Gw2 on the steam deck?

[Kikk Dorr.5341]

I'm personally quite excited for the steam deck to play my steam library on the go, but! I'm also excited to play Gw2 on it too. Any tech savvy people have any idea on how gw2 will perform in regards to the specs of the steam deck??
(Side note: playing gw2 on a controller may be "odd" but I'm not particularly fussed about that.)
 

[lezbefriends.7516]

Steam deck is gonna flop, just look at Vita: great games, but it wasn’t Nintendo.

Edited July 22, 2021 by Mortifera.6138

[MarkoGold.7126]

gw is not even on steam how are you gonna play it on there ? that new handheld uses some linux based os. 

[Quench.7091]

The Steam Deck is Linux at default, right? There may be some additional steps in that, while using their custom version of Linux. I'm not a Linux user myself. Seems like they might have Proton built into Steam for the device.

Anyways, here's a guide I quickly found that details getting GW2 onto Steam on a Linux computer:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/ahpdry/linux_guide_use_steam_to_install_gw2_on_linux/
Might want to save that for later, if you do have a Steam Deck and need some extra steps.

 

[Dawdler.8521]

Well its probably not going to be an alltogether pleasant experience regardless. It only has 8 CUs, compared to the low end 6700XT at 40 CUs, its entry level laptop performance. Depending on their cooling the CPU might be crippled too. But it should be sufficient to run it at least. 

[Tatwi.3562]

56 minutes ago, MarkoGold.7126 said:

gw is not even on steam how are you gonna play it on there ? that new handheld uses some linux based os. 

The Steam Deck uses normal x86_64 PC hardware. Normal Windows 10 can be installed, as can any and all Windows software.

[anduriell.6280]

3 hours ago, Kikk Dorr.5341 said:

I'm personally quite excited for the steam deck to play my steam library on the go, but! I'm also excited to play Gw2 on it too. Any tech savvy people have any idea on how gw2 will perform in regards to the specs of the steam deck??
(Side note: playing gw2 on a controller may be "odd" but I'm not particularly fussed about that.)
 

I would think of it more like an alternative to a switch which can doubles as cheap desktop than a gaming pc. 

Probably you could try Gw2 in Geforce Now in that machine thou. It would not be bound to hardware specs.  

[Quench.7091]

1 hour ago, Tatwi.3562 said:

The Steam Deck uses normal x86_64 PC hardware. Normal Windows 10 can be installed, as can any and all Windows software.

 

They could! Still might want to feed games through Steam, though. No controller support for GW2. Steam provides controller support, so you can map a joystick to WASD to even non-Steam games. Trying their Linux OS might be worth it, if it makes things more seamless.

[Danikat.8537]

I had the same thought. I'm often away from home for work and visiting family and it would be nice to be able to log in and do a few bits when I have some down time. In theory it seems like it should work, at least for less demanding activities, I'm not sure I'd want to storm Stonemist on this thing. But since I'm still trying to find a PS5 for sale I'm not in any hurry to try and get hold of another new machine so I'm going to wait and see how it performs in practice rather than going by what Valve have promised and journalists expect from the reported specs.

 

But the fact that it's effectively a small computer with controller inputs means it may not be too much of a problem if it's not as successful as Valve are hoping and they stop supporting it, because it should be reasonably easy to modify (software at least, not sure about the hardware). Apparently you can even uninstall the Steam OS and replace it with something else if you want to.

[SlaYer.2138]

The steam deck spec is AMD Zen2, 4 core/8 threads with 2.4-3.5GHz clock speed and built in RDNA 2 gpu. It's not great (comparing to a gaming pc) but it should be able to handle GW2. I have an old laptop that has similar clock speed and can play gw2 at low settings. Also, the resolution is lower (1280x800), so it's less intensive on the hardware. Assuming the drivers work fine, the problem will be mapping the keys, bcuz I'm not sure if the game is compatible with all the control keys. Also note that, the player will have to play in action camera without a mouse clicking target. Another thing is that playing on wifi can be laggy, especially during meta events. And there is battery life. It says 2 to 8 hours. For a cpu demanding game like gw2, the playtime probably will be on the low end of the stick. Of course, you can always charge while playing. I'm honestly curious about the results from testing, which I'm sure some enthusiasts will eagerly post on Reddit.

[Metal.3826]

Steam Deck uses Arch Linux w/ KDE desktop. If GW2 isn't on Steam yet by release you can just install Lutris and install GW2 that way, which is what I use. GW2 runs perfectly fine on Linux for me. I haven't noticed much of a performance difference between running it on Windows vs Linux other then having to turn off one graphic setting (I don't have the game open and can't remember which one). I don't know how well the game works with a controller though or if it supports a controller at all. Performance (in general) will be interesting once reviewers get their hands on it.

[Danikat.8537]

52 minutes ago, Metal.3826 said:

Steam Deck uses Arch Linux w/ KDE desktop. If GW2 isn't on Steam yet by release you can just install Lutris and install GW2 that way, which is what I use. GW2 runs perfectly fine on Linux for me. I haven't noticed much of a performance difference between running it on Windows vs Linux other then having to turn off one graphic setting (I don't have the game open and can't remember which one). I don't know how well the game works with a controller though or if it supports a controller at all. Performance (in general) will be interesting once reviewers get their hands on it.

The game itself doesn't support controllers, but it supports keybindings done through 3rd party software. For example if you're using a gaming mouse with a bunch of extra buttons you can bind controls to them, you just have to have it on a keyboard key as well. A controller can be set up in much the same way and I know some people do use them.

[KrHome.1920]

11 hours ago, Tatwi.3562 said:

The Steam Deck uses normal x86_64 PC hardware. Normal Windows 10 can be installed, as can any and all Windows software.

 

Good luck finding a windows driver for that APU!

 

Zen2+RDNA2 doesn't exist in the PC market. As long as Valve and AMD don't provide Windows support, Steam OS and Proton is  your only option.

[Dawdler.8521]

4 hours ago, KrHome.1920 said:

 

Good luck finding a windows driver for that APU!

 

Zen2+RDNA2 doesn't exist in the PC market. As long as Valve and AMD don't provide Windows support, Steam OS and Proton is  your only option.

Its literally just a lowpower laptop CPU . Pretty much identical chips except Zen3+RDNA2 is coming soon too. 99% certain it will have no problem running Win10 or Win11 for that matter. 

Edited July 22, 2021 by Dawdler.8521

[lynxaegon.3175]

It probably runs Geforce Now, and GW2 is on GFN, so.. you can probably play on steam deck, but i don't think it's playable on a controller. If you can hook up a mouse & keyboard that would bring up many possibilities with GFN

Edited July 23, 2021 by lynxaegon.3175

[Quench.7091]

On 7/23/2021 at 2:56 PM, lynxaegon.3175 said:

It probably runs Geforce Now, and GW2 is on GFN, so.. you can probably play on steam deck, but i don't think it's playable on a controller. If you can hook up a mouse & keyboard that would bring up many possibilities with GFN

From my understanding, you can hook up Steam Deck to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse via USB C. They have a desktop style mode.

 

They also have additional buttons on the back of the controller itself, so it might be possible to treat those as modifier keys, such as shift and ctrl. It could work, but it might be frustrating to get used to.

[Danikat.8537]

9 hours ago, Quench.7091 said:

From my understanding, you can hook up Steam Deck to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse via USB C. They have a desktop style mode.

 

They also have additional buttons on the back of the controller itself, so it might be possible to treat those as modifier keys, such as shift and ctrl. It could work, but it might be frustrating to get used to.

If you're going to hook it up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse you might as well just use an actual PC.

 

It's got 4 buttons and a d-pad (another 4 buttons) on the front, 4 shoulder buttons, 4 on the back (16 buttons total), 2 track pads and 2 thumb sticks (which you can probably push down to act as extra buttons) and a touch screen. So that gives quite a few options.

 

(Plus 6 buttons which probably can't be rebound easily, labelled 'volume up/down' 'view', 'stream' 'options' and 'quick access' on the diagram I'm looking at, and a power button which you probably shouldn't rebind even if you can.)

 

I'd probably use one stick to move the camera, one to move the character, use a track pad as a mouse for navigating menus and keep the buttons for other things. I'd probably bind heal, dodge and mount to the back buttons so they're always in reach and use the 4th as a modifier so I can use the same 4 buttons for weapon and utility skills (8 in total) then have a dedicated button for the elite so I don't push it by accident. Maybe use the shoulder buttons for skills, again because they'll be easy to reach while doing other things with my thumbs. Then have the F1-4 profession skills on the D-pad, F5, special action, take target and weapon swap on the A, B, X, Y buttons, put jump on one of those with a modifier and I think that covers all the things I'd normally do. No shortcuts for mounts or menus, but I can live without them. Oh, maybe another button + modifier to open the chat box and an onscreen keyboard so I can type using the touch screen.

 

It would take a bit of getting used to, and I'm not saying it would be as easy as using a keyboard and mouse but the trade-off is being able to use it in places I can't bring my PC, like when I'm visiting my family or in the hotel on a work trip.

[Thelyron.3420]

There was a guy creating a Steam Controller config for GW2 on reddit. (I play gw2 with a steam controller)

it'll work the same way later for steam deck except steam deck has even more buttons and possibilities.

Will try it out later today on linux debian and maybe edit my post.

I'm also playing GW2 on Linux for years. Just being curious how well the CPU is then it comes to single thread performance which ist essential für GW2.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Thelyron.3420

[Dawdler.8521]

2 minutes ago, Thelyron.3420 said:

Just being curious how well the CPU is then it comes to single thread performance which ist essential für GW2.

With the given Ryzen specs, it has the single core performance of roughly an i7 7700k. Should be fine for GW2, but without knowing whether it will thermal throttle it could also be severly kitten.

[Passe.9387]

I play GW2 on a GPD Win Max (1st Gen) which has way lower specs and it works great. In Dungeons, Fractals and Raids I can even set Graphics to best Appearance. So I think the Steam Deck should have enough Power for high Details in the open world.

 

As the Screen just has 1280x720 px (which is absolutely enough for a small screen) it needs way less graphics power. 

 

I use "Controller Companion" for mapping the Gamepad. Just enable "Autotargeting" and "Snap Ground Target to Current Target" in GW2 Options, in Contoller Companion map Joysticks to WASD/WQES and Cursor movement, RB/LB or RT/LT to Mouse Buttons and whatever you want the remaining Buttons to be and have fun.

 

 

[The Greyhawk.9107]

Can't help but think you'd be better off getting a laptop if you want to play GW2 on the go.  I made do with a laptop for years for all my gaming, not just GW2, it can be done and with likely less hassle.

[moony.5780]

1 hour ago, The Greyhawk.9107 said:

Can't help but think you'd be better off getting a laptop if you want to play GW2 on the go.  I made do with a laptop for years for all my gaming, not just GW2, it can be done and with likely less hassle.

But a laptop in the bed is not comfortable at all. A Handheld is much nicer in how u can sit or lie down while gaming. Especially if sitting is not possible its great. I cant imagine useing a laptop in a good way, while chilling in the bed.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

On 11/7/2021 at 1:50 AM, moony.5780 said:

But a laptop in the bed is not comfortable at all. A Handheld is much nicer in how u can sit or lie down while gaming. Especially if sitting is not possible its great. I cant imagine useing a laptop in a good way, while chilling in the bed.

I used to do it all the time when I was young and didn't own furniture, I never found it particularly uncomfortable.  Get one of those cushions that shaped kinda like a easy chair.

[Thelyron.3420]

On 8/13/2021 at 2:37 PM, Dawdler.8521 said:

With the given Ryzen specs, it has the single core performance of roughly an i7 7700k. Should be fine for GW2, but without knowing whether it will thermal throttle it could also be severly kitten.

According to some insiders the zen2 in the deck will be comparable to the 3750h Ryzen 7. It's far off the 7700k unfortunately. But let's see. 

 

I'm hyped anyway.

[Thelyron.3420]

On 11/7/2021 at 6:06 AM, The Greyhawk.9107 said:

Can't help but think you'd be better off getting a laptop if you want to play GW2 on the go.  I made do with a laptop for years for all my gaming, not just GW2, it can be done and with likely less hassle.

Not so sure about this. Laptops are mostly the most overpriced poopoo with alot of bottlenecks built in to safe some pennies for OEMs.

I guess the deck is far superior to any laptop especially in this price range.