This is the compulsory Steam Deck thread.
Yes, I did get a Steam Deck OLED recently and I wanna engage in discussion about it because I'm annoying.

Thoughts:
---There are a lot of features added by plugins that really should just be part of SteamOS.
Steamgriddb is an absolute necessity.
---Decky is buggy as fuck after updates and really should be natively supported by Valve since like 80% of Steam Deck owners use it.
---Pirating is kinda iffy on the Deck. It certainly can be done, but more often than not its much easier to just buy a game on steam and not have to deal with manually getting Proton to work right and get dependencies sorted out.
---Makes me appreciate Steam's built in Cloud Save feature. Third party cloud save projects kinda suck ass and are not easy to set up. Syncthing seems cool but again it's way more obtuse than it needs to be.
---Running games from a MicroSD card works way better than it has any right to, especially if you get an A2 card. Also MicroSD cards are way cheaper than they used to be.
---Steam Input is really cool, but a lot of games default to a shitty config. Not a big deal, but better curated default selections would be cool.
---Moonlight is 10000000% better than Steam Remote Play.
---2D games are amazing on the deck.
---The trackpads are cool and make games with mouse (or touch) input so much easier to play.
---Pro tip: always limit your TDP in non-demanding games. Even 2D games will usually gobble up as much power as you throw at them even if FPS is capped.
---SteamOS is buggier than it should be, sadly. But I haven't had many issues personally.
---Emulator configuration is overcomplicated for no reason. I might just be a brainlet though.

ick on eck

>>714348597
Chubby homos with steam decks are peak

>>714348551 (OP)
My biggest gripe with the Steam Deck is how buggy/laggy/slow the UI feels. I guess 16GB just doesn't cut it anymore. Gonna try out the ROG Ally Xbox thing when it comes out

>>714348551 (OP)
One last gripe.... the trackpad texture feels weird and wrong on my fingers. I might get a skin just to change it.

>>714348551 (OP)
>Can't download games or updates with the screen off
>Steam UI is consistently laggy and slow
>Steam input is a labyrinth of options that make no sense and are often hidden in submenus of submenus
>Every time I try to turn it on it waits the exact amount of time to make me think I didn't press the power button all the way down and then the logo shows up the millisecond I start pressing the button again which turns it back off
>Shaders take up like 60gbs of my storage
But it's all worth it to play games in bed without having to rebuy them all plus their switch 2 upgrades plus nintendo online plus expansion pack plus tip
And yes I do emulate switch games while doing the dreamworks eyebrow raise smirk

>>714350364
Shaders taking up space is annoying but well worth it to eliminate shader cache stutter caused by shitty optimization.

It kind of falls apart when it can't even handle end game Vampire Survivors desu

>>714350364
There's a black screen plug in at least.

>>714351494
I usually just connect my deck to a dock. Screen goes black even if your external display is off

>>714348551 (OP)
Just install cachy os on it

>>714352867
>cachy os
For what benefit?

>>714353989
More traditional linux experience but still with the steam os gaming mode, newer kernel/drivers, better optimized, etc. It's a free performance upgrade. I also threw in some PTM7950 and undervolted everything by -50mV in the bios. Runs really nice.

>>714354209
Any drawbacks? I think I might give this a try.

>>714354445
Lol what drawbacks? I get to lol at deckies when they complain that valve released a buggy stable update.

>>714348551 (OP)
Since this is the blogging general I will give my unsolicited additional thoughts on the 'eck
---I installed Windows 11 but it sucked so bad I went back to SteamOS. It's not worth it.
---Since I already used Linux before the Deck I haven't had much trouble setting everything up in desktop mode but I imagine it being pretty difficult for a newcomer, despite KDE being very similar to Windows.
---Yes you have to option to run pretty much anything (yes even Genshin nowadays) but you will naturally gravitate towards just playing Steam games 95% of the time. Even braindead simple solutions like EmuDeck didn't change that. Not a critique, just a thought.
---I never play demanding games on the Deck. It can play Elden Ring and whatnot but it struggles so much that you can physically feel the fans pushing while holding it (but only for a while since by then the battery will drain itself in minutes). The sweetspot for games are the ones that the Deck can easily run, so it stays quiet and gets good battery mileage
---I can't go back to the Switch or other consoles. I got so used to not only buying games for less but also having all of your progress synced across devices.

Despite a lot of ranting I still think it's the best handheld ever made and I use it a lot.
Thanks for reading my blog, like and subscribe!!!

>>714354765
Skipped everything but the last paragraph. Your welcome.

>>714354445
I tried to use CachyOS yesterday (not on SteamDeck though) and it was freezing constantly. EndeavourOS which I also tried yesterday does not have this problem nor does Ubuntu so I dunno what's up with that. CachyOS has some really nice software included by default so you don't have to do everything yourself like Arch or EndeavourOS but it really doesn't feel like it's very stable if I was able to find obvious issues within an hour or two. Took me like 2 months of Syuing before I found an issue on Arch and I'm not sure I can even blame Arch for it.
It also had serious graphical issues in a game I tried, EndeavourOS did not.

>>714355523
It's stable on my deck OLED.

>>714348551 (OP)

TLDR

>>714354209
Oh cool, didn't know it came in retard proof handheld image.

>>714355523
Weirdly I tried EndeavourOS (Also not on my steam deck) and it kept freezing and hitching and I ended up installing CachyOS because it doesn't do that for me

>>714356636
Yeah it also pulls from the steam repositories too for native deck drivers.

>>714348551 (OP)
The steam verification for deck shit is weirdly inconsistent. Like shenmue reportedly is unplayable on steam deck but its perfectly fine for me, but vampire the masquerade bloodlines, which is also marked as unplayable actually is, dokuuysei bangin summer, also marked as unplayable, is fine but its just played with the track pad? who tests these things, exactly?

>>714356896
I dont pay attention to it at all. The deck is a PC so if it runs good on PCs it'll work on the deck.

>>714356896
Just use protondb

>>714356689
I assume you used the deck version which is tailored for it. I used the desktop version on a desktop PC with nvidia card. The weirdest thing was the actual fucked up graphics in my game, I've never seen anything like that before.

how is the steam deck as a mobile faux workstation? Or at least light photography and video editing.

>>714357203
It's fine for it. As fine as a 4 core CPU computer can be anyway.

>>714348551 (OP)
>install bullshit on the deck because I can't be normal for one second
>why doesn't it work!? Fucking Volvo!!

I either buy a game and press play or I pirate it and also press play. Never had issues, works every time.

>>714357314
Same and I use cachy (btw)

>>714348551 (OP)
>Pirating is kinda iffy on the Deck.
Not really. Just pirate something and add it as a non-steam game and you'll usually be fine.

>>714357169
Nope, desktop version. Nvidia card too.

>>714349806
'eck on 'ack
>>714356896
The verification thing is usually a terrible reference for whether you can really play a game on Deck. It still claims Catherine Classic doesn't work. ProtonDB is a much better resource.

>>714359354
This. Not sure how any of it is iffy

>>714348551 (OP)
I agree with most of that.
The only bugs I've ever encountered in my three years of using the deck were caused by decky loader and decky offers so many good features that valve really should just officially start adding those to steam.

>>714360471
Depends on the game. If you're pirating a lot of japanese porn games and VNs those can still be a crapshoot due to unicodes and whatever weird way the japanese developed the game. It's always getting better, but obviously that sort of thing isn't highest on proton's priority list.

>>714348857
I dunno what you're doing anon but I've been using the OG deck and it feels snappy to me.
>>714348551 (OP)
>-Emulator configuration is overcomplicated for no reason.
The ezmode is to just use retroarch, otherwise it's figuring out how emulators work on linux, but what's overcomplicated? Everything I've thrown at it has been - > download emulator - > find folder with ROMs - > play
I think I might be ahead of the curve because I used linux before the Deck though

>>714359445
Oh I see, I read your post wrong. It's pretty odd then, maybe it was bad for me because my Nvidia card is a 980 and they are using some setting that causes bricking if you have such old hardware.

>>714356896
the verification thing barely matters

if it has low specs and is designed around a controller it's good for the deck, avoid modern AAA titles and stuff designed for keyboard and mouse

>>714356896
Steam verification is done by a dev submitting it for review to Valve and/or someone at valve testing it to see if it works. The verification can be several iterations of proton behind as well, and if a dev stops caring they'll stop submitting it.
A few years ago nothing ran, but as of this year the only things that don't seem to work anymore are multiplayer titles with DRM specifically set to disallow linux. At best you'll have to switch to a different proton version or if it's an obscure VN from Japan you might have to force it to download a random video codec from 2004 because the japanese are shit programmers that use weird shit

For emulators you can either just install RetroArch or just install Retrodeck, both of these basically handle it all for you.

The Steam Deck really is the perfect handheld, especially perfect for me since I never stay in one place for very long and constantly move countries. Having a real PC isn't feasible in that sort of lifestyle, though inb4 someone says they do it anyway. The deck manages to successfully feel like a good home for everything from UFO 50 to Nightreign.

>>714348857
>My biggest gripe with the Steam Deck is how buggy/laggy/slow the UI feels
Uninstall all your decky plugins and keep only the ones you actually need. The only time my UI felt sluggish was because I was loading up on every plugin that looked cool and their creators weren't updating them after valve updated the deck.

>>714356896
>The steam verification for deck shit is weirdly inconsistent.
Because instead of assuming a game works until proven otherwise, they assume it doesn't until proven it does. It's because they're worried about people buying a game that doesn't say it's unsupported only to find out it has issues that valve plays it so safe. It's why 99.99% of unsupported games work, but valve hasn't gotten around to personally confirming that they do so they still get slapped with that label.
>who tests these things, exactly?
If a game is marked as unsupported/unknown it basically just means valve hasn't gotten around to checking or revisiting them as proton has improved. Only in rare cases is it actually true. Valve only has like 300 employees and they need to get through well over 100,000 games with 50+ more coming out every day so it takes them fucking forever.

>>714348551 (OP)
decky made yuzu stop working for some reason and steam rom manager creates a bunch of duplicate entries for games but besides that i've had a pretty smooth experience even as a 1st time linux user

>primetime in Indian
>daily steam deck pops up
GOOD MORNING SAAR

>>714348551 (OP)
Great device but installing an ssd in the 64gb version is a must so menuing isn‘t laggy as shit

>>714366715
Damn saar what an organic post just in time to bump the thread from dying!

Gimme your best games for the deck, I'm making a list

714364989
Your timely presence is noted, Rajesh. Now go rape or get run over by a train.

i honestly only use it to play dark souls on the shitter for a few hours in the office while my code is compiling, its a pretty good piece of tech but games are only enjoyable at this point for me when im either A) Drunk B) Avoiding responsabilities

>>714367440
I loved playing Witch Spring R and Ender Lilies on the deck. Both ran really good and gave very long battery life (with frame rate limit in case of WSR).

>>714367440
Games i like that run at 60fps with good battery life:
>dead space (2008)
>dead space 2
>nine sols
>minishoot adventures
>hades
>hades 2
>prince of persia the lost crown
>star of providence
>blasphemous 2
>cuphead
>ori will of the wisps
>shogun showdown
>rayman origins
>dishonored

>>714367936
>dead space
>nine sols
>rayman origins
Nice, thankyou. Have you tried Dishonoured 2? I've avoided it until now apparently it's crap.
Pic related games are coming out next week, I'm looking forward to playing Patapon natively as opposed to emulated, assuming they don't mess up the port somehow I would highly recommend it.

>>714354445
It's buggy as fuck, don't do it. The only non-shit Linux distro is Bazzite. But even then I would just keep using SteamOS on the Steam Deck.

>>714369104
You spelled Arch wrong. That's the only non-shit Linux distro.

>>714364870
>made yuzu stop working for some reason
I assume it's because of the Nintendo lawsuit that demands Yuzu to be removed from everywhere? The new Ryujinx fork works fine.
https://flathub.org/apps/io.github.ryubing.Ryujinx

>>714369234
Eden seems to be superior. However I'm unfamiliar if Ruy is better in certain circumstances.

>>714369357
>version 0.0.2-altpha
>bugs: AMD GPUs see a green screen on FMVs. This is being investigated.

>seems to be superior

>>714348551 (OP)
Pirating isnt hard just get lutris. I'm a linux noob and every game I have on my deck is pirated havent had a single issue .

>>714348857
>how buggy/laggy/slow the UI feels
How? The only time it's laggy for me is when I switch to the desktop mode, and the desktop freezes for ~5 seconds to load everything. Otherwise, it works very well.

>>714348551 (OP)
What’s a good, relaxing, preferably endless game I can play on Steam Deck while sat in front of the TV? Something I don’t have to put much focus on
Nothing like Civ, I know you can play fine with trackpads but I’d still rather use K+M for something like that, and any system is fine as long as it’s something that deck can emulate
>Captcha: PSP MH
Freedom Unite might be close to endless but I certainly have to focus on that

>>714370719
Stardew Valley

>>714370719
Snowrunner is my goto "something to do with my hands that doesn't take too much focus" game". It's not endless but there's so much content it might as well be.

>>714363617
Do you have to hunt down BIOS/firmware/whatever for each individual emulator, or is there a site that has all of them in one place?

>game recording still gives you a black screen after 5 seconds
Why even add this feature if you're not going to fix it.

>>714369930
0.0.3 is coming out soon. Im using the eden nightlies and the FMVs are fixed.

>>714367440
Too broad. It plays basically everything. Whatever game in existence you want to play, it will likely be able to play it. The amount of games it can't is tiny compared to the amount of games it can.

>>714367440
I use mine as a JRPG machine, it's basically perfect for it

>>714375590
Never really fucked with JRPGs, got a good jumping off point to recommend?
>>714370719
OSRS or that Marvin Idle one?

>>714375902
>got a good jumping off point to recommend?
If you want a modern one I'd reccomend Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Dragon Quest XI or Persona 5 Royal

If you want to start with a classic I'd reccomend Chrono Trigger

(The Deck runs all these games perfectly)

>>714375902
>got a good jumping off point to recommend?
Pokemon, of course.

>>714375902
Persona 4. Not a fan of jrpgs, but I loved every second of my playthrough.