Steam Deck

Author
Discussion

Deadlysub

512 posts

160 months

Tuesday 2nd August 2022
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witten said:
Honestly I am tempted by one of these but have no Steam background and only have a PS4. However I travel for work a lot and it would make hotel rooms less boring. Is it really that good or should I wait for whatever comes next? The Backbone One PS edition looks interesting for remote play, but the reviews I have found haven't been outstanding.

I know the battery on the steamdeck wouldn't last all that long but when I checked the Steam library when considering ordering them the titles looked underwhelming to be honest. As a semi casual gamer - is it worth it?

What would be good - can you use a dock from a company such as Dell to plug it into some work from home monitors that your company might have provided during lockdown to ease working from home via a USB C?

Asking for a friend.
I had no Steam background before the steam deck and it’s a fantastic piece of kit. The Steam library is huge, if you mean the deck verified titles are underwhelming, then I t’s getting added to all the time. I downloaded an unverified game last week and it was a little fiddly to set up but once up and running it runs perfectly.

I also travel for work and the only issue is battery life, I am getting at best 2.5 hours play from mine but from processor heavy games. As another poster posted a heavy duty batter pack would get you through a flight.

ch37

10,642 posts

223 months

Tuesday 2nd August 2022
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'Playable' can literally just be that there is a login required the first time you set it up (such as GTA5) or that the text is a bit small at times.

I think there are thousands between Verified and Playable now.

Also, cracking deal for a power bank that has the perfect amount of power for a Steam Deck: https://www.mymemory.co.uk/mophie-usb-c-3xl-powers...

Edited by ch37 on Tuesday 2nd August 19:23

Mannginger

9,125 posts

259 months

Wednesday 3rd August 2022
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I just cancelled my pre-order today. Not that I don't think it'll be a fun gadget but I pre-ordered it as I was working a lot with the US so doing quite a bit of travel and hotels and now I've changed roles to a more UK based one so couldn't really justify the cost of another games gadget when I'd rarely use it

Lucas Ayde

3,591 posts

170 months

Wednesday 3rd August 2022
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Well impressed with mine. Wasn't sure if I would take it when I pre-ordered a year ago, on the grounds that better options might be available .. But overall there's still nothing around that offers a better mobile/portable PC gaming experience, particularly at the price.

It's very impressive that it runs so much stuff well - even modern AAA games.

The anti-glare screen is very nice ... really does cut down massively on reflections. Not sure if it justifies the price over getting the base eMMC model and hacking in an SSD and/or adding a big SD card though. I reckon they are 'giving away' that base model and not making that much on the high end one.

Drawbacks so far are basically lack of compatibility for some titles. It's impressive that so much runs so well under Linux/Proton but that means there will always be some titles that won't ever run. Battery life crimps the fun on demanding titles though it's good that you have so many options to configure how the games run, to optimise them if you choose, for better battery.

HRL

3,342 posts

221 months

Wednesday 3rd August 2022
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I’m looking forward to using emulators on it too once I get back from my holiday. Didn’t get a chance to set it up properly before leaving unfortunately but my understanding is that almost all the older consoles can be emulated on it, including the Nintendo Switch, which is nice.

Got the 512Gb model and a 512Gb SD card for it that I’ll stick the emulators/ROM’s on.

ch37

10,642 posts

223 months

Wednesday 3rd August 2022
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HRL said:
I’m looking forward to using emulators on it too once I get back from my holiday. Didn’t get a chance to set it up properly before leaving unfortunately but my understanding is that almost all the older consoles can be emulated on it, including the Nintendo Switch, which is nice.

Got the 512Gb model and a 512Gb SD card for it that I’ll stick the emulators/ROM’s on.
Yep, dead easy to set up (EmuDeck from desktop mode) and you can even pick the cover art etc that is displayed back in the gaming mode.

I've got mainly Mega Drive but have a few Dreamcast and Gamecube games and they run like a dream.




Edited by ch37 on Wednesday 3rd August 22:59

Moley RUFC

3,635 posts

191 months

Thursday 4th August 2022
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Anyone know which of the Battlefields run best on it given that most if not all are stating ‘Unknown’ rather than the green tick. Me and my chums are looking for good online version to play on.

HRL

3,342 posts

221 months

Thursday 4th August 2022
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Moley RUFC said:
Anyone know which of the Battlefields run best on it given that most if not all are stating ‘Unknown’ rather than the green tick. Me and my chums are looking for good online version to play on.
You can run the latest one on it if you boot it via Windows instead of SteamOS I believe.

HRL

3,342 posts

221 months

Thursday 4th August 2022
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ch37 said:
Yep, dead easy to set up (EmuDeck from desktop mode) and you can even pick the cover art etc that is displayed back in the gaming mode.

I've got mainly Mega Drive but have a few Dreamcast and Gamecube games and they run like a dream.




Edited by ch37 on Wednesday 3rd August 22:59
Looks nice. I’ll just have to *cough* locate those ROM’s I stashed somewhere.

ch37

10,642 posts

223 months

Thursday 4th August 2022
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HRL said:
Looks nice. I’ll just have to *cough* locate those ROM’s I stashed somewhere.
I did actually only load mine up with games I own. I've made the mistake of acquiring 5000 ROMs before and it's impossible to know what to play and in the end I just didn't bother!

Having only games I know and love means I get more use of it, oddly.

Narcisus

8,114 posts

282 months

Thursday 4th August 2022
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Mines out for delivery will I have the willpower not to open it !!

witten

226 posts

50 months

Thursday 4th August 2022
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Richyvrlimited said:
witten said:
t when I checked the Steam library when considering ordering them the titles looked underwhelming to be honest. .
wut?

literally almost every PC game is on steam

witten said:
can you use a dock from a company such as Dell to plug it into some work from home monitors that your company might have provided during lockdown to ease working from home via a USB C?.
yes, it's a pc...

Edited by Richyvrlimited on Tuesday 2nd August 12:17
Read into it a bit more and to be fair, for a £4 reservation fee I have put my name down anyway and I can then spend more time doing research. The charts are what I meant but it was full of cheap, crap sounding games. Will do more research before I get the email towards the end of the year.

Apparently it will work with the dock which is good

Richyvrlimited

1,826 posts

165 months

Thursday 4th August 2022
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witten said:
Read into it a bit more and to be fair, for a £4 reservation fee I have put my name down anyway and I can then spend more time doing research. The charts are what I meant but it was full of cheap, crap sounding games. Will do more research before I get the email towards the end of the year.

Apparently it will work with the dock which is good
FWIW I have a dell USBC dock and the Steam deck works fine with it

ch37

10,642 posts

223 months

Thursday 4th August 2022
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witten said:
The charts are what I meant but it was full of cheap, crap sounding games. Will do more research before I get the email towards the end of the year.
I'm not sure what charts you're seeing, but you can filter by Steam Deck games and then see the charts etc on Steam.

I bought Vampire Survivors last night (£2!) and ended up staying up half the night, it's bloody wonderful and insanely addictive (and yep, it looks like cheap crap at first glance). https://kotaku.com/please-help-i-m-addicted-to-vam...

The cheap, interesting games are what Steam, and in particular the Steam Deck, does particularly well (and you can still get pretty much all the AAA titles too, most of which run really well on the Deck). It running Elden Ring is great and all that, but it really excels at games you can hop in and out of quickly.

Project Zomboid, Unpacking, Circuit Superstars,Art of Rally, Teardown etc, I already have more than I'm ever likely to play smile

Deadlysub

512 posts

160 months

Thursday 4th August 2022
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ch37 said:
witten said:
The charts are what I meant but it was full of cheap, crap sounding games. Will do more research before I get the email towards the end of the year.
I'm not sure what charts you're seeing, but you can filter by Steam Deck games and then see the charts etc on Steam.

I bought Vampire Survivors last night (£2!) and ended up staying up half the night, it's bloody wonderful and insanely addictive (and yep, it looks like cheap crap at first glance). https://kotaku.com/please-help-i-m-addicted-to-vam...

The cheap, interesting games are what Steam, and in particular the Steam Deck, does particularly well (and you can still get pretty much all the AAA titles too, most of which run really well on the Deck). It running Elden Ring is great and all that, but it really excels at games you can hop in and out of quickly.

Project Zomboid, Unpacking, Circuit Superstars,Art of Rally, Teardown etc, I already have more than I'm ever likely to play smile
The beauty of the Steam Deck is the ability to pick it up play for 20 mins and put it into sleep mode and when you want to play again pick it up instantly where you left off.

Narcisus

8,114 posts

282 months

Friday 5th August 2022
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Well mine was on eBay for 24 hours before I caved .... Now to create an emulation monster ! Well when i've opened the box !

Digger

14,739 posts

193 months

Friday 5th August 2022
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Can you connect a keyboard & mouse wirelessly? - I assume so.

ajprice

27,813 posts

198 months

Friday 5th August 2022
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Digger said:
Can you connect a keyboard & mouse wirelessly? - I assume so.
I haven't tried it on mine yet but it has Bluetooth so I'm pretty sure it can connect to keyboard/mouse/headphones

judas

5,997 posts

261 months

Friday 5th August 2022
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ajprice said:
Digger said:
Can you connect a keyboard & mouse wirelessly? - I assume so.
I haven't tried it on mine yet but it has Bluetooth so I'm pretty sure it can connect to keyboard/mouse/headphones
Yes, you can. IIRC I had to add mine in desktop mode.

Narcisus

8,114 posts

282 months

Friday 5th August 2022
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Wow ! It even smells good ! Mrs not happy that it accidentally cancelled and opened itself …