Topic: Valve's Steam Deck console Thread

Congrats, @JaxonH ... Let us know how you get on with it, please

@JaxonH That's the last we'll see of you for a couple of weeks then.

From what people who've already got one are telling me, it's best to stick to "great on Deck" games to start with. Almost anything else can be made to run on it, but it's not necessarily going to be easy.

@Matt_Barber
I'm trying to get Gears 5 to run.

Had to Switch to desktop mode, install ProtonUp, use that to install the latest version of Proton GE (Glorious Eggroll), change compatibility of the game to use Proton GE instead of the default Proton, and the last step is finding the EasyAntiCheat folder and renaming it, but because I installed on the SD, it doesn't have that folder. So I'm currently moving to internal storage hoping I can find it and rename it. Or maybe I have to try launching the game first which then installs the EAC folder. Who knows.

@BruceCM
I'm still installing games and trying to get Gears 5 set up for single player. But one thing I noticed is how some key games are incompatible.

Trials Rising? Doesn't work. I was SOOO looking forward to that game on Deck with analog shoulder buttons! Bioshock Remastered and Bioshock Infinite? Doesn't work. I'd held off playing more on Switch so I could play on Deck with gyro. Guess that won't be happening any time soon. Batman Arkham Asylum? Doesn't work. In fact, only Arkham City is Deck verified (hopefully Switch gets that Arkham Collection). Monster Hunter Stories 2? Unconfirmed. Monster Hunter Rise? Unconfirmed. Reddit posts report Stories 2 runs but crashes a lot. Ugh.

It goes on and on. I mean, there's a fair few games that are Verified or Playable. God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Monster Hunter World, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, all new Wolfenstein and Doom games, etc. I'm happy about that.

But it's a sharp reminder that Deck is not "your full Steam library on the go". It's more like Nintendo Switch. It gets some games, but is also missing a lot of games. Hopefully that gets better with time.

It's also very buggy. Issues with install button not working got very annoying. I can also say, a lot of ppl said, "it's not as heavy as I thought". Well, for me it was exactly as heavy as I thought. It's not a dumbell or anything don't get me wrong, but it's noticeably heavier than Switch. After holding it for 10 min you notice.

But. All my complaints aside, I love this thing. It's not a device for everyone. It demands attention and commitment to figure things out, patience to deal with bugs and getting games running, but even so, it's seriously cool. I'm soooo glad I bought one.

I'm running everything with a 30fps cap across the board, at a lower resolution using FSR. Otherwise battery life is around 90 minutes (some games as low as 77 minutes!). That's not gonna cut it. 60 frames at 720p does me no good if it dies in 1.5 hrs. But if I can squeeze 3 hrs at 540p upscaled with FSR at a stable 30 frames... yes. That's money.

Yeah, there are a LOT of Steam games, @JaxonH .... Hopefully, most of those you'd like to play on it can be made playable Saw you say about the 'instal' button, so I hope that gets fixed soon, too

@BruceCM
Got Gears 5 working. After launching it reinstalled the EAC folder so I had to rename it again in desktop mode. Then it worked.

Monster Hunter World also works great. Played a hunt against a Banbaro in Hoarfrost Reach.

The shoulder bumper buttons are a little awkward to reach and press. Not as bad as Xbox controllers but nowhere near as easy as Switch Pro, or even Dualsense. Which sucks for radial menu access. But I needed L2 for gyro activation when aiming capture net and slinger and clutch claw. It works though!

I found 540p somewhat lacking, even with FSR. But I didn't wanna do the full 1280 X 800 or even 1280 X 720p.

Settled for 1024 X 768 which looks pretty close to normal 720p, but I don't think it saves enough pixels to bother. Probably just gonna stick with 720p moving forward, but keep the 30fps cap, and keep half rate shading turned on. Should be able to hit 2.5 hrs battery life on big games that way. Which isn't ideal but... it's almost as good as Zelda on v1 Switch. I can make due at least. And, on the bright side it looks fabulous in 720p so, silver lining and all that.

I did notice most new games being released are compatible. Like Neon White and TMNT and FFVII Remake, etc. So just treating it like a new console launch, where it's getting new games, and just so happens to have quite a bit of back catalog that also works as a bonus... I think that's the best positive perspective to have.

When you look at it that way, its like oh, ok ya that makes sense. That's pretty good, actually.

Yeah, it was never supposed to replace a normal PC or anything, @JaxonH .... & they're still adding games to 'verified' or 'playable', so hopefully those include the ones you want!

@BruceCM
Hey, I got Monster Hunter World running, I got Mass Effect Legendary Edition running, I got Final Fantasy VII Remake running, I got all 3 Tomb Raider games running, I got Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War (and I'm sure Spiderman when it drops) running, Wolfenstein New Order and Wolfenstein 2 running, and some others like Control, DMC5, Gears 5, Gears Tactics...

I'm happy. Could it be better? Well, ya, definitely. But even just getting Monster Hunter World and Mass Effect and FFVIIR, those 3 games alone make it worth it. Would have said Persona 4 Golden, Nier Automata and Portal 1/2 also, but with Switch OLED covering those it's less games I have to worry about taking space on the Deck.

BTW, found the ideal settings to squeeze 3 hrs battery life with great graphics.

• 1152 x 720 resolution (10% reduction vs 1280 x 720 = 11% gain)
• 30 fps hard cap
• Half Rate Shading enabled
• In-Game Settings > Medium (but with Layer of Depth set to High to eliminate pop up)
• Airplane Mode enabled (no wifi or bluetooth)
• Brightness 7 clicks down from max

These settings gave me an estimate of 3 hrs for Monster Hunter World in-game. I just did the math where, if 71% battery remained, I took the multiplicative inverse (reciprocal) of .71, and multiplied by the minutes remaining to estimate total minutes if it were at 100% (aka, divide minutes remaining by battery percentage remaining)

@Anti-Matter
I don't have those games so I can't confirm. You can just Google it though. Should be able to find out in 15 seconds

@Ralizah
Must have missed your post entirely. Sorry about that.

Yes, that was the very first thing I did. And I've found the sweet spot. Looks basically identical to full 720p but with 11% gain over native 720p (and even more vs 800p which is useless power draw imo, it's not sharper image, just taller), capped 30 fps feels extremely smooth, gyro aiming works perfectly, and with the settings listed above, it calculates to just 3 minutes under 3 hrs. Which is basically Zelda BotW on v1 Switch levels of battery. Not great, not ideal, but for a game like MH World on handheld in 720p? That feels like a win to me.

Oh, yeah, as you say, it's impressive, @JaxonH .... With more games being tested, etc, all the time, as well, though, it's only going to get better for how many are at least playable! Keep us posted

Do games have to be specifically optimized to work on the Steam deck? My Steam collection is primarily older games I've always wanted to play (like Psychonauts, Tales of Berseria, etc., and many even older like Myst and King's Quest). Are these likely to work because they are not very high-spec or taxing, or likely to never work because Valve is focused on new games and will never get to them?

@Xyphon22
It really has nothing to do with how demanding they are. It's kind of luck of the draw, really. Well, not entirely. Games can be optimized for the Deck, and many are being optimized as they release now that Deck exists. But games already out are a lottery ticket, and oftentimes needs a bit of tweaking on the backend. Thankfully it can more often than not be fixed by Valve through the Proton compatibility layer, and Valve is currently in beast mode pouring through back catalog, testing and tweaking, then categorizing as either "Verified" (essentially flawless), "Playable" (near flawless but may have small, hard to read text or requires text entry where you must manually bring up the on-screen keyboard), or "Unsupported" (doesn't work... at least, usually).

There is at least one "Unsupported" game that works if you modify the Easy Anti Cheat folder name and install a custom variant of Proton to run it on. And that game is Gears 5. But it's only playable single player.

And there's at least one "Verified" game that doesn't run. It has frame drops to 12 fps every ten seconds, even on lowest settings at 540p. And that game is Horizon Zero Dawn. Many report it plays fine in the early hours, but after the 5-6 hr mark frame drops start getting really bad. Nobody knows why.

There are websites where you can sign into your Steam account and see which games you own are Verified, Playable, Unsupported or Unknown.

@Xyphon22
Try this

https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck/mygames

@JaxonH Three hours is more than acceptable for MH World at 720p. Thanks for posting those settings, as it'll save me the trouble of figuring out my own customization if I end up getting the Deck.

A number of the supposedly unsupported games can be made to work rather well, so I'm not sure how much I trust that designation. Especially with "verified" games like HZD becoming unplayable over time.

@Ralizah
It seems most Ubisoft games don't work due to the Ubisoft Conndct launcher and Anti Cheat issues, Like Trials Rising. I SO wanted to play that at 720p with analog triggers. But even if you add Ubisoft Connect as a non-steam game, and deal with the fact you have to manually log in every time (annoying) the game has micro stutters regardless of settings.

Trials Fusion seems to work but it's not nearly as good as Rising.

Final Fantasy VII Remake works flawlessly though, and at 2.5 hrs at 720p. Very happy about that.

@JaxonH Thanks, that's a helpful website. Wasn't really planning on getting one anytime soon (even if I could), and now I am definitely not. The majority of my library is still untested, and there isn't a single verified game that I haven't already played.

I also got mine last week but ended up trading it without even opening for a quick turnaround (if not for that easy money I would not have finalize the order). The reason was that one of the reasons I wanted it was to easy play of my PC library on the living room, but I recently realized even with the dock it would not upscale the resolution and also because I bought a Raspberry Pi recently and found Linux the worst thing at the top of the earth. I am no expert on PC/dos but I can manage but on Linux every issue solved raised 10 others until I gave up

@Balta666
Deck can output higher resolutions to the TV. I've seen ppl output 1440p, though personally I'd stick with 1080p to keep framerate higher.

I'd never used Linux before, but I'm a believer now. It doesn't feel like "Windows" or "Linux" or any other OS. It feels like a console. Like Nintendo Switch. It's a custom handheld UI that just happens to be running on Linux. But you'd never know it if someone didn't tell you. It's basically like Switch. Hit menu button for quick access to shortcuts like Library, Downloads, Settings, Friends, Store, etc.

You can optionally toggle to Desktop Mode, but honestly it looks and feels like Windows. Everything is laid out the same. There's a browser, file explorer, etc. It's actually easier than Windows because there's an app on the Taskbar you click to open, and you can search for anything to install. Like Dolphin Emulator. I was very impressed.

But I pretty much stay in Game Mode. It feels just like any other console, be it PS, Xbox, Switch, whatever.

Got my Steam Deck at the end of May (256 model), had plenty of time to tinker with it and that's just the crux of the deck, if you put the time in and tinker around with it, it can pretty much do what you want.
Alot of games "unsupported" actually work fine or great, it's just a case of investigating compatibility. The Batman Arkham games for example just need the custom build of Proton loading in from desktop mode and they run as if on a PC but with Steam decks rather comfortable controls. It's great to hold, robust enough to mash buttons and comfortable for longer than 3 hour gaming sessions. When you want to game longer you can, either by optimising power options or plugging in. I've been running mine at 48fps (double eye sensitivity for smoothness) for 4-6 hours depending on the game. I just need to remember to switch it back to 30 or 60 when I dock it (USB c hub works great), otherwise monitor says no.
Overall it's an impressive piece of kit. Not quite ready for the masses, but it's a true PC gamers aid and entry to portability and versatility.

@JaxonH yeah I had confindence in Steam deck UI itself but as I was going to use it a lot as a emulation machine I feel the Linux beast would need to get tamed. In the end of the day I thought it was a lot of money for something I did not really need

@Balta666
Ya, can't argue with that. While no video game system is "needed", I feel as if my Switch OLED is as close to necessary as an entertainment device can get. I could easily give up my PS5, Series X, even my desktop gaming PC. But giving up my Switch would be brutal.

I don't really need Steamdeck either, but, I really really like it, and I'm glad I bought it. Whereas other devices I've bought I ended up not using much (GPD Win 2, Samsung Galaxy S21 FE with controller grip, etc) I can already tell I'll be using Steamdeck. Not anywhere close to the amount I use Switch, but far more than my PS5/XSX/PC