Best Purchase Ever.

[Diogenes]

Well, my Steam Deck arrived this Monday.

I have spent the last 48 hours populating the disk space with games.

I wasn't expecting much, but the Deck has exceeded my expectations.

The games run better on the Steam Deck than they do on my Desk Top.

My Desktop isn't much. It's basically a Ryzen 5 3350GE with Vega 11 graphics, but it has played everything that I have thrown at it.

As I have said, games run better on the SD than on my Desktop, and I've been playing "unsupported" games, like Mortal Kombat 11 and Soulcalibur 6.

My Steam Deck is the base 64GB version, but I use a Samsung Evo Class 10 Micro SD Card with it.

I know what I need next.

1TB Western Digital 2230 NVME.
1TB Samsung Micro SD + Card Reader (I don't think it's worth putting Windows on it).
2 65W 20,000+ Mah Power Banks.

Then it will be a truly portable gaming system.

Tip:

If some games won't run in the Steam OS, try switching to Desktop Mode. Run them in Desktop mode, and then switch back to the Steam OS version. They might run properly then.

[wundertunge]

I use the machine for basic gaming functionality, and I'm still super impressed. The docking station has some issues with HDMI 2, but I know fixes are coming. I'm also surprised at how much I use it handheld post-dock vs. my Switch, which I primarily use docked.

[Diogenes]

Originally posted by mrsanchito:

I use the machine for basic gaming functionality, and I'm still super impressed. The docking station has some issues with HDMI 2, but I know fixes are coming. I'm also surprised at how much I use it handheld post-dock vs. my Switch, which I primarily use docked.

Be careful with that docking station.

You might be surprised to learn this, but it isn't the only one on the market.

If you go to amazon and type "Steam Deck Docking Station" into the search bar, you should come back with quite a few hits.

[imdakine1]

Just ordered a deck yesterday and relatively new to pc gaming… I have a MacBook Pro and haven’t ventured to playing pc games on it although it can handle it I think….

I ordered the 512gb and also ordered two Samsung EVO 512 micro SD for $44.99 each ore tax.

Will look into battery charger next and also not sure if I need a usb-c hard drive?

[invision2212]

Originally posted by imdakine1:

Just ordered a deck yesterday and relatively new to pc gaming… I have a MacBook Pro and haven’t ventured to playing pc games on it although it can handle it I think….

I ordered the 512gb and also ordered two Samsung EVO 512 micro SD for $44.99 each ore tax.

Will look into battery charger next and also not sure if I need a usb-c hard drive?

As long as you don’t try to keep every single game you own on the steam deck than 1.5tb of space is more than plenty.

[Haruspex]

This is awesome, and I think it's probably indicative of most people's experience, just not everyone feels the need to post it.

Negative experiences of course get posted all the time.

I think it's all about expectations. If you go in expecting it to perform like a desktop with a 3090 while running completely cool and having 10+ hours of battery life, of course you're going to be disappointed. If you ignore how nice the display looks and instead focus on the fact that it's not an OLED display or stress out unnecessarily over the resolution or RGB color space you're not going to have a good time. If your favorite game is Fortnite or some other unsupported thing you might just chuck the Deck out a window.

On the flip side if you get it understanding that it's a handheld gaming PC and all the connotations of what that means, you may be very pleasantly surprised. If you can do a minimal amount of research to discover what games will and will not run, you'll find there's absolutely more than plenty to enjoy. If you're like OP and your current gaming desktop is actually less powerful than the Deck, you'll probably be overjoyed.

[Diogenes]

Originally posted by 8bitbeard:

This is awesome, and I think it's probably indicative of most people's experience, just not everyone feels the need to post it.

Negative experiences of course get posted all the time.

I think it's all about expectations. If you go in expecting it to perform like a desktop with a 3090 while running completely cool and having 10+ hours of battery life, of course you're going to be disappointed. If you ignore how nice the display looks and instead focus on the fact that it's not an OLED display or stress out unnecessarily over the resolution or RGB color space you're not going to have a good time. If your favorite game is Fortnite or some other unsupported thing you might just chuck the Deck out a window.

On the flip side if you get it understanding that it's a handheld gaming PC and all the connotations of what that means, you may be very pleasantly surprised. If you can do a minimal amount of research to discover what games will and will not run, you'll find there's absolutely more than plenty to enjoy. If you're like OP and your current gaming desktop is actually less powerful than the Deck, you'll probably be overjoyed.

In regards to what games run, compatibility wise, which also ties in with the hardware requirement's of the game, every single thing that I have thrown at the Steam Deck works.

Many games I own are classed as "Unsupported" by Steam. However, they work on the Steam Deck well, very well in fact.

I have tried Guild Wars 2, Mortal Kombat 11, Soulcalibur 6, Control and some others. I even tried Dungeons and Dragons Online for a laugh, thinking that it won't play right because it requires mouse and keyboard etc, being an MMO.

Now, on paper, whether it's because they require peripherals that the Steam Deck doesn't inherently have, or because the hardware requirement's are too high, the Steam Deck shouldn't run some of the games that I have been playing, however, it does, and it run's them very well. That is what surprised me.

Currently, I would rather have my Steam Deck than a gaming laptop.

Furthermore, given what I have seen of the RDNA 2 APU in the Steam Deck, I would say that it won't be long before Stand Alone Graphics Cards become an endangered species. There is absolutely no point in buying a lot of the GPU's on the market today, when we have APU's like the RDNA 2 APU that is in the Steam Deck. When an APU can run games like Path of Exile and Soulcalibur 6, it makes me wonder what the point of buying a GPU is? When this AMD APU can run games this well, games that it shouldn't be able to play on paper, AMD / ATI have to be doing something right.

[Kogut]

I've been gaming on Linux exclusively for probably four or five years now. I use Linux personally and professionally.

The Steam Deck is awesome. Not perfect, but Valve is shipping hardware and software that I could only dream of ten years ago.

I have a gaming laptop and desktop, both running desktop Linux with Steam. Those are now getting eclipsed in usage by the Deck, because it's so easy and nice to use.

[Diogenes]

Originally posted by Kogut:

I've been gaming on Linux exclusively for probably four or five years now. I use Linux personally and professionally.

The Steam Deck is awesome. Not perfect, but Valve is shipping hardware and software that I could only dream of ten years ago.

I have a gaming laptop and desktop, both running desktop Linux with Steam. Those are now getting eclipsed in usage by the Deck, because it's so easy and nice to use.

To be honest, the Steam Deck is the best thing that could have happened for Linux.

Simply because it means enhanced driver and game support.

I go back to the late 90's, early 2000's with Linux and I stopped using it because game support and driver support were virtually none existent.

For the first time ever, really, Linux stands a chance of taking over from Windows as a main Operating System.

Every dev worth their salt is going to want to sell their game so that it's compatible with the Steam Deck, simply to increase profitability and sales. That can only be good news for gamers, Linux and games development, because it means better game and driver support for the Linux OS.

[Haruspex]

Originally posted by Diogenes:

To be honest, the Steam Deck is the best thing that could have happened for Linux.

8 years ago Linus Torvalds suggested that Valve would be the savior of desktop Linux. Seems like he predicted correctly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzl1B7nB9Kc