Steam Deck - Valve's answer to Switch

Jogort

If anyone has an order they no longer want let me know please 🤣

Jogort

Brave How do you find the face buttons to use? seems strange having the controls at the top and the B button looks like it’s falling off the edge

Brave

Jogort It’s not been an issue for me tbh. I looked at the layout and thought it might be weird but as always, you get used to it. In this case I never really thought about it after the first five minutes of using it. Any issues I had were more about being used to the switch layout when I’m using a handheld. That’s not an issue now though.

The track pads are initially weird but actually really handy. I could see people getting good with them on fps games as you can really flick your view around quickly. I might try them out on xcom just to see how they handle.

The back buttons also initially felt like they were slightly in the wrong place but actually they feel very natural now. They need a tiny tiny bit more effort to press, which I’m guessing is to avoid accidental presses.

It being steam, it’s all hugely configurable. And on a per game basis too. So the back buttons (or any button as far as I can see) can be assigned to any other button differently for each different game you’re playing.

On top of that they are recognised as independent inputs (L4, L5, R4, R5) and it seems like developers can let you assign things to those buttons on their own. So in NMS I can have the buttons to narrow and widen the terrain manipulator on there and more important things on the dpad.

It’s so flexible it can seem a bit daunting at first but you also don’t have to engage with it at that level and just treat it as normal back buttons.

My main issue was retraining from the switch layout. Somehow I had a handheld mode sort of saved in my brain and could usually jump from playing the ps5 to the switch without issue. Again though, very quickly got used to it.

Fumanstu

What size storage did you go for? Is there much of a difference between internal and micro sd?

Brave

Fumanstu I went for the cheap 64gb one and then stuck a fast 512 sd card in it. I’ve not noticed a massive difference, although Control is slow loading off the sd card. That said, I’ve not tried on internal storage so it might be slow there too. Other games have been fine (even great) on SD so far though.

I think some of the bigger sites have done favourable comparisons running games on sd s well.

What I’ve taken to doing is just move my main game to the internal memory (providing there’s enough space) if it seems slow otherwise.

Worth noting that they’ve made it relatively easy to swap out your own ssd.

Fumanstu

Ta - that would be what I would do when i get mine, so good to know it’s largely painless. 👍

Brave

Just to illustrate the whole “growing an uncontrollable stream library for very little” thing. I’d already forgotten that I’d purchased the Stand WithUkraine bundle.

Just redeemed a bunch of great games on there, including Back 4 Blood, Satisfactory, Quantum Break, Metro Exodus and a bunch of recent indie games that I had my eye on. I won’t be short of something to play for a looooong time.

Brave

Still very much in the honeymoon period with this. Experimenting with officially unsupported games that I happen to own.

The irony that Valve are the ones to give me a handheld that can run Monster Hunter World, and very well too, is blowing my tiny mind.

Gordon

A friend has just found out he’s been sent a Steam Deck for “evaluation purposes” by his work. He just cancelled his own preorder. Jammy git.

DrDamn

https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-deck-emulation-installation/

The article is about ease of emulator installation, but it can also be applied to anything Linux wise you might find useful to install.

Brave

They’ve just added VRR to the beta channel of the OS, so I have thrown caution to the wind and switched to beta.

It’s really good. Just set the refresh slider to 40 and the frame rate limit slider automatically switches to options of 10, 20 and 40 instead of 15, 30 and 60.

40 fps is really noticeably better than 30 (with the refresh rate at 40 as well) in DRG. Going to try Elden Ring as well but I suspect it’ll also be ace.

I can tell the difference between 30 and 40 far more than I notice anything between 40 and 60. It’s a definite Goldilocks zone.

Edit: they’ve also improved the way the fan responds under different loads. Much quieter, especially when you’re just doing stuff like browse the store.

Gordon

Brave 30fps and fan noise were the main things still putting me off. Dammit.

Brave

Gordon apparently the second wave (like mine) are quieter than the first review wave of decks. They changed the type of fan they used.

Brave

It’s now possible to install Windows 11, even on the stable branch so I’ve ordered another fast SD card. The process looks /relatively/ simple to get it running, at which point I’ve got a gamepass handheld and can run Outriders on my deck, and other games where Valve are still working on anti cheat compatibility, maybe even Lost Ark? Although the text would be stupidly small on that.

Then I just need to swap SD cards depending on whether I want Deck OS or Windows games. I’d ideally love just to stay with Deck OS as it’s already so well honed in on gaming and hopefully as time goes on I’ll be able to do that. Maybe even gamepass will run on there. Weirder things have happened.

Brave

Still very much in the “this thing is amazing” stage of ownership of the steam deck. I’ve settled on finishing Deathloop (have gotten further than I did on ps5) but I can’t seem to stop trying different things out. Mostly from my backlog but the sales are ridiculous too.

The latest games I’ve tried being Remnant from the Ashes, which works really well, and Back4Blood which works brilliantly despite being marked as unsupported. I keep my eye in a couple of websites and the Reddit forum and saw some some reports that it was actually working well. So I downloaded it and it’s actually one of the best handheld experiences I’ve had since getting the thing.

One issue is that screenshots are much lower quality than I see on screen. If you look at these on a phone, you’ll be seeing it at not quite equivalent quality to what I see in motion on the Deck.

I can’t believe such a demanding game works so well handheld. I’m not sure I’ll ever get my head round it. There’s been a few moments in my life where I’ve felt like suddenly I’m living in the future. This thing is one of them. And they haven’t even enabled Ray tracing yet.

The biggest problem right now is that Easy Anticheat and the like need individual updates, it seems. Updates to the experimental branch of proton (very easily selected in the options for launching an individual game) seem to collate these. So for example Outriders works well enough, with some stutters, on Windows 11 running on an SD card, but I haven’t been able to run it on DeckOS yet.

The rate that Proton gets updated though, I can’t see it being long before I have it running nice and smooth without having to resort to a relatively slow Windows to go installation. Tunic seems to run nicely that way though. So gamepass is available with a little bit of work. I actually think it’ll get enabled native on the deck before long though.

And I’ve not even touched on how good the controller part of the equation is. The back buttons and track pads, combined with the deck’s software, which allows you to do almost anything you like. In Deep Rock, I’ve got one of the back buttons set to equip my scout zip line when I tap it, but if I hold it it chooses my weapon again. This means I can zip and then shoot while turning in the air and land facing the back of a beastie, something that can only normally be done with mouse and keyboard because you would normally have to take your thumb off the stick to switch weapons.

I want to buy a dedicated steam controller (v2 if you like) with this flexibility. It’s ridiculously good.

Aside from coop on a Monday night and a couple of sessions on my Thor save in Elden Ring, I’ve barely touched the other platforms. I’ve definitely not bought anything on them.

Gordon

I’m fully back on board now. My kids have been playing a lot of Switch stuff recently and I’ve been really enjoying handheld gaming again. Only 2-5 months left.

Gordon

😮

Brave

Gordon

Fix incoming. Ffxiv should soon just work with the native launcher on deck.

https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam-deck/ffxiv-fix

Also added support for Vermintide, which I am totally up for.

Gordon

Does Monster Hunter Rise run at 60 on these?

Brave

Gordon no idea but World ran really well so I’d expect it to. It’s nowhere near as intensive.

Brave

https://www.windowscentral.com/steam-deck-performance-tested

Performance: Steam Deck delivers slightly better visuals than the Nintendo Switch version of the game, but drastically improved performance. Default settings for Monster Hunter Rise provide a consistent 60FPS experience.

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