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Steam Deck |OT| Nintendo Switch 2

Fess

Member


The top 10 games on Steam Deck, for the past month, sorted by playtime.
- Elden Ring
- Vampire Survivors
- Rogue Legacy 2
- Stardew Valley
- No Man's Sky
- Slay the Spire
- Hades
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
- Aperture Desk Job


Games were mentioned at the end of the "we made another video" article, but not in order. Five rogue-likes? The list makes too much sense! I expect Valve to release more info like this as the platforms matures so developers feel it's worth the effort to make native Linux ports.

Greg Coomer is a long time Valve employee.

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Space Force Reaction GIF

Elden Ring is my #1 too, awesome game on awesome handheld. 💪
 

Thanati

Member
Love mine! Got a bunch of my PC games on there, as well as PS2, Xbox, switch and some PS3.

Plug it in to a tv and it’s a multi console beauty!
 

clarky

Gold Member
How the battery life on this in the real world? My pre-order should be coming any day now and I'm in the fence as to weather I actually need it.
 
How the battery life on this in the real world? My pre-order should be coming any day now and I'm in the fence as to weather I actually need it.
Seems good enough for me. Some observations...

  • I can play Breath of the Wild via Cemu at native screen res, 40 fps and get around 2 1/2 hours of battery life.
  • An older title like Borderlands GOTY Enhanced...I'm getting 3 1/2 hours of battery life with native screen res, settings at medium, and getting solid 60 fps.

I'm a bit of an FPS snob so I tend to target higher framerates. The new 40 hz screen refresh feature is AMAZING for those titles that are above 30 but can't quite hit 60.
 

clarky

Gold Member
Seems good enough for me. Some observations...

  • I can play Breath of the Wild via Cemu at native screen res, 40 fps and get around 2 1/2 hours of battery life.
  • An older title like Borderlands GOTY Enhanced...I'm getting 3 1/2 hours of battery life with native screen res, settings at medium, and getting solid 60 fps.

I'm a bit of an FPS snob so I tend to target higher framerates. The new 40 hz screen refresh feature is AMAZING for those titles that are above 30 but can't quite hit 60.
So pretty much around the switch battery life then. Hmmmmm must resist lol. Gotta admit playing Elden Ring on the go is hella tempting.

Thanks for the response.
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
I not sure if you can upgrade/change the internal ssd. I got the 64gb myself and have a couple 512gb microsd to swap in and out.
You can definitely replace the SSD, but it's limited to 2230 SSDs which are more spendy than 2280 drives typically used in gaming PCs. From what I've seen, a decent new 512GB 2230 will run ~$50-100.
How the battery life on this in the real world? My pre-order should be coming any day now and I'm in the fence as to weather I actually need it.
For TW3 at 800p, High settings, with uncapped frame rate and no tdp limits you're looking at about 25W total system consumption and 1h37m battery life. At 600p FSR, High settings, 40Hz refresh/40fps cap, and TDP+GPU limits you're looking at 15W total consumption and 2h42m battery. 30fps at the same settings hits 3h7m. Lastly, at Low settings, 600p FSR, 30fps cap, TDP+GPU limits, 50% screen brightness, Wi-Fi off, haptics off, you're looking at ~10W total system power consumption with around 4h20m battery life.
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
Just got mine this week and playing around with the interface and such. For some reason the games I install on it don't sync with my saved games on the cloud. Not sure what's going on there.
 

Fess

Member
Just got mine this week and playing around with the interface and such. For some reason the games I install on it don't sync with my saved games on the cloud. Not sure what's going on there.
I had that happen one time with Elden Ring but when I restarted it and retried the syncing it worked.
 

Romulus

Member
Seems good enough for me. Some observations...

  • I can play Breath of the Wild via Cemu at native screen res, 40 fps and get around 2 1/2 hours of battery life.
  • An older title like Borderlands GOTY Enhanced...I'm getting 3 1/2 hours of battery life with native screen res, settings at medium, and getting solid 60 fps.

I'm a bit of an FPS snob so I tend to target higher framerates. The new 40 hz screen refresh feature is AMAZING for those titles that are above 30 but can't quite hit 60.


How does BoTW hold 40fps? Is it 720p? Because I know the switch version isn't even a consistent 30fps.
 
How does BoTW hold 40fps? Is it 720p? Because I know the switch version isn't even a consistent 30fps.

It runs at the Steam Deck's native res (1280x800, so slightly higher than Switch). Someone has developed a mod for the Wii U version called FPS++ that can run the game beyond its 30 fps cap, so it it runs way better than either the Wii U or Switch versions.
 
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Ogbert

Member
CoD WW2 plays beautifully. I know, I know, it’s the one CoD I actually enjoy.

Only problem is that multiplayer is pretty much impossible against players on mouse.
 

Tunned

Member
I said I could not wait to travel with the deck, and here I am with it, on a trip... And it's amazing! I can't get my head around the fact that I am playing full console/pc games on a handheld in my hotel bed, or on the plane, it's surreal. I absolutely adore this gadget :messenger_smiling_hearts:.
Thank you Valve for creating something so special.
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
Nice video for anyone thinking they want to replace the fan.


As mentioned by Steve, he has a sample size of '1' for the Delta. He doesn't have the defective, whiney fan at all. Rendering his test meaningless.

Something important to note, and previously discussed here is that with the more extreme whiney fans you can press in on the Valve logo on the back case panel and it will nearly, or completely eliminate the whine. It not simply a product of the fan itself, but variations in case plastic could influence the results as well.

Units with actual fan whine:






 
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Mine arrived yesterday, not done much with it but i love it and can easily see it being my device of choice. I'm on the road a lot for work.

So far i've got EmuDeck installed and a bunch of games all organised via SteamRomManager. Downloaded Proton-GE is there anything else i really should do/get?
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
Mine arrived yesterday, not done much with it but i love it and can easily see it being my device of choice. I'm on the road a lot for work.

So far i've got EmuDeck installed and a bunch of games all organised via SteamRomManager. Downloaded Proton-GE is there anything else i really should do/get?
If you have a lot of the free Epic Game Store games(I have upwards of 200), then installing the Heroic Launcher isn't a bad idea. Many of the games will require switching versions of Wine or Proton, and some won't work at all. For specific games you can always Google which version work best.

Link to Heroic Launcher tutorial:

Other recommendations:
-Textured touchpad protectors for better feeling. My son has the Carbon Fiber, which I prefer to the Mini Hex I have. These are expensive at $13, but I wouldn't want to go without them.

-If you have a 64GB or 256GB unit and have worries about screen scratches, then I'd recommend amFilm screen protectors. You get 3 for $9. The clarity is great. I didn't trust that my son would keep his 256GB unit's screen safe, so I slapped one on.

-Big, fat microSD card. Nothing smaller than a 512GB, 1TB is ideal. Make sure it's a reputable brand, not a cheap knockoff. I initially bought a SanDisk 256GB for my son, but it was too small, so we upgraded him to an affordable TeamGroup 512GB microSD for $52, and I ended up using the 256GB in my 512GB unit until I can buy a bigger size.

-If you have Game Pass PC/Ultimate, then consider dual-booting SteamOS+Windows 10/11. If you don't want to dual-boot, you can use xCloud through SteamOS using Microsoft's tutorial to smoothly integrate it into your library with correct artwork and controller functionality.
 
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CrustyBritches

Gold Member
Got my steamdeck yesterday and played about 4 hours of Vampire survivor already. I really need to figure out how to get GP on this in a good way regarding UX.
I don't mind just using the Xbox(Game Pass PC) app, but UWPHook is a good option if you'd like to import the games and artwork into Steam for use with SteamBP, or possibly even with Steam Deck UI on Windows(I haven't done this yet).
 

chixdiggit

Member
Really impressed with how well the track pad work on this replicating the mouse. Played a couple strategy games with no controller support and they were all totally doable.
 
If you have a lot of the free Epic Game Store games(I have upwards of 200), then installing the Heroic Launcher isn't a bad idea. Many of the games will require switching versions of Wine or Proton, and some won't work at all. For specific games you can always Google which version work best.

Link to Heroic Launcher tutorial:
[/URL]

Other recommendations:
-Textured touchpad protectors for better feeling. My son has the Carbon Fiber, which I prefer to the Mini Hex I have. These are expensive at $13, but I wouldn't want to go without them.
[/URL]

-If you have a 64GB or 256GB unit and have worries about screen scratches, then I'd recommend amFilm screen protectors. You get 3 for $9. The clarity is great. I didn't trust that my son would keep his 256GB unit's screen safe, so I slapped one on.
[/URL]

-Big, fat microSD card. Nothing smaller than a 512GB, 1TB is ideal. Make sure it's a reputable brand, not a cheap knockoff. I initially bought a SanDisk 256GB for my son, but it was too small, so we upgraded him to an affordable TeamGroup 512GB microSD for $52, and I ended up using the 256GB in my 512GB unit until I can buy a bigger size.
[/URL]

-If you have Game Pass PC/Ultimate, then consider dual-booting SteamOS+Windows 10/11. If you don't want to dual-boot, you can use xCloud through SteamOS using Microsoft's tutorial to smoothly integrate it into your library with correct artwork and controller functionality.
[/URL]
Thanks a lot for the in depth suggestions, much appreciated.
 

paolo11

Member
Theory question, if Street Fighter 6 will be on ps4, for sure it’s going to run well on Steam Deck, right?
 

BigBooper

Member
Theory question, if Street Fighter 6 will be on ps4, for sure it’s going to run well on Steam Deck, right?
While I'm sure it could, it more depends on the supporting libraries and drm it uses.

They need to send me a shipping notice already. I paid for mine last Thursday and haven't got a tracking number yet.
 
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CrustyBritches

Gold Member
Theory question, if Street Fighter 6 will be on ps4, for sure it’s going to run well on Steam Deck, right?
SFIV and SFV run max settings, 800p/60fps. SFIV was having trouble with audio during cutscenes, don't know if they've resolved that since I last tested it.
 
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Apocryphon

Member
Currently knee deep in Space Marine and the checkpoint system is perfect for handheld play. Game is still fantastic.

I also bought Prey 2006 from G2A for like $4. Had a similar problem with transparency effects that I had with the original Doom 3 release, but switching to Proton 5.13-6 fixed. Game is massively underrated and probably one of the best FPS games ever made.

I would kill for double the battery life, but whatever. Steam Deck is one of the best gaming devices I have ever invested in.
 
Does anyone know if all the people that got the deck until now had it reserved since the first day or are they already sending out units that were reserved after?
 
TBh, I'm getting kind of nervous about this because apparently they're still serving preorders for the first day of reservations (which I believe was the 16th of July) and we're already at the tail end of Q2. I got a Q2 estimate, but I only made the reservation on the 22nd. I sure hope they don't bump me. I'm super hyped for this thing.
 

BigBooper

Member
TBh, I'm getting kind of nervous about this because apparently they're still serving preorders for the first day of reservations (which I believe was the 16th of July) and we're already at the tail end of Q2. I got a Q2 estimate, but I only made the reservation on the 22nd. I sure hope they don't bump me. I'm super hyped for this thing.
It will speed up at some point. Everybody that was immediately hyped for it would have got in as early as possible. Then the other reservations would have been more staggered. I'd be surprised if they get yours out by Q2, but they may still ramp up the rate they are shipping them.
 

Polygonal_Sprite

Gold Member
Great little device. I've been playing a ton of Path of Exile on it. Runs the game at mostly 720p/60fps. T10+ maps start to get a bit stalley at times but I'm very happy with the performance considering there isn't even an official SD patch out for it yet.

If these specs (with DLSS 2.0 on top) is what Switch Pro / 2 is then I will be very happy indeed for playing native Nintendo games especially docked.

When does the SD dock come out?
 
Great little device. I've been playing a ton of Path of Exile on it. Runs the game at mostly 720p/60fps. T10+ maps start to get a bit stalley at times but I'm very happy with the performance considering there isn't even an official SD patch out for it yet.

If these specs (with DLSS 2.0 on top) is what Switch Pro / 2 is then I will be very happy indeed for playing native Nintendo games especially docked.

When does the SD dock come out?
The dock has been delayed, no eta that I know of.
 
I just can’t get over how amazing this piece of kit is. And I do not understand why every gaming outlet isn’t singing its praises to the heavens.

Sunk about 10 hours into Borderlands 3. Looks beautiful. Runs beautifully.

Without doubt the Deck is now my main platform, over PS5, Switch and Desktop.
I think it's still pretty rare, that's probably why. It's just not a mainstream enough device.

But for PC-oriented folks it is absolutely amazing. I find myself using mine all the time, and gaming more, simply because it gets me out of my office/gaming room.
 

TLZ

Banned
TBh, I'm getting kind of nervous about this because apparently they're still serving preorders for the first day of reservations (which I believe was the 16th of July) and we're already at the tail end of Q2. I got a Q2 estimate, but I only made the reservation on the 22nd. I sure hope they don't bump me. I'm super hyped for this thing.
Hey, if it makes it any easier for you, at least you're getting it. In Australia it's not even available to us.
 

Filben

Member
I have so much to learn about this thing. So far I’ve only played a few of my verified games.
Don't be shy to try out games that are specifically flagged as "unsupported". I have three of these that run just fine and one of them was flagged for verified later on.

Sunset Overdrive for instance is a case that's not supported, but run fine after an initial error message that could be ignored and it started and run anyway just fine.

Proton really does its wonders. Try out the experimental build under the compatibility settings if the standard version fails to run a game.
 
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