Overall I love it, have used it WAY more than I expected. I am disabled and many days stuck in bed so this thing has just been perfect for me, not having to be up at my computer all the time for gaming related stuff.
A few tips for people new to the Steam Deck:
- Get a SD Card to store games, I use the main storage for updates and apps and sometimes a game or two but not many games, I put most those on my SD card.
- Get a Docking Station, even if its not the official one from Valve, it is great for hooking up to your TV to play and also good for if you want to hook up a USB storage stick or an external hard drive,etc… Also can use it for a plug in if you have a mouse or keyboard you want to use when its docked. Many good uses for it, I picked up a 3rd party one and its been mostly great (the bottom things came off but I just put my own ones on there that are used for the bottoms of chairs and desks).
- Get Decky going on your Steam Deck, it works awesome and I have not had any big issues. The ones I use are: ProtonDB, Animation Changer, Storage Cleaner, VibrantDeck, Steam Grid DB, CSS Loader and Bluetooth. Adds many good things that I find useful. Get Decky and mess around to see what ones work best for you.
- Get CryoUtilities. This is pretty awesome here, I waited about 3 months to try this and I wish I would have got it right from the start. Easy to install and helps a decent amount for performance.
- When you launch each game for the first time, press that button below the RIGHT Mouse pad. This will bring up a section for Performance. Set each game how you want it for Power usage and Framerate and Hz limit. I have mine set to low power usage for the default, but then every game I play has its own settings for framelimit, power usage,etc…
- Have had a blast setting up 4 xbox controllers when family comes over and hooking it up to the TV, works really good with wireless controllers (just make sure the are updated and they should work).
- I use Lutris for playing Diablo 4 and Diablo 2 Resurrected on Battle.net and also some Epic game games. For me it has worked great.
- Set your Sudo password and save it to a text file or something incase you forget it, its needed to install CryoUtilities.
- Yes its great for Emulation but I would honestly say wait a few months to try that stuff, try out your old steam games, try some new ones, try your battle net, gog and epic games out,etc… and then later start to tinker with some emulators if you are interested.
- I am sure most won’t agree, but I love using it before bed as I am laying in bed to watch a movie or tv show. You can either stream something from a browser or you can also download say VLC from the Discovery app and watch your movies you have backed up from DVD, Bluray, downloaded, etc…
- Have fun! You will learn and enjoy this thing more and more as you learn the ins and outs of things. Also, check out youtube videos and reddit places, you will find some interesting things about the steam deck around those places.
My favorite games on the Steam Deck:
- Elden Ring, runs well once you get settings right and have CryoUtilities done up. This got me back playing it again and I have played it a ton on here
- Pretty much any Bullet hell/Vampire Survivors style game, like Halls Of Torment, Fatalzone, Death Must Die, Army of Ruin, Brotato,etc…
- Sea Of Stars and Tactics Ogre: Reborn are great modern jrpgs style games that control good and look good on SD
- Thronefall, really fun tower defense style game that controls great with a controller
- Witcher 3 Next Gen
- Diablo 4, I have been playing the non steam game for awhile now, works good with Lutris, but now that its on steam even better time to play it. Handles great with a controller, performance is good to.
- The Pale Beyond, one of my favorite games this year, perfect for the steam deck.
- Resident Evil 4 Remake, runs great and looks awesome on the Deck
- Tape 2 Tape, me and my Nephew love playing this game in coop on the Steam Deck on the big tv with controllers, its great fun.
- Terror of Hermasaurus, another great game when friends or family are over, good silly fun
- Tetris Effect: Connected, works great :)
- Batman Arkham City
- Cuphead
- Dave The Diver
- Dirt Rally 1
- Disco Elysium
- Risen
Anyways, just some thoughts from an older gamer who has had the Steam Deck for a little over a year now. Take Care
Everything else I can agree with, but hard disagree here! Setting up emulation was super duper easy for the most part for me. It was basically the first thing I did after installing my Steam library. It was a quick and painless process to get 90% of my roms running. Only the newer emulators made a bit of trouble, but anything up to DS works fine. And those that made trouble had solutions posted on this sub.
Why am I saying you should do this as quickly as you want? Because it doesn’t just show you what desktop mode can do, but also works offline perfectly. I’ve had a few bad surprises with games not starting if I had no connection (looking at you, EA!), but with emulators you know you always have something to fall back on. I wouldn’t say you have to install all your roms at once, but having one nostalgic game like Pokemon or Mario to spend time with if nothing else works, that’s quite nice.
It’s also a great tutorial to get the most out of your deck. I learned how to properly use desktop mode. I learned how to incorporate programs into Steam to run from gaming mode. I learned how to install plugins to replace a few broken title art frames that didn’t load properly. I learned how to change button layouts. It showed me that most questions/problems of mine have already been addressed in this subreddit. Now I can use all that to get the most out of other games.
If you’re interested in emulation, don’t wait to try it. Go tinker with your new toy and customize it to your liking!