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

[Siri]

Yep. It's literally a PC you pick up and play on. If you're not sold on picking up and playing games while owning a switch, the Steam Deck might as well be a £350+ chocolate teapot.

[yakumo]

3 hours ago, denisb said:

As someone who has never once played their switch handheld is it worth me getting one of these? I keep coming into the thread and the pull of something shiny is getting hard to resist .

 

id likely just dock it to tv im sure I’d be better getting yet another gaming laptop but being sensible isn’t an attribute I posses 

I take yours denisb once you get bored:)

[Mr. Gerbik]

55 minutes ago, Siri said:

Yep. It's literally a PC you pick up and play on. If you're not sold on picking up and playing games while owning a switch, the Steam Deck might as well be a £350+ chocolate teapot.

I've owned a Switch since day one and I always docked. Up until now handhelds never really did it for me. The Deck is completely different though. It doesn't feel like a compromised experience, something adjusted to account for the handheld format. It's a full-blown experience and then some. For some reason I love it while other handhelds always ended up gathering dust. 

 

Hope that helps @denisb 

[Gotters]

I've had exactly the same experience, never felt inclined to undock my Switch at all but am almost inseparable from the deck and playing 100% undocked.

 

I don't know if it's the bigger screen, the chunky feel of it or just the functionality but as a housebound handheld it's been brilliant for me.

[alex3d]

A few more weeks and this thing will overtake Dreamcast as my favourite console of all time.

[yakumo]

29 minutes ago, alex3d said:

A few more weeks and this thing will overtake Dreamcast as my favourite console of all time.

ohhhh that's some big talk.

[Strafe]

Sonic Frontiers is now listed as ‘unsupported’ on steam deck, though it was advertised at TGS by the looks of it.

 

This is a shame as I was planning on getting it on deck (assuming it turns out to be good). I mean, it runs on a switch.

 

Does Denuvo - which Sega are using I’ve read - not worn with Deck?
 

 

[Paulando]

Publishers just really need to fuck off with these anti-consumer launchers and copy protection and all that shite.

 

I bought Jedi Fallen the other day when it was on sale. Y’know, one of the games that was demoed on the Deck when it was announced, and is marked as supported. It doesn’t fucking work. Comes up with a grey square because of some new launcher they’ve added to it.

 

Apparently if you wait long enough it disappears, or tap on some invisible part of the screen you can enter your EA login details, but I can’t even be arsed trying again.

[Siri]

17 minutes ago, Strafe said:

Sonic Frontiers is now listed as ‘unsupported’ on steam deck, though it was advertised at TGS by the looks of it.

 

This is a shame as I was planning on getting it on deck (assuming it turns out to be good). I mean, it runs on a switch.

 

Does Denuvo - which Sega are using I’ve read - not worn with Deck?

 

Persona 5 Royal has Denuvo and works with Deck, so no.

 

My guess: Sonic Team's PC port is ropey enough that it's given Valve or Sega concerns during testing. It'll work but probably crash occasionally and randomly until Proton shores something up.

[Strafe]

Maybe it’s a Batman Arkham Knight situation where the game runs great but crashes every 90 minutes. 🤞 

[sbrandon111]

So I managed to get a 256gb m.2 on the cheap from cex (£35) and done the upgrade to my 64gb deck. Aside from the screw securing the ssd being super tight and the head stripping, a trip to the shops to get a slightly bigger screwdriver (Phillips +1 size was perfect), and 2 attempts at getting the OS to load (it didn’t seem to like the first usb drive I tried), its all working perfectly!

[Siri]

@Strafe, That's not crashing, that's the battery running out 

[Paulando]

4 minutes ago, Siri said:

My guess: Sonic Team's PC port is ropey enough that it's given Valve or Sega concerns during testing.

Since when has Sega been concerned about a ropey Sonic game.

 

[Rorschach]

3 hours ago, Gotters said:

I don't know if it's the bigger screen, the chunky feel of it or just the functionality but as a housebound handheld it's been brilliant for me.

 

I've just got it set up to work with my TV with a dongle I already had (1080p only if I want 60fps, but I don't think I'll be running games at a higher res anyway) that has power pass through, and paired my Xbox controller (the dongle did not work, so I am hoping the bluetooth stack is better than on Windows).

 

After getting it set up, I do think I'll play some games on the TV instead of on the Deck's screen. May just be more comfortable for long play sessions. I suspect if the Deck had an OLED screen or just a better LCD, I would be less tempted to plug it into another display. I was playing Rayman Legends (from the Epic store) and although it looked great, I suspect it would look even better on sharper screen with a better contrast ratio, to do full justice to the fantastic artwork.

[amc]

Soda Crisis is a fun little game that works superbly with the Deck and is fairly cheap, 8 quid and change. Can definitely recommend.

 

[g wings]

I tried using my alogic USB dock to connect my deck to the TV yesterday. The problem I have is that the resolution is off and I’m only getting the top left quarter of the image I should get and I can’t chance anything as the menus are off screen!

 

Any hints or is it likely that this dock just isn’t up to the job? It’s not a cheapo one so would have thought it would be ok…

[Rorschach]

Is it the system Steam UI that's positioned like that, or a game? I had to adjust the output resolution in the settings, but everything displayed fine before I did that, just blurrier than I would like. The UI actually scales up really nicely to 4K which is more than you could say for Steam's old "Big Picture" mode.

[bobontheway]

Started Disco Elysium on the Deck this afternoon. Perfect device for it. 
 

Glad that something has finally managed to distract me from Vampire Survivors…

[Strafe]

https://gamerant.com/steam-deck-boost-fps-performance/

[bradigor]

Tried to play Apex Legends tonight, but keeps saying no anti-cheat active, despite having the proton EAC installed and up to date. 

 

Rather annoying considering it is a verified game 

[g wings]

4 hours ago, Rorschach said:

Is it the system Steam UI that's positioned like that, or a game? I had to adjust the output resolution in the settings, but everything displayed fine before I did that, just blurrier than I would like. The UI actually scales up really nicely to 4K which is more than you could say for Steam's old "Big Picture" mode.

It was both.

 

I tried on a much older and smaller TV and it works fine. But I can’t get it to display properly on my 4K TV. I might just get a proper steam dock at some stage as I assume that will work better. 

[Popo]

6 hours ago, Paulando said:

Since when has Sega been concerned about a ropey Sonic game.

 

1994. 

[g wings]

I know I’m a stuck record but this machine ❤️…

 

This morning I started the day with some gentle gaming via PinballFX3 which was followed by Losing the superbowl in Legends Bowl (listed as not compatible but runs totally flawlessly from what I’ve seen).

 

Then after lunch I had an hour on Cyberpunk and then played a few rounds of Super Monkeyball (GameCube version) before restarting Metal Gear Solid Twin Snakes (GameCube). 
 

Tonight I’m planning on a bit of Ridge Racer 2 (PSP) and Cyberpunk. 

[Gotters]

one of the joys I'm finding is nosing around Steam for the first time ever, last time I played PC games was with a 486 processor and it was Magic Carpet from Bullfrog.

 

I don't know if it's just the depth of the titles on offer, but Steam does such a better job of making it fun to poke around the store, something I never do on the big under TV consoles or the iPhone.

 

Found a really elegant sokoban style puzzler this morning called Patrick's Parabox with 20% off, really elegant mechanics where you can nest the boxes as you push them round the screen, got a demo too.

[Siri]

I didn't play my Steam Deck that much this week. The dream is dead.

 

Spoiler

I had an ear infection since Friday before last, so I've been utterly miserable enough to not play a lot of games, full stop.

 

Also it's event week on a mobile gacha game, so any time I do play it's to gamble the money I saved on not buying indies full price

 

[Paulando]

11 minutes ago, Gotters said:

Found a really elegant sokoban style puzzler this morning called Patrick's Parabox with 20% off, really elegant mechanics where you can nest the boxes as you push them round the screen, got a demo too.

Posted about this in here and the ‘Games that seem to have passed the forum by’ thread.
 

It’s wonderful, and one of the best puzzlers I’ve ever played. Easily my most played Deck game, and I’m still cracking on with it, dipping in for a few puzzles at a time.

[Gotters]

3 minutes ago, Paulando said:

Posted about this in here and the ‘Games that seem to have passed the forum by’ thread.
 

It’s wonderful, and one of the best puzzlers I’ve ever played. Easily my most played Deck game, and I’m still cracking on with it, dipping in for a few puzzles at a time.

 

I did a search for Parabox and didn't find any posts (ah, you called it Paradox in the text !)- it's head blending, I've just hit 'recursion' for the first time and it's doing my brain in.

[bradigor]

Yeah I really liked it but got distracted by other stuff. Will have to get back into it 

[sbrandon111]

So for emulation, can I just fill a sd card with roms and pop it in the deck (after installing emudeck), or do I need to format the sd in the deck first? And if I do, will my pc read it to allow me to transfer the roms on to the sd?

[bradigor]

Run emudeck to create the correct folder structure in the card then you can fill the bios and rom folders. 

 

I found it best to use a client like winSCP to transfer files to the deck. Saves having to constantly move the card physically.