It's Critter Time!

For those not in the loop, the Steam Deck is Valve's handheld that comes in LCD and OLED versions. It essentially works like a mini PC and is running Linux, so you can mod it to do whatever something of that power could do reasonably do.

I'm primarily a PC gamer and my console usage varies, some years I barely boot it up and some years it's almost all I play. The Steam Deck has been very useful to me when on the road, or if I want an easy way to bring a fighting game station with me to meets.

My main concern before I got one was that I already found the original Switch very uncomfortable to hold and use in handheld mode, and with the Deck being heavier, I expected the worse. Surprisingly enough, it's way more ergonomic and I don't have issues with extended play sessions in handheld mode.

My main gaming time on it are roguelites, since they're easy to pick up and play. Or cozy life sims where you just vibe.

I've seen some people use a Steam Deck for just normal computer stuff too via connecting a keyboard and mouse to it and using the desktop mode for that.

to be honest, I'd like to get a Steam Deck eventually, and I feel like I would use it to play older and smaller games on it mostly, and keep my proper gaming PC for big stuff like MonHun Wilds or Horizon Forbidden West, which both are labeled as "unsupported" on Steam Deck anyways.

Enbyeon wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 9:00 am My main concern before I got one was that I already found the original Switch very uncomfortable to hold and use in handheld mode, and with the Deck being heavier, I expected the worse. Surprisingly enough, it's way more ergonomic and I don't have issues with extended play sessions in handheld mode.

I did hear that the Steam Deck feels a lot more comfortable to hold than the Switch does, and I wonder how I would eventually feel about that. because the Switch is a pretty uncomfortable handheld device, tbh.

Honestly I need to get my hands on an OLED when I can afford one, if only for the nicer screen. But my Steam Deck has become my daily driver over the last few years of owning one, and it's gotten me back into the realm of "PC" gaming a lot more.

Can vouch for this being more ergonomically viable than the Switch, though, since the system feels like it's meant to actually rest in your hands with proper wrist support versus the Switch which is rather flat in the back.

The dang thing feels too big for me to think of it as a "handheld", and I can't stand the D-Pad and it's got the XBox ABXY layout and not the Nintendo one and and and

But really though it wound up being a good buy from my partner because none of that matters! We have it docked and connected to our TV with a mini keyboard and mouse on the coffee table and we just leave it in desktop mode for watching Twitch/Youtube/Plex and playing whatever games with some 8bitdos. It admirably replaced a dying (now officially dead) Thinkpad.

It's been a huge boon for Linux gaming though. If you aren't playing AAA stuff it's more than powerful enough to run basically any indie title with no real thought. Even a surprising amount of more recent games are still runnable albeit with very low settings like Street Fighter 6.

My main issue with Valve's Steam Deck will continue to be the lovely little "This item is not available for purchase in your region" message.

Sugar Meowth wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 5:20 pm The dang thing feels too big for me to think of it as a "handheld", and I can't stand the D-Pad and it's got the XBox ABXY layout and not the Nintendo one and and and

oh, the Xbox ABXY layout has been tripping me up *a lot* recently after I started playing on PC, where almost all games only have the XBox layout, and I'm so used to the Nintendo layout @.@

I actually ordered a Dualshock 4 controller yesterday (I'm not a fan of the Dualsense, tbh), and maybe the Playstation buttons will make it a bit better on my mind. and since you can use the Playstation controllers natively on Steam Deck too from what I'm gathering, it should be useful in the future once I'm able to get a Steam Deck too

You can toggle it in the steam decks control settings so it switches AB and XY to match the nintendo layout.
Of course it means that B is bound to A and everything like that, but in most cases I've found that to not be an issue.

Other than that, I am very familiar with steam decks and the only thing I have to say about them is that OLED steam decks are a lot less stable long term than the LCD ones. Make with that what you will.

I absolutely adore my SteamDeck and I use it almost every day - and it's admittedly for a very lazy reason. Sometimes I just want to chill in bed or in a chair that isn't my computer chair, and the SteamDeck is perfect for that. Hell, sometimes I want to relax in bed for a few hours before I fall asleep, so why not play something relaxing while watching YouTube?

And can we just talk about how nice the trackpads feel, with their haptics? I have no idea what magic is happening under that plastic, but it feels so responsive and nice to use them.

I just recently got a Steam Deck for a steal of a price and I've been loving it. I don't emulate games a ton but something about the Steam Deck has inspired me to play some older games. It's got me replaying some old favourites like Superstar Saga, and I have a few local multiplayer ROMs loaded onto it so I can bring it to hangouts!

really wanna get the steam deck to play all kinds of retro and modern (retro) games but also apparently you can just play DOOM 2016 on that thing??? also very curious about the desktop mode, it sounds like you can get up to wacky stuff in it

CyanSorcery wrote: Fri Jul 18, 2025 3:14 am really wanna get the steam deck to play all kinds of retro and modern (retro) games but also apparently you can just play DOOM 2016 on that thing??? also very curious about the desktop mode, it sounds like you can get up to wacky stuff in it

You can play Doom Eternal with ray tracing enabled on it. Although, that reduces your frames from 60 to 40 and you'd need to knock overall settings down to medium, because it's a low powered device and RDNA 2 can barely trace rays to begin with.

I used a Steam Deck as a substitute for my old laptop between it dying and me getting a new one, and then having to get a defect repaired. Turns out with Distrobox you can install arbitrarily Linux stuff pretty easily and I was able to get my whole game dev and testing environment set up on there. I haven't had issues with the performance or the comfort (those grips do help a lot) and it runs Second Life very well.

It's nice to play PC games on a device I can use while leaning back on a couch or a bed; I can do that on a laptop too though not as comfortably. I like that when people played with making custom boot animations, Valve's response was to make it easier to do that, instead of getting upset at people tinkering like Nintendo might.

SnowyTasha wrote: Fri Jul 18, 2025 4:19 am You can play Doom Eternal with ray tracing enabled on it. Although, that reduces your frames from 60 to 40 and you'd need to knock overall settings down to medium, because it's a low powered device and RDNA 2 can barely trace rays to begin with.

WHAT??????????? that's so cracked what how powerful IS this thing

I played almost all of my time in Armored Core 6 on the thing

Got very noisy, very warm, and drained the battery quickly. But I don't remember suffering any performance problems.

CyanSorcery wrote: Fri Jul 18, 2025 5:41 am

SnowyTasha wrote: Fri Jul 18, 2025 4:19 am You can play Doom Eternal with ray tracing enabled on it. Although, that reduces your frames from 60 to 40 and you'd need to knock overall settings down to medium, because it's a low powered device and RDNA 2 can barely trace rays to begin with.

WHAT??????????? that's so cracked what how powerful IS this thing

Truthfully? not very lol it's very long in the tooth nowadays, and I've been mulling replacing mine with a more powerful handheld. However, it is nice for indies like Balatro and PS4-era games like Red Dead Redemption 2.

I may have ordered an LCD Steam Deck after selling my PS5 and a bunch of games >_>

I've been looking into it more and more recently, and I determined that OLED, for me, is just "a nice thing to have, but not essential", especially after I ended up barely playing the Switch OLED in handheld mode anyway. I'm planning on using it more for older & smaller games, as well as for emulating older systems like the GameCube, the PS2 and the Wii U, for instance, so the screen being 60Hz on the LCD model also doesn't really matter.

JarylGaren wrote: Fri Jul 18, 2025 6:32 pm I may have ordered an LCD Steam Deck after selling my PS5 and a bunch of games >_>

I've been looking into it more and more recently, and I determined that OLED, for me, is just "a nice thing to have, but not essential", especially after I ended up barely playing the Switch OLED in handheld mode anyway. I'm planning on using it more for older & smaller games, as well as for emulating older systems like the GameCube, the PS2 and the Wii U, for instance, so the screen being 60Hz on the LCD model also doesn't really matter.

Honestly, the LCD version has a very high quality screen anyway. I know OLED screens are really nice, but I genuinely feel it was unnecessary for them to launch a separate version just with OLED.

I am... not sure if I would describe the Steam Deck LCD screen as very good, as it doesn't have particularly great response times or color reproduction, but for casual gaming and slower-paced games like Baldur's Gate 3 and Persona 3 Reload it gets the job done. Obviously the 90Hz refresh rate of the OLED is nice, but you're not gonna be hitting it very often outside of easy-to-run games like Balatro, Kingsway, Doom 64 or Hades.

I am extremely happy I got a steam deck at the end of 2023. Excellent device.

Basically most of my purchases lately have been greatly influenced by "do they run on the deck?"

Can concurr, yeah. Got a Deck on a whim and just having a way to pick up and play is absolutely wonderful

My Steam Deck is my primary device! I've been using it since October 2022 and I've used it nearly every day since. I've played more games than ever on it, and I use it as my main PC with a mouse and keyboard too. It's literally the system I've always dreamed of.

Though it kinda sucks to hold with my small hands...

JarylGaren wrote: Fri Jul 18, 2025 6:32 pm I may have ordered an LCD Steam Deck after selling my PS5 and a bunch of games >_>

the Steam Deck arrived, and dang, it's a heccin' chonker. the OLED Switch 1 is *tiny* next to it!
I already downloaded and booted up some of the Mega Man games I have, because of course I did :V and now I'm just kinda downloading a bunch of other stuff that I feel like would be pretty neat in a handheld format, like Okami HD or Shin Megami Tensei 3.

JarylGaren wrote: Wed Jul 23, 2025 12:25 pm

Hope you have a good time with it!

so initial impressions after having a couple days with the Steam Deck already:

it's pretty neat!
the majority of games that I own on Steam work perfectly fine, and lately I've kinda gravitated towards playing a couple rounds of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, because it runs like a charm on the Steam Deck (and the lensflare effect doesn't look exceedingly bright at the Deck's resolution. At 1440p you can barely see what's in front of you >_>). I also like how the OG Sonic Generations doesn't eat my inputs on Steam Deck (and Linux by extension), unlike when I tried to play it on Windows 11, where I kept missing several easy jumps because of that.
Also, even though Tales of Berseria is shown as "Unsupported", it seems to play just fine? Even the user reports on ProtonDB all look positive on the Steam Deck tab

and now for some points that I didn't vibe with:
the update at the end of the initial set-up kept failing for me. I had to turn off the system entirely, and then turn it back on for it to finally take the update. I also find it strange how there's no way to turn off the screen when you're downloading something in gaming mode without a third-party plugin. from what I can see, this is only possible in desktop mode.


all in all, I hope the Steam Deck (and gaming on Linux in general, by extension) continue to get much more traction, because developers *really* need to get working towards making their games better optimized for hardware that's not the biggest, latest, most bleeding edge (and most expensive) stuff. Also, Microsoft and Windows need to be taken down a couple notches, because holy fuck, I'm so fed up with Windows as an operating system, lmao

Oh I had no idea it could be used as a PC. I am not familiar with Linux but this is good to keep in mind. I hope to eventually get one too!

JarylGaren wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 11:44 am I've seen some people use a Steam Deck for just normal computer stuff too via connecting a keyboard and mouse to it and using the desktop mode for that.

to be honest, I'd like to get a Steam Deck eventually, and I feel like I would use it to play older and smaller games on it mostly, and keep my proper gaming PC for big stuff like MonHun Wilds or Horizon Forbidden West, which both are labeled as "unsupported" on Steam Deck anyways.

Enbyeon wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 9:00 am My main concern before I got one was that I already found the original Switch very uncomfortable to hold and use in handheld mode, and with the Deck being heavier, I expected the worse. Surprisingly enough, it's way more ergonomic and I don't have issues with extended play sessions in handheld mode.

I did hear that the Steam Deck feels a lot more comfortable to hold than the Switch does, and I wonder how I would eventually feel about that. because the Switch is a pretty uncomfortable handheld device, tbh.