Anyone own a SteamDeck?

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Hi

 

I'm considering picking up a SteamDeck.  I'm not a huge gamer, my PC currently has a 970 in it so - I mean, judge me by that!

 

But there's games I'd like to play, be they handheld or docked to my screen.

 

Are they, like... any good?  I am not expecting earth shattering performance, but would they be good enough for casual gaming?  Like, what is outside of scope for them?

 

Thanks

[spikey_richie]

I bought one on behalf of a friend who didn't have a Steam account, and he got it maybe 4 weeks ago. He's very impressed with it. It flags a little bit with AAA titles, but overall is very good. It's a lot more comfortable to hold than a Switch, as it has proper thumb grips. I can't comment on the dock.

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by spikey_richie

[StrainedSky]

I have one, really been enjoying it. It's really made me play more as I can take it just about anywhere for a quick gaming session. Currently I'm playing Spiderman and Resident Evil Village on it. It also an awesome emulation machine if you're into that. I'd recommend checking out /r/SteamDeck and https://www.protondb.com/ for more information. 

[Brandon H Supervisor]

I just got mine at the beginning of the month and love it.

Besides being great with every Steam game I've thrown at it, it's also an emulation beast. I've been meaning to write up a review here on the forums but just haven't gotten around to it.

I've been playing the Metroid Prime trilogy on it because with the combination of the PrimeHack modded Dolphin launcher which adds actual camera control to your right stick, and the customization ability of the controller, this is the best device to play Metroid Prime. I've simply moved the weapon selector to the back paddles and made it so when my thumb is on the right stick the fire controls switch to trigger instead of A.

RPCS3 also runs surprisingly well on it for PS3 emulation. Loaded up Tales of Graces F on my steam deck to test and play later if performance was acceptable and it surprisingly runs perfectly.

That's just a couple things I've done with mine

[briangw]

I have one. Dropped Windows 11 on it so I could play Blizzard/Ubisoft and other non-Steam games. Works great. I did go back to the SteamOS because I found I wasn't playing the other stores' games as much. When Valve supports dual booting on the internal drive, I'll probably set that up. Currently, dual boot supports internal for SteamOS and either an external drive or SD card (which the latter isn't very good, performance-wise)

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 27/10/2022 at 08:40, briangw said:

I have one. Dropped Windows 11 on it so I could play Blizzard/Ubisoft and other non-Steam games. Works great. I did go back to the SteamOS because I found I wasn't playing the other stores' games as much. When Valve supports dual booting on the internal drive, I'll probably set that up. Currently, dual boot supports internal for SteamOS and either an external drive or SD card (which the latter isn't very good, performance-wise)

a lot of non-steam games work right in Steam OS without to much extra work. There's a few 3rd party linux launchers you can use such as Heroic launcher and the Lutris launcher

Also depending on the Ubisoft games you should be able to import them into Steam if you have your activation keys. Only Ubisoft games I've had trouble with inside Steam OS was AC 1 and 2 and that's probably mostly due to the age of them.

[StrainedSky]

On 27/10/2022 at 09:40, briangw said:

I have one. Dropped Windows 11 on it so I could play Blizzard/Ubisoft and other non-Steam games. Works great. I did go back to the SteamOS because I found I wasn't playing the other stores' games as much. When Valve supports dual booting on the internal drive, I'll probably set that up. Currently, dual boot supports internal for SteamOS and either an external drive or SD card (which the latter isn't very good, performance-wise)

You can run Blizzard/Ubisoft and other non steam games fine. You can also Dual boot of the internal drive with no problem. 

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 27/10/2022 at 08:50, StrainedSky said:

You can run Blizzard/Ubisoft and other non steam games fine. You can also Dual boot of the internal drive with no problem. 

is dual boot support finally available? haven't checked on the status of that in a bit

[briangw]

On 27/10/2022 at 08:50, StrainedSky said:

You can run Blizzard/Ubisoft and other non steam games fine. You can also Dual boot of the internal drive with no problem. 

Ubisoft didn't always work for me and it ultimately stopped trying after it stopped working on my laptop after updating Garuda some months ago. I asked for help in various discussion forums only to be told to "run Windows." So I never tried on the Deck other than with Win 11 installed.

As for dual booting, this is from an article dated Oct 10: 

Quote

Windows must be installed on a USB drive or micro SD card if you want to dual-boot Windows and SteamOS.

Steam Deck guide: How to dual boot Windows and SteamOS (sportskeeda.com)

Unless something changed in the last week, I haven't seen anything come through the beta channel for updates.

EDIT: I apologize. I guess it is now possible:
 

 

Edited October 27, 2022 by briangw

[briangw]

On 27/10/2022 at 08:49, Brandon H said:

a lot of non-steam games work right in Steam OS without to much extra work. There's a few 3rd party linux launchers you can use such as Heroic launcher and the Lutris launcher

Also depending on the Ubisoft games you should be able to import them into Steam if you have your activation keys. Only Ubisoft games I've had trouble with inside Steam OS was AC 1 and 2 and that's probably mostly due to the age of them.

My apologies. I haven't tried only because I had Garuda on my laptop and after installing a system update a few months ago, Ubisoft Connect would complain that it couldn't connect to their servers and exit out. I had a friend originally set it up as there were some other pre-reqs we had to get it to work under Lutris but after that system update, it just broke. I could not get any support on Reddit's Ubisoft/Garuda subreddits, other than a few people telling me to run windows. Kind of depressing when you are really trying to get into Linux lol. 

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 27/10/2022 at 09:49, briangw said:

Ubisoft didn't always work for me and it ultimately stopped trying after it stopped working on my laptop after updating Garuda some months ago. I asked for help in various discussion forums only to be told to "run Windows." So I never tried on the Deck other than with Win 11 installed.

Valve has been pushing a LOT of proton updates the last couple months so it's likely things have just naturally improved since your last attempt

[briangw]

On 27/10/2022 at 09:54, Brandon H said:

Valve has been pushing a LOT of proton updates the last couple months so it's likely things have just naturally improved since your last attempt

I will try it again. I had heard from people that Connect can be pretty finnicky so after that happened, I just gave up looking for answers. I'll eventually try again because I would like to keep everything in one OS if possible and there are some Ubisoft games I want to play on the go  

Thanks!

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 27/10/2022 at 09:54, briangw said:

My apologies. I haven't tried only because I had Garuda on my laptop and after installing a system update a few months ago, Ubisoft Connect would complain that it couldn't connect to their servers and exit out. I had a friend originally set it up as there were some other pre-reqs we had to get it to work under Lutris but after that system update, it just broke. I could not get any support on Reddit's Ubisoft/Garuda subreddits, other than a few people telling me to run windows. Kind of depressing when you are really trying to get into Linux lol. 

yeah responses like that really don't help things. I have not had any Ubisoft Connect issues in Steam OS so it sounds like that may have been a distro bug specific to Garuda that you ran into  

[StrainedSky]

Also try GE Proton as its updated more frequent than Valves flavor. You can install the Flatpak manager for it via Desktop Mode. For steamdeck help I'd check out /r/steamdeck,/r/linux_gaming/ and ProtonDB

[Xenon]

I have one and I call it the insomnia machine. Laying in bed till 3am playing games is great. Till the next morning. 

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Trying to justify one and if I dual boot it, can I (in theory) plug in a USB hub and use it for light office workloads too?

 

[StrainedSky]

On 27/10/2022 at 14:35, Dick Montage said:

Trying to justify one and if I dual boot it, can I (in theory) plug in a USB hub and use it for light office workloads too?

 

Yes sir

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

On 27/10/2022 at 15:49, briangw said:

Ubisoft didn't always work for me and it ultimately stopped trying after it stopped working on my laptop after updating Garuda some months ago. I asked for help in various discussion forums only to be told to "run Windows." So I never tried on the Deck other than with Win 11 installed.

As for dual booting, this is from an article dated Oct 10: 

Steam Deck guide: How to dual boot Windows and SteamOS (sportskeeda.com)

Unless something changed in the last week, I haven't seen anything come through the beta channel for updates.

EDIT: I apologize. I guess it is now possible:
 

 

Nice.  Wonder what size SSD it can theoretically take...

[DentedAphid7]

On 28/10/2022 at 05:35, Dick Montage said:

Trying to justify one and if I dual boot it, can I (in theory) plug in a USB hub and use it for light office workloads too?

 

No point of dual booting if the base model is 64GB. As for the SSD, it's a 2230 M2 SSD and there isn't a lot of choices in terms of capacity and brand. Not every game will reach 60 FPS, if thats your thing.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

On 28/10/2022 at 02:30, DentedAphid7 said:

No point of dual booting if the base model is 64GB. As for the SSD, it's a 2230 M2 SSD and there isn't a lot of choices in terms of capacity and brand. Not every game will reach 60 FPS, if thats your thing.

Obviously not on the 64gb model, that would be pointless, and who want to run Windows on emmc

I don’t care about 60fps.

[StrainedSky]

On 28/10/2022 at 04:38, Dick Montage said:

Obviously not on the 64gb model, that would be pointless, and who want to run Windows on emmc

I don’t care about 60fps.

Personally, if it were me, I'd go for the 64GB version and upgrade the SSD. Stupid simple if you can use a screwdriver 🙂. The money saved you could get a 1TB drive Inland TN436 1TB 3D TLC NAND PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe M.2 2230 Internal SSD - Compatible with Microsoft Surface and Steam Deck - Micro Center (ebay also sells them for around the same price)

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

On 28/10/2022 at 12:04, StrainedSky said:

Personally, if it were me, I'd go for the 64GB version and upgrade the SSD. Stupid simple if you can use a screwdriver 🙂. The money saved you could get a 1TB drive Inland TN436 1TB 3D TLC NAND PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe M.2 2230 Internal SSD - Compatible with Microsoft Surface and Steam Deck - Micro Center (ebay also sells them for around the same price)

That's the plan

[Xenon]

On 29/10/2022 at 09:56, Dick Montage said:

That's the plan

You might want to read this:

Valve warns against squeezing a larger SSD into your Steam Deck

https://www.engadget.com/valve-warns-against-steam-deck-ssd-upgrades-152550679.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9zZWFyY2guYnJhdmUuY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANhjP3SWWfOe_nWFqzefeetuOLb4gj2vMvTI_4ofRc9DJkkq73MseGPLbylNcwRTXbkFHXW3itWkTqQxS6DN5kwZeXsL85pJi0wVizIB-QETn0G7pZ1Xvq14H44UAEAKjlDXGSAxvvBRT1KXUzLvD8jMJ0Vq8L9zwhIRT4z3CsNC

It can cause thermal issues:

 

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

On 29/10/2022 at 16:30, Xenon said:

You might want to read this:

Valve warns against squeezing a larger SSD into your Steam Deck

https://www.engadget.com/valve-warns-against-steam-deck-ssd-upgrades-152550679.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9zZWFyY2guYnJhdmUuY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANhjP3SWWfOe_nWFqzefeetuOLb4gj2vMvTI_4ofRc9DJkkq73MseGPLbylNcwRTXbkFHXW3itWkTqQxS6DN5kwZeXsL85pJi0wVizIB-QETn0G7pZ1Xvq14H44UAEAKjlDXGSAxvvBRT1KXUzLvD8jMJ0Vq8L9zwhIRT4z3CsNC

It can cause thermal issues:

 

Yeah seen that - if you stick with the 2230 size, you're fine

[DentedAphid7]

On 30/10/2022 at 02:34, Dick Montage said:

Yeah seen that - if you stick with the 2230 size, you're fine

While we are on the subject of SSD,  you might want to have a read: