Steam! Now on your Couch! The Steamdeck Coming this Winter!

[Becksworth]

Argh, I think the Steamdeck may have borked my 1TB sd card. Stuck on the finalizing step for about 15 minutes now after formatting it...

Update: Yep, it errored out eventually. Going to have to see what I can do about recovery...

 

[Becksworth]

As a status update, I tried with my old 400 gb card I originally had in my OG Switch, and it successfully format, so I'm not going to fret over losing a $90 card too much (ARGHHHHHH!!!!). This card has seen some use, so I probably won't put anything mission critical on here...

I've seen plenty of complaints about the built in formatter researching this. Sounds like it's doing something bad that causes some SD cards to go into full read only lock down to preserve what data is left (oh which there is none because the Steamdeck wiped it first).

Of course the Valve defense brigade also has to jump into support tickets and forum threads and be completely unhelpful by insisting people have just bought faulty or scam cards (Note, I had copied all the games from Itch.io I have to the 1 TB card before I realized I was going to have to format it, so it definitely had more storage on it than I think a scammer would have bothered putting on a fake card at least). Like is it really that unbelievable that there is an issue with the formatter given all the other "Coming in super hot!" issues the Steamdeck has had?

 

[Kazin]

Where the heck did you get a 1 TB micro sd card for $90? I got one on sale last week for $135 and felt lucky lol

I'm sorry that happened, though. If it's a Sandisk and you just got it recently, I think they have a warranty, even for cards that die as a result of a format? I swear I read that somewhere. Other manufacturers may have warranties, too. I hope you get your $90 back! Or a new card.

 

[Becksworth]

Maybe it was a $100-115? I can't remember now. It was a holiday sale, so it was possibly more aggressive. It was a Sandisk, so maybe I can look into the warranty.

 

[Dark Medusa]

Yeah, I don't understand how to get the most out of this thing at all. Is there a way I could get one of you experts to talk me through getting things working, maybe?

 

[Kazin]

Yeah, I don't understand how to get the most out of this thing at all. Is there a way I could get one of you experts to talk me through getting things working, maybe?

What are you looking to do? Getting things running the way you want may be dependent on the game (I don't own any Slay the Spire stuff, for example). If it's getting emulators set up, I could refer you to some YT videos or something (and maybe a text based guide if I can find one; sadly, they're rare).

 

[John]

Yeah, I don't understand how to get the most out of this thing at all. Is there a way I could get one of you experts to talk me through getting things working, maybe?

I don’t think there is one way to get the most of this toy. The Windows emulation is good sometimes, but sometimes not. Using launchers to load non-Steam games is very hit or miss. I haven’t delved into any emulators, but I see people getting PS2 and even Switch emulators going, to various degrees of success.

The only “easy” mode is to load one of the small percentage of Verified games. I’ve got 74 out of 511 in the “Great on Deck” category, and most I’ve tried worked pretty well, though may need tweaking like my DOOM 2016 escapade.

It does still feel like a beta project, but at least one that has good support. I bet this will look much different software side in a year.

 

[Dark Medusa]

Gotcha, yeah, that makes sense. I think there are quite a few verified games I'm happy to play in the meantime. But it would be nice to know how to be able to play Slay the Spire mods...

 

[Kazin]

@Dark Medusa If you really want to play Slay the Spire mods on Deck, I'd recommend looking in the subreddit. Not sure if these will help get the game running for you, but I found this thread and this thread. Worst case scenario, post a thread in the Steam Deck subreddit and see if people help you out. Sucks to recommend reddit, but I'm not aware of anywhere else troubleshooting this stuff at the moment (so far, it's been fairly pleasant in the threads of read there, but I skip all the ones labelled "meme" and "FedEx" so maybe all the BS is in those threads).

I just went down a rabbit hole trying to get Dolphin to work correctly with Super Paper Mario. That game has a function where if you point the remote at the screen, your little butterfly buddy will scan stuff for you. It took me far, far too long to figure out how to hide the pointer if I'm not using the right analog stick lol. I really wish all the retail games had configs you could easily download for controller only play within Dolphin rather than have to tinker with the settings yourself. Oh well.

 

[Dark Medusa]

One of those did in fact help a lot! I'll make sure to check out the Reddit in the future, thanks.

 

[John]

So far my biggest issue is the fan noise. I throw on any game, or even just mucking in the menus or installing a game, and the noise ramps up a ton. I don’t know if I have the “good” or “bad” fan, I just know that it annoys me over my tinnitus, much more than our launch Switch that spins like crazy.

Oh, and another annoyance was beating the first boss in Bloodstained, but having the game lock up immediately afterward. It was playing great right before that too.

 

[Kazin]

Ah, glad to hear it, Dark Medusa! Hopefully it runs properly and you can sit back and enjoy without further tinkering.

And yeah... the fan is pretty loud. The first few weeks I had it it really bugged me, but I've played so much on the thing I don't really hear it now. I mean I do turn the volume up to drown it out (or play with headphones), but I got used to it. Not ideal, of course, but until ifixit or someone comes out with a reliable fix, we're stuck with it.

 

[John]

I had a bit of progress on getting AC3 Remastered to work. There is something blocking Ubisoft Connect from working through my home router. I first tried just creating a guest network for the Steamdeck with no firewall enabled, but it didn't play nice. Then I got a personal hotspot working on my phone, which worked! I first tried to go straight through the Ubisoft Connect app, but since all these installs are one-off instances, I couldn't find where I had installed the game for the Epic app, and don't really want to download 30-40GB through my wireless plan. Then I tried my first Epic install, which worked, and even synced up to the Ubisoft cloud saves.

After getting it working once, I tried to set up an Offline mode to access it, with the hopes that I could play offline, and then push save updates to the cloud afterwards. I also somewhere clicked the "minimize Ubisoft Connect to tray" setting, which has now broken the cloud sync. I'll try launching it from Desktop mode and see if I can get that working again.

 

[Becksworth]

Made a RMA request with Sandisk, so we'll see how that turns out...

Going back to FFVII Remake, one minor annoyance is Epic's online services and Steamdeck's suspend feature don't seem to play nice, and if you're suspended for more than a few minutes you get a warning in the corner saying Epic services are unavailable that won't go away until you exit and restart the game. I'm not sure what it needs Epic services for (achievements maybe?), but whatever it is it the warning message is the only thing I'm noticing.

 

[Becksworth]

Played a little of F.I.S.T. on my lunch break, and it's the first verified game I tried that I question its status, because I have it set tp 30 fps, and it say 30 fps, but it feels more like 20-25 fps.

 

[ASandoval]

My reservation came through as well! Really excited to jump into it with all of you this weekend if I get a good RNG roll on FedEx delivery.

 

[John]

Sweet, have fun playing around when you get it!

On build quality, my set's pretty good, but I did have to squeeze the upper right side of the deck to snap the case shut, which wasn't closed fully at the factory. Didn't affect anything, but it's no Vita/Switch build quality.

Ubi/Epic update, after dropping into Desktop Mode I can get "offline" Ubisoft saved games uploaded to their cloud service, if I'm tethered to my phone. I'm not able to actually do full Offline launching the game yet. I configured Epic to save my credentials locally, which does let me login when disconnected, but only to Epic. The Ubisoft games inside Epic have ties to the Ubi Connect app, and won't launch if they don't have some type of internet connection. No plane trips for that one, but I should be able to play it in different rooms of my house and sync up, with some manual effort. It forces me to enter in my Ubi credentials every time it gets disconnected, including MFA, which is annoying when my password's a 16 character random string and I have to use the software keyboard.

 

[Kazin]

Ugh, that's awful. Hopefully devs come through with some Steam Deck friendly-patches, but in that case, you're probably going to have to deal with all those headaches. Also wow @ the Steam Deck not being closed fully when you got it, wild.

And hooray ASandoval! Hopefully you get a good FedEx roll haha

 

[Becksworth]

So Sandisk approved my RMA. Will likely be refurbished card they replace it with, but it's better than nothing.

 

[Kazin]

Hooray! Hopefully the new card formats without issue.

 

[Becksworth]

Anyone else mess with Heroic Bash Launcher? It's supposed to scrub Epic and GoG for suitable icon art for each game you have downloaded from each in Heroic Games Launcher and create forwarders in Steam for them. When I tried it pulled the art assets fine, but the scripts don't look to work right. I didn't change the default file paths in Heroic I don't think.

Edit: Nevermind, needed to use the flatpak version since I got Heroic off the discover storefront.

 

[JBear]

I just spent a couple of quality hours with my new favourite toy and I love this thing. A few minutes of setup and I was off to the races. It is both smaller and lighter than I expected, since I think Internet talk had overcorrected my expectations. It's like a Switch for my Steam games-- it's exactly what I wanted. Worth every penny (and $1000 is a lot of pennies!). Oh, also, I have yet to even hear the fan, although Crystal Project is presumably not very demanding.

 

[Kazin]

Oh you'll hear that fan eventually lol. But yeah, the Deck is fantastic. I haven't touched another gaming device in two months and I can't see myself doing so for a long while.

 

[Becksworth]

The Switch OLED has spoiled me with its screen, so I'll probably be jumping back and forth between it and the Steamdeck depending on the particular game, but yeah, I don't see myself playing much XBox or tracking down a PS5 anytime soon.

 

[YangusKhan]

Mine might finally be close to shipped. According to that one reddit shipment tracking thread, the 256 GB models are up to 1:34:31 post-pre-order opening. And mine was right around 2 hours.

 

[Becksworth]

So my itch.io library has been a bust so far. Most of the game that had Linux version I'm guessing were either Debian/Ubuntu specific, or had some missing dependency they can't install because of the immutable os. As for the Windows games I must not be configuring proton correctly for them or something, because I haven't been able to get any of them work. I was able to get A Short Hike running at least...

 

[Kazin]

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Switch remake (which I do own digitally on Switch so I don't feel bad about playing it here) runs very well on Steam Deck with the 60 fps mod - though I can't get the deblur mod to work properly (which is fine, since that never really bothered me anyway). The Deck is so awesome

 

[Sarge]

Ooh, Link's Awakening with a 60 FPS mod? And the ability to put movement on the d-pad instead of analog sticks? I... might need to get that up and running. Despite the nice changes with that remake, those two things really bothered me when I played through on Switch.

Also, for those having fan noise issues, they made changes that are currently in the beta branch of SteamOS that adjust the fan curves. It's a good bit quieter under light loads, from what I've seen, at the cost of running a bit warmer overall. I haven't swapped over - I'd like to stick to the stable branch for now - but hopefully that will help folks out.

 

[Kazin]

Well, it's not all great lol. Not sure what's wrong with Bowow here:

I will say, however, everything else works great, and you can control Link with the dpad if you want!

 

[Sarge]

Graphics glitch, activate!