I’m not surprised. The steamdeck is the only way that I game any longer. I think their approach to hardware upgrades not being frequent is a great idea. It lets devs have target hardware for the games to work on.
I couldn’t be happier with my steamdeck and will get the next one on day one.
I just got the OLED last week. My PC couldn't run baldurs gate so this was my ez fix for that, and I wanted a new toy for remote play.
I've been really enjoying it. A few bugs (offline reboot got stuck looking for updates, and BG3 seems to have issues with controller connection?) but overall really fun. The handheld feels nice too, better than my switch.
Bg3 runs pretty good on it. There are some slowdowns, but it doesn’t really matter in this kind of game.
I got obsessed with that game, but kind of burnt out after I finished act 2.
Yeah, I played through the whole thing on my steam deck and it was mostly a great experience.
The last act was, performance wise, pretty rough though. Maybe there was some setting I could have changed to make it smoother, but the framerate was only about half what I got during the other acts.
I think the stable hardware is a bigger deal than people realize. Windows is already a moving target for devs with all of the different hardware options. Linux just compounds that with the multitude of distros. Having something that the devs can target makes their job easier, but it allows those of us who are willing to get into the guts of it something we can tweak to work on just about any distro and hardware.
That’s really true. I agree 100% Valve is playing the long game and is really doing a great job bringing Linux to the average user.
Im sorta the same but got the first one when the price was cut and it will likely be the same with the next.
I think Steam Deck is great and a huge impact on both Linux gaming and handheld gaming. My only gripe with the Steam deck is trying to use it in docked mode. I'm not sure if it's the TV or the official dock but the only way I could get it working is when I disconnect all the wires from the dock and then connect them in the right order. I think it was 1) connect deck to the dock 2) Connect HDMI to the dock and finally 3) connect power to the dock. If I don't connect it the right way the signal from the dock to the TV gets fucked up and I either get some really crappy resolution that doesn't even get properly aligned, weird almost white noise or just straight up black screen. Not really a big issue for me since I mostly use the deck when away from home, but it still that using it at home is such a hassle (at least for me).
It’s too bad you’re having trouble with it. I’ve had almost 0 trouble with the dock. There was one instance where I couldn’t get video out, but it was fixed after restarting it twice.
Yeah, it's definitely more of a case of being just unlucky because it's not a common issue with the dock. Took me quite a while to find that wire trick.
As a Linux user, I love the steam deck. I'll probably never own one, but what it did for Linux gaming was amazing
The way it brought to light how viable Linux gaming is, and make it more widely adopted, has been awesome.
Bought one as a present from my own birthday. Finally I don't use it much, but as you said It showed me that Linux gaming was here. I switched all my computers to Linux and keep gaming.
As a fellow Linux guy, it's just great. I have had to do no hacking and bare-bones minimal tweaking to get things how I want. 90% of games work out of the box, even mouse-heavy games like RimWorld. I just love it. I sit at a desk all day for work. I don't want to do that after. The steam deck gives me almost my entire steam library and I can lounge wherever I feel like with it. I <3 you Steamdeck.
SteamDeck (and other handhelds like that) are super convenient to demo things out on. Don't have to lug entire systems to trade shows. Just load up a dozen decks in a bag preloaded with whatever the most stable or latest build of your game is.
It makes sense for these trade shows. More of your game gets into people hands for that crucial demo. Less time wasted waiting in queue at the 2 PCs you brought instead.
That’s true. Though not a lot of devs there demoed games on Steam Deck. More indie devs did than AAA, but they all expressed interest.
Most people don't know Linux. Those that do know it for the bad rep it has. Steam decks are the easiest way to explain that Linux isn't as complicated as arch and isn't as unusable as macOS for gaming
Steam deck convinced me to try Linux. I installed Mint on saturday and I'm pretty happy.
Sad that Adobe doesn't work well with it, but everything else seemed pretty hassle free
Funny you mentioned arch, as steam deck os is based on arch, so it is using arch btw
It’s true! And it’s awesome to see so many people coming around to how great Linux can be.
I don't have a Steam Deck and probably won't get one, but I'm glad they exist, as it has made Linux gaming in general much better supported and simpler.
I thought the same for a long time. I had a gaming PC, I had my Switch (or earlier Nintendo consoles), I was covered. Eventually my gaming PC reached the end of the road (15+ years, minor upgrades along the way.) I was happy enough without it so I decided against building a new gaming PC.
Then Baldur's Gate 3 was announced. I knew I'd need a new gaming PC to play it. Of course alternatives like Stadia showed up at that time, but we know how that story ends, and it ends before BG3 came out.
Steam Deck truly is a savior. I can play the latest games. I can play my old games. I can emulate games.
Plus unlike Android it feels like a Linux machine underneath. I don't say that to shame Android, but I don't feel like I own the device. I can customize a lot, but I'm just a user. But the Steam Deck? I can open the hood if I like and it's a Linux machine with a built in touch screen and controller. It's my PC.
To add, it's even reached out to non-nerds. My brother, who isn't THAT tech literate picked one up and he's absolutely loving it. He hasn't had a gaming PC ever but he's getting tons of time on the Steamdeck and we've had zero issues playing games online together and using the steam voice chat.
A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.
Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.
Some more Steam Deck specific flairs:
[Boot Screen] - Custom boot screens/videos.
[Selling] - If you are selling your deck.
These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.
Rules: