I was wondering how much you are using your Steam Deck? And did the games you play on it change since you bought it?
I find that I used it a lot when I first got it, but my usage has gone down in the mean time. That’s mostly because I play games that are not a great fit for the Steam Deck (strategy, building, etc.) and I prefer to play those on my PC.
almost every day for a year. my gaming pc often collects dust
I bought it rather than upgrading my gaming PC which I built back in 2016. So it’s my primary gaming machine now. I use it every day.
That was my move as well. I did do some upgrades on my PC along the way, but the base was still from 2009 (and I must say, it functioned surprisingly well). But a couple of months back I upgraded my PC as well. But the decline in play time on the Steam Deck was started before the upgrade.
Yeah my 2016 build still holds up pretty well. It’s a 970 and 8gb of RAM (but I gave it a big swapfile) and it’ll still run basically any game. I’ve never much minded medium or low graphics settings anyway
My previous PC that I used until Nov 2023 was build on even older CPU in 2013 (Haswell), but has a 1070 and 16gb RAM. I directly upgraded from 750 Ti > 970 > 1070 and stuck with it. :D But also I was playing on 1440p and if possible at 120 fps. So my assumption is you play on 1080p and most games (maybe besides the newest hot AAA) should run fine at 60 fps if you lower the settings. We even have upscaling nowadays!
I know what your system is capable of. It’s a little bit on the edge now, especially the CPU was holding it back for many other areas as well, but, as you said, it holds up suprisingly well given how old it is. The 900 and 1000 GTX series is probably the best graphics card generation we ever had (9 and 10 series are based on the same tech I think).
Happy cake day (I talked/wrote too much, was just thinking out loud, got kind of nostalgic lol).
Yeah, during work breaks or when chilling in the living room with my wife while she does her hobby stuff.
It’s not my main machine by any stretch of the imagination but it does see regular use.
I exclusively use it. For most games it works great, for some games it doesn’t, but that’s fine for me.
Never really used mine much at all.
Same. It’s been great on a few occasions, but I’m not playing much in general. It still came down to a third of my playtime being on Steam Deck last year.
Though I have to say I did use it more than I expected over the last two years.
If you’ve got kids and a partner, you can’t go sit at your computer or take over the living room TV…
So, yeah, I use my Deck all the time. I take it with me on work and road trips but I’m always driving or working so it honestly gets most of it’s use on the couch. Six feet from the much more powerful gaming PC and six feet from the living room media PC that can also play games. Hundreds of dollars of GPU in one room and hundreds of hours using the Deck instead.
My steam deck is my gaming device.
I play all kinds of games on it including strategy games like Beyond All Reason. With gyro it works totally fine.
You can play BAR on the steam deck!? That’s awesome! But how are the controls? Playing without keyboard/mouse?
gyroscope input to supplement joystick controls, see my comment here
https://sopuli.xyz/comment/9301831
local copy of ^ comment
BAR is already so brilliantly designed with every single damn command in the game being able to be shift clicked to make it into a series of tasks for a unit or factory… that you don’t honestly need to do much. It is basically just:
What button do you want shift (as well as ctrl and alt and to a lesser extent spacebar) to be bound too? This should be comfortable and easy to press as shift clicking is at the core of BAR and TA. The back buttons L5 L4 R4 R5 are good for these controls
What button do you want gyroscope to be toggled on and off by? You don’t have to use gyro but I really recommend giving it a thorough go, if you hold your device comfortably than it will be still and thus you can just focus on the joysticks or trackpad and let your subconscious brain begin integrating gyro. Personally I always leave gyro on when playing and just use the toggle to turn it off for navigating menus
What buttons do you want zoom in and zoom out to be bound too? I recommend to bind zoom in and zoom out to the bumpers on the deck, the normal WASD and mouse template for the Steam Deck comes with this binding as the default if I remember correctly. Using a radically new control scheme can feel claustrophobic or constricting, having intuitive buttons for zooming in and out is critical to combating that in my experience Common All You Need For A Minimal Setup Ctrl, Shift, Alt and SpaceBar commands, Screenshots and Manual Links included!
Now, you can go so much farther than that obviously. For example I found a great BAR control scheme that looked like someone put a lot of care and time into it called “BAR perfecto” but it didn’t fit my conception of how I wanted things so I just started from the factory default WASD and Mouse template.
I hesitate to build up this crazy complicated control scheme and then recommend it though, because most potential fans I can poke and prod enough to try BAR on the deck probably feel the same as you. So honestly at this point I would rather point out that just starting with the default WASD and Mouse control template and making those three choices/keybindings will get you to a point where you can genuinely play BAR and feel like the control scheme can actually work and feel good after a bit of adjustment time. From there you can add as much complexity and power as you want.
If you get frustrated or overwhelmed, take a deep breath and remember people have been figuring out how to make RTS games work well with a mouse and keyboard for decades, if it doesn’t click immediately that isn’t because mouse and keyboard is just better end of story.
touchpad + gyro works too!
I play against the Barbarian hard AI and can hold my own fine, I dont expect to crush Total Annihilation vets using $2000 gaming computer setups with mouse and keyboard, big monitors and absurd framerates tho… but so what?
I am enjoying playing BAR co-op online with my bro while I lounge on the couch.
The BARbarian AI is genuinely dynamic and fun to play against, it is extremely impressive especially for a community developed game!
I feel like I could hold my own in a casual game of BAR against humans but even if I couldnt I could care less, I can play BAR wherever I want on the deck and it is a blast!
Wut?!? How was installing BAR? Been wanting to try it but haven’t had the time.
step 1: switch deck to desktop mode
step 2: open up Discover (flathub preinstalled package manager) and search for Beyond All Reason, click install
step 3: if you want to be able to play it in gaming mode navigate to the app in your start menu in desktop mode and then rightclick “add to steam”
step 4: play BAR!
Wow had no idea it was that easy. Thank you!!
I do not game as much as I used to a decade ago and my gaming laptop had been dead for a while. The deck helps me casually pick up gaming every now and then. I am more interested in single player games now.
Count me in that group. Mostly single player games that I can pause at a moments notice when my wife wants something. 🤣🤣
Same, but a lot closer to 2 decades. But I still pickup humble bundles from time to time. Now i finally have a device to go through them.
My time and ability to game has led me to almost exclusively play on my steam deck, and I now game a lot more than I’ve gotten to in a decade.
For the past couple of years (I upgraded to the OLED) I’ve pretty much only purchased/played games that will play well on the SD.
I like many games that are really only suited to a bigger screen or mouse/keyboard, but not enough to get any of them, because I know I won’t be able to play them consistently enough to even remember what was going on since I’d played last.
Got the original not long after launch. Upgraded to OLED right around when it launched. I have some times when I don’t play it, but not often. Recently I have even been playing some RTS games since I got the controls working fairly effectively. Some of the fun for me with the Deck is customizing the controls to make a game work that otherwise wouldn’t. The Steam controller settings are in my opinion probably the most important feature that makes this work so well.
Many games I used to play on my Playstation I am now instead playing them natively on Deck. It’s comfortable. I love handheld.
The game I’ve played most overall is American Truck Simulator. Also Vampite Survivor, tons of Emulation Station, Metal Gear Solid master collecetion, and more recently Halo MCC, and Warhammer games like Dawn of War 1, Space Marine, and Inquisitor.
Apparently I played over 75 hours in May. PlayTime Decky plugin.
I really wish they’d release a steam controller 2, now that they’ve learned a bit more, and now that people are embracing the control scheme.
I hope too! I think they did not figure out how to make the controller not too big with the two touch pads, without sacrificing the other important elements. That was one of the deal breaker for the original Steam Controller, alongside the not that much optimal ergonomics in the hand. If Valve can pull off a Steam Controller 2 that is inline with the Steam Deck and is capable of replacing my Xbox controllers, then I would happily pay full price at launch (after reviews off course). It could be the ultimate game controller.
I’m in the minority that thought the original Xbox controller and original stream controller are sized perfectly 😄
I like the ergonomics of the Xbox controller a lot (not the original ;-) ), but it would be nice to get rid of the proprietary driver and Microsoft wireless adapter on my Linux PC. Plus it’s missing motion sensors, which could be used in Switch emulation or for some cool custom control schemes for Steam games.
Long COVID tied me to my bed. The Deck is the only gaming device I can comfortably use there.
Wish you the best and good recovery. I assume you also use it as a stationary machine connected to the tv/monitor?
Na, don’t really watch TV. But I’ve got a laptop on a rolling table.
That sucks man. Nice to have the Steam Deck then. At least you have some form of entertainment.
Some bpap sessions helped me get off bed after COVID, and gym helped me get back to “normal” after some months. Don’t know if it can help you, but hope you get better.
my steam deck is my main daily device. I use it for most stuff. I own consoles, but its just so much easier to use the deck cause I can keep everything in one place.
steam, emulation, I even use it for youtube. docked to my TV.
Use it every day. Being able to suspend and resume so smoothly usually makes it preferable to my main PC even if both are available. There are only a couple games (mostly hard fps) that I prefer to play on the PC instead.
Suspend and resume are indeed fantastic. There is no wait time before you can game.
Currently, no. But I also haven’t opened a game on my PC in months, since that time sadly has to go towards my Master’s thesis. But ever since I got the deck, I have heavily used it. It’s easier to pick up and put down than the same game on PC, so I just do (did) more frequently.
I use mine pretty often. I mostly play retro and indie games. It’s an amazing piece of kit.
It definitely is, and I really enjoyed it when I got it. But I do run into the limitations of the device. Those limitations are by design because I would like a bigger screen, but putting a 17" screen on a handheld doesn’t make it a handheld anymore. So my usecase might not fit with the device anymore. I do use it sometimes to play sports or casual games. But that’s about it.
