Series S is the cheapest way to play the game by an absurd margin? Steam Deck is only about $100 more and it plays the game just fine.
this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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Absurd is too strong of a word, but 100$ ain't nothing. Not for everyone.
It's literally 1/3rd more expensive and thats not an insignificant amount. If your rent increased by 1/3rd tomorrow you'd probably be pissed and if you had a 33.33 percent chance of getting struck by lightning by stepping outside tomorrow you'd probably stay indoors that day.
$100, plus the cost of the mandatory microSD or SSD you'll need to add to even install the game on Deck, plus the $50 discount for the Series S if you have a modicum of patience. The difference is more like $175-200, and last year the Series S was $100 off for Black Friday. Assuming the game is targeting holiday 2023 for Xbox, you could potentially grab the Series S + BG3 for under $300.
Asking out of genuine ignorance here: is there a setup that allows a 100+ GB game to be played on the 64GB Steam Deck?
128GB micro SD cards are like $12. 512GB is maybe 40$. Can get a 1TB SD card for $100 but I think the 512 is a good middle ground between price and storage.
Yeah, 256 is around $20 last I looked, too. Not bad. Been considering getting one, probably not for anything with an install this large, but it's nice to know I'd have the option.
USB-C SSD:
https://www.kingston.com/en/ssd/xs2000-portable-usb-c-solid-state-drive
I set up a 2TB Win 11 install.
God damn, I'm still somehow extremely impressed by how small storage has gotten. That's wild.
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Yes, a 256GB+ SD Card. Be sure to enable slow HDD mode in BG3 settings if you're installing to an SD Card. (It will help loading screen times at the cost of using more RAM.)
Not currently, no. They burned enough dev cycles trying to get split screen co-op on the S that now BOTH the S and X versions are delayed, which I guess is better than "not happening at all."
The S has every right to exist, but as soon as it starts interfering with Series X development (which has been for a while now), it's time for it to go.
Microsoft needs to cut it loose like the boat anchor it is and just release a discless Series X and call it good.
Wait until you hear about all of the dev cycles spent getting games on the Switch.
In most cases, Nintendo platforms are ignored by 3rd parties. Non-Nintendo games rarely sell well there:
https://www.vgchartz.com/article/449937/the-switchs-growing-third-party-problem/
All it becomes is a platform with its own strengths and tradeoffs should you decide to target it. It doesn't mean that it's time for it to go.
The series S is the only thing keeping spec sheets in check. Without the Series S, Id say the steam deck and low end PC gamers suffer.
My cheap mainstream laptop runs the game on mid settings just fine. It cost ~500 USD.
Am I misreading your comment? You're saying Series S is not the cheapest because Steam Deck is more expensive? Did you have a typo? Am I suffering CO poisoning?
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I'd imagine it doesn't look very nice on a big screen TV while providing decent performance on the Steam Deck.
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AAA PC exclusive titles also have the right to exists.
I miss playing good first person shooters...
I don't blame the lack of good shooters on consoles. Consoles never interfered with that before. I blame the popularity of Battle Royale. Everything is a fucking BR now. And it's not like they just took the gameplay style; they also took the jank.
All the best new shooters are indy developed boomer shooters with retro aesthetics. And I'm getting kinda over that, too. The genre needs some new ideas.
I miss playing good shooters since the PS360 era, way before the battle royale genre entered the game.
It's when the genre exploded on consoles and it was when the genre was overly simplified and dumbed down
Before, some multiplatform FPS changed between the PC version and the console version. The console versions often had maps changed or even completely removed (and enemies where altered too) because they where too much for a controller
Me too, but some of my favorites were console exclusive. There's really no reason for those games to be PC or console exclusive these days. The financial math tends to not work out either.
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By an absurd margin? Motherfucker the steam deck is $400. If you buy a series s over a deck you're a fool.
The Series S is very frequently on sale for $50 off, sometimes more, and often comes with a bundled controller or game.
The Deck is only playable in Act 1. The frame rate in other acts struggles to reach 20 FPS, even on low settings. Also, the $400 deck you're referencing cannot even install the game unless you buy an accompanying microSD (which I can't imagine provides a good BG3 experience) or an SSD which you then crack open the steam deck to install (which will be too intimidating to most casual, non-tech people).
$450+ is a more accurate price point for playing BG3 on Steam Deck; 50% more than the Xbox MSRP, which is significantly discounted every few weeks. The Xbox will also offer a much more convenient experience to those who want to play the game on their TVs, and the game will look nicer on that hardware.
The Deck is an awesome little device, but you're overselling it here, and ignoring a lot of nuance.
I played the entire game on the steam deck AMA. I found it to be acceptable in act 3. I didn't check the fps but it felt like 30-40
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I mean it's definitely not a great experience on the steam deck. I would imagine even the Series S can run the game better than the Deck can. Especially at 1080p since the deck only has an 800p screen. (Yes you can dock it but the experience will be even worse than the already reportedly poor visuals on the 800p screen)
If that report about the Series S losing split screen is true that seems like a pretty good compromise while also allowing a decent quality single player experience for Series S owners.
It is a great experience, I do not know where this sentiment keeps coming from.
How far are you in the game? It gets worse the further you get in the game.
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The steam deck is about half as powerful as the Series S. If you don't want mobile gaming, there's zero reason to buy the steam deck over the Series S.
The steam library, full Linux operating system, and emulation of current gen Nintendo games is far from zero reason.
And if a person doesn't care about the steam library, linux operating system or emulation? If they just want to play BG3 and other modern games on their couch, running natively on their machine in a convenient, no-fuss manner? Will you admit that, for that person, the Steam Deck is a terrible option and they'd be far better served, both financially and visually, by buying an Xbox Series S, even at MSRP?
I would probably save up for the seriesX or PS5. If the S is already getting iffy here, what content are they gonna take out in future games? Why take that chance instead of saving for a system that's actually convenient? I'd say avoid the series S.
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No, not at all. The deck is much more convenient and no fuss. It has sleep / resume. I can be in the middle of a battle in BG3, put the thing into sleep and set it down for a week. Press resume and I'm instantly back to where I left off. No turning on the TV, booting the console, starting the game, loading your save. And the portability is convenient even for just in the house. Play on the couch, at the table with coffee and breakfast, in bed before falling asleep.
Then when you factor in the value you get from being able to play modern games comfortably while traveling, I stand by my point that you're a fool if you buy a series s over a deck.
Feel free to elaborate on how the Deck is convenient to someone that isn't interested in playing on a tiny, washed-out 800p display with sub-2 hour battery life while playing BG3, and how playing on a TV is less fuss with the Steam Deck than the Xbox. Quick resume is a completely different topic that would be irrelevant, even if the Xbox didn't already have the exact same feature.
Then when you factor in the value you get from being able to play modern games comfortably while traveling
Worthless to someone that only wants to play at home on their TV, or isn't tethered to an outlet. It seems you're wholly incapable of comprehending that there are people with different use-cases and priorities than your own, and for those people the Steam Deck is a vastly inferior and costlier option. Buying the device that best meets their needs doesn't make them a fool. It's astounding that you don't get this.
Sure, the Steam Deck is cool, but a Series S can actually be bought in most of the world. Last I checked, Valve only sells it in less than 20 countries
Article is well written, and I agree with most of it actually.
Microsoft did the right thing by softening their stance on system parity. Insisting on it would have hurt the Xbox further along the line, but now devs know they can still release on Xbox if they can’t get one or two features to run on the S.
I didn't know it wasn't on Xbox, that's GOTTA be hurtin em. I'm sure they'll learn from this and make whatever exceptions need to be made far earlier next time.
If I'm not mistaken the only reason it's not already on Xbox is because Microsoft insisted it needs to have shared screen on all models, which proved to be problematic and eventually impossible on S, but they refused to release it on X in the meantime.
Basically it's very much Microsoft's own doing.
We don't know that it's impossible on the S. It may yet happen sometime after launch.
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It's already been hurting them a lot it sounds like. I don't think Baldur's Gate is the first game to not release on Xbox because they couldn't achieve system parity with the S. If they've really softened on it, then that's a good idea. Better late than never.
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Just gotta change some settings and it's perfectly playable throughout the game.
Also while it's neat that they made the game as pretty as they did, this is at the end of the day an isometric turn based crpg. It shouldnt be that hard to scale down.
It's not exactly isometric considering you can tilt and zoom the camera and get it all the way down to over the shoulder adventure style, allowing you to see off into those beautiful vistas. It has some performance issues even on PC in some places like the mountains and the namesake city.
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