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

[madhair60]

ext4 is a pretty standard file format for Linux-derived operating systems. Windows can't read it natively, but as an open-source format used by a wide community that includes a lot of developers, there are tools for reading ext4 on Windows, some free. No links that I have offhand, but here is a page full of 'em: https://superuser.com/questions/37512/how-to-read-ext4-partitions-on-windows#141919

And you also!

 

[Kazin]

Highly recommend just going ahead and installing EmuDeck. I'd been putting it off, since I could run most things fine as it was, but they've really optimized the shit out of everything for Deck. For example, I could barely get the framerate into the teens in Pokemon Legends Arceus, it now runs fullspeed at 30fps (which could also be Yuzu optimization, dunno, haven't tried in a while). Also, for some weird reason, DS games weren't running well at all in the Steam release of Retroarch - in EmuDeck, I can uprez the heck out of the games (Dragon Quest IX is 5x original resolution and runs fantastic instead of a slideshow).

There are some hitches I'll have to work out - my arcade games no longer launch, but those were always weird anyway, and maybe this EmuDeck setup doesn't have the rom pack I have or whatever. Some of my saves from Steam Retroarch don't seem compatible, either, but oh well, I wasn't in progress in any games currently, so I'll just stick with EmuDeck for now.

It's also nice because instead of having 18,498 games in my Steam library list (that's a lot of roms, lol, I'm currently scraping art and stuff in Emulation Station which is where I got that number), I just have a few emulators and Emulation Station, and that's it. Still very navigable.

EDIT: Easy fix for the arcade games - I just had to change the default emulator to MAME 2003 Plus, everything works fine now just as before. Yay!

 

[lincolnic]

Anyone using their Steam Deck with a Mac? I'm curious about how easy the file management stuff is if you're not on PC.

 

[madhair60]

this thing's a bona fide pain in the arse.

 

[Kazin]

Once you get it set up though... *chef's kiss*

 

[Mogri]

I've been playing it OOTB and having a blast. The most complicated thing I've done from a technical perspective has been to download a new controller configuration for FF7. All my other Steam games have Just Worked. I've thought about trying to get my EGS stuff on there, but that does indeed strike me as a real pain. (I suspect it's really not that bad.)

 

[madhair60]

To be fair to the stupid fucking thing, I'm not exactly using it for its intended purpose in loading it up with roms. But my god, this UI is hideous. And Desktop mode is totally alien to me, having no Linux experience whatsoever.

Not gonna lie, I like it when it works, but that's not been often enough yet. Verified game Hat in Time seemed to want to do something with shaders when it finally booted instead of hanging forever, and forty minutes into that process I cancelled it and uninstalled. This is not the simple experience people are claiming, but it is going to be a lot of fun when it clicks. The PS2 emulation is nuts, it runs better than my desktop which I'm sure is more powerful. Which is a bit annoying actually

 

[madhair60]

I don’t recommend this thing to anyone who doesn’t like fiddling around with settings. The “verified” game Days Gone runs like ass warmed up without extensive tinkering. Hat in Time doesn’t even launch. It’s a good machine but it’s a total crapshoot. Even Emudeck is a hilarious rug-pull; yes, it’s a one-click setup, but good luck with everything that follows!

 

[Positronic Brain]

Pretty much my experience. When it works it works great, but when it doesn't.... yeah.

 

[Becksworth]

Yeah, one major complaint about the Steamdeck verified process is they kind of played it loose with some big name AAA games.

PlayStation ports in particular. I hear God of War runs fine... for about an hour before a memory leak brings everything crashing down.

Also some AAA games from EA like Jedi Fallen Order apparently run well, but not the required Origin launcher.

Generally I'd double check with ProtonDB before downloading any 50+ GB titles.

 

[Kazin]

The "verified" system sucks and is something I wish I could just disable on my Deck (meaning don't tell me if a game is "verified" or not, or try to push "verified" games to me on the storefront, just take me to the damn homepage). They "verified" Sonic Generations, and it runs worse than on my 360 lmao.

But yeah. I wouldn't recommend this to someone who wants to do anything other than play Steam games without fiddling. Even then, fiddling is pretty much required, and it's more than changing settings within the game itself. I still don't quite understand what Proton is, or what the difference between the different versions of it are, but I've used Proton a lot on the Deck. The thing I like about Emudeck is once you've got it set up, you're good to go, and unlike setting up standalone Retroarch, there's no having to set up individual controller profiles for each system or whatever, though Wii is still annoying to deal with, since swapping controller profiles sucks no matter how you do it.

Steam Deck is a pain in the ass but is still my favorite gaming device of all time. It's fucking weird!

 

[JBear]

I'm starting to feel like a broken record at this point, but my own experiences with this device seem entirely different than everyone else posting in this thread. I just play Verified Steam games, and they just work the vast majority of the time. On the off chance that something doesn't just work, I memory hole it and move on with my life, because I absolutely cannot be arsed to tweak settings, and I never want to see the desktop of this thing. If you're comparing the Deck to a Switch, then sure, it's probably caused a few more headaches than it (although I have had Switch games perform poorly and crash, and there's rarely any recourse when it happens there), but if you're comparing it to a PC, then it has a better "just works" hit rate than any previous desktop PC I've used for gaming, because those never had a convenient little coloured stop/go light to let me know not to waste my time getting software to run. Based on my own experiences, I would unreservedly recommend the Steam deck to anyone who plans to use it for its intended purpose. (Notably, however, I basically don't play any AAA games, so perhaps that could account for some of the disparity.)

 

[Becksworth]

Yeah, for non modern AAA titles the verified process seems to be running properly. I suspect there is some push from within Valve to promote the Steamdeck as a viable Series X/PS5 competitor though, which may lead to some laxness on the AAA end.

 

[Mogri]

I'm starting to feel like a broken record at this point, but my own experiences with this device seem entirely different than everyone else posting in this thread. I just play Verified Steam games, and they just work the vast majority of the time. On the off chance that something doesn't just work, I memory hole it and move on with my life, because I absolutely cannot be arsed to tweak settings, and I never want to see the desktop of this thing. If you're comparing the Deck to a Switch, then sure, it's probably caused a few more headaches than it (although I have had Switch games perform poorly and crash, and there's rarely any recourse when it happens there), but if you're comparing it to a PC, then it has a better "just works" hit rate than any previous desktop PC I've used for gaming, because those never had a convenient little coloured stop/go light to let me know not to waste my time getting software to run. Based on my own experiences, I would unreservedly recommend the Steam deck to anyone who plans to use it for its intended purpose. (Notably, however, I basically don't play any AAA games, so perhaps that could account for some of the disparity.)

I'll do you one better: I've seen some performance issues, but I have yet to play a game, regardless of verified status, that just flat didn't work. Controls can be awkward for unverified games, but I can't recall a single one that failed to launch. My worst experience was probably Skul, which takes a full minute to launch but plays normally after that.

 

[YangusKhan]

I'll do you one better: I've seen some performance issues, but I have yet to play a game, regardless of verified status, that just flat didn't work. Controls can be awkward for unverified games, but I can't recall a single one that failed to launch. My worst experience was probably Skul, which takes a full minute to launch but plays normally after that.

This is my experience as well.

And like JBear, I have not played any kind of AAA-type game on my Deck yet.

 

[Mogri]

As a frame of reference, here's what I've played on Deck:

• Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has been the most taxing game I've played so far. The Deck gets quite hot to the touch, and the game stutters sometimes. I've turned the graphics settings to medium, which has helped with the heat, but some stuttering remains. This game was not designed with controller in mind, but it plays serviceably nonetheless.
• FF7R plays with no issues and looks fantastic.
• FF7 requires some controller reconfiguration to get past one of the bootup screens. I'm a little surprised it works at all.
• World of Horror and Astalon don't have the save data from my other computer. In fairness, WoH doesn't advertise Steam Cloud, but Astalon does. Probably not the Deck's fault.
• Skul, as mentioned, plays just fine after the minute-long bootup. I mainlined the game, so I only ever booted it up once. (Aside: the suspend feature on the Deck is amazing.)
• 20 Minutes Till Dawn plays fine except that I don't like playing it on a controller.
• Monster Train doesn't load the initial video without a config change, and that makes it look like it's starting with a black screen. A bad first impression but flawless otherwise.
• Just King has super tiny text, and it plays slightly awkwardly with mouse+joystick controls, but the game doesn't demand the kind of precision where it would really matter.
• FFX/X-2 HD failed to launch the first time I tried, so I assumed it didn't work, but then it ran fine the second time.
• Brotato, Dome Keeper, Shovel Knight, Monster Sanctuary, Transistor, Downwell, SNKRX, Fae Tactics, Into the Breach, Crystal Project, Mega Man Legacy Collection, FFXII Zodiac Age, Dicey Dungeons, 428 Shibuya Scramble, Boneraiser Minions - all fantastic.

If I have a complaint about the Deck, it's that mouse controls are awkward, but even so, they work much better than I'd have expected. I wouldn't try anything requiring quick mouse precision, though, unless I was prepared to play it via touchscreen.

 

[madhair60]

I'm starting to feel like a broken record at this point, but my own experiences with this device seem entirely different than everyone else posting in this thread. I just play Verified Steam games, and they just work the vast majority of the time. On the off chance that something doesn't just work, I memory hole it and move on with my life, because I absolutely cannot be arsed to tweak settings, and I never want to see the desktop of this thing.

oh... I... I see

 

[John]

See, it's just like a Switch, as long as you ignore all those games you bought that don't work on it and focus on the ones that work great.

...I kid a bit, but that is a great mentality to take. If any of you are like me, you have hundreds of games in Steam that you've barely touched or never played. If using this gets you to play some of them that work great out the box, that's a fantastic use of your time. I've been doing that with Danganronpa 1, whose only problem is occasionally all the audio cuts out when waking from sleep mode, so you have to quit and restart.

 

[Becksworth]

[*]FF7R plays with no issues and looks fantastic.

Given how much everyone complains it's a terrible PC port it is shocking how well it runs on the Steamdeck.

 

[YangusKhan]

...I kid a bit, but that is a great mentality to take. If any of you are like me, you have hundreds of games in Steam that you've barely touched or never played. If using this gets you to play some of them that work great out the box, that's a fantastic use of your time.

The Deck was a slam dunk on Valve's part for getting me back into the Steam ecosystem; before it came out I had bought only like 5 or 6 Steam games over the course of that many years.

 

[John]

The Deck was a slam dunk on Valve's part for getting me back into the Steam ecosystem; before it came out I had bought only like 5 or 6 Steam games over the course of that many years.

I also had switched years ago to mainly purchasing through GoG because I read somewhere they gave a better percentage to the developers. This was before all the shittiness about CD Projekt Red was more public. Now I'd rather get a Steam key for potential Deck integrations than deal with either GoG or Epic's shenanigans.

 

[Dark Medusa]

• FF7 requires some controller reconfiguration to get past one of the bootup screens. I'm a little surprised it works at all.

Could you actually point me towards what controller config you're using, as well as how you're running away from fights? I'd like to play FF7 on my Steam Deck and I was having problems getting that working.

 

[Mogri]

Could you actually point me towards what controller config you're using, as well as how you're running away from fights? I'd like to play FF7 on my Steam Deck and I was having problems getting that working.

Controller Layout -> Community -> FF7 Steam Deck (Pandahero). L1+R1 to run.

Caveat: the [SWITCH] button is the "select" button (the left menu button, whatever it's called). This makes the motorcycle minigame way more difficult than it has to be. I recommend binding that button to X, which is currently duplicating Y. This also swaps the A and B relative to the original release, but the original release was weird, so most configurations swap it.

If you can't find that config for some reason, the bindings are:

L1 -> PgUp
R1 -> PgDn
Start -> B
Select -> Insert (as mentioned, you should put this on X)
Y -> V
X -> V
B -> C
A -> X

That layout also binds what would be L2 and R2 to some of the rear buttons. Weird choice, but you never actually need L2/R2.

 

[Sarge]

A ton of stuff has worked fine for me, too, even stuff that's "not supported", although I recommend throwing Proton-GE on there so you can handle those problem games. A few oddball titles don't want to work that I'd like to play, like the obscure 6DOF shooter Retrovirus, and Epic/GOG games can still be iffy from Heroic Game Launcher, but overall I'm floored at how well it runs much of my library.

 

[Paul le Fou]

My temptation to buy one of these swings back and forth like a pendulum based on these posts. We're getting closer, but maybe a later revision or major update will make it a bit smoother. Not that I spend a lot of time emulating but there are two games on my "to-emulate" list that I might like playing portably (Parasite Eve and Panzer Dragoon Saga), so hopefully it's not too much tinkering because I typically cannot be arsed to do much of that. Maybe I should just stick to my PC...

 

[Kazin]

You will need to tinker, but I've run Panzer Dragoon Saga (well, about a half hour of it) just fine on my Steam Deck, and this was before I installed Emudeck, which should run it even better (or at least just as well as) than the Steam Retroarch release. Haven't booted Parasite Eve, but every PS1 game I've thrown at the Deck has run fantastically, including with heavy uprezzing (usually 5x).

 

[Dark Medusa]

Controller Layout -> Community -> FF7 Steam Deck (Pandahero). L1+R1 to run.............

Thank you!!

 

[MJG]

I've only used my Deck for playing games straight as they come from Steam, and I don't think I've had any issues of note. I'm primarily playing smaller indie games, nothing in the modern AAA space, and it all has all worked well, verified or not. A probably incomplete list of things I've put a decent amount of time into:

Bug Fables
Buried Stars
Carto
Frogun
Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
Into the Breach
Jack Move
One Step from Eden
Shenmue 1+2
Super Auto Pets
Westerado

 

[Positronic Brain]

The one set of games I really wanted to play in my deck - the Choice Of series - won't boot. Which is ironic, since a) they are not hardware intensive and b) they have native Linux ports.

Oh, well, the deck is mainly my Vampire Survivors station. Oh, and FFXIV when I travel to my mother in law's.

 

[madhair60]

just FYI, i don't mean to be rude, but while I'm glad you have all had no issues with the Deck, I have. When a game is marked as "Verified" and "Great on Deck" then runs like choppy, stilted, ass-molasses, that's a problem. And I'm not talking "30fps with drops" I'm talking constant hitching, freezing, just plain not booting. I'm genuinely happy that indies and smaller games work, but one of the draws of this thing for me - and feel free to point and laugh - was playing bigger games like Days Gone, which I'm enjoying, on the road. I can now do that, but only through intensive fiddling. Even an online guide to "the best settings" wasn't even close.

Anyway, I do like the thing, I just feel I suppose slightly irritable because the response to "I have had this frustrating experience trying to play games noted as Great On Deck" is essentially "got mine". That said idk what can be done about it.

I'm also a little irritated that Gamecube emulation is so spotty.