Is Rise of the Tomb Raider good? I wasn’t sure which ones to get after the first reboot.

FWIW my favourite games so far have been Sniper Elite 5, Hitman 3 (although those hammer the battery), CrossCode, Baba Is You, Into The Breach, Tetris Effect Connected.

And I’m yet to try Dragon’s Dogma and Hades.

I find I really struggle playing shooters without a mouse now though. Like Max Payne 3 and Half-Life were both too awkward / difficult really.

It’s okay but the small text is a pain.

Honestly anything mouse driven I prefer to just play on PC.

yes it will be more powerful than any laptop/PC in the same price range

The GPU definitely, but the CPU isn’t.

It’s a trade-off, you get a great mobile GPU but a slightly weaker CPU, and split RAM for the GPU.

Overall it works quite well though, but could be an issue for strategy / simulation heavy games like Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress, Victoria 3, etc.

But it performs really well for GPU-heavy games that can run well at the 1200x800 screen resolution and don’t require a mouse - like third-party combat games.

Modding Steam games should also be relatively easy - just look in the compatdata directory (or use ProtonTricks to do it all for you).

It’ll depend a bit on the game (direct binary changes are less likely to work), but it should be doable.

The CPU is quite weak for strategy games (depending on what you play - Victoria 3 was unplayable for example).

Netflix limits you to 480p on Linux desktop IIRC (although there are some workarounds). Personally I refuse to pay Netflix’s extortionate prices due to this.

All the others are fine but you’ll need to disable the read-only mode if you want to install stuff to the system (and re-install it after every update) - e.g. anything installed via pacman/paru. That said, maybe Python is okay since you can use pip install --user to avoid the read-only issue.

But for most apps you can probably use Flatpaks anyway (install from the KDE Discover store).

One annoying thing is that the root partition is really small (compared to the home partition), so you really can’t install much directly to the system via pacman. That was my main issue when using it as a desktop for a little while.

Many of the Dell monitors have direct USB-C support which works perfectly.

It’s amazing, I can swap from my laptop to the Steam Deck with one cable.

You’d probably need to send it back to the US :/

But remember people that don’t have any issues won’t make threads about it - so there’s a huge selection bias for seeing issues with dead pixels, etc.

Like I bought an LCD one at launch, there were loads of complains about the fan issues, battery problems, etc. - but I’ve never had any problems at all (aside from once the USB-C video stopped working until I hard shutdown).

If you want to play Cyberpunk, a gaming PC will be much better, although probably a lot more expensive too.

The Steam Deck’s main advantage is portability, if you don’t use that then a PC will be the better option for performance (especially the CPU). Hopefully one day Valve will release a home console version too.

I still prefer to play shooters (first person and third person) and strategy games on the PC. Like anything that is mainly mouse driven and / or needs a very powerful CPU. That said I finished Sniper Elite 5 and Hitman 3 docked to the TV (before I bought my PC) - so it is playable.

And you can’t play Crosscode, Hades, etc. while waiting in an airport or train with the gaming PC…

If you really want to dive into it you can also stream from the gaming PC to the Steam Deck at home (e.g. to use the OLED screen and play in bed). But it’ll depend on your network setup.

It’s funny though as the Switch would also hurt over time due to the tiny joypads.

But yeah I wish it were lighter, I like the size but it’s just a bit too heavy. I hope the Steam Deck 2 aims for 400g.

I wonder what the heaviest components are atm.

I find it gets tiring given the weight. I usually only play for up to 2 hours handheld at a stretch.

Although I wouldn’t want to play for longer than that without a break anyway just due to the screen size.

I have a 13900k. It’s not so much the performance but intermittent random crashes on entering certain areas.

Also the game is just dull. There’s no space exploration, and even space combat is half-baked.

Install Emudeck and ProtonGE - both take 5 minutes (for some reason I thought ProtonGE would be really complicated and put it off for a long time - it’s handy to have for the custom fixes for some games).

You might need to install xone for some controllers (e.g. the 8bitdo Xbox one in my case).

Install protontricks in case you need to deal with launcher or dependency installs for specific games (e.g. Rockstar Social Club).

Always check ProtonDB before buying a game for an idea of any issues (and add to it if you find some yourself!).

Install the Heroic Games Launcher and Heroic Games Bash Launcher to add games from Epic to Steam directly (getting Rocket League to work took some trial and error). GOG games can also be added this way (and were much easier too).

The Anker 8-in-1 dock works great (although I use the official one at home for the TV). But a high-quality USB-C cable (good data transfer, at least 45W power delivery, etc.)

Note if you use an official Xbox controller you need to update the firmware on Windows (Xbox app) or an Xbox first to ensure the Bluetooth works.

So install it with protontricks in a few minutes?

It’s annoying though and they’ll probably patch it soon as it’s a Verified title.

This is like saying don’t buy an Xbox because Starfield crashed a few times…

You can install Flatpak apps from the Discover store easily in Desktop Mode.

If you want to install system utilities you can disable read-only mode and use pacman (and paru, yay, etc. for the AUR) like normal Arch Linux.

Android apps are their own problem - in theory you can do it with Waydroid though.

The game is an unstable mess even on my desktop with a 4080.

I’m nowhere near masochistic enough to try to play it on the Steam Deck.

Especially with how popular Nintendo’s Classic Mini SNES was and the Steam Deck and Switch emulation capabilities.

It’s always like this as maintaining maximum battery charge is worse for the battery.

With the Dock it mostly is plug and play with only occasional issues with the USB-C video.

There’s only so much you can physically do with a mobile CPU - balancing power usage, heat production, price, size, weight, etc.

Almost all the issues with new games - BG3, Starfield, etc. are CPU bound.

It’s more that if Valve doesn’t, they are at the absolute mercy of Microsoft not turning around and forcing the UWP apps and Microsoft/Xbox store on all Windows customers and locking out Steam by default, etc.