Picked up a Steamdeck, anyone else have one?

[Abe Froman]

It just arrived today. Kinda excited to get home and try it out. I have a few accessories coming on Friday, but what have you guys picked up for it?

[Moses Scurry]

Literally was thinking about getting one of these last night. Let me know how it goes, need some portable dark souls as traveling with my gaming laptop has been a bust.

[Abe Froman]

Literally was thinking about getting one of these last night. Let me know how it goes, need some portable dark souls as traveling with my gaming laptop has been a bust.

Will do... Maybe my internet is slow as fuck today, but... Good grief this initial install/update is taking forever... Might be tomorrow before I actually can play this thing.

I picked up the biggest version (512 GB), but as I'm watching YouTube on these things more... I guess replacing the SSD is pretty easy to replace if you know what you are doing. I bought another 512 GB microSD card to add to the 512 GB internal with mine, but maybe down the line I'll have to crack it open. Anyway, if you are on a budget, you can get the cheapest one, and then upgrade the SSD yourself. I guess the only other thing that's different is the screen at that point. The one I got has a screen that reduces glare. The cheaper one is glossy like a switch. Seems overcomeable... You could save like $50-75 over what I bought mine for including the cost of a 1tb SSD.

The battery life, not surprisingly, sucks. I've seen some "hacks" were people strap an external battery to it, but that kind of just seems to make a heavy portable device even heavier.

This all said... For what I'm gonna use it for, it's perfect. It's something to waste time with while I'm at work between patients when I'm caught up with everything else. My switch gets used plenty for this reason, so it seems like a good upgrade.

The last thing that I'm not so sure about is that it's a linex machine
That's fine for the most part, but... I want to put windows on this so I can access my gamepass library as well... I guess it doesn't work great just yet.

Supposedly there's another method too... Not sure.

The cool thing is Valve basically welcomes tinkering, so over time people will get the most out of it. I'm hoping people get Half life Alyx to work on it well so I can tether to my quest 2 with a backpack or just wirelessly win the same room. It's way easier than moving my PC around or buying a laptop.

[jffl_commish]

I don't know what that is. I hope that helps,

[Abe Froman]

I don't know what that is. I hope that helps,

You should check into it. Basically it's a Valve created switch that runs off of steam, but can also run windows should you choose. It is basically a gaming laptop inside of a switch.

Not super powerful, but good enough to run close to anything on mid/low settings. You can add any peripheral to it you can a regular PC. I'm hoping it works to conn ct my Quest 2 VR system to, but that might be wishful thinking.

[Moses Scurry]

What's the power requirements? does it come with a big block power supply or USB-C?

My issue is when my laptop dies on the plane, the USB or the regular plug outlets can't power the thing. Hoping this could be charged or powered on the plane.

[Abe Froman]

What's the power requirements? does it come with a big block power supply or USB-C?

My issue is when my laptop dies on the plane, the USB or the regular plug outlets can't power the thing. Hoping this could be charged or powered on the plane.

Comes with a 45w usb-c. You can go with more wattage for better charging. If you can charge your phone, you can charge this, but if you are playing power intensive games with the screen on full brightness your battery will die in about two hours. The charger won't keep up with it at these settings either. That said, it's not a big deal to turn the brightness down, imo. You can also use an external battery pack with it, but you wanna get one with pretty decent output.

[Moses Scurry]

What's the power requirements? does it come with a big block power supply or USB-C?

My issue is when my laptop dies on the plane, the USB or the regular plug outlets can't power the thing. Hoping this could be charged or powered on the plane.

Comes with a 45w usb-c. You can go with more wattage for better charging. If you can charge your phone, you can charge this, but if you are playing power intensive games with the screen on full brightness your battery will die in about two hours. The charger won't keep up with it at these settings either. That said, it's not a big deal to turn the brightness down, imo. You can also use an external battery pack with it, but you wanna get one with pretty decent output.

Thanks, good info.

So basically it's 50/50 if it would fill my needs on a plane. Hurmmmmmm....

[Abe Froman]

What's the power requirements? does it come with a big block power supply or USB-C?

My issue is when my laptop dies on the plane, the USB or the regular plug outlets can't power the thing. Hoping this could be charged or powered on the plane.

Comes with a 45w usb-c. You can go with more wattage for better charging. If you can charge your phone, you can charge this, but if you are playing power intensive games with the screen on full brightness your battery will die in about two hours. The charger won't keep up with it at these settings either. That said, it's not a big deal to turn the brightness down, imo. You can also use an external battery pack with it, but you wanna get one with pretty decent output.

Thanks, good info.

So basically it's 50/50 if it would fill my needs on a plane. Hurmmmmmm....

Yeah, probably. Really depends on the game from what I understand. It's an amazing little device though. I've read rumors that they might be working on pumping out an upgraded version in the next year or so. I would assume battery life will be one of the top priorities of that build. Just rumors though.

This thing works for me because I will just be using it like I do with my Switch. At work when I'm done with everything and I have a no show or cancellation or at home when my wife wants to watch something I don't and I don't really feel like going downstairs. Travel will just be an added bonus.

[Tommy_Hawk]

Can you play Steam games on this thing?

Baldurs Gate 3 is coming out and I don't know how to build a gaming PC guaranteed to run games I want to play, and they're really expensive so I don't want to spend a lot for something not good enough.

I also want to play Steam games and do mods and shit.

[Moses Scurry]

Can you play Steam games on this thing?

Baldurs Gate 3 is coming out and I don't know how to build a gaming PC guaranteed to run games I want to play, and they're really expensive so I don't want to spend a lot for something not good enough.

I also want to play Steam games and do mods and shit.

Yep, your whole steam library assuming the game is steam deck verified.

https://www.steamdeck.com/en/verified

[RubeTube]

I think the next version will improve a lot and they are working on it now.

Was wondering if you can dock this thing and play on a TV?

[Abe Froman]

I think the next version will improve a lot and they are working on it now.

Was wondering if you can dock this thing and play on a TV?

Yeah, it's pretty much just like the switch in that respect. I bought the actual steam deck, but if I had to do that over I think I might get a OEM one off of Amazon. The factory one wonk fit with the case on which is annoying. The OEM ones have a little more room.

[Abe Froman]

Can you play Steam games on this thing?

Baldurs Gate 3 is coming out and I don't know how to build a gaming PC guaranteed to run games I want to play, and they're really expensive so I don't want to spend a lot for something not good enough.

I also want to play Steam games and do mods and shit.

It's basically a tiny laptop so if you can do it on the PC you can do it on here, but just like on the PC, if you mod it up too hard it's probably gonna chug and be glitchy.

Most if not all games on steam work, but for the best results you are gonna wanna use the ones that have been optimized for the Steamdeck. That catalog is growing and growing. Games that aren't Steamdeck verified typically work, but there might be some overall clunkiness going on with the controls or in reading menus.

[Abe Froman]

The only games that I haven't gotten to work so far are ones that require windows or windows drivers or whatever with them. For example fallout 3. There are work arounds for this though. You can even load windows into this rather than Linux if you want to, but I guess it slows shit down and doesn't work great. I guess there is some sort of windows emulator for Linux that is a work around too. Idk, I haven't messed with any of this yet, but I really would like to get gamepass working on it.

Update: got fallout 3 working. Tried it again after uninstalling and reinstalling and it automatically installed the windows drivers for me.

[Tommy_Hawk]

Can you play Steam games on this thing?

Baldurs Gate 3 is coming out and I don't know how to build a gaming PC guaranteed to run games I want to play, and they're really expensive so I don't want to spend a lot for something not good enough.

I also want to play Steam games and do mods and shit.

It's basically a tiny laptop so if you can do it on the PC you can do it on here, but just like on the PC, if you mod it up too hard it's probably gonna chug and be glitchy.

Most if not all games on steam work, but for the best results you are gonna wanna use the ones that have been optimized for the Steamdeck. That catalog is growing and growing. Games that aren't Steamdeck verified typically work, but there might be some overall clunkiness going on with the controls or in reading menus.

Im interested in playing Indy games with 1990's graphics because they have more game play options. BG3 is just another game I want to eventually play, but I'm trying to understand my best option before I splurge.

[Abe Froman]

Can you play Steam games on this thing?

Baldurs Gate 3 is coming out and I don't know how to build a gaming PC guaranteed to run games I want to play, and they're really expensive so I don't want to spend a lot for something not good enough.

I also want to play Steam games and do mods and shit.

It's basically a tiny laptop so if you can do it on the PC you can do it on here, but just like on the PC, if you mod it up too hard it's probably gonna chug and be glitchy.

Most if not all games on steam work, but for the best results you are gonna wanna use the ones that have been optimized for the Steamdeck. That catalog is growing and growing. Games that aren't Steamdeck verified typically work, but there might be some overall clunkiness going on with the controls or in reading menus.

Im interested in playing Indy games with 1990's graphics because they have more game play options. BG3 is just another game I want to eventually play, but I'm trying to understand my best option before I splurge.

You probably could get by with a way less powerful gadget then. Not sure what's out there, but there must be something. Like a phone with a Bluetooth controller even?

I got Witcher 3, prey, fallout 3 and 4, Black Mesa, Half Life 2, gta5, and some other shit working last night. They all look as good or better than they did on the PC or Console. It's pretty damn cool, imo.

[Abe Froman]

Can you play Steam games on this thing?

Baldurs Gate 3 is coming out and I don't know how to build a gaming PC guaranteed to run games I want to play, and they're really expensive so I don't want to spend a lot for something not good enough.

I also want to play Steam games and do mods and shit.

It's basically a tiny laptop so if you can do it on the PC you can do it on here, but just like on the PC, if you mod it up too hard it's probably gonna chug and be glitchy.

Most if not all games on steam work, but for the best results you are gonna wanna use the ones that have been optimized for the Steamdeck. That catalog is growing and growing. Games that aren't Steamdeck verified typically work, but there might be some overall clunkiness going on with the controls or in reading menus.

Im interested in playing Indy games with 1990's graphics because they have more game play options. BG3 is just another game I want to eventually play, but I'm trying to understand my best option before I splurge.

Just an out of the box thought.... PS Vita? I just listened to a podcast talking about it being fairly easy to unlock. Idk shit about this stuff, but... If you could unlock it, you could do a lot of shit with it, especially the sort of games you are talking about.

[Abe Froman]

The Vita is seriously a perfect portable gaming device in a shit load of ways. I love the big screen from the Steamdeck or even the Switch, but the Vita is so much easier to carry around and use. It would be killer if Sony just makes it easy to homebrew and tinker with. Doubt they do, but it would be pretty cool.

[RubeTube]

With this gen sucking so much ass, I decided to buy one of these.

I was trying to wait out the 2nd iteration but they said at the very least it will be a couple years if not a bit more.

The deals that can be had on these are insane right now with many people getting the OLED version. I was able to get a 256gb model brand new for 290 and I bought the dock.

I must say this thing is absolutely awesome. Being able to play every retro game in handled with emulation is amazing. It plays Switch games better than the Switch.

The SteamOS is amazing too and makes it feel like a console as I can’t FN stand Windows anymore and refuse to use it. People are loving this thing.

I haven’t felt like this since when I bought my PS2. FINALLY something gaming that doesn’t suck and is feels brand new.

[Tommy_Hawk]

With this gen sucking so much ass, I decided to buy one of these.

I was trying to wait out the 2nd iteration but they said at the very least it will be a couple years if not a bit more.

The deals that can be had on these are insane right now with many people getting the OLED version. I was able to get a 256gb model brand new for 290 and I bought the dock.

I must say this thing is absolutely awesome. Being able to play every retro game in handled with emulation is amazing. It plays Switch games better than the Switch.

The SteamOS is amazing too and makes it feel like a console as I can’t FN stand Windows anymore and refuse to use it. People are loving this thing.

I haven’t felt like this since when I bought my PS2. FINALLY something gaming that doesn’t suck and is feels brand new.

How do I download emulators and play retro games? I don't venture far off the Steam home page.

[RubeTube]

With this gen sucking so much ass, I decided to buy one of these.

I was trying to wait out the 2nd iteration but they said at the very least it will be a couple years if not a bit more.

The deals that can be had on these are insane right now with many people getting the OLED version. I was able to get a 256gb model brand new for 290 and I bought the dock.

I must say this thing is absolutely awesome. Being able to play every retro game in handled with emulation is amazing. It plays Switch games better than the Switch.

The SteamOS is amazing too and makes it feel like a console as I can’t FN stand Windows anymore and refuse to use it. People are loving this thing.

I haven’t felt like this since when I bought my PS2. FINALLY something gaming that doesn’t suck and is feels brand new.

How do I download emulators and play retro games? I don't venture far off the Steam home page.

Watch a Emudeck on Steam Deck tutorial on YouTube. You have to go over to desktop mode on your deck. All of it can be done right on the Steam Deck without any PC etc.

[Abe Froman]

With this gen sucking so much ass, I decided to buy one of these.

I was trying to wait out the 2nd iteration but they said at the very least it will be a couple years if not a bit more.

The deals that can be had on these are insane right now with many people getting the OLED version. I was able to get a 256gb model brand new for 290 and I bought the dock.

I must say this thing is absolutely awesome. Being able to play every retro game in handled with emulation is amazing. It plays Switch games better than the Switch.

The SteamOS is amazing too and makes it feel like a console as I can’t FN stand Windows anymore and refuse to use it. People are loving this thing.

I haven’t felt like this since when I bought my PS2. FINALLY something gaming that doesn’t suck and is feels brand new.

I might have waited and bought the Asrog Ally to get a windows based machine so I could play my game pass library more easily, but honestly this thing was worth the price.

[RubeTube]

With this gen sucking so much ass, I decided to buy one of these.

I was trying to wait out the 2nd iteration but they said at the very least it will be a couple years if not a bit more.

The deals that can be had on these are insane right now with many people getting the OLED version. I was able to get a 256gb model brand new for 290 and I bought the dock.

I must say this thing is absolutely awesome. Being able to play every retro game in handled with emulation is amazing. It plays Switch games better than the Switch.

The SteamOS is amazing too and makes it feel like a console as I can’t FN stand Windows anymore and refuse to use it. People are loving this thing.

I haven’t felt like this since when I bought my PS2. FINALLY something gaming that doesn’t suck and is feels brand new.

I might have waited and bought the Asrog Ally to get a windows based machine so I could play my game pass library more easily, but honestly this thing was worth the price.

I heard Windows sucks balls on the handhelds. Maybe they will figure it out down the road.

The best part about the Steam Deck is its OS and it has so much community support. I much prefer the Deck. I could have bought the Ally for about the same price but went with the Deck.