Is Steam Deck even worth it?

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

Could some of you who have a Steamdeck help me with this dilema?

 

I had a discusion with my friend if it is a good investement for me to either buy a notebook or steamdeck.

 

Originaly I planed to save my money and get the most expensive version of steamdeck, but lately there are some work related things which make getting a notebook for me a more sound investement since I can use it for work and gaming.

 

That made me think: what even is a point and advantage of steamdeck, compared to a similiar priced notebook?

Keep in mind I don't want some ultra powerfull gaming laptop bs. Just something that can be used for work and play older PC games.

[Rudolph]

It sounds like you have already pretty much made your mind up there already. :P

 

I am not familiar with notebook computers, but if it can handle work and retrogaming, then that sounds like a better deal than a Steam Deck.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Rudolph

[FecalMystAche]

To me, not really. I have a desktop PC and a laptop for work and gaming, both of which can be moved around quite easily for portability and are far more powerful than the steam deck. A laptop is going to be more useful for more than gaming than a steam deck will be, there’s really no comparison there. So if using it for work is something you’re considering then there’s no point in getting a steam deck unless you want to make your job miserable. 
 

The steam deck seems to be marketed towards people who don’t know much about computers and/or are mostly console gamers. Sure, there’s some fans of it that are pc gamers but I imagine that is a minority compared to those that are mostly console gamers and wanted what they felt was a handheld system that can play steam games at a price they can swallow more than an expensive gaming laptop. It’s also a good alternative to something like the Nintendo Switch. 

Edited June 20, 2023 by FecalMystAche

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

33 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

It sounds like you have already pretty much made your mind up there already. :P

I mean yeah kinda true xD.

 

I was first interested in it because on paper it sounded like a good idea, but I forgot, that we already have notebooks for that.

 

Hell might just as well buy a Switch, atleast it has a unique games.

[DogsRNice]

Sorry in advance for the rambling.

I've used mine to run stuff like OpenRCT2 and a bunch of wads through gzdoom using a launcher someone made for the steam deck (and emulators too)

 

its a really good device and the only issue I've had was the battery life, which isn't really an issue exclusive to the steam deck. And Skyrim crashing but, it's Skyrim... Fallout 4 worked just fine and it's more demanding lol. I haven't tried modding either since I'm a bit too lazy to follow the tutorials for that and there isn't a port of the nexus client for Linux.

 

Another issue that's more on me is it's difficult to use things like in game consoles and text input fields with just the on screen keyboard, I don't have a usb c keyboard or adapter to use so I can't use my normal keyboard.

 

The duel track pads are a really cool feature that I'd love to see used more often, using one as a mouse and the other as a menu for less used inputs (such as shortcuts in rct2 or a weapon selection menu in other games) is great. And as a purist who can't stand playing fps games with a controller, the way it acts like a mouse ball thing (forgot the proper name) is really nice, it's not as good as a normal mouse but for more casual play it's just fine. (Haven't used the gyro controls since I'm not really a fan of that)

 

And like I mentioned earlier you can set up input menus so I used the right control stick as a quicksave/load menu in gzdoom.

[Rudolph]

2 hours ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

Hell might just as well buy a Switch, atleast it has a unique games.

But you cannot work on a Switch, which I thought was the reason why you were considering a notebook in the first place.

[Matthias]

I personally can't recommend Steam Deck much, but let's start from the beginning.

 

Years ago I was looking for some good device I could use for playing games on my commute to work and while waiting (life is full of waiting). So I fell in love with handhelds.. first I got Sony PSP, then Nintendo Switch and also some things like Anbernic and such. And I also got Steam Deck.

 

Eventually I realized handhelds suck :D It took me many years to came to this conclusion, but many games are not that enjoyeable on a small screen, with small buttons, with many distrations around and many games are better when you sit down and play them on a huge screen. I would say it make the very same games much more enjoyeable. For example GTA Liberty City Stories on Sony PSP is a bit annoying... the controls, the small screen, everything... while playing it on PPSSPP emulator on PC is pretty cool... I realized the game is actually pretty great.

 

It's not like I hate handhelds... I am not handheld hater and I don't regret buying them, but I am a bit disapponted because the picture that you can have your game in your pocket and take it everywhere with you looks great in theory, but in practice...

 

Anyway, long story short... Steam Deck is just another handhald and it's a very huge one, so you can't take it with you much anywhere anyway. You can't fit it in your pocket and anything. You can basically plug it to your monitor with mouse and keyboard and use it like an Linux PC anyway...

 

Also I don't have much good experience with it in general. Few examples:

 

1) I was playing AMID EVIL on it and there is a place where the game always crashes. So to finish the game I had to continue on PC anyway. When I googled possible solutions, all were very PC focused, meaning that many people mentioned the same issue, but for PC, not Steam Deck, so the solutions were for PC only... fiding solutions for deck was impossible so I gave up.

 

2) I played Torment: Tides of Numenera on my PC and I was suddenly very tired, so I took Steam Deck, jumped into my bed and started streaming the game on Steam into the Deck. I played it for awhile and it was great, but then the screen froze. I could see on my PC the game is running fine, but the streaming somehow got stuck... so I had to stand up from my bed and went back to PC to continue playing... and I also had to hard-reset the Deck.

 

3) I played Spyro The Dragon in Duckstation emulator, but this emulator was very buggy and bad... and the major issues started when I was like in the middle of the game... once again I started the game again on my PC... also in Duckstation emulator... the experience was totally fine on PC unlike Deck.

 

So problem with Steam Deck is that there are many issues because many pieces of software are not written for Steam Deck, not optimized for Steam Deck and it's still very minor platform, so it's difficult to find possible solutions for many technical issues.

 

I seems to be alone tho, because all people around me absolutely love Deck and have rather good experinece, while I little bit regret getting one.

 

Anyway, I also have some good experience... for example I beat Postal: Brain Damaged or Portal with no issue.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Matthias (LiquidDoom)

[Bucket]

You don't really have to buy the most expensive model. MicroSD storage is cheap and the access speeds aren't too bad. With a USB-C dock you can turn the Deck into a proper desktop. It also runs Windows 10 competently. This all means you could make do with a Deck for various productivity tasks - unless it's absolutely IMPERATIVE that you be able to whip out a laptop at any time, at any place, and start working. In which case, something running a Ryzen 5000 APU will be plenty powerful and cheap.

 

I've been nothing but satisfied with my SD experience though I should have expected the Linux aspect of it: if you wander even a little bit away from its intended usage, expect to spend more time tweaking and tinkering than actually using it.

[BUYXRAYS]

It usually depends. For me, yes. Macos removed 32-bit apps so a ton of retro steam games are impossible to run.

For example: Half-life, Half-life 2, TF2, and Counter-strike are impossible to play on my system.

[Bucket]

Good point: Wine/Proton has support reaching all the way back to DX9 and beyond. You'll be able to replay all your games that no longer work on 64-bit machines.

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

1 hour ago, Bucket said:

You don't really have to buy the most expensive model. MicroSD storage is cheap and the access speeds aren't too bad. With a USB-C dock you can turn the Deck into a proper desktop. It also runs Windows 10 competently. This all means you could make do with a Deck for various productivity tasks - unless it's absolutely IMPERATIVE that you be able to whip out a laptop at any time, at any place, and start working. In which case, something running a Ryzen 5000 APU will be plenty powerful and cheap.

 

I've been nothing but satisfied with my SD experience though I should have expected the Linux aspect of it: if you wander even a little bit away from its intended usage, expect to spend more time tweaking and tinkering than actually using it.

You make some good points, but the more I think about it, it seems like a laptop might be better for me overall.

[Individualised]

The Steam Deck is primarily a console. Yes it's not as locked down as other consoles and you can use it like a normal computer but from what I know it's not an ideal experience.

[Ragu]

I find it much more comfortable to play games on than a laptop, especially since you don't need any additional peripherals. It most definitely is not a frictionless console experience as is being mentioned here, though, and unless you stick to only Valve-approved games, you're going to end up doing some tweaking -- and even if you do stay in the shallow end, you're probably going to have to do some tweaking anyway if just to try and squeeze a bit more battery life out of it. Plus, one of the best use cases for the thing is running emulators, which will definitely take some effort on your part. But it's probably the nicest machine you can get in this form factor and at this price for playing PC games, with enough power to run some of the more sophisticated emulators, and that made it worth it for me.

 

I don't think it makes a great productivity machine -- even without taking the necessity of a hub and external peripherals into account, it's a little light on the cpu and memory end, and you do have to wrangle its heavily containerized Linux environment into something you can use. Definitely possible if it was the only machine you had, but I probably wouldn't recommend it.

[Bucket]

It's a hyper threading quad core APU with 16GB of RAM. There's very little outside of rendering and encoding it would struggle with. Sure, getting a dock and choosing Windows from a boot menu is hardly a plug-and-play experience but let's be fair here.

 

Here's a guy who produced his review video using the Deck in desktop mode.

 

 

[Dark Pulse]

I own one (preordered on the day they started... received it a year and a day later), and I like it quite a bit.

 

For what it's worth, you can fully use it as a regular PC. There's all sorts of docks (both official and third-party) that add USB ports and stuff, but you can also use Bluetooth for things like keyboards and mice. External displays would be easy enough to hook up to the dock, and it actually can do a maximum resolution of 8K.

 

That said, it is primarily oriented towards someone who does want to game on the go. Proton is actually really good at making a lot of Windows-only games run, and games that have native Linux versions simply run those. The internal storage doesn't matter a ton, and you can theoretically replace it on your own (though it's a bit tricky), but in practice it's generally advised to get a big, chonky MicroSD and run games off that (leaving the internal storage for other purposes). That said, only the 512 GB model has the anti-glare screen. This could be modded too, though, but that's definitely not a process for the faint of heart.

 

The massive achilles heel is that the battery life can be a bit rough. Yes, you can play Cyberpunk 2077 on the train or whatever, but if you crank it all up, you will only get about an hour and a half of battery life out of it. A battery bank, preferably a 20,000+ mAh one with Power Delivery capabilities of at least 45-65W, is necessary for any sort of long-term play. Of course, older games or stuff like emulators will generally sip power more (Switch or PS3 emulation is a fair bit more taxing though - but yes, it can emulate those, and surprisingly well!), and Valve has let you set up things like framerate limiters or TDP limiters that let you get more battery life out of it. Still, if you're looking for longer battery life, a laptop can obviously hold a much bigger battery - but a battery bank will mitigate that pretty well as well.

 

That all said, I'm pretty happy with my purchase. I'm actually using it my last few mornings of work here, since my first half of my AM shift is down. Been going through Dragon Quest Builders 2, and I'm pretty impressed that I can run it nearly maxed out on a device I can hold in my hands at a rock-solid 60 FPS (the only thing I've got to do is dip Shadows down to medium quality - High makes it chug at like 15 FPS). So it boils down to if you want a gaming device that could also do some productivity work, or a productivity device that can also do some gaming.

 

1 hour ago, Ragu said:

Plus, one of the best use cases for the thing is running emulators, which will definitely take some effort on your part.

RetroDeck, my good fellow. It's super seamless and very easy to set up. Played some Pokemon White on it and it went super smoothly and well. Sipped power like a champ.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Dark Pulse

[Bucket]

EmuDeck is another good solution. RetroArch is also officially listed on Steam. Personally, I don't find the idea of having a game browser inside a game browser terribly convenient so I'm trying to set up a bootable MicroSD running Lakka or Batocera.

[Murdoch]

The important thing to remember is no one device is necessarily objectively better. It's all about what you want to do with it. I favour desktops for gaming due to reliability and upgradability. But if you need a portable solution, based on your description you are better off with a laptop. Depending on exactly how old the games you want to play are, even a modest laptop might do the job. The Steam Deck basically is a gaming machine first and foremost, and having to do a bunch of crap and attach a bunch of crap to it to get it to do other computer things seems a bit silly when you could just get a laptop.

[mrthejoshmon]

The manoeuvrability of the Steam deck is what sold it to me, I can now get in bed early and still play shit, found I get to sleep a lot easier that way.

 

Also, emulation on it is great, not sure what was going one with other users here but Duckstation and PCSX2 run absolutely great for me and the micro SD I fitted allows me to easily transfer games across.

 

However actual computer stuff on the deck is next to impossible without a USB splitter for a mouse and keyboard (and at that point the purpose is somewhat defeated).

[Dreamskull]

Its odd, but a close friend swears by it, though he says its a hassle to do things we do normally, but that might be because he went FULL Linux, no more windows for him. Personally, Im not too impressed by it, but its apparently not terrible from what Ive heard. I would wager its just wildly different.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Dreamskull

[aloysiusfreeman]

As someone that loves the Switch for portability and to kick back for a bit just before bed (or on the couch with some background tv), I totally get the appeal of a Steam Deck, especially as a Mac user that is missing out on a lot of PC games. For retro gaming I also like the appeal of the Steam Deck (and other handheld emulators, for that matter). 

 

That said, I am eventually going to be in the market for a PC laptop, and likely veer towards one that can handle gaming as well. If money were not an issue, I'd totally get a Steam Deck though.

[Bucket]

That's an odd statement, considering a Steam Deck is dramatically cheaper than a gaming PC.

 

As for me - if Valve comes out with a second console I would seriously consider making it my main rig.

[Gez]

I recently got one as a gift; I haven't really done much with it yet but it's rather nifty.

 

What's the best way of getting GOG games on it? I've seen so far mostly two approaches, one is installing Lutris and the other is installing Heroic Game Launcher, though it's also apparently also possible to install Galaxy directly.

[Bucket]

I use Heroic. It has a convenient setting to automatically add games to Steam so they'll show up in the browser.

I hope you have enough space on your internal drive because installing GOG to an SD card is problematic for utterly mysterious reasons.

[Aaron Blain]

I'm thrilled with mine, but it depends on who you are and what you want to do.

 

I move from handheld to tv to desktop-mouse-keyboard frequently based on what I'm playing. Playing DOS Apogee platformers in handheld mode, with all the controls and display modes working perfectly and seamlessly, gives me a huge amount of pleasure. I also like having the real PS2 versions of GTA right there in a handheld.

 

For GOG I use Heroic by default, but for strategy games with DLC's I have to install everything manually in Wine or PlayOnLinux.

 

I have the 64gb model and a 512gb SD card. I have zero games installed internally, because that 64gb is almost entirely full of Steam bloat, shader caches etc. (My GOG games are all on my SD card too.) A user app called CryoUtilities helps immensely with this.

 

High-end games mostly bore and aggravate me, but I do play Elden Ring on my deck and it looks amazing to me (although I'm not a capital-Gee Gamer).

[G19Doom]

The Steam Deck is not worth it, but then again, neither is a laptop. ITX briefcase for the win. 

[Shakariki Heisenberg]

No.

[Coopersville]

I'm holding out to see if there'll ever be another handheld with a 10+hr battery.