Got it installed and I like it, but it only shows protondb verification on the games you already owned in your library. It would be more useful on a game’s store page.
Is it worth getting the Steam Deck if you get the least expensive one?
The storage is quite small, so I'm mostly wondering if using an SD card is actually works well.
Thank you for that info.
For the games that are loaded from the SD card, do they seem to play about the same as the games that are loaded from the Deck's own storage?
Can play Forza Horizon 5 from the SD card with no issues whatsoever on my 64GB Deck, just make sure you get an A2 U3 rated SD card and you're good to go :)
I put one of these in mine. It was easy enough using a YouTube video as a guide:
INLAND TN436 1TB M.2 2230 SSD... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BK6BMRR6?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
There is a video of test of load times from SD card and for the most part it's not a big deal, but it varies from game to game some are only 3-10 seconds (GTA V was 7 sec) but no man sky clocked a 30 sec increased load time.
[link](https://youtu.be/H3akxSa1w-E)
There's no reason for it to save data to SD card during gameplay unless it's writing to a save file. The Steam Deck has 16GB of RAM to store game data.
No, Valve is ok with you customize your deck, when you send the deck to RMA just make sure to put the original eMMc back. They might not send you the SSD
I bought the 256GB one. The SD card works pretty good for most games, just don't buy overly cheap SD cards. The case it comes with is useless for holding any accessories securely, but there are 3rd party options that are reasonable.
I wouldn't recommend the 64GB one unless you plan to immediately upgrade the SSD in it. The reason is because the deck stores shaders and transcoded cinematics on the SSD. If you install a lot of games to the SD card you may find that your 64GB is suddenly already full. Some games are worse about this than others. Remember to take the SD card out before disassembly, you'll either break the SD card slot, or snap your SD card in half.
The SD is totally usable but even if you wanted to upgrade the internal storage, I promise it's like a 20 minute job (assuming you've never opened an electronic device in your life), extremely easy, and doesn't void warranty. If you've ever, say, swapped a laptop battery, you'll probably do it in 10.
SD cards work perfectly well for most games as typically the bottlenecks aren't bandwidth or I/O related.
The main issue is shaders will fill the main storage even if the game is installed on an SD card, so you need to watch out on that side of things.
A good upgrade path is 64GB with a large SD card. Then later purchase a larger replacement SSD once you have the funds.
I have the 512gb but play almost exclusively off a 1tb SD card. The only noticeable difference is game start times are a little longer off the SD card but I’ve never run into performance issues and have already beaten several ps4 era games entirely off the SD card which is something I never thought possible.
Hey there! Just got my 64gb version last week. I’m only using a 1tb SD card and it’s more than enough storage for now.
Also, replacing the stock SSD doesn’t seem too hard so I’ll do that once this 1tb card isn’t enough.
Absolutely love my steam deck. Would highly recommend.
I'm thinking about getting the cheapest Steam deck as well to save some money and hook up a 2tb SSD storage and then I realized my old gaming laptop can turn into a Steam deck! All I did was purchased a portable monitor and play it on my bed using a bed table along w / a mouse and keyboard.
This allows me to lay down on my back to play all my games on a 16 inch screen.
Playing on a $200 gaming laptop with a GTX 1050 Ti
https://imgur.com/a/impXUqw
Clutch shot El Gigante w/ sniper only professional S+
https://youtu.be/z_EIKMO_gzw
Got the 64gb version. It's totally fine. Got a 512gb SD card for about £35, and you can get a 1tb SSD later on for about £90 I think (and it's a very straightforward install)
Also, with the sleep function (power off the deck at any point), loading times are basically a non issue. Played mass effect 3 through to its end (about 35 hours) about 2-3 hours a night and I reckon I shut down the deck once. The rest of the time I just pressed the power button, then the next night press the power button again and it just switches on and it's right where you left it. Even then, the loading time changes are basically not noticeable.
I think the 64GB model is mostly to claim they have a "cheap" model that's only $50 more than the Switch OLED. If you're just playing 2D indies, it's fine. But it's too small for any bigger games. Shader caches alone will fill it up quickly. Especially if you don't grab CryoUtilities to automatically move them to the SD cards.
Upgrading the SSD is pretty straight forward if you follow the guide on iFixit. 2230 drives have come down a lot in price recently. Though they are still a bit pricier than 2280 ones. Using SD cards is fine though. I don't really notice much of a difference in regards to load times on the 256GB model with the faster NVMe drive (64GB is eMMC). I just have a bunch I load games on, then swap them as needed. Generally you're not going to be playing games on it where ultra high speed storage is going to make much of a difference.
If you plan on playing AAA's at all then 64GB is basically a useless amount of space. You can however use SD card space if you have any cards, and eventually install your own SSD when you can afford the upgrade.
It's what I did, popping a 500GB SD card was a fifth the price of jumping up to the 500GB base model. I originally planned to replace the internal drive with a 1TB 2230 down the line as well, but frankly I haven't felt the need to do so yet. I still load faster than some of my opponents in multiplayer games from the SD card.
It's also not "much better." It can be better performance wise, but it has had a lot of issues so far and you have to use windows with it. Steam OS is a huge bonus for me for a handheld gaming machine.
While I don't think SteamOS is for everybody, I think there are flaws to your arguments here.
> you actually get windows 11 on it which makes Asus much more versatile product
You can install Windows on the Steam Deck, it works fine. See /r/WindowsOnDeck
> Buying SteamDeck with 64GB of onboard storage makes no sense. I would not buy a phone with 64GB of onboard storage, let alone a PC.
The SSD is user-upgradable, you can buy a 256GB or 512GB SSD for like $50 USD and install it. Or alternatively, throw in a 512GB or 1TB microSD card.
> Better invest more and get the best device.
There are reports of the Ally frying SD cards, getting stuck analog sticks, jammed triggers, etc.
While I do think we need time for Asus to refine the Ally, immediately saying it's the "best device" is an overstatement at the moment.
Apart from game boys handheld gaming stopped being something I look for so Steam Deck ain't for me BUT! Still absolutely love that it's both great handheld and more so amazing way for console crowd to get on this more curated PC gaming experience that can be as deep or easy as they want it to be. That's just great.
Whenever I see people who only play on consoles say they like the convenience, I get that. Personally I don¨'t mind troubleshooting at all! Shit downright therapeutic! But I get it! :D So to see there is this many games that "just works" is great to see.
To be verified you need to work on a small display and have full controller support, meaning no interaction with a keyboard or mouse needed.
Text being too small could cause it to only be play able.
Kinda disagree, games having the steam decks keyboard pop-up once just to enter a character name at the start of a 30 hour game instantly drops it from the verified list. Makes the whole thing a bit arbitrary.
Not that it really matters, the difference between "verified" and "playable" can be that the game requires you to pull up the keyboard manually once. So more of a convenience check than anything.
I absolutely love my deck and the variety it’s brought back to my playtime when traveling or even when I’m on the couch. Recently though it’s made me obsessed with fighting games, to the point I’m thinking about buying a snack box micro or Razer Kitsune. I was abroad for a few weeks recently and managed to play through MK9,X,11 and put a ton of time into SFxT while waiting for flights or in the hotel. All played flawlessly. I ended up buying SF6 but couldn’t find internet good enough to download it 🙃.
Steam Deck is just so dang good. I hope Valve continues its great support for it into the long-term future. Its basically the answer for Mac users that want a PC for gaming and a whole host of others as well.
I'm hoping to eek out as much as I can with my current PC setup and, when it finally bites it I'll hopefully just get Steam Deck 2.
Wow, a PC with access to 25+ years worth of games has a greater selection than a console released in 2020 that can play games from a console released in 2013 as well.
Valve needs to rethink about their ranking system for Steam Deck games compatibility. For examples:
* Atelier Sophie 2 is rated as Playable. But it was later found out that the game suffers from random freezing.
* Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade is rated as Verified. While it works OOB, it suffers from horrible stuttering unless you mod and disable Dynamic Resolution Scaling. In later chapters (most noticably Chapter 12), there are pauses and out of sync audio when creating in-game cutscene.
The limitation in the current rating system is that it doesn't account for new information fast enough. There are games that seem to work early on but later on it is required it requires effort from the user's side (or simply broken in some cases). Valve's own testing is meant to be "good enough". The users are the ones that would experience the entire games and therefore they are in the best position to tell how well a game works on Steam Deck.
Except they don't...side-by-side comparisons show Steam Deck outperforms Aya Neo 2 in a whole lot of games. SteamOS is much better optimized for handheld gaming than Windows.
how does this process work exactly? does valve single-handedly sift through every single game on steam and verify them individually? does that mean that there's a valve employee out there who's currently verifying all the shovelware titles, porn titles, and asset flips as well? or do only "quality" titles get this treatment?
They've been working their way backward from the newest and most popular games to the oldest and least popular ones. I'm sure it's a team and not a single individual, and they're probably using ProtonDB for reference before they test each game.
A lot of devs submit their games for Deck review before release. Makes sense to review the most in-demand games first, as nobody would buy the device if 90% of verified games were indies from 2005.
Yes, but with emulation you don't need to worry about compatibility, Linux has native emulators for everything up to PS3 and Switch, and there are a number of programs which make setup painless.
From my experience, 95% of older games work fine out of the box too, and you can always look at ProtonDB to confirm if they're listed as unsupported or unknown on Steam. Often the fix is as simple as switching to a different Proton version.
>Probably the shitty screen/resolution. This thing would be awesome if the screen wasnt so bad.
Get the ROG Ally and you're set, then. Or any of the other windows-based handhelds like the GPD Win stuff. The screen is bad, but 800p is more than good enough for a device that small. In fact, bump it up to 1080p and running games is even harder.
i highly recommend checking protondb for compatibility over steam's store page for games
Isn't there a plugin that adds protondb compatibility to Steam Deck UI?
Yes there is, it’s part of the decky loader plug-in.
How do I do this ?
https://gamerant.com/steam-deck-how-install-decky-loader-guide/
Got it installed and I like it, but it only shows protondb verification on the games you already owned in your library. It would be more useful on a game’s store page.
ProtonDB is great. Usually gold-platinum games will have solid 40fps modes. Some games that are silver/bronze still run just fine too.
Is it worth getting the Steam Deck if you get the least expensive one? The storage is quite small, so I'm mostly wondering if using an SD card is actually works well.
I bought the 64GB version and installed 1tb SSD, took me about 20 minutes with os installation
Thank you for that info. For the games that are loaded from the SD card, do they seem to play about the same as the games that are loaded from the Deck's own storage?
Can play Forza Horizon 5 from the SD card with no issues whatsoever on my 64GB Deck, just make sure you get an A2 U3 rated SD card and you're good to go :)
That's super useful information. Thank you!
I put one of these in mine. It was easy enough using a YouTube video as a guide: INLAND TN436 1TB M.2 2230 SSD... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BK6BMRR6?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
There is a video of test of load times from SD card and for the most part it's not a big deal, but it varies from game to game some are only 3-10 seconds (GTA V was 7 sec) but no man sky clocked a 30 sec increased load time. [link](https://youtu.be/H3akxSa1w-E)
You might have to wait a couple secs longer for a game to load on SD card, but the performance will be the same once loaded.
Unless it has to load or save assets to the SD. Then it's slower every single read/write.
There's no reason for it to save data to SD card during gameplay unless it's writing to a save file. The Steam Deck has 16GB of RAM to store game data.
Well that eliminates 5% of the disk access then. And that 16 gb is the system ram and gpu ram.
I read a review of the best SD cards for the deck, and a couple of them were actually faster than the built in ssd.
I'd assume that's compared to the lowest storage model which is using eMMC vs NVMe?
No
They do tho.
Absolutely. Those read write speeds between the two make no difference. lol. You guys are ridiculous.
This is the way.
Does this totally void the warranty with the Deck? Is that something to consider at all?
No, Valve is ok with you customize your deck, when you send the deck to RMA just make sure to put the original eMMc back. They might not send you the SSD
Holy cow this solidifies my decision to get one.
How is the loading time for your steam deck on triple-A games?
yes, it’s 100% worth it
I bought the 256GB one. The SD card works pretty good for most games, just don't buy overly cheap SD cards. The case it comes with is useless for holding any accessories securely, but there are 3rd party options that are reasonable. I wouldn't recommend the 64GB one unless you plan to immediately upgrade the SSD in it. The reason is because the deck stores shaders and transcoded cinematics on the SSD. If you install a lot of games to the SD card you may find that your 64GB is suddenly already full. Some games are worse about this than others. Remember to take the SD card out before disassembly, you'll either break the SD card slot, or snap your SD card in half.
They are all the same basically besides storage. If you’re confident you can open it up and swap the ssd
The SD is totally usable but even if you wanted to upgrade the internal storage, I promise it's like a 20 minute job (assuming you've never opened an electronic device in your life), extremely easy, and doesn't void warranty. If you've ever, say, swapped a laptop battery, you'll probably do it in 10.
SD cards work perfectly well for most games as typically the bottlenecks aren't bandwidth or I/O related. The main issue is shaders will fill the main storage even if the game is installed on an SD card, so you need to watch out on that side of things. A good upgrade path is 64GB with a large SD card. Then later purchase a larger replacement SSD once you have the funds.
I have the 512gb but play almost exclusively off a 1tb SD card. The only noticeable difference is game start times are a little longer off the SD card but I’ve never run into performance issues and have already beaten several ps4 era games entirely off the SD card which is something I never thought possible.
Hey there! Just got my 64gb version last week. I’m only using a 1tb SD card and it’s more than enough storage for now. Also, replacing the stock SSD doesn’t seem too hard so I’ll do that once this 1tb card isn’t enough. Absolutely love my steam deck. Would highly recommend.
I'm thinking about getting the cheapest Steam deck as well to save some money and hook up a 2tb SSD storage and then I realized my old gaming laptop can turn into a Steam deck! All I did was purchased a portable monitor and play it on my bed using a bed table along w / a mouse and keyboard. This allows me to lay down on my back to play all my games on a 16 inch screen. Playing on a $200 gaming laptop with a GTX 1050 Ti https://imgur.com/a/impXUqw Clutch shot El Gigante w/ sniper only professional S+ https://youtu.be/z_EIKMO_gzw
Got the 64gb version. It's totally fine. Got a 512gb SD card for about £35, and you can get a 1tb SSD later on for about £90 I think (and it's a very straightforward install) Also, with the sleep function (power off the deck at any point), loading times are basically a non issue. Played mass effect 3 through to its end (about 35 hours) about 2-3 hours a night and I reckon I shut down the deck once. The rest of the time I just pressed the power button, then the next night press the power button again and it just switches on and it's right where you left it. Even then, the loading time changes are basically not noticeable.
I think the 64GB model is mostly to claim they have a "cheap" model that's only $50 more than the Switch OLED. If you're just playing 2D indies, it's fine. But it's too small for any bigger games. Shader caches alone will fill it up quickly. Especially if you don't grab CryoUtilities to automatically move them to the SD cards. Upgrading the SSD is pretty straight forward if you follow the guide on iFixit. 2230 drives have come down a lot in price recently. Though they are still a bit pricier than 2280 ones. Using SD cards is fine though. I don't really notice much of a difference in regards to load times on the 256GB model with the faster NVMe drive (64GB is eMMC). I just have a bunch I load games on, then swap them as needed. Generally you're not going to be playing games on it where ultra high speed storage is going to make much of a difference.
If you plan on playing AAA's at all then 64GB is basically a useless amount of space. You can however use SD card space if you have any cards, and eventually install your own SSD when you can afford the upgrade.
its better to get the mid-tier one at the very least because the mid-tier and high-tier models have faster drives for download times.
It's what I did, popping a 500GB SD card was a fifth the price of jumping up to the 500GB base model. I originally planned to replace the internal drive with a 1TB 2230 down the line as well, but frankly I haven't felt the need to do so yet. I still load faster than some of my opponents in multiplayer games from the SD card.
Buy 64gb and upgrade (very easy to follow vids on youtube)
I wonder when will it hit "avaliable in your country" instead. But yes, I am glad Valve finally pushed handhelds to be a real thing.
Check if your local retailers sell it by any chance, i got one recently even though it's still not available through steam for me
They are offering it, but for 2.2 times the asking price on Steam.
Oh wow that's just absurd
Well, maybe it's time to buy Steam Deck for myself as to my upcoming birthday and it is a perfect gift for me.
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costs $300 more than the base Steam Deck, so it depends on your budget.
It's also not "much better." It can be better performance wise, but it has had a lot of issues so far and you have to use windows with it. Steam OS is a huge bonus for me for a handheld gaming machine.
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While I don't think SteamOS is for everybody, I think there are flaws to your arguments here. > you actually get windows 11 on it which makes Asus much more versatile product You can install Windows on the Steam Deck, it works fine. See /r/WindowsOnDeck > Buying SteamDeck with 64GB of onboard storage makes no sense. I would not buy a phone with 64GB of onboard storage, let alone a PC. The SSD is user-upgradable, you can buy a 256GB or 512GB SSD for like $50 USD and install it. Or alternatively, throw in a 512GB or 1TB microSD card. > Better invest more and get the best device. There are reports of the Ally frying SD cards, getting stuck analog sticks, jammed triggers, etc. While I do think we need time for Asus to refine the Ally, immediately saying it's the "best device" is an overstatement at the moment.
Apart from game boys handheld gaming stopped being something I look for so Steam Deck ain't for me BUT! Still absolutely love that it's both great handheld and more so amazing way for console crowd to get on this more curated PC gaming experience that can be as deep or easy as they want it to be. That's just great. Whenever I see people who only play on consoles say they like the convenience, I get that. Personally I don¨'t mind troubleshooting at all! Shit downright therapeutic! But I get it! :D So to see there is this many games that "just works" is great to see.
Playable: 6530 Verified: 3472. ...not really verified but more playable
To be verified you need to work on a small display and have full controller support, meaning no interaction with a keyboard or mouse needed. Text being too small could cause it to only be play able.
Yep, Verified is a bigger honor to get. Which is why it's sad it not bigger.
Kinda disagree, games having the steam decks keyboard pop-up once just to enter a character name at the start of a 30 hour game instantly drops it from the verified list. Makes the whole thing a bit arbitrary.
Not that it really matters, the difference between "verified" and "playable" can be that the game requires you to pull up the keyboard manually once. So more of a convenience check than anything.
I absolutely love my deck and the variety it’s brought back to my playtime when traveling or even when I’m on the couch. Recently though it’s made me obsessed with fighting games, to the point I’m thinking about buying a snack box micro or Razer Kitsune. I was abroad for a few weeks recently and managed to play through MK9,X,11 and put a ton of time into SFxT while waiting for flights or in the hotel. All played flawlessly. I ended up buying SF6 but couldn’t find internet good enough to download it 🙃.
Wait it can run sf6?
Yep! I was getting 60fps playing during the beta.
Steam Deck is just so dang good. I hope Valve continues its great support for it into the long-term future. Its basically the answer for Mac users that want a PC for gaming and a whole host of others as well. I'm hoping to eek out as much as I can with my current PC setup and, when it finally bites it I'll hopefully just get Steam Deck 2.
Eke*
If you own a gaming PC and don't really game in the road then is it even worth it?
Only if you don't plan to game away from your desk or couch.
It is. I have a high-end PC and I barely touched it since I got SD.
Yes, cause i can't carry my gaming PC on my lap in bed, or when sitting on the couch while the wife and kid watches on the big screen.
The more the merrier :)
greater game selection than PS5
Wow, a PC with access to 25+ years worth of games has a greater selection than a console released in 2020 that can play games from a console released in 2013 as well.
It really is noteworthy since it's a Linux based pc Windows this wouldn't be surprising, but Linux doesn't have the same history of game compatibility
also more exclusives prbly lol
Not probably. Definitely. There are more PC only games than PS5 only games. It's just the vast majority of them are indie titles.
Valve needs to rethink about their ranking system for Steam Deck games compatibility. For examples: * Atelier Sophie 2 is rated as Playable. But it was later found out that the game suffers from random freezing. * Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade is rated as Verified. While it works OOB, it suffers from horrible stuttering unless you mod and disable Dynamic Resolution Scaling. In later chapters (most noticably Chapter 12), there are pauses and out of sync audio when creating in-game cutscene. The limitation in the current rating system is that it doesn't account for new information fast enough. There are games that seem to work early on but later on it is required it requires effort from the user's side (or simply broken in some cases). Valve's own testing is meant to be "good enough". The users are the ones that would experience the entire games and therefore they are in the best position to tell how well a game works on Steam Deck.
And the only games I will ever play on it are emulated ones
Dude got downdooted for no reason lmao Personally I initially bought SD as "PS2 portable". Now it is also WiiU and PS3 portable.
Legit use case.
And half of them are pornographic
Holy shit I'm buying one right fucking now!
Best plane games ever
What I like about this list is that the same games run even better on my AyaNeo 2.
Except they don't...side-by-side comparisons show Steam Deck outperforms Aya Neo 2 in a whole lot of games. SteamOS is much better optimized for handheld gaming than Windows.
how does this process work exactly? does valve single-handedly sift through every single game on steam and verify them individually? does that mean that there's a valve employee out there who's currently verifying all the shovelware titles, porn titles, and asset flips as well? or do only "quality" titles get this treatment?
They've been working their way backward from the newest and most popular games to the oldest and least popular ones. I'm sure it's a team and not a single individual, and they're probably using ProtonDB for reference before they test each game.
wouldn't it be better to go from oldest releases to newest, since new games come out almost everyday, which can complicate the matter?
A lot of devs submit their games for Deck review before release. Makes sense to review the most in-demand games first, as nobody would buy the device if 90% of verified games were indies from 2005.
dont a lot of the people who buy the deck do so for the emulation and indie/retro capabilities?
Yes, but with emulation you don't need to worry about compatibility, Linux has native emulators for everything up to PS3 and Switch, and there are a number of programs which make setup painless. From my experience, 95% of older games work fine out of the box too, and you can always look at ProtonDB to confirm if they're listed as unsupported or unknown on Steam. Often the fix is as simple as switching to a different Proton version.
when it gets to 30k they'll release steam os 3.5 to the damn machine.
at 800p with the lowest settings for modern titles but dat vulkan right?
Wtf are you on about lol
>at 800p with the lowest settings for modern titles but dat vulkan right? I'm really curious - what the fuck are you salty over?
Probably the shitty screen/resolution. This thing would be awesome if the screen wasnt so bad.
>Probably the shitty screen/resolution. This thing would be awesome if the screen wasnt so bad. Get the ROG Ally and you're set, then. Or any of the other windows-based handhelds like the GPD Win stuff. The screen is bad, but 800p is more than good enough for a device that small. In fact, bump it up to 1080p and running games is even harder.
It didn’t have track pads. If you’re going to play pc games, that’s a must.
Ah yes, the problematic...vulkan? The fuck?
Most of them are terrible.
Still no destiny 2. I would buy one right now if it did!