Steam Deck Motion Sensors Being Worked On For Linux's HID-Steam Driver

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Steam Deck Motion Sensors Being Worked On For Linux's HID-Steam Driver

A patch is undergoing work to add Steam Deck IMU support to the HID-Steam kernel driver for supporting the accelerometer and gyroscope sensors of the Steam Deck controller...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Steam-Deck-IMU-For-HID-Driver

[NSLW]

Why didn't Valve proposed the HID-Steam patch themselves and went with Steam Input API? Is it because they've already had the Steam Input API code at hand?

[swastika]

Why didn't Valve proposed the HID-Steam patch themselves and went with Steam Input API? Is it because they've already had the Steam Input API code at hand?

Yes, All these consumer devices have tight deadlines. So they will often pick a quick hack and then eventually the right solution will get upstreamed

[Quackdoc]

I really wish the steamdeck had a VRR display, if it did I would probably for sure go for it, but without one I find it a hard buy, I hope the next steamdeck is an itterative one so it gets the benefits of the current work, and I really hope it has a VRR display

[EspadaV8]

I wonder if this would make things easier for Yuzu/Suyu/whatever it's called now. With EmuDeck it needed something else installed to get gyro working in games like BotW.

[timofonic]

They should have added support upstream in mainline kernel while designing it, but thanks anyway.

[mdedetrich]

I really wish the steamdeck had a VRR display, if it did I would probably for sure go for it, but without one I find it a hard buy, I hope the next steamdeck is an itterative one so it gets the benefits of the current work, and I really hope it has a VRR display

I heard the reason behind this is that they are using the same OLED display as Nintendo switch and that OLED display has a specific type of connector to the daughter board that technically cannot support VRR.

[Quackdoc]

I heard the reason behind this is that they are using the same OLED display as Nintendo switch and that OLED display has a specific type of connector to the daughter board that technically cannot support VRR.

The screen is not the same as the switch, it's not even the same size for starters. But even assuming the steamdeck uses mipi (I've heard it uses eDP from multiple people) MIPI DCS v2.0 supports ARP which can be used for VRR. I believe DCS 2.0 was out around 2021.

[mdedetrich]

The screen is not the same as the switch, it's not even the same size for starters. But even assuming the steamdeck uses mipi (I've heard it uses eDP from multiple people) MIPI DCS v2.0 supports ARP which can be used for VRR. I believe DCS 2.0 was out around 2021.

I can't remember the precise details but what I do remember is that the type of connector that Steam Deck OLED uses cannot support VRR, iirc Valve said this.

[Ranguvar]

I really wish the steamdeck had a VRR display, if it did I would probably for sure go for it, but without one I find it a hard buy, I hope the next steamdeck is an itterative one so it gets the benefits of the current work, and I really hope it has a VRR display

Right, a MIPI to eDP converter is used between the panel and the GPU.
Details including possible hacks here: https://old.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/c...d_decks_panel/

Also, mobile OLED displays are tricky to get working right with VRR. It's doable, but often requires a large amount of power to compute per-pixel brightness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nywTR_83ZWs&t=3m23s (give it a few seconds)

While VRR is amazing, I don't really miss it on the Deck OLED. Wide framerate swings on OLED cause VRR flicker almost inherently, anyways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_ZMmMWi_yA

On the Deck I mostly play older non-FPS games that can run at 1280x800 90fps or 60fps, and you can easily adjust the refresh rate to match.
These run for hours on battery and it helps clear out my backlog.
The input lag is lower on the OLED deck at all refresh rates, too.

Just tweak settings for battery, as you'd have to do even if you had VRR, and for consistent framerates, also needed on OLED due to flicker.
Even demanding titles like Elden Ring running at nearly 40fps play very well at 70-80Hz.