upgrade my 2013 gaming PC.
figmentPez
Staff member
Getting the Steam Deck to print without installing Windows (or a different Linux) is not necessarily an easy task. For some reason Valve doesn't install CUPS as part of Steam OS, and I'm not sure that's something you can install as a flatpak.
GasBandit
Staff member
Fair enough, I wouldn't have really thought of the complications of printing because i haven't printed anything at home in over 15 years.
My father-in-law, to me, earlier today: "I need your help tomorrow getting that printer working."
Me: "...why?"
--Patrick
On the other end of the spectrum...
Me, moving to TX: "I don't need a color laserjet, really. I'll just buy the cheaper black and white one."
Me, 3 days later: "man, I wish I had a color laserjet"
Me, moving to TX: "I don't need a color laserjet, really. I'll just buy the cheaper black and white one."
Me, 3 days later: "man, I wish I had a color laserjet"
Saw an article about how laser printers are being phased out due to their huge negative impact on the environment.
I’m hard-pressed to think of any printer that isn’t a huge impact on the environment, if not due to power draw, then due to the billions of discarded ink cartridges and printer bodies.
—Patrick
I’m hard-pressed to think of any printer that isn’t a huge impact on the environment, if not due to power draw, then due to the billions of discarded ink cartridges and printer bodies.
—Patrick
my assistant and I have to write out 30 price comps on a sheet we hand in every week, my GM's take it, file it, and 6 months later shred it. we only have to hand in a paper copy to prove we actually did our comps, we enter them all into the system every week(well I dont, because our prices havent changed on commodity goods since covid) so basically its a huge time sink just to show we are productive. The paper waste is huge just for record keeping.
Epson stops making laser printers for sustainability reasons
Inkjet is the future, claims Japanese printer maker
www.theregister.com
Something tells me that it might have more to do with the fact that ink costs the end user more than gold or caviar, and is a huge profit-making part of the business, and nothing to do with the environment. Toner is cheap, and lasts longer between replacements. A toner cartridge lasts me well over a year, and in my last printer, which I owned for a decade, I changed out the drum once.
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This was kind of my thinking, as well. "Encourage" people to use expensive consumables but frame it as environmental.
--Patrick
I don't know a single thing about programming, nor do I fully understand the surge in AI or ChatGPT, but Tom Scott thinks it's basically the herald of things to come. He compares it with Napster being the herald of change in music distribution, for example.
GasBandit
Staff member
For some reason that reminds me of that part in RoboCop 2 where the prototype pulls its own head off.
So any good suggestions for a Steam Deck dock? There's the official one, which seems like it'll do its job, but there's decks from $20 to €400 and I do intend to use it almost exclusively as a desktop on one site, so having a good dock is pretty important to me for KB/mouse/monitor/sound.
GasBandit
Staff member
Do you intend to have multiple monitors or just one monitor?
I usually use just one, though I certianly wouldn't be adverse to the option of hooking up a second one on occasion.
GasBandit
Staff member
It occurs to me that my answer probably won't change regardless of the above question's answer.
The official valve Steam Deck Dock is fine for getting the deck on a TV, and has enough USB ports for mouse and keyboard. It does not have a separate sound output, so you'd either need a display with built-in speakers (or a sound out passthru as some HP monitors have), or a USB or bluetooth audio solution (the deck does support bluetooth).
The official dock also has one HDMI and one DP port out, but I don't know if they can be used simultaneously or not.
What I use at my desk for work, which turns out to also work marvelously for the Steam Deck, is a Falwedi 14-in-1
It has 2 HDMI outs, a DP out, more USB connectors than the official dock, and also has a 3.5mm audio jack so you can use analog headphones/speakers. It also costs a lot less.
It does have two drawbacks:
1) it doesn't come with a "power" cable, though it has a hookup for supplying power. You will need to put your steam deck's power cable to the power input on the dock if you want to keep the deck powered while it is docked, and if you switch back and forth between mobile and docked a lot, that's one more cable to manage and fiddle with. Of course, you could always get another 100w USB charger cable, but that kinda torpedoes the "it's cheaper than the official dock" part.
2) it doesn't have the official docks's "built specifically to prop up your deck" form factor. This can be a bit of a hassle because you will need to be able to access your deck's built-in screen to enter your PIN to unlock it whenever you wake it back up from sleep mode, and in desktop mode, usually the built-in screen defaults to being your "main" screen where your menus open and your apps first appear when launched. You can, of course, change this in settings, but when I did that I had an "oh shit" moment where I'd accidentally changed the resolution of my dock monitors to be too low but also disabled the built-in screen and so there was a window that was "too big" for the screen and I had no way to get rid of it short of factory resetting my dock. So, going forward to be safe, I've opted to keep my built-in screen active while docked. But because it isn't propped up, it's a bit cumbersome to sit up and lean over to look at it and manipulate it by touch.
Also bear in mind that the multiple monitors only work in "desktop" mode. In SteamOS (the default) mode the deck runs in, only one monitor will be active, and it will be locked to 720p. You can have whatever resolution your monitors support in desktop mode, though if you go too high and try to run games in it, performance will not be as good.
That said, I was perfectly able to play Doom 2016 in 1080p at 60fps in desktop mode while browsing halforums on the second screen, using my dock. (Pictured dock is actually a $400+ HP thunderbolt dock I no longer use - performance on the falwedi dock that costs 10% what the thunderbolt dock does is identical) More modern games, though, like Darktide or other modern games put out by lazy programmers who think that everybody has a 3000 series nvidia gpu or better by now, will start to chug in desktop mode. Running in defualt SteamOS mode (which is limited to 1 display and 720p) helps, but any game less than a year old might still run into issues.
The official valve Steam Deck Dock is fine for getting the deck on a TV, and has enough USB ports for mouse and keyboard. It does not have a separate sound output, so you'd either need a display with built-in speakers (or a sound out passthru as some HP monitors have), or a USB or bluetooth audio solution (the deck does support bluetooth).
The official dock also has one HDMI and one DP port out, but I don't know if they can be used simultaneously or not.
What I use at my desk for work, which turns out to also work marvelously for the Steam Deck, is a Falwedi 14-in-1
It has 2 HDMI outs, a DP out, more USB connectors than the official dock, and also has a 3.5mm audio jack so you can use analog headphones/speakers. It also costs a lot less.
It does have two drawbacks:
1) it doesn't come with a "power" cable, though it has a hookup for supplying power. You will need to put your steam deck's power cable to the power input on the dock if you want to keep the deck powered while it is docked, and if you switch back and forth between mobile and docked a lot, that's one more cable to manage and fiddle with. Of course, you could always get another 100w USB charger cable, but that kinda torpedoes the "it's cheaper than the official dock" part.
2) it doesn't have the official docks's "built specifically to prop up your deck" form factor. This can be a bit of a hassle because you will need to be able to access your deck's built-in screen to enter your PIN to unlock it whenever you wake it back up from sleep mode, and in desktop mode, usually the built-in screen defaults to being your "main" screen where your menus open and your apps first appear when launched. You can, of course, change this in settings, but when I did that I had an "oh shit" moment where I'd accidentally changed the resolution of my dock monitors to be too low but also disabled the built-in screen and so there was a window that was "too big" for the screen and I had no way to get rid of it short of factory resetting my dock. So, going forward to be safe, I've opted to keep my built-in screen active while docked. But because it isn't propped up, it's a bit cumbersome to sit up and lean over to look at it and manipulate it by touch.
Also bear in mind that the multiple monitors only work in "desktop" mode. In SteamOS (the default) mode the deck runs in, only one monitor will be active, and it will be locked to 720p. You can have whatever resolution your monitors support in desktop mode, though if you go too high and try to run games in it, performance will not be as good.
That said, I was perfectly able to play Doom 2016 in 1080p at 60fps in desktop mode while browsing halforums on the second screen, using my dock. (Pictured dock is actually a $400+ HP thunderbolt dock I no longer use - performance on the falwedi dock that costs 10% what the thunderbolt dock does is identical) More modern games, though, like Darktide or other modern games put out by lazy programmers who think that everybody has a 3000 series nvidia gpu or better by now, will start to chug in desktop mode. Running in defualt SteamOS mode (which is limited to 1 display and 720p) helps, but any game less than a year old might still run into issues.
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GasBandit
Staff member
I also spaced on the fact that the deck itself does have a 3.5, so it's not like you're SOL if you go with the official dock for analog sound. It just mildly irks my sensibilities to have yet another cable that has to be managed with a docking solution instead of a single connection, and if you need more USB devices, a 3.0 hub also works fine with it.
figmentPez
Staff member
figmentPez
Staff member
Why the fuck would someone put a ball mouse in a nostalgia album? Who in their right mind would miss ball mice? Get that shit out of here. I got an optical mouse as soon as I could afford one and I never looked back. Being nostalgic for ball mice is like being nostalgic for leaded gas.
GasBandit
Staff member
I was like a wizard-alchemist, keeper of horrible and arcane knowledge. I educated the laypersons, that to keep your mouse working well, you periodically had to open the bottom, take out the ball, stick in a knife or screwdriver and SCRAPE THE COMPACTED HUMAN SKIN MUSH OFF THE ROLLERS to keep it from jamming up so much.
People were grateful for the easy fix for their mouse performance, but discomfited by the visceral nature of the act.
I have a dock/hub from Amazon that works great for Switch and Steam Deck. Can share a link if that would be helpful.
GasBandit
Staff member
The other day I discovered Waze has a "Christina Aguilera" voice mode and I haven't stopped giggling while driving since. I've been getting turn-by-turn directions to places I damn well know how to get to just so I can hear her 90s vocal burn "I'm 14 and this is deep" sophomoric aphorisms. "In 500 feet, make a u-turn. Sometimes you have to look behind you to understand the way forward." SNRKK okay Christina 
This hurts my soul.
This guy ten minutes later on the phone for an RMA: "Yeah I don't know what happened, it just came out of the box like this"
I've made similar phonecalls...
GasBandit
Staff member
I guess I'm turning into the forum EV guy, sharing every interesting EV article I come across...
www.motortrend.com
TLDR: No, Electric cars aren't worse for the environment than ICE cars. Yes, they have more of an impact to manufacture, but are 6x as efficient in delivering energy to the wheels, and become better than ICE within 2 years.
You're Being Lied to About Electric Cars
Sorry, that meme you just retweeted isn't correct.
TLDR: No, Electric cars aren't worse for the environment than ICE cars. Yes, they have more of an impact to manufacture, but are 6x as efficient in delivering energy to the wheels, and become better than ICE within 2 years.
Plus, as I've already said elsewhere, we already possess the technology to build an infrastructure which would effectively reduce the "fuel" cost for EVs to zero, which we definitely could not say for ICE. In the future, ICE vehicles would be the equivalent of carbide lanterns or oil furnaces--still technically useful, but relegated to esoterica.
--Patrick
--Patrick
As much as I'm a proponent of EVs, I also don't think they should just 1 for 1 replace motor vehicles as we know it. Many places, especially in North America, are built in a way where having a car is a necessity.I guess I'm turning into the forum EV guy, sharing every interesting EV article I come across...
You're Being Lied to About Electric Cars
Sorry, that meme you just retweeted isn't correct.
TLDR: No, Electric cars aren't worse for the environment than ICE cars. Yes, they have more of an impact to manufacture, but are 6x as efficient in delivering energy to the wheels, and become better than ICE within 2 years.
I'm more in favor of reducing society's need for personal motor vehicles. Not entirely eliminate, but certainly reduce. More safe bicycle infrastructure, expanded public transport, work from home initiatives. By themselves, they can't reduce personal vehicles, but all three combined, along with other things I'm sure I'm neglecting, could make a major dent.
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figmentPez
Staff member
Amazon is adding a dialog boost option to the audio on it's Prime Video titles:
https://www.engadget.com/amazon-add...s-original-tv-shows-and-movies-150023374.html
I'm going to check this out, ASAP. I hate how much louder music and action are in most movies and TV shows. Also, I miss when I had working 5.1 speakers, because having a center channel really helped dialog.
https://www.engadget.com/amazon-add...s-original-tv-shows-and-movies-150023374.html
I'm going to check this out, ASAP. I hate how much louder music and action are in most movies and TV shows. Also, I miss when I had working 5.1 speakers, because having a center channel really helped dialog.