this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023

455 points (99.1% liked)

Steam Deck

5998 readers

1 users here now

Universal community link
!steamdeck@lemmy.ml

Rules

(All of lemmy.ml rules applies)
Post must be related to the Steam Deck
No politics
No drama, we're here to enjoy the Steam Deck
Don't spam emojis in the comments, be constructive

Order

Models

64GB eMMC LCD

64GB eMMC SSD
1280 x 800 optically bonded LCD
7" Diagonal display size
up to 60Hz refresh rate
7 nm APU
Wi-Fi 5
40Whr battery; 2-8 hours of gameplay (content-dependent)
45W Power supply with 1.5m cable
Carrying case

256GB NVMe LCD

256GB NVMe SSD
1280 x 800 optically bonded LCD
7" Diagonal display size
up to 60Hz refresh rate
7 nm APU
Wi-Fi 5
40Whr battery; 2-8 hours of gameplay (content-dependent)
45W Power supply with 1.5m cable
Carrying case
Steam profile bundle

512GB NVMe LCD

512GB NVMe SSD
1280 x 800 optically bonded LCD
7" Diagonal display size
up to 60Hz refresh rate
7 nm APU
Wi-Fi 5
40Whr battery; 2-8 hours of gameplay (content-dependent)
45W Power supply with 1.5m cable
Carrying case
Steam profile bundle

512GB NVMe OLED

512GB NVMe SSD
1280 x 800 HDR OLED display
7.4" Diagonal display size
up to 90Hz refresh rate
6 nm APU
Wi-Fi 6E
50Whr battery; 3-12 hours of gameplay (content-dependent)
45W Power supply with 2.5m cable
Carrying case
Steam profile bundle

1TB NVMe OLED

1TB NVMe SSD
1280 x 800 HDR OLED display
7.4" Diagonal display size
up to 90Hz refresh rate
6 nm APU
Wi-Fi 6E
50Whr battery; 3-12 hours of gameplay (content-dependent)
45W Power supply with 2.5m cable
Carrying case
Steam profile bundle
Exclusive startup movie
Exclusive virtual keyboard theme

Allowed languages

Undetermined
English

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

mp3@lemmy.ml

mp3@lemmy.ca

ylai@lemmy.ml

455

[MOD] SteamDeck upgrade to 32gb of ram (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 years ago by MazonnaCara89@lemmy.ml to c/steamdeck@lemmy.ml

47 comments fedilink hide all child comments

all 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] EyesEyesBaby@lemmy.world 90 points 2 years ago

If I'd try that, I'd end up with no RAM at all..

[+] kadu@lemmy.world 37 points 2 years ago (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] enki@lemm.ee 19 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The GPU is integrated and uses system RAM as VRAM. Increasing the available VRAM should improve performance in titles with lots of high-res textures.

[–] phx@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Uh, actually RAM amount is the difference between some games being playable or not at all, and there are plenty of game issues related to insufficient/low memory

[–] kbity@kbin.social 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

On the Steam Deck? I've never heard anyone mention the amount of memory being the bottleneck on there.

[–] phx@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 years ago

How many people would actually be able to or take time to diagnose that versus "it started stuttering/crashed so I had to restart the game" ?

[+] kadu@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (3 children)

[deleted]

[–] DarthYoshiBoy@kbin.social 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Not the OP, but it's decently well documented that there are games out there that are having a tough time with the memory constraints of the Steam Deck's 16 GB: https://youtu.be/z94TcihZxME?t=145

Now I'll grant that maybe it's a memory leak in TLoU that would cause you to still run into issues regardless of maximum memory but 16 GB is the recommended minimum and is starting to be the minimum recommended for other newer games and that's without having a chunk set aside for VRAM, so I'd bet that you'd see decent performance gains just by increasing the available RAM without it running at higher clocks.

The list of games that want combined RAM/VRAM in excess of 16GB is steadily increasing*, if there were an easy means of getting my Steam Deck to 32 GB, I'd jump on it. I haven't had less than 32 GB in my desktop daily driver since 2017 and honestly the 64 GB I have now starts to feel anemic once you've got a VM or two running with Chrome and a game all having to contend for the same resources. Honestly, I've never felt like I had too much memory, but I have definitely felt it performance wise when I don't have enough, where things start to stutter and the frame pacing goes all to hell while things are shuffled in and out of memory. Speed isn't nothing, but there is definitely an increasing argument to be made for quantity as well.

[–] just_browsing@reddthat.com 13 points 2 years ago

Not even sure why you guys are arguing. All of this can boil down to:

More RAM is beneficial, especially when it's shared by the CPU and GPU.
The biggest bottleneck for most games on the Steam Deck is probably not RAM/VRAM, though.
Faster memory will probably improve performance more than more memory.
All of this is entirely dependent on the game or application you're running.

But the biggest point should be:

Good fucking luck desoldering and soldering BGA memory chips by hand.

[–] MattyXarope@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

It's not that the RAM hungry ones don't run, it's that they fill up the RAM and create stuttering - sometimes even with a big page file. Emulators can do this, for example.

And more RAM is particularly good because the CPU and GPU pull from the same pool of RAM in the device.

[–] phx@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I'm supposed to prove a negative? Do you want me to show a video of games crashing

Games that scale up with play (more players, growing environments, etc) tend to use more RAM over time, and especially such games with mods benefit from more RAM.

Anno, various building/construction games like Cities, Arm, DCS, Warzone whatever. Plenty of games will run with 8-16GB but run better with more. Yes, you can play the game with the "required" specs but that doesn't mean they run great, and CPU/GPU isn't always the bottleneck in larger environments.

I played through GoW on Deck but it definitely had a memory leak that would cause crashing after a bit. More RAM would have extended the play time despite that issue, and I've a couple other titles where the odd crash is likely for similar reasons.

[–] Dubious_Fart@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

a well modded cities skylines can take 64gb or more of ram.

[–] Strykker@programming.dev 2 points 2 years ago

Your being asked to prove a positive.

Your claim is games crash due to ram.

So give an example of a game that crashes due to ram and you are complete.

Proving a negative would be saying no games crash due to ram, and being asked to prove that.

The amount of bad logic in use by everyone in this post has me wondering how people even get to work in the mornings

[–] phx@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I literally did give an example, so now you're just being dickish.

GoW (God of War) had - possibly still has, I haven't checked recently - a memory leak condition. Over time, it will start to stutter out and eventually freeze. TLOU apparently also has/had this issue, though I haven't picked that one up yet myself.

More RAM extends the time one can play but in some cases may also get one past a "hump" to the point where it can do collection and reclaim RAM.

In the case of GoW it seems to be a VRAM issue, but since the Deck uses an APU both system and video memory are allocated from the same pool. That also means that one needs to consider VRAM usage overall in terms of performance, as a game that works well with 16GB on a desktop system with a dedicated GPU (that has dedicated memory) won't actually have 16GB available on the Deck as some of that is allocated to the VRAM pool.

And no, your ask originally was that I prove a game "not running" (which is proving a negative, as the positive version would be "show that game X runs") and then tying it back to RAM. To quote:

do us a favor and show me a game not running on the Steam Deck due to lack of RAM

[–] wormer@lemmy.ml -2 points 2 years ago

UH, ACTHUALLGY 🤓☝️

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 34 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Can we go back to the good old days where our devices had openings for RAM and storage upgrades please?

Especially for things like this.

[–] cordlesslamp@lemmy.today 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Since when did small handheld devices have openings for RAM and storage upgrades?

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Laptops always used to. Even most of those don't any more.

Apple are certainly the worst offender here (want 2TB storage in your iPad Pro, that'll be an extra £1250 please), but they're not alone.

[–] Mudflap@lemm.ee 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Laptops aren't handhelds, they're laptops.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Did I say handhelds?

[–] interolivary@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago

The person you replied to said "small handheld devices", and I don't think most people would put laptops in that category

[–] SpicyLiquidJar@waveform.social 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I just don't think most / any connectors are going to be compatible with modern ddr speeds. Even doing the layout on these smd pads takes a lot of work to make it right. You'd be taking a major speed downgrade which would limit your performance way more than this ram amount upgrade overcomes.

Quick Edit: storage is another beast entirely where I agree with you completely. Looks like steam deck you can upgrade the ssd and it's at least way easier than this. Comparable to a laptop.

[–] FlappyBubble@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'd love a standardized tiny socket like the MMC modules or something alike. A DIMM socket would be far too large.

Even though upgrading RAM in a steam deck wouldn't be that useful it increases the ability to repair it.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Yeah, we'd need some sort of modular RAM size that's small. No idea why we have 2TB of lightning fast storage and it's the size of a postage stamp, but the RAM sticks are still more or less the same clunky sizes we had 30 years ago.

[–] FlappyBubble@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

I guess its because SSD storage wasn't an option back then and the interface is newer. But since soldered RAM is more of a rilule these days we do need something new.

[–] towerful@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

It's because ram is even faster with lower latency.

Pcie4.0x4 nvme is 40Gbps (I presume you mean pcie4.0 which is the newest and greatest over pcie3.0).
And that's if it can actually sustain that level of read/write consistently, and isn't just dumping data into a buffer.

DDR3 1333mhz is 80Gbps (which is 15 years old).
DDR4 2133 is 136Gbps.
These are just rough numbers. Actual throughput is going to depend on number of channels, mobo, CPU etc.

[–] pufferfischerpulver@feddit.de 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Apple Silicon has entered the chat.

"No."

[–] Dubious_Fart@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Sure, if you want your device to be half an inch thicker, and more expensive.

[–] toiletobserver@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Steam deck is already a brick, would anyone notice?

[–] Dubious_Fart@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

I'd wager the same kind of people screaming "it should have been socketed" are the same people who would scream "why the fuck did they make this thing so thick?!"

[–] HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

The chips themselves are the most expensive parts usually, much more than a socket and additional daughterboard. And if they were all modular you can reuse those chips for other devices!

Also, even back in the chunky early 2000s IBM Thinkpad days I never really minded the size or weight, that's just my own opinion though.

[–] Dubious_Fart@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago

last i checked a thinkpad wasnt a handheld device, either.

[–] bblkargonaut@lemmy.world 21 points 2 years ago

This is awesome, but beyond my skill level.

[–] Ghoti_@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If that’s real that’s one hell of a feat to pull off

[–] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm sure it is. People have done it with graphics cards. You basically drop 2GB modules in place of 1GB (or 4 instead of 2 or whatever).

[–] astra@lemmy.deepspace.gay 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

ah hell don't tell me this. this is my problem. i bought my current GPU without realising it doesn't have enough VRAM to drive ray tracing at 4K but it's fine for everything else at 4K.

[–] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you don't know what you're doing and have the right tools, you will break your shit.

And no, I won't tell you what they are, because if you can't figure it out it's a really bad idea (and also because I have no fucking clue, but no one need to know that part).

[–] astra@lemmy.deepspace.gay 2 points 2 years ago

absolutely, i have an idea of how it’s done, i would need a lot more experience before i’d be confident trying anything like it though.

[–] ijeff@lemdro.id 9 points 2 years ago

Impressive!

[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 2 years ago

Absolutely insane. I love it.

[–] johnthedoe@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I hope phone screen fixing guys are shopping malls will start doing this kind of ram upgrades soon

[–] MazonnaCara89@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

If they only replace screen there is a chance they will be able to do so, because modern iphone screens require a chip from the screen to be removed from the original and soldered in the new one.

[–] Chadteeka@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

We just got a BGA rework machine at work, and I could do this