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

[monkeydog]

I haven't come across any Deck snootiness from DF. They generally seem to be having fun noodling with it in videos I've watched. 

[Hawklord]

41 minutes ago, sbrandon111 said:

How easy is it to get switch games running on it? I’d like to play Zelda and Fire Emblem without having to faff about with two handhelds.

Fairly easy if you are willing to mess around a little. YMMV depending on the individual game though. Plenty of guides out there

 

Spoiler

 

[Strafe]

29 minutes ago, monkeydog said:

I haven't come across any Deck snootiness from DF. They generally seem to be having fun noodling with it in videos I've watched. 

That’s what I thought. They’ve done a couple of great videos, including the most recent one on AAA games on deck comparisons/best settings etc.

[Ry]

Valve have asked me to send my deck back cause of an issue with the right Bumper. 

 

Do I need to factory reset it? I was only given a shipping label and no further instructions. I don't want to lose Outrun 2 as someone on the forum helped with that and could be a pain to get back on it. 

 

Also what's the turnaround for getting it back?

[Strafe]

You’ll want to factory reset it. You can transfer Outrun onto a memory card. 
 

Mine took about 4 weeks but I think they’ve bought that down now.

[earlymodernsteve]

10 minutes ago, Ry said:

Valve have asked me to send my deck back cause of an issue with the right Bumper. 

 

Do I need to factory reset it? I was only given a shipping label and no further instructions. I don't want to lose Outrun 2 as someone on the forum helped with that and could be a pain to get back on it. 

 

Also what's the turnaround for getting it back?

Can you move Outrun to an sd card? I think once installed games can be transferred between drives fairly simply through Steam.

[Siri]

52 minutes ago, earlymodernsteve said:

Can you move Outrun to an sd card? I think once installed games can be transferred between drives fairly simply through Steam.

 

If it was done by following the instructions on the forum, it's likely installed as a non-steam game, so it's not as simple, unfortunately.

 

It can still be moved to an SD card, it'll involve finding the folder that had the game in it (you'd have to have done it as part of adding the game to Steam), and moving that entire folder to the SD card (as it should have both the game files and the save files - but I can check my own install to verify that).

 

EDIT: yeah, checked my own files - Outrun 2006 puts its own save files in the same folder as all the game data.

 

So - check where you installed it via desktop mode (if you want a reminder, you can check the properties of the game in Steam), find it, and move the entire thing to the SD card. When you get the replacement Deck, you can either move it back on the internal memory or just keep it on the SD card, and add the game back to Steam as per the tutorial by pointing it at the game and telling it to run via Proton. Done!

[earlymodernsteve]

@Sirithanks for clarifying

[Dr_Dave]

Dropping this here in case it's of any use to anyone in the future... In the last few months, I found myself having two odd problems with games on the Deck:

 

- Blasphemous - I was utterly unable to do one particular jump. If you've played the game, it's one of the wind-assisted jumps in the mountains. It should have been tricksy, but not too difficult. Every video I watch showed nothing special, but no matter how pixel-perfect I made the timing, I was always falling short.

- Deep Rock Galactic - had an issue with mouse pointer when docked. It was moving real sluggish, kind of heavy and lagged, really difficult to play with. The game was absolutely fine when running with a joypad.

 

In both cases, I figured out that the problem was caused by me limiting the frame rate to 30fps in the SteamDeck performance tab. For Deep Rock, I'd done it for stability. For Blasphemous it was accidentally set at the system level.

 

In both cases, removing the limit solved these unlikely problems. Mouse control now perfect in Deep Rock, made the jump first time and every time in Blasphemous.

[T Pot]

5 hours ago, Gotters said:

DF are joy free pixel snoopers, it's not great surprise that a swiss army knife like the Deck doesn't appeal to them really.

They recently had a video comparing the XB, PS3 and PC versions of half-life 2, and kept on pointing out at how poor HL2 ran and looked on the original XB.

 

I mean, the fact that it even ran on that console which was essentially a 733MHz Pentium 3 with 64MB shared memory when the PC version needed a 1.2GHz CPU, 256MB RAM and a GPU was amazing.

[Fry Crayola]

Ultimately, Digital Foundry are all about investigating performance. I like their retro stuff because it's interesting to see different approaches to get a game running on limited hardware, but I could scarcely care less about modern stuff on systems that may as well be identical.

[thesnwmn]

17 minutes ago, T Pot said:

I mean, the fact that it even ran on that console which was essentially a 733MHz Pentium 3 with 64MB shared memory when the PC version needed a 1.2GHz CPU, 256MB RAM and a GPU was amazing.

 

It may be impressive but direct spec comparisons, particularly between PC and console are a bit pointless.

 

A fair amount of that RAM isn't really available to the game running on PC, the CPU is also up to other stuff running the OS.

 

I think that's what can be interesting about these cross platform comparisons. Back in the day people were paying (approximately) the same amount, and being sold the same experience but getting something that could be quite variable.

 

But having said that I'm not personally a fan of DF and their slant on games reporting, or maybe more how people use it.

[Lorfarius]

Anyone picked up anything decent in the sale? I picked up a Micro Machines style racing game that's a lot of fun Tinker Racers. Its so similar to what it rips off and for £1.35 I couldn't say no.

[deerokus]

Half Life 2 on og Xbox was how I originally played it and I loved it, even at the time it had some performance problems for sure but it was a bit of a miracle port. I didn't own or know anyone with a pc remotely capable of playing it at the time.

[Nathan Wind]

Coincidentally I’ve been thoroughly enjoying HL2 on the Deck. My last save was from 2010  

[bradigor]

6 hours ago, Gotters said:

I thought initially I was having new console buzz with this, which even saying that isn't something I've experienced for quite a while with new machines. But as the months have gone on I just use it more and more, and it's broadening the types of games I'm willing to play to. I'm not only playing things from the past but finding new games too I'd never touch on other machines (like the older Dungeon of the Endless only yesterday).

 

Plus look at this, makes me feel good just looking at them all in one place

 

 

What version is that Driver:SF? Steam native or acquired? 

 

Don't want to give Ubisoft money but fancy playing that again 

[Gotters]

Just now, bradigor said:

 

What version is that Driver:SF? Steam native or acquired? 

 

Don't want to give Ubisoft money but fancy playing that again 

PS3.

 

steam & pc delisted and couldn’t make ‘acquired’ install trying same techniques as used with Blur

 

shame as PC version looks way better

[bradigor]

4 minutes ago, Gotters said:

PS3.

 

steam & pc delisted and couldn’t make ‘acquired’ install trying same techniques as used with Blur

 

shame as PC version looks way better

 

Does it play well? 

[Gotters]

2 minutes ago, bradigor said:

 

Does it play well? 

runs at 45-60 fps, not as sharp looking as PC version i seen on youtube but thats console games of that era i guess.

 

i never played at time, its pretty good

[Popo]

9 hours ago, deerokus said:

DF have a curiously negative stance on the deck I find anyway.

Do they? I have only really followed their weekly Direct podcast of late, and Deck doesn’t come up much, but they always seem positive about it when it does.

[bradigor]

I am a sucker for minimalist logo capsules. Hoping I can get all my artwork like this at some point. 

.

[sbrandon111]

I got this little sd card holder from Etsy that sticks to the inside of your deck case. Simple idea and solution but it works great!

 

“Steam Deck Case SD Card Storage Holder | Different Sizes Available | 8/14 Slot”

 

£3.39 for the 8 slot one 😁

[bradigor]

52 minutes ago, sbrandon111 said:

I got this little sd card holder from Etsy that sticks to the inside of your deck case. Simple idea and solution but it works great!

 

“Steam Deck Case SD Card Storage Holder | Different Sizes Available | 8/14 Slot”

 

£3.39 for the 8 slot one 😁

 

Having been an early adopter I am still scared about swapping SD cards around. But the idea of having cards for genres is tempting.

[Fry Crayola]

Sounds terrible. I rarely want to play two driving games at the same time, but alternate driving and shooting? Yes please!

[Stanley]

16 hours ago, T Pot said:

They recently had a video comparing the XB, PS3 and PC versions of half-life 2, and kept on pointing out at how poor HL2 ran and looked on the original XB.

 

I mean, the fact that it even ran on that console which was essentially a 733MHz Pentium 3 with 64MB shared memory when the PC version needed a 1.2GHz CPU, 256MB RAM and a GPU was amazing.

Wasn’t that video so odd? I mean compare it by all means, but don’t exclude the Xbox 360 version when you’re including the PS3 one. It just seemed utterly pointless and aggravating. 
 

Has anyone used PS5 remote play on their Deck using Chiaki? 

[Stanley]

Really fancy getting the Half Life remaster Black Mesa. I’ve read it needs a few tweaks but otherwise runs quite well. Has anyone played it? 

[Fry Crayola]

Yes, though not on Steam Deck. Absolutely fucking loved it.

[dizogg]

17 hours ago, Gotters said:

runs at 45-60 fps, not as sharp looking as PC version i seen on youtube but thats console games of that era i guess.

 

i never played at time, its pretty good

 

I've just had a go and i'm getting 25-30fps so far. I'm using whatever PS3 emulator is included with emudeck (which I downloaded a while ago when I first got my deck).

 

Can you share what you're running it on to get that performance?

[Flub]

27 minutes ago, dizogg said:

 

I've just had a go and i'm getting 25-30fps so far. I'm using whatever PS3 emulator is included with emudeck (which I downloaded a while ago when I first got my deck).

 

Can you share what you're running it on to get that performance?

 

A lot of the more demanding emulators benefit from some power tools tweaking. I can't remember the exact name but isn't it "SMT" or something you disable and then knock the cores down to three.

[Gotters]

Gone for a change of pace and trying something totally new to me, Age of Empires II. In the sale and people talk fondly of it, went for an older game as maybe something to cut my teeth on with a genre new to me.

 

Just going theu the tutorials and plays ok on this, up the HUD to 125% and seems legible.