Hesitant about a Steam Deck

[AbstractRobbie]

After checking my pretty extensive library, I found the vast majority past and present is either unsupported, no information whatsoever or marked 'playable'. Obviously I have to base my desire to purchase based on this and others may find their library more compatible and therefore suitable to be played on the deck, but I am quite surprised to find so many older titles with no information at all or unsupported to be honest. I have a lot of games and they consist of a variety of genre and years released.
How come this is such a problem? Is it down to Valve to pull their finger out and update details, patch something to support the deck or is this a case of the developer needing to do something? If the latter I can't ever see that happening. Only one of the earlier batman titles is supported, company of heroes unsupported, tomb raider unsupported, homeworld one playable and one unsupported. The list goes on.
I really hoped to be able to play all older less resource hungry games on the deck and it play them well. What about everyone else who bought a Deck? What is the compatibility like with the titles you own and how is performance and control with unsupported and playable titles?
I may not bother if this doesn't improve and wait to see what the 2nd gen in a few years time is looking like.

[Mahjik]

Try looking up a few of your titles here: https://www.protondb.com/

That will give you a better idea of what is playable or not.

[WarnerCK]

It's really not a surprise that your library doesn't consist of mostly Verified titles: they've only tested 10.7% of the Steam catalogue (8,263 out of 77,467). The overwhelming majority have no rating, and a big chunk of them will never get a rating: there just aren't enough players to be worth spending the time testing those titles rather than a different one.

However, a game having no rating doesn't mean that it doesn't work. Even a lot of games that have been tested and got the Unsupported rating do actually work - potentially after some tweaking.

If none of the 2,421 Verified and 3,776 Playable games interest you, and you don't want to chance the unrated ones, then save your money till the games you are interested in playing have got the green tick.

[Bee🐝]

They're testing things in the order of their popularity on Steam, so it'll be a while until lesser-known titles go through the verification process. Also, of those games that have been classified, Proton updates have either fixed their issues or broken others. It's recommended that you just ignore the Steam verification and check Proton DB.

Sidenote: Most of my games have worked without any issues. If something does pop up just switch to Proton: GE and that usually fixes it.

One important detail, if you play a lot of VR or multiplayer games with non-Valve anti-cheat the Steam Deck is most likely not worth it. Loads of those games have obvious issues.

[ZombieKidzRule!]

For what it is worth, I am currently testing all of the games and demos from my Steam Library on the Steam Deck and focusing on the ones that are currently listed as Unknown for support. What I have found is that the vast majority are at least playable.

Here is a link to where I post the videos of the games I have tested on YouTube.

I hope this helps.

Thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0aF6z5yhNVsCLBtcLJQnfw/playlists

[AbstractRobbie]

Thanks for the replies. It is encouraging to hear these comments. I'm tempted. I think I might hold out a little longer and see how things progress. If I do buy I will be getting the largest storage. The difference in price between 256 and 512gb makes it seem a better deal than buying 256 then adding a micro SD, a quality one makes it almost the same price.

[invision2212]

just because a game is unsupported doesnt mean it wont work flawlessly, as weird as that sounds. theres a quite a few games of mine that say that and play perfectly.

Playable doesnt mean it runs like crap. it usually means the text in the game is small so you may have trouble reading it, or the game may need to use the virtual keyboard in certain parts of the game.

i purposely test out all my games that say unsupported or untested and so far 100% of them work as intended.

[metal_hamster]

There's plenty of unsupported games that work perfectly. Just load them up and try them. I've found a good number that work.

[creepyfeet]

Trust your instinct and ignore anyone that uses the "even tho its not verified, many will probably still be playable" line.

Mines arrived in June and it has hardly been out the box.

Most of the games in my library either flat out don't work, are just not suitable for the handheld setup or the screens too small to make them enjoyable.

Theres no fun playing a game when theres factors like the second and third added to the equation.

[AbstractRobbie]

I may just wait until other retailers (hopefully) can stock it. Amazon's return policy is very good which would mean I can try it and see and then return it more easily. Seems it's quite hit and miss depending on the games you happen to have. The concept was being able to play your Steam library anywhere and I remember reading an article from Valve who said they were pretty much running everything on it. As time has passed and info per game started to appear as well as units being received, it is not quite the case.
I really hope Valve sort this out. I remember the Steam controller, which is still an amazing piece of kit but a lot never happened. Developers never really spent any time providing refined layouts and I found I spent too much time tweaking user setups and not playing. I just don't have time to spend tinkering these days so the thought of spending all that time attempting to get a title to run or playable is not a selling point for me.
I get some titles are never going to be great on it as they were not created for playing on such a small screen but they did make a nice job of neverwinter etc. on Android by having adjustable text sizes. I think I want to see more on Valve's part before I commit. I don't want another device I don't have time to just enjoy.

[zenstrata]

Originally posted by AbstraktRobbie:

I really hoped to be able to play all older less resource hungry games on the deck and it play them well. What about everyone else who bought a Deck? What is the compatibility like with the titles you own and how is performance and control with unsupported and playable titles?

I suggest giving this a watch. It helped me decide.
And i've used my steam deck plenty since buying it. I also have a primary computer which is exceptionally powerful. But if you want a nice little portable game system that is actually a full PC, then I think it's a pretty good option.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmAidEoN4YY
I wasn't using mine too much initially, and then I started taking it on trips, and i'd say it was totally worth it.

It's also nice to have a full tertiary PC ready-to-go if my other two ever go down for some reason.

[-=GHS=-Kewlpersin]

Originally posted by AbstraktRobbie:

I just don't have time to spend tinkering these days so the thought of spending all that time attempting to get a title to run or playable is not a selling point for me.

Some of the less popular games I have played required me to map all the keys. One game had no keymapping, just a screen for which keyboard and mouse buttons do what which translated to being just unplayable on the deck. I typed out which buttons were for which action in notepad, opened the Decks 'keyboard & mouse template' then began mapping.
Example: Steamdecks L1 button bound to what the game thinks is a keyboards X button.

If you have many obscure or poorly selling games there will not be many people who have done this already. I uploaded the layout to the steam servers so now there are just two 'community layouts' for that game when someone looks in the future.

[metal_hamster]

Originally posted by creepyfeet:

Trust your instinct and ignore anyone that uses the "even tho its not verified, many will probably still be playable" line.

Mines arrived in June and it has hardly been out the box.

Most of the games in my library either flat out don't work, are just not suitable for the handheld setup or the screens too small to make them enjoyable.

Theres no fun playing a game when theres factors like the second and third added to the equation.

Well, this is just straight up lying.

[[?]legit]

Install windows to use the deck without compromises. The new big picture mode is a 1:1 copy paste from the great steam os UI, so you will basically have steam os, running on windows and get the best out of the two worlds.

[AbstractRobbie]

To install Windows will require me to purchase a Windows licence for it and I am certainly not prepared to do that. I will wait for Valve to move. I am not in any rush.

[Duffvader]

There are loads of videos where you can get a copy of Win 10 for free and uprade to win 11.

Just Tutorial Win 10/11 install on steam deck.

But i will stick with linux.