Got a Steam Deck (ostensibly for the kids, but they only get to use it docked). Overall, I am thrilled with it - far and away the best portable platform I’ve ever seen. The downside is that I thought I had left behind “debugging Linux display configuration issues” like 15 years ago, and this is very much (like 100%) that same feel: trawling through forum threads and Reddit posts and a depressing lack of official documentation, while tweaking beta settings and doing updates and trying to figure out which of at least 4-5 sets of config options need to be modified.
To be fair - that's less on the steam deck and more on PC gaming forever having the hardware platform shift under it's feet; the situation you describe isn't "steam deck" - it's "pc gaming". You're old enough (I think?) to have had to struggle with IRQ settings and sound cards and needing to find the magic combination that worked...
Let me ask you this - are you seeing this problem with deck-verified games? The only difference here between this and, say, the switch is you're being allowed outside of the curated section into the jungle.
@Biggles haven’t even gotten a game launched - if I’m in game mode and plug into the dock, native screen goes black, and external display recognizes a signal input but also displays black. Issue apparently either EDID or HDCP. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I will test with an Apple USB-C to HDMI adapter later.
UPDATE: It was the Valve dock - plugged in my Apple USB-C to HDMI adapter and it worked instantly. Now I’m testing kb/mouse support on various games :)
Very surprising; I'd be expecting valve to test their updates vs their own hardware prior to release. Are you running the alpha or beta release?
@Biggles nope. Bog standard.
*sigh* next Steam Deck issue: unresponsive/will not power on after going into sleep mode the night before. Totally unresponsive, unable to boot into BIOS. Left it plugged in overnight, Deck charger confirmed working. I guess now I get to take it apart and disconnect the battery?? This is a lot more tinkering than I anticipated when I bought this thing. ಠ_ಠ
It does not seem unreasonable to expect that consumer hardware Just Works (tm) after purchase, at least for the first week?! Maybe Apple has spoiled me, but this is NOT something I’d recommend to non-technical users based on my experience so far, and I’m all of 48 hours into it so far. #SteamDeck
Surprise! Secret button combo made it respond, but apparently reset to factory defaults and now it boots but only partially. This is truly the desktop Linux experience. Bonus: no user manual accompanied my $700 industry-leading gaming console, so I’m doing the time-honored interpretive dance of weighing the relative value of random forum posts. #SteamDeck
I thought I was paying money in exchange for playing games, but apparently I was also signing up as a beta tester. Who knew?! #SteamDeck
UPDATE (perhaps final?): my reset from earlier appears to have fixed things, and my subsequent issues were apparently from a completely drained battery (went from 100% to 0% during the hour or so that I was trying to get it to turn on today). I am crossing my fingers that it will now remain stable, and I won't need to RMA it. I'm glad I figured this out before I did a factory reset from an external USB drive. #SteamDeck
I told my wife I don't mind dealing with issues as long as I only have to deal with them *once* - if I fix it and it stays fixed, that's acceptable. (Not ideal - ideal is everything just works and no tinkering is required - but acceptable.) #SteamDeck
@darkuncle good luck! This was my experience
RMA fixed it, but it took a whole month
@mikeymikey I need to go into Desktop mode and poke around apparently
@darkuncle I had the exact same experiences as you with the device frequently not booting back up from sleep mode, requiring force shutoff and powering it back on
@mikeymikey interesting. my battery health is 100%, so as far as I can tell I don't actually seem to have a hardware issue (but I need to run through a few more QA/test cycles here to confirm that everything is stable). Fingers crossed!
@darkuncle
Ooohhh......
So - this just released: https://www.retro-exo.com/exodos.html
I wonder how outlandish it would be getting it running on the steam deck. In particular the "download on demand" version. Gotta admit, a handheld with every major DOS release on demand might be fun...