Testing Steam OS 3 on the iIMEO 2: A Hands-On Experience

The iIMEO 2, a handheld gaming PC powered by AMD's Ryzen 6800U processor and Radeon graphics, has been put through its paces with Steam OS 3, also known as "Hollow ISO." This operating system, designed specifically for Linux-based devices, offers a unique set of features that can enhance the user experience. One of the key aspects of Steam OS 3 is its ability to control power consumption, which is essential for handheld devices. By adjusting the TDP (thermal design power) and rendering settings, users can optimize performance while minimizing battery drain.

The iIMEO 2's Ryzen 6800U processor and Radeon graphics made short work of various games, including The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and The Witcher 3. With the game set to Medium settings at 1200p resolution, the device was able to achieve well over 60 frames per second, thanks in part to the vsync feature being disabled. However, turning this feature back on would allow for better battery life. Another notable title is Doom Eternal, which ran smoothly at 1200p with Medium settings and no vsync, easily maintaining a constant 60 FPS.

In contrast, Sonic Frontiers was more challenging to run at high settings, but adjusting the resolution scale down to 50 helped alleviate performance issues. The game's performance on Linux-based devices has been a concern in the past, but the iIMEO 2 seems to be able to handle it with relative ease. Additionally, Injustice 2 was tested on the device, and despite not being Steam Deck-verified, it ran smoothly at 1200p with Medium settings, achieving constant 60 FPS.

However, not all games were as smooth, particularly those that rely heavily on extra cores like Sonic Mania. Even with this game disabled from overboosting, it still managed to run without issue, thanks to the iIMEO 2's powerful processor and graphics capabilities. Finally, Left 4 Dead 2 was tested at maxed-out settings, where it performed admirably, even running on lower-end Intel CPUs at a lower resolution.

As an aside, it's worth noting that while Steam OS 3 is compatible with the iIMEO 2, there are no specific optimizations for this handheld device. The operating system itself was not designed for mobile devices, and as such, its performance may be impacted by various factors, including the device's power consumption and cooling capabilities.

In conclusion, testing Steam OS 3 on the iIMEO 2 revealed a promising combination of performance, control, and flexibility. While there are still some challenges to overcome, particularly with regards to optimizing performance for handheld devices, the results so far have been encouraging. With continued development and support from developers, it's possible that this operating system could become a go-to choice for handheld gaming enthusiasts.

The iIMEO 2 also offers features like full TDP control and RGB LED control for the device's sticks, making it an attractive option for those seeking more customization options. Additionally, the Steam OS 3 interface is set to be released in a separate form with Aya, which promises to offer even better performance and game launching experience.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign ta Prime back here again today we're going to be taking a look at Steam OS 3 otherwise known as Steam deck OS running on the eye and Neo 2. now if you're not familiar with this device I have created a couple videos I'll leave a link in the description but basically what we have here is a ryzen 7 6800u-powered handheld with a beautiful 7-inch IPS display now uh this is running at 1920x1200 and it definitely looks a lot better than most of the other ips's that we've tested it actually is really close to an OLED and as you can see we have a bezel-less design here now real quick going into the settings here as you can see we're on Steam OS 3. this is actually Hollow ISO the team over there has taken the steam deck recovery image and reworked it so it works on other devices but with this we've got the ryzen 7 6800u and 16 gigabytes of LP ddr5 Ram running at 6400 megahertz I haven't installed this operating system on the internal drive because I'm still running Windows on it I'm actually just going to be running this from an external ssds so it's really easy just to plug in and I can actually transfer this over to other computers and test it from there now I do want to mention that you know this operating system was never intended to be run on the ineo 2 and I'm kind of doing this at my own risk here everything's working except for kind of a hotkey to bring up the on-screen steam deck performance menu because in Steam OS 3 there's no way to map that button and on the ineo 2 we don't have a steam button or an Xbox button to bring it up but we can tap on that battery icon and we can set up the performance menu we can use system-wide FSR the only thing that's not working from that menu is TDP control at least from the stock menu that we use with the steam dag but luckily there are some third-party developers out there who've come up with some really awesome stuff like handy PT otherwise known as handy power tools and basically what this allows us to do is adjust the Apu settings on other devices besides the steam dag we've got TDP control from 5 Watts up to 35 we can also turn off CPU boosting and multi-threading and for this video we're going to be testing a lot of the stuff at 15 watts I really want to see how it compares to the steam deck at 15 watts but remember we can get much better performance out of this device by upping that TVP the 6800u does love a little extra power over the steam decks Apu I mean that was a custom Apu designed specifically for the steam deck where power constraints were definitely in mind when making it and the first thing I wanted to take a look at was just total system power consumption we're going to start here with the steam deck itself we've got Spider-Man remastered and with all of these AAA games I've noticed that total system power consumption from the battery on the steam deck is around 25 to 28 Watts it does fluctuate right in between there as you can see it's right around 26 to 27 and I'm just using the stock steam deck preset now this has a 45 watt hour battery and while we're pulling that much wattage from the battery basic math tells us that we can get around 80 to 90 minutes of battery life out of it at around 26 Watts remember what we're looking at right now is not just the cpu's TDP this is total system power consumption that's including everything on the steam DAC now moving over to the eye and Neo 2 I wanted to show you that we're at that 15 watt TDP on the CPU and total system power consumption on the ineo 2 running Spider-Man remastered with the same settings we're pulling around 32 to 33 Watts on the eye and neo2 now the main thing here is we've got four extra cores that we need to power and when it comes to the 680m igpu that we have here with the 6800u does require a little more wattage to get up there to those clocks but even at 15 watts this is offering better performance than the steam deck and of course we've got more to go with it we can actually take that TDP up and really when it comes down to it a lot of these manufacturers with the 6800u handhelds are calling 28 Watts gaming mode of course our battery is going to die much faster but the imeo 2's battery is a bit bigger coming in at 50.25 Watt hours so really when we're looking at both of these devices around 80 to 90 minutes of run time at 15 watts now the next thing I wanted to take a look at was cyberpunk 2077 on the imeo 2 we're using the steam deck preset and I've actually gone up to 20 watts on the TDP that's really going to help get those clocks on the CPU and GPU up there and instead of running at around 35 FPS we're really close to 60 and we can stretch 60 out of this we will need to take some of those medium settings down and go up to about 23 Watts on the TDP but yeah I mean we could run this at 60 if we wanted to next on the list we've got the Witcher 3 and this is one that performs really well on epus with this instead of running it at 800p we can actually take it up to 1200p and we've got a low medium mix the TDP is set at 23 watts and we've got vsync or frame cap off on this game so turning that back on will allow us to get a little better battery life out of it right now with vsync off it just kind of has to go over that threshold and pull a little more from the CPU and GPU to get over 60 FPS taking a look at Sonic Frontiers where at 1200 P High settings but in order to get 60 out of it I did have to turn the resolution scale down to 50 I really hope they do some optimizations for Linux and proton with this game because it does run pretty well but we always have to take that resolution scale down here's Doom Eternal and this one just works really well in Linux we're at 1200p medium settings and we can get well over 60 FPS out of it again vsync is off so we could limit That Power by a bit turning vsync on and it would play this at 60 all day long I really wish we would have saw more games using this engine here because uh even on these apus in Windows or Linux it just performs really well I also wanted to throw a fighting game in here so we've got Injustice 2 1200p medium settings and I'm not exactly sure why this isn't steam deck verified I guess it's just an older game and not a lot of people are buying it but even on the steam Deck with lower settings this works out really well at 800p I personally think it should be steam deck verified but as you can see constant 60 here at 1200p medium settings now what we've seen so far we're harder to run games I did want to show off just a couple easier to run games they're not going to pull as much wattage like Sonic Mania here I actually expected this to pull a little less but uh you know with those extra four cores there I guess it's just working them I could disable overboost here and we could definitely save a little power but I just left it on and finally Left 4 Dead 2 1200p maxed out 60fps really great performance but yeah I mean it's an older game this even runs on lower end Intel CPUs at a lower resolution so I expected this to run really well but the older source-based games are going to be fully playable maxed out at 1200p on this device so overall yeah we're actually hitting really great performance at a Steam OS 3 on the ine02 but uh you know it was never meant to be run on this there's no optimizations with this operating system specifically for this handheld here or the chipset it's using and it can still do a really great job Aya does have their own iOS coming out and I really hope I can get my hands on an early copy to take a look at it it does look great it's based on Linux we're going to have a really nice little game launching interface and all of the optimizations we need for their handhelds will be implemented with that operating system but until that releases I think I'm going to be sticking with Windows 11 just due to all of the optimizations for the 6800u and those Radeon drivers now don't get me wrong running Arch on the 6800 us great but we're working with a handheld gaming PC that just needs a little extra like full TDP control and we have that with ispace and windows right now and it also offers full RGB control for the RGB LEDs around the analog sticks but yeah I mean if you did want to check out Steam OS on this device it's totally possible to run it it does work pretty well and I'm sure once iOS is released we're going to see even better performance from Linux out of this 6800u device but that's going to wrap it up for this one I've had a bunch of people asking about testing out steamos 3 otherwise known known as Steam deck Os or Hollow ISO on the imeo 2 and yeah it can be installed it can be run if you have any questions let me know in the comments below and like always thanks for watching\n"