There's finally a screen upgrade available to the Steam Deck! As part of a new video series,we take a closer look at its qualities, and talk with @DeckHD_ an...
Personally, the amount of effort to swap a screen wouldn’t be worth it unless my deck’s screen was ever broken - but it is cool to see projects like this in the community.
Even if my screen broke I’d go with official instead of higher resolution, because of the performance penalty. Many games I play are already at low framerates, so sacrificing performance for resolution isn’t worth it.
Then use FSR and run the game at 800p. Honestly the pixel density isn’t THAT much higher with this screen. I’d say the fact that it’s OLED is the biggest upgrade; improved contrast and color accuracy is very noticeable.
Having said that, I’m not in a hurry to void my warranty by trying this relatively difficult hardware upgrade. Maybe if my screen breaks I’ll consider it.
Edit: not OLED apparently, but the screen has better colors according to everyone that’s used it.
Yeah, the improved contrast and color accuracy is the main reason why I even considered swapping out the screen. The simulated color vibrancy mod (which is coming “soon” to stock SteamOS 3.5 anyway) ended up being good enough for me though as long as I just want pretty colors.
If I really care about the visual experience, I’m doing it on my desktop w/ a proper monitor anyway, not on the dinky little 7" screen.
That said, if I ever broke the screen though, I might do it since I’d have to replace it anyway.
Oh damn, I keep seeing reviews say it’s “OLED-like” so I thought it was. So yeah, it just has better colors (which is a low bar because the Steam Deck screen is not great).
Yes, “OLED-like” is a misrepresentation. The Deck’s screen has about 65% sRGB coverage, while the DeckHD is at 87% coverage. This is noticeable better, but no LCD can compare to OLED’s deep blacks and low input latency.
The color gamut is the range of colors supported by a screen. sRGB is a defined color space and pretty much the standard for modern displays. DCI-P3 is larger than sRGB so it can display a wider range of colors. I.e. purple can be more purple on DCI-P3.
65% sRGB coverage means that not all colors in the sRGB color space can be displayed on screen. This leads to multiple hues being displayed as one, so the image looks less color rich.
Vibrant Deck makes images look more vibrant by shifting less vibrant colors to a more vibrant color in the gamut. This means colors don’t look like they should, but duller images appear more vibrant. But this won’t increase the color gamut so the screen still can’t represent 1/3 of sRGB colors. Objectively the image looks worse, but most people won’t notice it compared to the subjectively more vibrant colors.
I’d go for high fps but same resolution. There’s some rhythm games that benefit from higher frames with it mostly being just scrolling notes so run on potatoes.
Exactly this. Valve made the decision for 800p for a number of factors, one of the biggest was performance. We’ve all been there where we upgrade to a sexy new monitor and immediately realized we need a new GPU. This is the same, except we can’t upgrade the GPU. I’ll stick with this where I’m happy.
I’d think about it for OLED. I give no fucks about resolution I can’t drive and will mostly not notice at that screen size anyways. The pixel density is fine.
Ship a whole front shell replacement with a larger screen displacing the bezels and the higher resolution? Then I’d listen.
Personally, the amount of effort to swap a screen wouldn’t be worth it unless my deck’s screen was ever broken - but it is cool to see projects like this in the community.
Even if my screen broke I’d go with official instead of higher resolution, because of the performance penalty. Many games I play are already at low framerates, so sacrificing performance for resolution isn’t worth it.
Then use FSR and run the game at 800p. Honestly the pixel density isn’t THAT much higher with this screen. I’d say the
fact that it’s OLED is the biggest upgrade;improved contrast and color accuracy is very noticeable.Having said that, I’m not in a hurry to void my warranty by trying this relatively difficult hardware upgrade. Maybe if my screen breaks I’ll consider it.
Edit: not OLED apparently, but the screen has better colors according to everyone that’s used it.
Yeah, the improved contrast and color accuracy is the main reason why I even considered swapping out the screen. The simulated color vibrancy mod (which is coming “soon” to stock SteamOS 3.5 anyway) ended up being good enough for me though as long as I just want pretty colors.
If I really care about the visual experience, I’m doing it on my desktop w/ a proper monitor anyway, not on the dinky little 7" screen.
That said, if I ever broke the screen though, I might do it since I’d have to replace it anyway.
The Deck HD is not OLED, but still has a better color coverage.
Oh damn, I keep seeing reviews say it’s “OLED-like” so I thought it was. So yeah, it just has better colors (which is a low bar because the Steam Deck screen is not great).
Yes, “OLED-like” is a misrepresentation. The Deck’s screen has about 65% sRGB coverage, while the DeckHD is at 87% coverage. This is noticeable better, but no LCD can compare to OLED’s deep blacks and low input latency.
I don’t quite understand the percentages, what is the difference between 100% and 65% + Vibrant Plugin?
The color gamut is the range of colors supported by a screen. sRGB is a defined color space and pretty much the standard for modern displays. DCI-P3 is larger than sRGB so it can display a wider range of colors. I.e. purple can be more purple on DCI-P3.
65% sRGB coverage means that not all colors in the sRGB color space can be displayed on screen. This leads to multiple hues being displayed as one, so the image looks less color rich.
Vibrant Deck makes images look more vibrant by shifting less vibrant colors to a more vibrant color in the gamut. This means colors don’t look like they should, but duller images appear more vibrant. But this won’t increase the color gamut so the screen still can’t represent 1/3 of sRGB colors. Objectively the image looks worse, but most people won’t notice it compared to the subjectively more vibrant colors.
Edit: Tom Scott has a great video about purple and why screens can’t display the purple. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NzVmtbPOrM
Thanks for the detailed explanation!
I’d go for high fps but same resolution. There’s some rhythm games that benefit from higher frames with it mostly being just scrolling notes so run on potatoes.
Exactly this. Valve made the decision for 800p for a number of factors, one of the biggest was performance. We’ve all been there where we upgrade to a sexy new monitor and immediately realized we need a new GPU. This is the same, except we can’t upgrade the GPU. I’ll stick with this where I’m happy.
I’d think about it for OLED. I give no fucks about resolution I can’t drive and will mostly not notice at that screen size anyways. The pixel density is fine.
Ship a whole front shell replacement with a larger screen displacing the bezels and the higher resolution? Then I’d listen.