Steam Deck (handheld from Valve) - shipping is 4-8 days from NL to UK

[Mogster]

I've actually been impressed at just how little tinkering has been required, as long as you stay within Steam's borders. I've basically treated it as a handheld console for the most part, trusting that "the game runs well at its default configuration" or whatever it says and finding that usually holds true. At most I'd just lower the refresh rate or something. Actually Xbox Game Pass just works too, after the initial tinkering involved in setting it up of course.

 

All that said, I've not even had the opportunity to try it outside of the house yet, unless the garden counts.

[Jamie John]

Am I right in thinking that you can only stream Game Pass games - you can't download them and play them locally?

[Jamie John]

31 minutes ago, Strafe said:

Thoughts and prayers 

 

Yup - we're currently on fire watch. The big one near Bordeaux is about two hours from where we're currently staying 😬

[amc]

1 hour ago, Hitcher said:

 

 

 

Yup, Sean my PF driver is coming between 2-3pm today. Got some beers in the fridge but feeling like a couple of ciders, gonna shoot across the road to the shop before he comes. By the time I've gotten a few games on there they'll be ice cold and the sun will be going down.

 

Zip to the quiet little park around the corner for a spot of open air chilled gaming and a nice cold cider (and beer) and *

 

*A super mild puff on some devil's lettuce.

[Mogster]

10 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

Am I right in thinking that you can only stream Game Pass games - you can't download them and play them locally?

That's right I'm afraid, although it works well in my experience. You'd have to install Windows to play them locally, and I doubt we'll ever have a way to access that stuff from SteamOS.

[Strafe]

1 hour ago, Jamie John said:

 

Yup - we're currently on fire watch. The big one near Bordeaux is about two hours from where we're currently staying 😬

Ah, sorry. (Genuine) fingers crossed it’s all ok!

[Siri]

1 hour ago, Paulando said:

Yeah I mean, I can’t see me ever taking my Steam Deck out of the house, let alone on holiday. It’s an ‘enjoy PC games on the couch’ device for me, and requires the comfort of my own home to put up with the potential tinkering involved.

I mean, if it's all ready to go, I'm absolutely taking the deck on holiday.

The main problem most people will have though is what is actually ready to go - If it's not fudging cloud saves on a store that wants no part of the Steam Deck, it's going to be Rockstar's launcher taking the piss. If it's not that, it's some bullshit DRM IO Interactive has put into Hitman that requires an always online internet connection. If it's not that, it's some F2P faff Bungie has cooked up that will piss and shit that it can't connect to their own servers because of some fanny fart excuse.

But on the other hand, I take the deck to work, don't tether it to my phone at all, and start playing something like FF7 Remake because it's a game that doesn't shit the bed when it's offline. Online DRM is a fucking plague, ultimately, and you've either got to work with it or not at all. And that involves voting with your wallet for the games that actually respect how you want to play them.

Of course, I'm saying this, and in a week's time I'm back to the Path of Exile salt mines

[amc]

Sean came early. Yippee! Thanks Sean.

 

Wow, it's a big ol' boy. Excited.

[Jamie John]

Right - I started a new game on Disco Elysium and made a new save game. I then quit Disco and rebooted it and 'Load Game' was no longer greyed out. I was able to load the new save I'd just made, but none of my old saves were there to reload, despite still being in the save games folder on the drive. The new save wasn't in that same folder, however, so this means that the new save file has been created in a different directory, but I'll be buggered if I can find where that is. I've tried searching for it and sorting the folders by recently modified, etc., but nothing is coming up. If I can find where the new game has been saved then I can copy all of my old saves to that folder and (presumably) reload my old save.

 

This has taken me an inordinate amount of time already. Does anyone know how I can find where Heroic is storing the saves?

[amc]

Scrap that, photo looked shit and unnecessary anyway. Lets get downloading.

 

 

[Giddas]

23 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

Right - I started a new game on Disco Elysium and made a new save game. I then quit Disco and rebooted it and 'Load Game' was no longer greyed out. I was able to load the new save I'd just made, but none of my old saves were there to reload, despite still being in the save games folder on the drive. The new save wasn't in that same folder, however, so this means that the new save file has been created in a different directory, but I'll be buggered if I can find where that is. I've tried searching for it and sorting the folders by recently modified, etc., but nothing is coming up. If I can find where the new game has been saved then I can copy all of my old saves to that folder and (presumably) reload my old save.

 

This has taken me an inordinate amount of time already. Does anyone know how I can find where Heroic is storing the saves?

 

If you know roughly what the filename looks like (say blah0001.sav) can't you do something like:

 

find ~ -name 'blah*.sav'

 

in a terminal in desktop mode

 

[Jamie John]

5 minutes ago, Giddas said:

 

If you know roughly what the filename looks like (say blah0001.sav) can't you do something like:

 

find ~ -name 'blah*.sav'

 

in a terminal in desktop mode

 

 

I tried that: all the older saves (the ones I want to load) have 'save' in the filename and are all dated, so I searched for 'save' from the root directory and all of my old saves came up, but not the new one, so the new save must have a different file name.

 

Unless it's in the cloud, which is why I can't find it on the Deck anywhere?

[bradigor]

What if you force download from the cloud. Then copy and rename your 15 hour file to match the name of the one you force download, overwrite the force downloaded one wioth your renmaed actual save and see if thta works

[amc]

Oh man! This thing feels so right. Just had a quick blast on EX Zodiac and ballisticNG, they look and play incredible, actually feel better on the deck than my PC. Gonna be a sweet evening under the stars (yeah, I've got a big power-bank), got Legend of Grimrock 2 on there for some adventure time.

 

Those first two mentioned games are must haves for this imo. ballisticNG is an incredible WipEout clone, and I mean incredible.

[bradigor]

CSD3 is free on Epic and it is really good in Switch, but I wonder in the extra control options of Steam Deck will improve it further.

[Siri]

40 minutes ago, amc said:

Those first two mentioned games are must haves for this imo. ballisticNG is an incredible WipEout clone, and I mean incredible.

 

Yep, it's one of the first games I put on the deck, and there's a good reason I put it in the budget PC games guide. I've still yet to venture into the mods, either.

 

speaking of the guide, I should probably write some bullshit about Fangames, Demos and not-shit F2P, but that will probably wait while I fuck around with Arcade Paradise and not dying in the heat.

[bradigor]

Spider-Man runs really well. Also really like the accessibility options,n pretty much playing in high contrast mode 

[amc]

Let the fun begin. Got a pretty nice quadruple Talisker, Sprite and ice in my bike bottle there. Classy. Flat is like an oven, nearly cried with the breeze riding here. Not going home for a good few hours. Park is dead. Might go on the swings.

[Paulando]

Currently playing Patrick’s Parabox, which is an incredible PC-only puzzle game that I’d have missed out on if I didn’t have a Deck. So many other games I want to play that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.

 

I also cannot imagine playing this on a PC, sat at a desk. Love this thing.

 

[amc]

Fucking love it. Getting pretty dark now, by some big arse trees, wind warmly blowin'. Stars coming out. Legend of Grimrock 2 taking on a moody vibe.

 

Not a soul about. Might get murdered.*

 

*Jk. I wouldn't care anyway. Still too bloody warm for my flat. Will take my chances.

[bradigor]

2 minutes ago, amc said:

Fucking love it. Getting pretty dark now, by some big arse trees, wind warmly blowin'. Stars coming out. Legend of Grimrock 2 taking on a moody vibe.

 

Not a soul about. Might get murdered.*

 

*Jk. I wouldn't care anyway. Still too bloody warm for my flat. Will take my chances.

 

Steam Deck makes a good kosh 

[amc]

Fucking hell. We've got bats now. 4D. This is my last report. Promise.

 

Suffice to say, I've pulled this late night gaming in the park stunt a few times with handhelds over the years, Steam Deck is king.  Feels apt somehow. Although I've just needed to plug it into my battery-bank. So much power!!!

 

Happy gaming... wherever you may be.

 

[Hitcher]

First impressions: It's actually smaller and lighter than I imagined. Feels good to control but I do find using L1 and R1 more difficult than when using a controller - I think it's because they're not very wide unlike on a controller where they go all the way to the top. Only played a few Steam games so far and the experience wasn't great for most of them because they're designed for a K+M but that's not the main reason I bought it anyway which leads to me to a question.

What's a good Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to use with this because setting up emulators without them seems like a real PITA?

[shirubagan]

@HitcherA friend of mine recommended me this wireless mini keyboard. I’ve not bought it as I have a cheap full size BT MKB sitting around, but he says it’s great. 

 

https://amzn.eu/d/46MO65G

[cavalcade]

I played the Deck on a train yesterday, and I guess sometimes you forget it's still a fairly niche product and still quite early in the order cycle as I had a nerdy looking dude staring at it in open mouthed astonishment from across the aisle. The case for it then fell out of my rucksack near him and he grabbed it gave it back and a conversation ensued. 

 

I certainly didn't buy this device to end up talking to strangers. it's never leaving the house again. 

[SteveH]

41 minutes ago, shirubagan said:

@HitcherA friend of mine recommended me this wireless mini keyboard. I’ve not bought it as I have a cheap full size BT MKB sitting around, but he says it’s great. 

 

https://amzn.eu/d/46MO65G

Yeah it's a nice little keyboard. Not as good as a full sized one obviously, but much better than using the screen on the Deck. I originally bought mine for my Fire TV stick for some side loaded apps, but have found it very useful when doing anything emulation-wise etc on the Steam Deck. The fact that the trackpad alone is much bigger helps a lot. Plus of course, actual keys. And with it being the size of a controller, nice and easy to take with you anywhere. 

[gingerling]

Anyone got any ideas why Lutris won't install? The installation appears to complete but it doesn't show within games or applications.

[bradigor]

Did you do the Konsole but first? 

[gingerling]

5 minutes ago, bradigor said:

Did you do the Konsole but first? 

Yeah, I added the script to Konsole. Then installed from Discover.

[bradigor]

Hmmm odd. When you go to Discover now does it say launch or install?