Playing steam games off of SD card

[drqgn]

The scenario: I can't download anything onto a PC. I am trying to play BeamNG.drive on that PC. That PC doesn't have steam.
Can I download steam and BeamNG onto a high storage SD card and play it on that computer? It's a super powerful PC btw.

[JPMcMillen]

If it's possible, I don't think SD cards are known for their read/write speeds, especially compared to even an old spinning HDD. I would expect longer than normal load times.

[Anxiety]

You can play off of a SD card, Steam Deck does that just fine (modern SDs are comparable to modern HDDs, not old ones; loading times difference between that and an SSD is negligible for most games, that do not rely heavily on streaming).

But I don't think you can install Steam on it and use it that way. Having Steam Library on a SD, yes; but Steam app itself just isn't portable like that AFAIK.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Yes, don't use default install, set custom location to your SD card for steam install, then download game, please note depending on your SD card for read, and write performance may be similar, or worse than HDD performance.

If bought a cheap crappy SD, or slow SD card reader that be reason for slow performance, also may even affect gaming performance as well if the read & write are very poor that hit your game frame rate badly such as freezing, or stuttering, and low fps.

[Muppet among Puppets]

If you get a sd card that is specified for fast speed, maybe.
But by then maybe an external drive over usb 3 would be equal in relation to price and size.

[Jaunitta 🌸]

Cant you install Steam to your other PC then just setup with current account and log in.
All your games will be there intact. Thats what the remote cloud saves is for.
Just log out of your acount on this computer.

[drqgn]

Originally posted by Jaunitta 🌸:

Cant you install Steam to your other PC then just setup with current account and log in.
All your games will be there intact. Thats what the remote cloud saves is for.
Just log out of your acount on this computer.

I told you this is part of the scenario, I can't install steam on the other PC. NOTHING is allowed to be installed on his computer

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by drqgn:

Originally posted by Jaunitta 🌸:

Cant you install Steam to your other PC then just setup with current account and log in.
All your games will be there intact. Thats what the remote cloud saves is for.
Just log out of your acount on this computer.

I told you this is part of the scenario, I can't install steam on the other PC. NOTHING is allowed to be installed on his computer

Then you wont be able to use steam from an sd card as well.
You can not "Install" something on a drive fully, as if it was not installed on a machine.