Topic: PlayStation Portal -OT-

@Th3solution My dad was the same with getting a ps5 last year, he waited too long and then the price went back up. He is now reluctant to get one in price drops again. I see it has in some outlets in the UK, but I have given up in letting him know.

@Th3solution I had no idea they would sell out so fast considering how much negativity there was towards this product when it was announced. I thought nobody would buy it as it's "just" a streaming device and not an actual handheld. I've had a great experience in the past with streaming PS4 games to Vita so I already knew I needed this device and I knew it would deliver a good experience. Turns out I was right, as I've been using Portal every day since I got Persona 3 Reload and the streaming quality is immaculate. It's like I'm playing the game natively on the device, it's just so good. Hopefully you'll find one soon!

The only issue I've run into now is that the device won't turn on my PS5 immediately anymore. It takes like a minute before the signal is received and my PS5 turns on, which wouldn't happen before. Don't know what the issue is.

@JohnnyShoulder @LtSarge Yeah, as I had said previously, I’ve been pondering the Portal for a while but with none available it was a non-issue, so that was probably my hesitation yesterday. When suddenly it was no longer a hypothetical and there was actually stock, I had to be sure before I clicked the ‘purchase’ button, and although $200 isn’t an enormous investment, I didn’t want to have it be an impulse buy in the middle of a busy day. As I thought about how great it will be to play Baldur’s Gate 3 on the couch with March Madness on the tele or in bed while I wind down every night, I got more convinced.

But yeah, it’s weird how a lot of people continue to say how the Portal is a failure. I just read one of the trolls say that in a front page comment section earlier this week. I thought, “what are you talking about? They are flying off the virtual shelves!”

And of course scalpers are in full force. Online eBay prices are average $300, but can be found around $275. But I’d rather wait than support a scalper.

Quick question for people using the Portal —

Did you all have to do any specific manipulations or upgrades to your internet, router, settings, or PS5 in order to get good Portal results?

I was reading and watching some videos about maximizing the functionality and it looks like it can get quite complicated. I’m not very tech savvy and I have a basic router with fiber optic internet. I think it’s supposed to be 1GB download speed, but I’m honestly not sure 😅. All I know is that I can stream all my TV streaming without a hitch, never experience any stutters while watching streaming services, and all my basic internet functions are smooth and rarely do I have disconnects or problems using all my home devices. So I’m just wondering if PS Portal will be simple “plug and play” without having to go through a lot of crazy settings and manipulating a bunch or parameters.

@Th3solution I have my PS5 wired to my router and my router in the same room when I use my Portal. The farther away your Portal is from your router, the worse the connection gets. If other people are using your router, it can also affect the quality of the streaming.

You should be fine in all honesty.

@xeofate @LtSarge Okay, that helps. I’ve been looking for one with intent to buy but then realized I might need to make sure I don’t have to do a massive router upgrade or some such hassle. Almost all the reports I’m reading are quite impressed with the performance, but I started to look deeper and started to get nervous when people were talking about tweaking internet settings to maximize the stream quality.

There’s some that say it functions better when you put the game in performance mode rather than fidelity mode, which makes sense since the screen is only 1080p anyways so no use in streaming all the extra 4K data anyways. That’s easy enough, I can start to do that (even though I prefer some games in fidelity mode).

Another tip I saw was to make sure the Portal is using the router’s 5 GHz channel, which I’m not sure I know exactly how to do with my router but I can probably figure it out. Then some people say to disconnect your HDMI cord from the PS5 for better performance…? Which sounds like it would get annoying and I’m not thrilled about doing that.

I figure if I’m one of the unlucky ones who has a poor experience due to something strange with my internet, then I can alway scalp it for a profit because they’re still selling on eBay for more than retail. 😅

I started playing Control today and I actually decided to start playing it on the Portal. First of all, I still can't believe I can play a game like Control on a handheld device. It looks great and it runs at 60 fps, no hiccups whatsoever. The controls feel great after turning on aim assist since the sticks are a bit sensitive on the Portal. I remember trying to play DOOM 3 on it and it didn't feel great. But yeah, this game feels fantastic on the Portal. I seriously love this device.

The gaming gods smiled upon me and I did, in fact, procure a PS Portal.

Some brief early impressions —
The device feels great. It feels much higher quality than it looks in pictures. Quite a bit heavier than a DualSense controller. The weight isn’t the only part of it that denotes quality; it also just feels solid in general and the buttons and sticks are on par with the DualSense. Although the sticks are slightly different. They are more sensitive, and I think slightly smaller. It’s not a huge deal but it does take slight adjustment to my muscle memory to use them properly.

The screen is nice. I do wish it was OLED, but well you can’t have everything for $200 (actually for me it was $185 with some discounts I had stacked up). The placement of the USB port for charging is annoying though. It’s placed behind and pointed toward the player (if you’re holding it) and is a little tricky to plug in and out.

The most important thing is, how does it connect and perform? Overall it’s really been great, but my connection has been sometimes erratic, unfortunately. At the worst sessions I’ll have a stutter every minute or two which last just a second or so. This can happen during gameplay or during a cutscene. Otherwise it does seem to be 60 fps (I’m not good at judging framerate) and the fidelity is good, although not 4K obviously, so small print has been a little blurry and at times hard to read without the crispness of 4K. Also no HDR which is hard to really tell much difference but subtlety it’s a slight less vibrant from my OLED TV.

During a few sessions I’ve had zero stuttering and minuscule lag. During those sessions it plays like a dream.

So my only reluctance for being fully enthused is the variability of streaming quality that I get. Although even at its worst, all games have been playable, but when I experience the good connections it makes me excited to have it play that way all the time.

I’ve looked through the internet and I think my main issue is that my PS5 isn’t hard wired. I have a 1GB download internet speed, but it’s connected via WiFi. I suspect that’s where I’m seeing occasional stuttering and it does seem to depend on where I am in the house and if there’s other devices streaming or using bandwidth then it also seems to contribute to stuttering. My best sessions have been on the couch close to the router with nothing else turned on.

Unfortunately my setup is not conducive to hard wiring since my router is in the other room, but I’m thinking about just getting a long Ethernet cord and just plugging it in to hard wire on a case-by-case basis if I’m going to be using the Portal a lot. I don’t want a wire traversing across the room on a regular basis. I can imagine tripping on it and yanking my PS5 and breaking it 😅.

Despite less than perfect streaming, I was able to play Spider-Man 2 on the device without game breaking issues. However, the full effect of such a beautiful and dynamic game was somewhat lost on the small screen with the slightly muted visuals and smidge of lag. I’ll try again when I hardwire, but I think the device will be better for other games that are not as much of a PS5 showpiece. Marvel’s Midnight Suns was a great use of the device and it fits that kind of portable play perfectly. I have the device targeted for other turn based games or ‘grindy” hames, AA, indies, and story-based games light on gameplay like Life is Strange and whatnot. When I’m done with SM2, I’ll try a Souls game on the device and see how that works. The big graphical spectacles like Horizon Forbidden West and RE4 will probably be mostly something to do on the TV. I know the big screen vs. little screen debate has been longstanding for the Switch owners, but this is my first real foray into console quality portable gaming.

I've been mostly playing Control on the TV but I decided to give it a proper go on the Portal. Man, it just feels so natural to play it on the device. The smaller screen makes it a bit harder to aim than on the TV but other than that, it felt really natural.

The more I use this device, the more I'm glad that I bought it.

@xeofate Yeah, that’s something I’d seen pop up on Internet forums. I’ve not investigated PlugLink much beyond that. Is it easy to set up?

I know Colin (on Sacred Symbols) has the same issue I have with the router having to be on the other side of the house and when he tried to set up a PlugLink his home wiring wasn’t compatible or something. So I’m not sure the technical aspects of this sort of thing.

@xeofate Ok, thanks for the info. It sounds super easy to implement.

Searching online it looks like Plugins run about $100 and a 50 foot Ethernet cord only costs $9 so I might just deal with the cord for now.

I did have a near flawless Portal stream going last night even with both Portal and PS5 only connected to WiFi whilst my TV was simultaneously streaming a show. So it’s just weird that sometimes WiFi is fine and sometimes it stutters. So I think running the cord across the room only ‘as needed’ might work for now. But I’ll definitely keep the Pluglink in mind.

@Th3solution I had them in my flat i used to live in, as i used to get frequent disconnects due a conflict with my kitchen appliances. 😅

The plugins sorted that out I believe, but did not offer a significant increase in download and upload speeds as advertised.

@JohnnyShoulder Yeah, I’m not technology astute enough to understand the concepts but I assume the way one’s home is wired certainly can affect how well those plugins work, like in Colin’s case. I’m still one or two episodes behind so I haven’t heard yet it he has a solution or is he just uses the cord switching method still.

But yeah, as far as WiFi interference, I remember when I would use my Vita for remote play with my PS4 that I had to unplug my Apple TV device which I had right next to my PS4. Through trial and error I discovered the two were somehow competing on the same WiFi channel… or something like that. Through process of elimination I was able to figure it out though. However at this stage of things a few years later, I have so many devices randomly connecting to the internet through WiFi, like you say, from random kitchen appliances to laptops to TVs to security systems to tablets…. There’s a sea of possible competing interferences. So I think that’s why I have a flawless connection sometimes and then some lag at other times.

@Th3solution Strangely enough, my kitchen appliances were not even enabled for the Internet back then (and the ones I have now are still not). I don't have too many devices that do tbf, my phone, tablet, tv and console. Not living in a block of flats probably also helps, as I've noticed a lot less interference since moving to a house.

Has anyone here noticed any problems connecting and streaming since the new update?

I’ve only had a couple sessions with my Portal since the update and it did fine, although I did drop connection once, after about an hour or so of good quality streaming. It just stuttered and disconnected, but I was able to immediately reconnect and resume playing without issue.

It’s why I don’t think I feel comfortable playing a Souls game or difficult action game on the Portal just yet. Connection is good 90% of the time but if you have a lag or drop at the wrong time then it could be disastrous in a Souls game. 😅

Anyway, I read that quite a few people are having connection drops since the new update.

Been playing Red Dead Redemption II on Portal, which feels very natural. Since the game has aim assist integrated, it's not that cumbersome to control. The only drawback is obviously that the game doesn't look as good on the device as on a TV. So I prefer to play it on the TV instead. But it's still crazy that you're able to play a game like this on a handheld device. Blows my mind.

Although there is one advantage of playing RDR2 on Portal compared to on a TV, which is the device's built-in light bars. The light is more noticeable on Portal as the bars are longer, so whenever you become wanted, it gives a stronger feeling of you being in danger compared to playing it with a controller. It's like the entire device is blinking. On a side note, the game actually utilises this feature rather well. I can't imagine playing it on an Xbox where you miss out on this completely.

@LtSarge That’s actually a nice use of the light on the unit, I haven’t really played a game in Portal that utilizes the light bars. It’s a cool feature on the usual DualSense controller but the issue I’ve found is that you spend 95% of the time looking up at the screen, not the controller, so it’s easy to miss the light bar changes. While playing Immortals of Aveum I only noticed by chance when I paused the game and saw the controller that it was changing colors to match the type of magic equipped. Whereas with the Portal, you’re looking right at the controller because the screen is attached, so I could see the feature being more meaningful.

I wonder if the portal is ever going to get any kind of sale in the same sense that the PSVR2 did. I've been tempted by the portal, but with my internet not being the best I don't want to go all in just yet.

Tried out Assassin's Creed: Valhalla on Portal today. It looks and runs well and the control scheme works great on the device since you're not heavily reliant on controlling the camera in this game. I've noticed that shooters, e.g. DOOM 3, can be quite hard to play on the device as aiming is rather sensitive on the Portal. But yeah, the game works great and considering it's an RPG, it's perfect for a handheld device.

Crazy to think that it's been almost a year since I bought the Portal. It's easily one of the best purchases I've ever made. Just having the option to play the majority of your PS4/PS5 games on a handheld system is simply fantastic. Can't believe I'm able to play a game like Valhalla on it.

@LtSarge you’re able to play it because the portal is just a streaming device ain’t it ? it’s just being streamed to your screen, lol. i could be wrong because i don’t have one, but i doubt it.