Tips for the Steam Deck?

[macarrones2]

I'm going to buy a Steam Deck, can someone give me some tips for starting?

[Cathulhu]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1675200/discussions/

[Mailer]

First thing you may want to do is download the Portal: Desk Job game into the Deck when you get it, to make sure all of the controls work properly:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1902490/Aperture_Desk_Job/

After that, you can visit "protondb" to make decisions on what games you would like to install to it.
The standard green verification system that Steam uses skips a lot of games that are actually very compatible, so I absolutely recommend familiarizing yourself with protondb.

Other than that, I guess just enjoy the device or get familiar with the desktop mode if you want to get into more advanced territory with it.

[macarrones2]

Thank you very much!!

[Satoru]

https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck/mygames/

Here you can see all the games in your library that are "Deck Verified"

You can basically just re-create this in your steam library by creating a collection with "Deck Verified" as the sort option as well.

This will give you an idea of what games will definitely work on your Deck.

[Haruspex]

Depending on your level of tech savviness or how comfortable you are exploring Linux and doing things there, I recommend you start out treating it like it's a console. Stick to the default "game mode" interface at first. Browse and play among the "Deck verified" games which are confirmed to run well and be a good experience. There are thousands, so you'll have no shortage of things to play.

Once you feel comfortable there, feel free to branch out a bit. Run a few non-verified games. Chances are they'll work fine. Check out ProtonDB to see what games work and what games don't, and among games that don't work what tweaks can be applied to make them work anyway.

From there you can check out guides to really expand things and get the most out of your device. Things like Decky loader, ProtonUP, and EmuDeck.

From what I've seen most people who have a "bad" Steam Deck experience go into it's expecting it to do things that it was never meant to do. So if you start out slow and just focus on what it is meant to do at first before you branch out, you should have a really good experience.

What the Steam Deck is is a 15 watt, low powered, portable gaming PC designed to run most Windows games through Linux with a console-like interface.

What it isn't is a viable desktop replacement, a high powered beast that can replace your rtx 4090, a waffle maker, or something that can play every PC game ever from any other launcher. While there are ways to get around some of this, it's less intuitive, a little annoying, and not really the greatest experience if you aren't into tinkering and just want to play games. It's not a Fortnite machine. You won't be playing certain games with aggressive anti-cheat like Destiny 2. It's not a good way to play your Gamepass games.

I find the best experiences are older and/or less demanding titles. They run very well, and you'll get great battery life. The Deck can play heavy and demanding games like Red Dead Redemption 2, but your battery life will tank to 1 1/2 hours, the fan will spin full blast, and it will heat up more in your hands. If this is the only way you have to play these kinds of games, okay, but I personally keep the heavier titles to my desktop and use my Steam Deck for less demanding pick-up-and-play games as well as a way to burn through my backlog of older releases.

[macarrones2]

Publicado originalmente por Satoru:

https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck/mygames/

Here you can see all the games in your library that are "Deck Verified"

You can basically just re-create this in your steam library by creating a collection with "Deck Verified" as the sort option as well.

This will give you an idea of what games will definitely work on your Deck.

Thanks! I will check it out

[macarrones2]

Publicado originalmente por Harusp3x:

Depending on your level of tech savviness or how comfortable you are exploring Linux and doing things there, I recommend you start out treating it like it's a console. Stick to the default "game mode" interface at first. Browse and play among the "Deck verified" games which are confirmed to run well and be a good experience. There are thousands, so you'll have no shortage of things to play.

Once you feel comfortable there, feel free to branch out a bit. Run a few non-verified games. Chances are they'll work fine. Check out ProtonDB to see what games work and what games don't, and among games that don't work what tweaks can be applied to make them work anyway.

From there you can check out guides to really expand things and get the most out of your device. Things like Decky loader, ProtonUP, and EmuDeck.

From what I've seen most people who have a "bad" Steam Deck experience go into it's expecting it to do things that it was never meant to do. So if you start out slow and just focus on what it is meant to do at first before you branch out, you should have a really good experience.

What the Steam Deck is is a 15 watt, low powered, portable gaming PC designed to run most Windows games through Linux with a console-like interface.

What it isn't is a viable desktop replacement, a high powered beast that can replace your rtx 4090, a waffle maker, or something that can play every PC game ever from any other launcher. While there are ways to get around some of this, it's less intuitive, a little annoying, and not really the greatest experience if you aren't into tinkering and just want to play games. It's not a Fortnite machine. You won't be playing certain games with aggressive anti-cheat like Destiny 2. It's not a good way to play your Gamepass games.

I find the best experiences are older and/or less demanding titles. They run very well, and you'll get great battery life. The Deck can play heavy and demanding games like Red Dead Redemption 2, but your battery life will tank to 1 1/2 hours, the fan will spin full blast, and it will heat up more in your hands. If this is the only way you have to play these kinds of games, okay, but I personally keep the heavier titles to my desktop and use my Steam Deck for less demanding pick-up-and-play games as well as a way to burn through my backlog of older releases.

Thank you very much, WOW, that was informative.
I also wanted to ask something, I have a desktop PC, which has an ok performance, not the best PC, but still fine.
I wanted to put Windows 10 on the Steam Deck and buy a Dock Station for it, is it good?
I ask it because I'd like a better PC, and no way I'm spending 1000 bucks for a "good" PC.

[Haruspex]

Publicado originalmente por JorteroXD:

Thank you very much, WOW, that was informative.
I also wanted to ask something, I have a desktop PC, which has an ok performance, not the best PC, but still fine.
I wanted to put Windows 10 on the Steam Deck and buy a Dock Station for it, is it good?
I ask it because I'd like a better PC, and no way I'm spending 1000 bucks for a "good" PC.

The Steam Deck is best running the OS that was designed for it, and that's SteamOS. It's best used in the manner in which it was intended to be used, and that's as a handheld, portable gaming PC.

If what you're looking for is a "better PC", and not a handheld, portable device for playing PC games, then you're really better off buying a desktop PC. (Or maybe upgrading your current one?)

I don't know what kind of specs your current PC has so I can't make any recommendations, but looking on Ebay I can find several desktops for around the price of a Steam Deck that are far more powerful than the Steam Deck in terms of performance.