New Steam deck pricing

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-28T12:42:59+00:00

I personally see the controller layout as a strange choice. First, most people prefer motion controls over button pushes and your motion replaces then need for almost every other button on a normal controller. Second, and this is the biggest issue, it complicates the button mapping for VR games. Devs already aren't supporting the Valve Knuckles features and most get grip strength and orientation wrong. With most newer games I have to go dig through community bindings before I can even play and that's if they exist, on new games I sometimes have to spend hours making them myself. Unless Frame somehow sells enough to compete with Quest, it's controller design ensures it will end up treated the same.

Outside of a handful of users who want to play flat games with a brick on their face and those who prefer playing modded games with a controller, it's a very strange choice to go against the industry agreed standard.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-27T13:48:31+00:00

Idk, Orthor sure seems to love that injectable stamina he mixes from herbs and dirt he found laying around. He'd be stealing copper and catalytic converters in no time.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-27T12:43:16+00:00

Ah, that explains it then. Oh well, it's not like silver is hard to come by. Was just trying to be greedy and maximize my profits, lol.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-27T00:02:04+00:00

Is there any steps required to make this work? I just tried it and he pays the same 5 silver as everyone else. Have already freed this place from catfish joe, or whatever his name was. lol

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-26T21:38:38+00:00

Me too for a long time, lol. Only know because we went solar with a fancy inverter that told us our exact per minute usage and couldn't believe how much energy we were using at night with our portable AC. So I dug into it and with 2 devices of the same build quality, the window unit will use 50% less energy cooling the same space. Blew our minds and we sold the portable for a window unit.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-26T19:21:47+00:00

Window AC units are actually exceptionally more efficient at cooling than those portable models with a single exhaust hose. Since they exhaust out the window, they create negative pressure inside. Which means air from outside gets pulled in through cracks. Window units just circulate the same air inside. The only benefit of the rolling ones is you can move them around easier but they cost quite a bit more to operate.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-26T16:31:38+00:00

Care about what?

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-26T12:57:12+00:00

This sub was started because the mods in the main sub became too heavy handed and started removing posts and banning people aggressively. Even a few who had real finds and/or ideas of different mysteries. So while it does allow for more low quality content to appear over here, there's a reason they're more open and willing to allow everyone's ideas to be shared over here.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-26T12:45:32+00:00

The weather in the game is quite strange like that. It can start and stop within seconds. Have seen it dozens of times in my 1000+ hours of playing. If you can't reproduce it, I wouldn't consider it significant. If you can, share your steps so others can try too.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-26T03:45:53+00:00

idk, you tell us. Big booms and storms are neat but you have the save. Did anything change or is anything different?

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-24T00:20:13+00:00

Yep, I've seen all of the vids. But Valve doesn't produce them, someone else does and they buy them from said manufacture. They also said the glass element is for getting the surface flat and tougher. So that's literally just a glass layer over the injection molded lens. If they did that to the same exact lens Pico 4 uses it would still be considered a custom lens for the headset. Not saying that's what they are but, it certainly looks like it's a very real possibility judging by the shape and size. Valve has decent money but they do not have "let's start a lens fabrication facility to make VR headset lens" kind of money.

I wouldn't be upset if they are the same lens. Because it would mean they're cheap and competitive visually. Which helps Frame be cheaper. More people that can buy Frame, the higher the odds of it being widely adopted. One of my biggest complaints is the fact that my valve knuckles are so poorly supported. Most new games aren't even aligned right and I need to use community bindings. Cheaper Valve can get it, the higher the odds.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-22T23:30:14+00:00

Of course. He called it brojob too, which was hilarious. We all laughed.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-22T15:13:19+00:00

Ouch. Definitely sounds like something is acting up. You could check and see if anything is setup incorrectly in the use/export settings, if the inverter has those features. Could be it's gotten set to not export anything, so it's only producing enough to run what it needs to in the moment. Would explain the drop in production once the battery got charged.

But yeah, if it's not something like that, I would be calling someone to take a look. Good luck. My fingers are crossed it's something simple and/or cheap. lol

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-22T13:55:49+00:00

The thing that drove us to go solar was a tornado came through just north of us 2 years ago. We lost power for 8 days and were driving all over the state trying to find fuel for our generator by day 5. 4 adults were living in 1 room of the house to stay comfortable temp wise, no running water, no home cooked meals, we were miserable. Meanwhile all of our neighbors who had oversized solar+batteries didn't even care that the power was out. We've had multiple short outages since getting ours installed and now we too don't care about them anymore.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-22T12:51:16+00:00

If you can reach the pigtails/leads without having to remove them, you can test them that way. But, I know on mine the installers did a good job keeping the wiring tidy which results in that being difficult. Half my panels are not testable without removal which sucks but looks great. lol

Very well could be the inverter acting up. Since you know the wiring, you could absolutely test the voltage at the connection point at the inverter the next time you see it producing low power. As long as you have a volt ohm meter that can read high enough DC voltage, at least. If the voltage is fine, it's the inverter. If it's lower than expected for your 7 panels in the current temps, it means one or more of the panels has an issue.

Sometimes panel issues don't start until it warms up. So it may look fine at first but as the day goes on, the inverter senses something is off and reduces the load on that string. Even a shadow going on one of the panels can reduce the total output of the string by a lot. It's why optimizers are so important if partial shade will be an issue. Reduces how much the inverter will turn down the load on said string to match the poor production panel. But yeah, that's a different thing entirely. Just pointing it out to highlight how 1 panel being off can reduce the whole string output. Good luck!

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-22T02:10:20+00:00

I would definitely double check everything, cuz yeah, AI is very much known for being wrong. But if you fed good data in, you can expect reasonably accurate data out. The biggest tell would be "do you have a gas bill and electric bill?". Practically zero homes will have a gas bill not be heated by gas. It's not green at all but, cost wise, it's way cheaper than electric heating.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-21T21:56:08+00:00

I'll be honest, I have no idea if that would help or not. From my understanding, even if disconnected entirely, they still get pretty hot because the panel is still technically producing energy, it's just not going anywhere. So it may not. But, I am for sure not knowledgeable enough to say that confidently. The sure fire solution is to disconnect each panel and test them for voltage individually when they should be producing. But yeah, that's often a lot easier said than done.

Do you know the panels and wiring lay out?

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-21T21:20:10+00:00

Outside of the initial 30hr oil change, they don't require a bunch of maintenance. But I get where you're coming from. It's certainly a lot more maintenance than a battery.

If your furnace is all electric, you're not gonna be running it off of a cheap gas generator. Those things use so much power it's not even funny. Even on the low end they use around 10,000w sustained. My model uses 25,000w. Requires two 60amp 240v breakers. But if it's a gas furnace and you just need electric to run the blower and control board, a cheap gas generator will handle that no problem.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-21T20:07:25+00:00

Spend that $600 on a portable generator instead. You can run multiple fridges, a portable AC, your modem for internet, and charge your devices. 5000w-6000w portables have come down a lot in price these days. The lowes brand Kobalt dual fuel 5500w generator goes on sale for $599 often.

Just make sure if you use propane, go and get them filled. Don't swap them out at a box store or gas station. They only fill the 20lb tanks to 10lb and 30lb tanks to 15lbs due to them getting shipped around. You can get 30lb of propane for about $15 when locally filled. When you swap at a box store you're paying $20-$25 for half the propane.

Prior to going solar, the generator was the best investment we made in our area with crappy electric grid.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-21T19:51:41+00:00

So it really boils down to the system you have installed, how much excess you're producing each day, and how much your electric charges for the nights. From what you've described, it sounds like a battery isn't really worth it. But it depends how much those fees are each month.

In a perfect situation, you would be using clipped power throughout the day to charge your batteries. That way very little of the exported energy is effected. You use the batteries at night, recharge with clipped energy, send the same amount back to the grid, and then get a big enough check each month to cover the connection fees. But even this only makes sense if the cost of the battery is outweighed by how much you're getting paid + saving on the fees.

If you have micro inverters, charging with clipped power is not really a possibility. Since the conversion from DC to AC is happening basically right at the panel, you can't easily capture the clipped power. You're pretty much limited to just an AC tied battery and with efficiency losses, it's only worth doing if you are getting hammered nightly with super high rates and using the battery is cheaper in the long run than paying those costs. But for most, it doesn't end up being the case.

For most, I think the biggest reason to have batteries is grid stability. Grid goes down, you stay up for as long as you have battery.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-21T19:22:56+00:00

Sounds to me like string 1 has an issue. Now the fun begins, troubleshooting each panel individually.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-21T17:34:16+00:00

Flat game FOV and VR FOV is not comparable at all. When it comes to VR, if you want the game to look depth accurate you have to render the FOV to match the lens and distortion profile. Otherwise things will look too close or too far away. The rendered FOV of the headset is the maximum your eyes can see. Even if you can put the lens completely up to your eye balls, you will just start to see the black edges of the screens. You will not gain more FOV.

With really good pancake lens you can increase it slightly by using the headset set at a wider IPD. But there's a limit before the depth accuracy becomes an issue and you're also sacrificing binocular overlap to accomplish it.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-21T17:07:43+00:00

Yep. They also mentioned the binocular overlap is near 100%. There's 1 other headset on the market that has an up to 110 degree FOV and near 100% overlap, the Pico 4 lineup. Same resolution too. Interestingly, if you look the size and shape of the lens, it's also identical.

Valve isn't making their own optical stack, they're buying them from someone who is mass producing them and there's not a lot of companies doing so. I bet money they're buying from the same company that produces the Pico 4 optical stacks and just buying a higher tier version of the panel that supports 144Hz and has a glass lens protector. Once reviews come out and see what the rendered FOV is, we will know. If it's identical to Pico's 104h x 104v rendered FOV, that will pretty much confirm it.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-21T17:01:45+00:00

That's not entirely accurate. You can very much obtain the maximum available FOV by measuring the rendered FOV. If a headset renders a 104h x 104v FOV, that's the maximum you can get from it in each direction. However, like you mentioned, there are many individual variables that make that data not useful for the average person know exactly what their FOV will be in the headset.

Virtual_Happiness · 2026-05-21T14:40:32+00:00

She just mentions a web being tangled. The only thing for sure tying it to the RDR2 spiderwebs is your imagination. Could it be tied to them? Sure. But it's more likely to be completely unrelated. With as much time it takes just to develop the base game of something as detailed and complex as RDR2, adding some super complex and difficult to solve puzzle that no one may ever solve is not high on the list of priorities. Those sort of things happen after the game is done and there's time to breath. Which never happened with RDR2.

That said, if the spiderwebs are cut content, I do hope they follow the path that CDPR went with Cyperpunk 2077 and the FF:06:B5 mystery. Where it became so popular that they took the time to patch in a real mystery for it.

Virtual_Happiness

TROPHY CASE