Anyone own a SteamDeck?

[Shaun N.]

Wife got me one for Xmas, So far I've played Vampire survivors and Wow - but my main activity is tinkering with the OS 😛

[Dick Montage]

I got one in the end. And yeah, just immediately it oozes “this is a well made device”. I game on it frequently.

I have also:

Upped the SSD to 1tb

Installed Windows2Go on a fast SD

Got a dock that houses another SSD for when playing at home

Created an SD that boots into Batocera for emulation

Use it docked with UltraStar and Singstar microphones for karaoke fun with mates

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 12/01/2023 at 11:09, Dick Montage said:

I got one in the end. And yeah, just immediately it oozes “this is a well made device”. I game on it frequently.

I have also:

Upped the SSD to 1tb

Installed Windows2Go on a fast SD

Got a dock that houses another SSD for when playing at home

Created an SD that boots into Batocera for emulation

Use it docked with UltraStar and Singstar microphones for karaoke fun with mates

how is windows running on an SD card? I've thought about setting that up but would imagine there's a good deal of performance degradation.

my current sd is quite full anyway at the moment so I'll probably just continue waiting for official dual boot support.

edit: not that I care too much about dual booting anyway right now. everything I've thrown at it runs quite well in SteamOS and I don't care about multiplayer enough for those of my games that DO have DRM that doesn't support linux yet.

[Dick Montage]

On 12/01/2023 at 18:52, Brandon H said:

how is windows running on an SD card? I've thought about setting that up but would imagine there's a good deal of performance degradation.

my current sd is quite full anyway at the moment so I'll probably just continue waiting for official dual boot support.

So the process is to setup the SD card as a Windows To Go install via Rufus.  I was wary of this, but have to see that I'm pleasantly surprised.  I bought a known brand, high speed SD card (obviously), and I am not seeing any lag, stuttering, slow-down or such.  Sure, the boot time is like maybe 30 seconds as opposed to 5 on my gaming PC but hey.  Also the JSAUX dock with built in SSD is handy too.

I'm actually typing this now on my SteamDeck, docked to my living room TV via a wireless keyboard while the SteamDeck is copying a few hundreg gig of media off  NAS within Windows.  Very pleasant little device!

[dead.cell]

On 12/01/2023 at 12:58, Dick Montage said:

So the process is to setup the SD card as a Windows To Go install via Rufus.  I was wary of this, but have to see that I'm pleasantly surprised.  I bought a known brand, high speed SD card (obviously), and I am not seeing any lag, stuttering, slow-down or such.  Sure, the boot time is like maybe 30 seconds as opposed to 5 on my gaming PC but hey.  Also the JSAUX dock with built in SSD is handy too.

I'm actually typing this now on my SteamDeck, docked to my living room TV via a wireless keyboard while the SteamDeck is copying a few hundreg gig of media off  NAS within Windows.  Very pleasant little device!

So are you using Windows To Go as a permanent OS or only when you're connected to it? Just curious, I've never messed with it myself. Glad you're enjoying it though.

The Steam Deck has honestly killed my gaming laptop, simply for being way less cumbersome, heavy, and loud. It also beats out the Switch because who the hell wants to keep paying Nintendo tax for subpar quality (visually speaking) games? Nah, I keep my library with me. Anything else for mobile compute, my MBP handles like a champ.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 12/01/2023 at 13:19, dead.cell said:

It also beats out the Switch because who the hell wants to keep paying Nintendo tax for subpar quality (visually speaking) games? Nah, I keep my library with me. Anything else for mobile compute, my MBP handles like a champ.

Heck the Deck runs switch games better than the switch itself even  just need a first gen switch so you can dump your games and keys  

[dead.cell]

On 12/01/2023 at 13:32, Brandon H said:

Heck the Deck runs switch games better than the switch itself even  just need a first gen switch so you can dump your games and keys  

Haven't tried that yet, but I did try some DS games. Unfortunately, ran into an issue with save games that I didn't bother trying to correct. I may need to revisit this, but I've got Persona and a few other games loaded up. Despite all the bitching people like to do on the front page about Linux, it's been quite a solid experience.

Did you end up getting one after all? I recall something about you cancelling your order, but not sure what you ended up going with.

[Dick Montage]

On 12/01/2023 at 19:19, dead.cell said:

So are you using Windows To Go as a permanent OS or only when you're connected to it?

If I insert that SD card then it’s my OS. But when on the go, I tend to revert to the steamOS. Essentially the internal Ssd (although upgraded) is stock.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 12/01/2023 at 16:31, dead.cell said:

Haven't tried that yet, but I did try some DS games. Unfortunately, ran into an issue with save games that I didn't bother trying to correct. I may need to revisit this, but I've got Persona and a few other games loaded up. Despite all the bitching people like to do on the front page about Linux, it's been quite a solid experience.

Did you end up getting one after all? I recall something about you cancelling your order, but not sure what you ended up going with.

I ended up renewing my order for the 512gb version and that came up in October for me to complete the order. I love the thing and have been playing Persona 5 Royal recently as well.

[Xenon]

I have been playing Skyrim with some mods on it and I love it. 

[+ThePhoenix Subscriber²]

I've used my 512 one loads since I got it mid last year, dual booted it with Windows for a while, mainly just because I could 😉

 

It's brilliant, replayed my way through bunch of tomb raider and spiderman games plus a ton of other stuff, it's perfect for stuff like that!

[FateTrap]

On 12/01/2023 at 12:09, Shaun N. said:

Wife got me one for Xmas, So far I've played Vampire survivors and Wow - but my main activity is tinkering with the OS 😛

Is it possible, for example, to reinstall SteamOS on the Deck but using F2FS instead of EXT4?

EXT4 is faster than the (very slow) NTFS of windows11, but F2FS starts games considerably faster than EXT4.

I think F2FS (on Linux) can load games and game maps 2x faster than NTFS (on windows11).

This is my startup time for 0 A.D. on PCLinuxOS with F2FS as root partition. I hadn't opened any apps before I did this test. 0 A.D. was not opened once.

Result: 0.658 second total startup time

If I reopen the game I can still obtain slightly better load times of course. (0.570 second total startup time)

I also tested OpenArena's load time and it is consistently between 0.4 s and 0.5 s. (opening the game for the first time)

OpenArena pretty much always opens in less than half a second if I skip the first movie.

I have an Intel 12600KF and an old Samsung EVO 850 500GB SSD. With a powerful new SSD I can load these games much faster on F2FS.

I think you will also see faster loading times of games and game maps/chapters on the Stream Deck when you use F2FS as the root file system.

[Ixion]

Took delivery of my 512Gb OLED model this week and I'm very impressed. Having tried a few AAA titles just to see how they ran I think I'll mostly be avoiding that route in future (not a fan of playing at 30FPS with the fans running up) but have had a lot of success with emu-deck for running Switch games, lots of fun games from my Steam library, Xbox game streaming and local streaming of my PS5 work really nicely if I want to play anything more taxing. Battery life is decent too. Heroic seems to work nicely for GoG and Epic Game store where I have a huge back catalogue of freely claimed games to play.

I haven't felt the need to go near Windows as with a bit of tinkering most things seem to work fine under SteamOS.

[Max Norris]

On 30/11/2023 at 03:54, Ixion said:

Took delivery of my 512Gb OLED model this week and I'm very impressed.

I've had one for around a year now (sans OLED), haven't gotten bored with it and it's still getting lots of play time. For me it was definitely a worthwhile purchase. It's not going to replace my one remaining Windows system, that's purely set up for gaming and will absolutely crush the Deck performance wise. But I love it when I'm out of my office, tuning out my girlfriend's Hallmark Channel movie, sitting at my work desk waiting for a compile job to finish, etc etc. Not going to get crazy performance out of it but it's no slouch either, does some surprisingly good gaming for such a little box. And yea, emulation is quite good on it too.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

I bought the 512 GB version of the OLED Steam Deck. It's a great piece of hardware, plus Steam OS really appeals to those who want to tinker with the operating system and install non-Steam applications and games. 

Like most others, I can't complain about the performance. One example: Wreckfest runs perfectly well at 45 fps, using the full resolution and graphical details cranked up. And all that while the device is staying fairly cool and silent. Being able to pick up the Deck and effortlessly play a PC game on, say, the toilet (shush, you're all doing it) brought me back into gaming.

8.5/10, would recommend. Definitely make sure to go for the OLED screen though - it alone makes the device worth it.

[Gerowen]

On 02/09/2022 at 06:12, Dick Montage said:

Hi

 

I'm considering picking up a SteamDeck.  I'm not a huge gamer, my PC currently has a 970 in it so - I mean, judge me by that!

 

But there's games I'd like to play, be they handheld or docked to my screen.

 

Are they, like... any good?  I am not expecting earth shattering performance, but would they be good enough for casual gaming?  Like, what is outside of scope for them?

 

Thanks

I've got three, one for me and one for each kid.  My wife plays mostly on our desktop so we haven't bought one for her yet.  I think they're great, but there are some things to note about SteamOS.

While Proton compatibility with Windows games is pretty darn good, it's not perfect.  There will be games that you just cannot play.  Most of the time this ends up being multiplayer games that haven't implemented the Linux version of whatever anticheat they use like Fortnite, Call of Duty, etc.  I have successfully launched Fortnite before, gotten into a game, landed and grabbed a weapon before the anticheat kicked me, so this isn't an inability of SteamOS to run the game, it's the Windows anticheat not having kernel level access to a system it supports.  I have however played Battlefield 1, Battlefield 5, Brawlhalla, Elder Scrolls Online, Halo Master Chief Collection and a variety of other multiplayer games without issue.  Of the games that I actually play, I haven't had any of them that just straight up don't work except for Fortnite, and in fact, many games that are listed as "unsupported", still work just fine.  Proton "may" even enable you to play certain older games that Windows itself won't run any more.  Just remember, SteamOS is a Linux distribution that runs Window games through the Proton compatibility layer.  Sometimes it works for your benefit, sometimes not.  Your mileage may vary.  One great thing about SteamOS is how optimized it is for just gaming and how much it allows you to tinker with things, like frame rate limits in certain games (to avoid crazy physics in Skyrim for example), custom control schemes, etc.

In terms of performance, just a wild guess, RX 460/GTX 1050 ish performance?  Halo MCC runs at 1080p and cracks 100fps no problem, but most games should be left at the default 800p/720p.

Personally, as a gamer and Linux enthusiast, I love mine.  Yesterday I went to an archery tournament with my daughter and her flight was pretty early, but as the bus driver for the team I had to stay the whole day, so my daughter and I whipped out our Steam Decks and played some Portal 2 co-op.

Edited December 17, 2023 by Gerowen
Added note about performance and tinkering

[macoman]

I have a steam deck and it's great to play old games but not for new games that are currently out. Just a chilling type of devices if you wants to play old good games.

[Dick Montage]

On 18/12/2023 at 16:44, macoman said:

I have a steam deck and it's great to play old games but not for new games that are currently out. Just a chilling type of devices if you wants to play old good games.

720 with upscaling, it can play plenty of newer games 

[+Jester124 Subscriber²]

i just bought a 256gb model for my son and he seems to like it. I decided to go with the Asus ROG Ally for myself and love it. Can't go wrong with either device.

[Gerowen]

Since the Steam year in reviews are available now I thought I would share mine here. Last year my only gaming devices were my Steam Deck and my Debian Linux desktop, so everything listed here happened on one of those two devices.

https://store.steampowered.com/yearinreview/76561197979576141/2023