Steam Deck

[Capt. Huggy Face]

Anyone else get one? I just got mine recently, and I dig it. I stopped playing games for a long while there, but this little machine has pulled me back in. Having robust games in such a convenient package is quite nice.

Currently installed:
Alpha Protocol, ARMA III, Ashes of Oahu, Battle Brothers, Cyberpunk, Dead Island, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Dirt 4, Dirt Rally, Disco Elysium, Dishonored 2, Driver: San Francisco, Eastshade, Skyrim, Elex, Fallout 3, 4 and New Vegas, Farming Sim 19, Freedom Force, GTA V, Hitman, Just Cause 4, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Mad Max, Mordheim: City of the Damned, Outward, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, PoE: Deadfire, Red Dead Redemption 2, Road Redemption, Sable, Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition, Sniper Elite 4, Steep, theHunter: Call of the Wild, Watch_Dogs, Wreckfest and X4: Foundations.

All are working perfectly fine so far. Very nice. X4, RDR2 and theHunter on the go? Awesome.

 

[Arhu]

I know I could check, but - how do you play games that traditionally require mouse & keyboard? Like Pathfinder, Disco Elysium or maybe X4? Or do all of those games have controller support?

 

[Redglyph]

Good to hear it's working fine. I've read they were accelerating production, too.

It must be tedious to select abilities and spells with a controller on a game like Pathfinder. Unless they found a smart way to do it?

 

[Capt. Huggy Face]

I'm forgetting now exactly how Pathfinder works, but Owlcat has put in some serious work on controllers. It was no problem at all during my brief test drive.

And that does appear to be the rub: How much thought devs have put into a controller scheme. You'll perhaps notice my list of installed games is heavy on games designed for a controller. X4 is a good example of a complex game with a ton of menus and numbers. Playing that has its moments, but I'm still surprised at how well it works.

The track pads work quite well, and several games not designed for a controller also just flow nicely with no real problems so far, like Battle Brothers or Freedom Force. Also, a lot of games that are labeled "unsupported" work just fine, like Sleeping Dogs and theHunter.

My biggest complaint is the zoom feature that feels like a beta and needs to be brought up to the functionality of the Switch's. Still, it's quite useful and often needed, making its beta condition all the more puzzling. But I have an unusual vision problem, so it's hard for me to judge the effect on others. I have a problem with the text size in a lot of games normally. 0verall, I'm pleasantly surprised with how many games are accessible to me. I did, though, uninstall Crusader Kings 3 and Civ 6 for these reasons. Civ 6, text wise, is better on Switch, as it is a version made for handheld, most importantly including the text.

But controller schemes are quite important and some tinkering is required. Don't overlook the all-important controller-profile button. X4, for example, didn't have a community profile that worked for me, so I had to make my own. (Listed as "Mud's X4 for Steam Deck.") I imagine, and am hoping, the Deck's apparent popularity will spur more devs to put more thought into controller schemes.

 

[Capt. Huggy Face]

As y'all might guess, this stuff us as fluid and variable as PC gaming in general. I've often gotten little patches on my Steam Deck, frequent ones that come on even the old games that haven't been updated in a long time. These patches come with little ones for Valve's redistributables, or whatever, and little updates to Proton, which seems to be the whatever type of Linnux Valve is using.

So, I've been guessing Valve has been tinkering and, maybe, some devs. After getting a couple of these patches, Battle Brothers won't launch anymore. it's listed as playable and worked fine for me on a test drive earlier. It could be something else, I suppose. I have moved it between drives, but it still worked after I did that once before. One other game that has gotten these patches is spitting an error now but still launches. A third is just as fine now as it was before.

Unsurprisingly, the Steam Deck is a work in progress, though I suppose it should be said.

 

[Redglyph]

Proton

Proton is a Linux application that emulate Windows to run apps and games (derived from Wine, which is a more attractive name ). I saw that apparently SteamOS, Valve's flavour of Linux, was based on Arch? I've always thought it was based on some sort of Ubuntu. Suddenly I have a little more respect for them.

Unsurprisingly, the Steam Deck is a work in progress, though I suppose it should be said.

Thanks for the tip, it does sound like a moving target.

That being said, Steam updates almost every time I launch it on a PC, so I guess Valve guys are busy bees.

 

[Ripper]

Interesting new tool for folks with Steam Decks or their own Linux gaming systems - GameImage. It essentially packages up games along with the proper Wine version or emulator, and any patches or configuration needed, so that it becomes essentially a one-click installation. It's moving in the direction Linux is headed for packaging applications, where each application can have its own isolated, known-good dependencies. As they note, this does cost a bit more storage space, but IMO it's a worthwhile system for ensuring an application runs as intended on desktops.

I remember some folks expressing an interest in emulating old games, but who find it a lot of bother.

 

[Redglyph]

That must take a hell more disk space. I hope that's not the general idea for Linux, or that at least it's able to share compatible libraries.

 

[Ripper]

That must take a hell more disk space. I hope that's not the general idea for Linux, or that at least it's able to share compatible libraries.

Yeah, I'm not sure how this particular implementation works, but with Flatpak (which seems to be becoming the standard) de-duplication of dependencies is part of the system. Still uses more disk space, as apps can have different versions of dependencies, but avoids multiple copies of the same files.

I think it's a good trade off for reliability of applications on the desktop.

 

[Redglyph]

Isn't that more or less installing a new OS for each game, minus the hardware drivers?

I didn't know Flatpak was to become a standard. It seems possible to install it on many distributions but for now I'd rather stick to the native package systems.

 

[Ripper]

Well, I'd say Flatpak is becoming a standard (on the desktop), but of course in Linux land no-one dictates these things. There's no doubt that distros with regular package management will remain part of the mix.

The way Redhat is going with its 'immutable os', Silverblue, is quite interesting. It uses Flatpak for applications, which sandboxes them, gives you control of the permissions each is granted, and lets them specify particular versions of dependencies to use. Not usually a half-the-OS situation, AFAIK. But it also has a feature called Toolbox, which does pretty much what you mention - allowing you to run entire separate instances of Linux, containerised, for any development or experimentation you want to do. I think this is pretty good setup that seeks to maintain the system in a reliable state, while giving you the freedom to do what you need.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I've been flirting with the idea of a Steam Deck, and I'm trying to realize if it's actually worth it, or if I'm just gonna get it and keep it untouched. I'd like to avoid that.

So basically, I don't really have many opportunities to play on the go, not that I'd find it very comfortable. I most certainly can't do it in public.
The only exception is if maybe I'm on a flight every once in a long while, or on vacation and I don't want to carry my heavy-ass gaming laptop.
Otherwise, the only other moment I can envision using it, is maybe in bed right before sleeping?

Then we have the issue of what to play. I most certainly won't play anything that requires aiming, as I'm horrible at it.
I'll also not touch any very high-end games. I don't like the idea of having the device heat-up to max level while in my hands.
That's another point, I'm most certainly only going to use it in handheld 99% of the time.

So, the only games I can see myself playing are ones that can be easily controlled with the joysticks.
The main ones that come to mind are slower story or rpg games, like Disco Elysium or Hades. Or turn-based games.
Any experience playing the real-time with pause rpgs, like pillars of eternity, baldur's gate, etc? I assume the pause be triggered with a button, and not just the UI?

My other main concern with all of these is, is the screen big enough to not be an issue in handheld?
My only other handheld experience was a Nintendo Switch, which is mostly gathering dust. And with that one I remember finding everything so small.

I'm currently looking over my steam list for things that I don't think I'll have the patience to sit in my seat, and which could be a good fit for enjoying while in bed.

Also, any rumors of hints of whether Valve would be release a second iteration of the Steam Deck?

 

[Ripper]

I can't offer anything in terms of hands-on experience - it's not actually a device I'd have much use for. I just find some of the ideas interesting, and I see it as a very positive thing to have an open computing device in this category, rather than locked down appliances with walled gardens.

 

[Redglyph]

I've been flirting with the idea of a Steam Deck, and I'm trying to realize if it's actually worth it, or if I'm just gonna get it and keep it untouched.

I've never tried it either, but from what you wrote, it looks like the device is tempting you for the wrong reasons. I admit I was tempted at some point, then I followed about the same reasoning as you and the conclusion was that it would remain a nice but mostly untouched gadget.

My main concerns were the tiny screen, and how noisy and hot the device would get. It's nice to have a good PC for games, and to be able to unplug when travelling.

Valve has mentioned a successor a few times, but who knows when it will be released. If you're hesitant, perhaps it's better to wait for the Steam Deck 2?

 

[largh]

Any experience playing the real-time with pause rpgs, like pillars of eternity, baldur's gate, etc? I assume the pause be triggered with a button, and not just the UI?

I have played these games with a controller on console recently. It works but certainly requires patience. If you won't touch such games on a computer for a while, you kind of forget how clumsy the controls are. Not sure whether this helps...if you are the patient type able to ignore inconvenience, you might even enjoy these games. On the other hand, the UI appears small already on TV. Can't imagine how small it would be on a hand-held device even if you could adjust the size, these games are not designed for such devices.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I've given it more thought, and I think I'll likely eventually get it.
It might be a good replacement to a gaming laptop, especially if I can dock it with a monitor and m&k.
I'll likely have to travel a bit more in the near future so I think it would save me from needing to carry a gaming laptop.
But I might also just be talking myself into. Best course would be not think about it for some time and then revisit the idea, to make sure I'm not just talking myself into it. I have a tendency to do that.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

One other thing I haven't really considered so far, but have seen mentioned in one video on the Deck, is how well it seems to do with emulated games.
Seems there's sufficient emulation support for a boatload of old consoles (from PSP to PS1 and pretty much all Nintendo ones).
Now that there might be reason enough to the deck. I've always been kind of curious about a lot of older console games that I missed out on, to try them for myself.
I think I might've just pushed myself over the edge with it.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Got my steam deck, and it's a very cool toy. Managed to play a few games, and was surprised how well some run. Dungeon Siege ran better than it does on my windows machine (at least in terms of not crashing and being unstable on windows 11)
Others took a little fiddling. I can imagine playing on such a tiny screen can be a bit of pain, so I'll need to see which ones are worth doing that.
I also tried installing that Heroic games launcher, which seems to be the recommended linux clients for GOG and Epic integration. They work fine, but I tried a few of the games and none ran under WINE.
I tried Diablo 1 and some other. No go. I'll need to find games that are probably already confirmed to run like that.
Anyway, as I said, it's a pretty cool toy.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

The steam deck still impresses. On a whim I installed HOMM3 Complete and Evil Islands via that 3rd party GOG client. And shockingly both work perfectly once you load them into steam.
I didn't even turn on Proton emulation and they both seem to work fine. The intro to Evil Island didn't play, so that's a small gripe. But considering how much work I put into getting Evil Islands to work on Windows11, and I'm not even sure I got it actually working in the end, this is very impressive.
Playing Evil Islands on the deck does require some fiddling. But as long as the game is either turned based or has real-time with pause (as Evil Islands does) it's playable.