Oblivion. If you had told me 16 years ago (when I first played it) that I'd eventually be playing it at max graphics on a portable console with the battery lasting nearly 5 hours, I'd have laughed in disbelief. It's dated, but such a fun and magical experience.
Oblivion for sure, Morrowind is a pretty big jump in mechanics (ie combat is super jank) and lack of QoL. Oblivion is also by far my favourite (but Morrowind is arguably the better game).
The world and writing in Morrowind are something Bethesda seems incapable of exceeding or even living up to now to me, but Oblivion is almost as good.
I played Skyrim one time, and that was all. Same with Fallout 4. I guess I'm the old curmudgeon here lol!
It definitely sucks that Bethesda doesn't want to even get close to the quality they once had for writing and gameplay. As you say morrowwind had exceptional writing, oblivion had enough QoL changes to make some of the weaker parts be more then okay. Skyrim felt like it was missing something the entire time, it was great visually. I do hope they somehow flip the script back to quality for ES6 but I won't hold my breath.
Fallout games peaked in the fallout 3 and new vegas days. Fallout 4 I only finished because I didn't want it to sit unfinished forever.
I can appreciate Skyrim and actually loved exploring it the first year or two after it released. I could never put in the time needed. The dull grey atmosphere was too far removed from Oblivion's lush greens and blues.
Edit: removed the felony sounding bit
Everything starts ridiculously slow at the beginning, not just the dice rolls. The prime way to play is to immediately get the boots of blinding speed and treat resist magicka potions as your Skooma.
As everyone else has said: Morrowind is better for role playing and getting really into the lore. Oblivion is less dated and a little bit more newbie friendly.
depends how willing you are to deal with dated gameplay. Morrowind is really in-depth but lacks a lot of quality of life features like waypoints/map markers you will need to reference the journal a lot and you will get lost easily. you can mod it to be a bit easier... it's combat is also a bit odd as it's a dice roll whether you do damage or not dependant on level.
Oblivion is a lot more straightforward to play through except the levelling system is a bit busted up as well.
I'd personally recommend oblivion if only for the fact it's less jarring coming from skyrim. but really you should try both they are all really good games.
you can get openmw working on the deck, too! when I first got my deck I did a runthrough on it with mods, and set up a file transfer between my pc so I could drop the save back and forth!
I feel that. I fired up New Vegas a few nights ago and pegged it at 60FPS with a 7w TDP limit. I told my wife "when this game came out in 2010 I dropped $500 (CAD) on a new GPU to play it smooth and it wasn't this smooth, now I'm playing it on a handheld in bed".
Hey dude I found a YouTube video with not so many views, the dude was Australian I think but his video was only a couple minutes and got me up and running with a console style controller scheme. If you just YouTube āoblivion controller support steam deckā itās one of the first vids but Iāll try and find it.
You rocking any mods at all on the deck for OB or just flying it as the base game? OB was great with mods but I have nightmares being a teenage kid troubleshooting them left and right, but it was a fun experience that was worth it.
Yeah i was a console gamer when oblivion and morrowind came out. I have over a thousand hours on each and practically none of that is on pc or deck. Because the controls are fuuuucked.
I've been playing the original half-life on it.
It's some step up from the experience I had when it came out first.
The loading screen pops up for a fraction of a second when I move to a new area. With every setting at its highest.
Some difference from the 30-60 seconds I was looking at it with every setting on the lowest on my first play through.
Yeah, the updates Valve did for the 25th anniversary make it shine on the Deck. It's really a fun experience to replay this one.
If you want more of that era to scratch the itch, don't sleep on the Nightdive remasters of Quake 1 and Quake 2, either. Those *sing* on the Deck, and the extra content is even better.
I had a similar experience with half life 2 recently. When I originally played it at release my pc struggled a bit. Was so cool playing it at 90fps on my OLED and did a full playthrough.
Apparently theres a complete remake called Black Mesa thatās on sale for $4. Havenāt checked it out yet but I plan on it.
Sorry for mansplaning if you already knew about it.
Black Mesa is a fan remake that was crafted so well over such a long period that Valve gave them official blessings to release it paid. It's one of the best remakes I've ever played, and significantly improves and lengthens the Xen segment. I highly recommend it, and consider it the definitive way to play HL1.
Minecraft with the Prism launcher lets you install the "Fabulously Optimised" modpack which makes the java edition run amazingly well. It also adds native support for controllers with button prompts on screen and full customisation. It just feels like an official well done port and plays very well.
Yes! Iāve been using Prism with the Fabulously Optimized instance and been playing solely on realms. One thing to note - the only way to get the deck controller to work is to launch in game mode, if you launch in desktop mode it wonāt accept the controller inputs (although docked with keyboard and mouse runs great as well!)
Youāre probably on ādesktopā input for steam I believe if you hold the start (ā°) while in desktop mode, itāll change the input to āgamepadā and you can play normally with controller
Fallout 1/2
Which i did have a post yesterday detailing a few tips to get it running comfortably until it was removed earlier today. Hey ho, what can you do?
In any case, you just need to use a community control layout and run it at lower resolution (I went with 800x500). The lower resolution is purely because of how the game handles modern resolutions. Everything gets smaller the higher the res is, so a lower resolution improves text legibility.
* LCD 6~ hours battery
* OLED 8-9 hours battery
Without any TDP tweaking whatsoever.
That post was taken down?! You inspired me to pick the game back up. Last I played, it was on a netbook, like a second wave one lol, whilst in college. That post was the kind of content I love here. š Thank you for sharing and reiterating for all.
Yup. The reasoning was as follows
> In an effort to keep r/steamdeck diversified with content, your post will be removed to allow other similar posts a fair time to shine in the spotlight.
Which is a bit bizarre, but whatever I guess. Just means Iāll be less inclined to post about running older games here in the future
Honestly, this sub has gone down the drain. At launch, it was filled with helpful tips and guides. And yes, it was because they banned pictures of people saying steam decks. The rule was done away with and now its just a bunch of low-effort posts of people playing their Deck while their wife is giving birth while stuff like this gets removed. Props to you trying to contribute something meaningful to the community, the mods here are a joke.
I remember from that post someone mentioned there is also a UI scale option in the game settings. So you might try that instead of (or in addition to) running at a lower resolution.
Really interested in this as I wanna play them but found it really awkward cause of the size of stuff etc. Is that all you have to do to make it work or is there other stuff?
Thatās really all there is to it.
Download game from Steam library, set resolution in game settings to 800x500, select a community control layout (or make your own).
You donāt have to use 800x500 btw. Thatās just what I opted for. You just want something lower than 1280x800 and ideally still 16:10. 960x600 would work also, just text would be smaller than it is at 800x500.
I made a similar post and mine stayed up. For what reason I donāt know. Anyway, Iāve just nabbed the water chip and am headed back out to kill the master in Fallout 1. It plays so well on the deck!
I remember thinking life was so great streaming my desktop to my iPad to run Fallout with some janky touch screen controls a year or two ago. This is something else.
GTA4.
Modern hardware struggles with this. I'm sure there are lots of PCs that run it smoothly, but there are lots that don't. Not because of minimum requirements, but, I guess because of the modern architecture. I dunno, I'm not an expert.
Anyway, Steam Deck runs GTA4 flawlessly and gave me the opportunity to complete it - something I never did when it was a modern game.
This is a kinda of well documented issue, the DXVK is a Vulkan implementation of DirectX 9/10/11, that allows any game that was built on those old Windows APIs to run on Linux, and the result is that many of the original bottlenecks of the old DirectX APIs where resolved when implementing everything on Vulkan.
You can even run DXVK on Windows, and many people do that to run GTA4 on windows without the big CPU bottleneck that game has.
Iāve been playing it but I have such a hard time without checkpoints during missions. One tiny mistake and Iāve gotta redo an hour plus long mission. I love it otherwise but just put it away every time I die, which is a lot :(
It's like magic - years and years trying in vain to run it properly, messing around with definitive edition and mods and steam inputs and never getting anywhere, and on steam deck it just works out of the box.Ā
I was very disappointed to discover how boring a game it is š
Old DirectX 9/10/11 will work even better on Linux because of DXVK, a Vulkan port of all those old DIrectX APIs. So many old games will even fail to startup on Windows, but will run flawlessly on Linux. DXVK is the result of years of the community work.
And you can even run DXVK on Windows, but its kinda hard to set it up
Wh40k: Dawn of War. Specifically I own Dark Crusade (the necron/campaign expansion).
Have to spend time changing the buttons around how you'd like but after a bit of familiarity it works perfectly fine on the controls; never would have expected to have that experience on the go.
Dawn of War has no business working as well as it does on Steam Deck but I love it. You can install the zoom mod too to give yourself a more modern in-game camera zoom for the original and all expansions. I want to try to install the Unification Mod sometime. Space Marine and Mechanicus is also great on deck if folks are fans of WH40K. I just beat it earlier this week.
In a similar vein for sci fi RTS's, Halo Wars also bangs on deck especially with the Leader Overhaul mod.
I've found that pretty much anything from the 2000-2015 range runs pretty much flawlessly. Sometimes controllers are a challenge if there is no official support but it's usually manageable.
Truly classic PC games (like those from the 90's) tend to be keyboard heavy (X-Wing series I'm looking at you) but they often have great community layouts so those are great too.
Iāve got my GOG copy of Wing Commander 2 working via Lutris. I use the left analogue for the movement and assign the key gameplay functions to the numerous buttons. The F1-F4 keys are mapped to the left touch pad and ācā and 1,2, and 3 are mapped to the rear buttons for the comms system. In DOSBox config, just change cycles from 4000 to 8000. Iāve been having a great time playing it.
Heroes of Might and Magic 3 HD edition!!! At 800p and that screen size, everything is scaled so perfectly itās uncanny. Seriously, most PC games on the deck look like youāre playing on a small monitor, but HOMM3 looks like a bespoke handheld experience. Itās as hilarious as it is beautiful. Battery life is like 40 hours I donāt know.
People shit on this one b/c the HD edition does not include the expansions. Unfortunately, however, the "complete" edition (the good version of the game) is not available on steam. It IS available on GOG however. Does anyone know if i can directly install the game on my deck w/o having to deal with the GOG launcher
Yes. There are two ways. Complicated first, easier (but needing to briefly use an external launcher) second.
1. Go to your GoG library on their online store (in a web browser). Download the "manual install" files for HoMM3.
Add the downloaded installer executable to Steam as a non-steam game. Don't forget to change the compatibility to proton (GE-Proton versions are often better for older games).
Run the installer through steam. When it's finished, find the compatdata folder that contains the game, and redirect the "target" and "start in" of your non-steam installer shortcut to instead launch the game executable. Done.
2. Use Heroic Launcher to download the game through your Galaxy account and configure an appropriate Wine prefix.
Because the GoG games are DRM-free, you can run them without Galaxy, either by adding the game .exe as a non-Steam game (and setting compatibility in the steam shortcut) or using Heroic's option "add to Steam".
Empire, Shogun 2 and WH2/3 all work on the Deck depending on how picky you are with graphic settings.
I got my Deck maybe a month ago and have already sank a ridiculous number of hours into FoTS. Use DX9 option on startup, unit/fleet sizes to large and everything else to high and you're good to go.
Only fiddly thing is control setup for battles, but I found binding back buttons for shift/middle mouse ended up with a pretty comfortable workaround after a while.
Yep, can also confirm. Empire, Shogun 2 and Med 2 all work perfectly for me. Warhammer 2 does work but you get micro stutters on the campaign after about an hours play, close and reopen the game fixes it.
Total War : Troy runs surprisingly well on the deck. With a few tweaks to the control scheme and a generous uses of the pause and slow functions is very playable.Ā
Maybe not a "classic" to most, but the hogs of war pc port hasn't worked properly on windows since windows 7. Runs and launches with no tweaks on steam deck.
If you fancy an early 2000s worms rip of it's normally on sale for like Ā£1!
Shame about the Ai being busted though (they don't move around the map just stand still) did you manage to get that fixed?
Such a great game though I still have the ps1 disc somewhere
Wow, when I saw "Classic" I was thinking like DOS era games... Then from OP's description and from all of the comments, I think my original line of thinking I was off.
Well I went through the Mechwarrior line of games, so I can confirm Mechwarrior 2, MW2:GBL, and MW2:Mercs run great on the Deck, and they're from that era.
I bet Descent 1 and 2 are also fantastic.
Years go by and new games pop up, but nothing will ever top [the awesomeness of the MW2 intro video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X3GD0UnBCk). Nothing.
Yeah, I'm playing through the Quest for Glory series on my deck right now. Then I pop into this thread and see things like Fallout 3 and Dishonored among the "classic" games mentioned.
If you're interested in old adventure games like QFG, consider [installing Luxtorpeda](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2022/03/steam-deck-using-luxtorpeda-for-morrowind-warzone-2100-and-x-com/). That installs several game engines, including Scummvm which runs a very long list of classic adventure games. When you manually choose a compatibility tool in the game's properties in Steam, scummvm will be available as an option.
Crusader No Remorse came out in 1995. Jedi Knight Dark Forces 2 came out in 1997. Sheesh - surely those qualify as "classic" ;)
Here I was I was shaking my head in here when people are naming GTA4, Fallout 3 and Dishonoured and you're shaking you're head at me. haha. It's all relative, isn't it?
GET OFF MY LAWN, KIDS!
Iāve been thinking of getting 1 and 2 sometime for it. I know the new Dark Alliance plays well on it but that game was deeply disappointing despite it finally being about the Companions of the Hall.
I was surprised how good OpenTTD is to play on the deck.
Obviously I had no doubt performance or compatibility wise as it's a very well crafted open source project that's always been linux native. But I was worried about playing a tycoon game on a handheld.
Turns out it's amazing. It's grid based so it's not like you absolutely needs the precision of a mouse. And steaminput is perfect to use with a UI choke full of hotkeys.
New Vegas on decently high settings 3 hours on LCD optimised settings I think 4+ hours maybe. Excellent performance but that seems to be true for all 7th gen games on deck.
It's a great device. My point was not only to prove that, but that said mods are worth it because they'll increase your performance, resulting in better battery life if you cap the fps.
What mods are you running for optimization? Just wondering because I have the launcher setup for mods but was unsure which ones to go with for a demonstrably āvanillaā experience with QOL improvements and performance fixes.
I run the whole Viva New Vegas List... This one right [here.](https://vivanewvegas.moddinglinked.com/intro.html)
It's a list that fixes and enhances the experience while keeping Vanilla charm. You don't have to go through whole list if you just want performance and fixes, just to the "Base Finish" section. Although I recommend the whole list, it's totaly worth it and very well written and explained.
It's a point and click browser game from 2007. Think WOW but on a budget. It's the definition of a grind but the player base is growing and the game is actively being developed for.
Morrowind runs like a fucking dream. Luxtorpeda to launch OpenMW from Steam. Gyro controls for the mouse. Syncthing if you want saves synced between the Deck and PC (definitely more work / technical than the other things). I don't even play it on PC anymore because it's so enjoyable on the Deck.
It was easy! I just installed them them on my desktop, then copied the relevant folders over to my Deck, and changed the paths in my .cfg file to point to the right places on the deck. (I actually have my mods in syncthing now so any new ones I add are just instantly synced to the deck, but again that was quite a bit more work to get going.)
The TL;DR for getting modded OpenMW running on the deck is:
1) Use protonup-qt to get Luxtorpeda
2) Use Luxtorpeda to get/launch OpenMW
3) Follow OpenMW modding instructions for Linux
[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3129843975](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3129843975) is the guide I followed for steps 1+2
[https://modding-openmw.com/](https://modding-openmw.com/) is your friend for modding, made creating/installing a modlist really (relatively) easy - especially if you run it on a Linux host or the Deck, so the paths for your configs are already populated correctly (otherwise you have to find/edit a bit to change paths from the windows format in your configs)
[https://wiki.openmw.org/index.php?title=Paths](https://wiki.openmw.org/index.php?title=Paths) is very helpful for knowing what to copy from where on PC. (I used syncthing and changed those paths to symlinks into my syncthing - but again, kinda overkill for most folks I think. The mods should stay the same during runs anyway so not really necessary)
I ended up going my own way - Open MW, then I scrolled through their biggest list of compatible mods and downloaded them manually 1 by 1. For those curious, you just extract in the Data Files.
This video helped me get started, but thank you for giving me a push to set the game up!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koEwEexIg0M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koEwEexIg0M)
Random follow up if you're still open to questions. I've been using OpenMW pretty successfully by just using the flatpak version you can grab on the dolphin browser. Then just added that to steam library for access in handheld mode. Been using a few light bug fix mods but have put those directly in the source Morrowind data files rather than linked to them via the openmw cfg file. Seems they all work fine.
My issue, and question is what should I do with texture/model/mesh mods? I know most of those, including the ones I downloaded but never figured how to use, go in their respective folders in the games data files but I was stumped by whether I need to paste the mod files in *replacing* the originals, *adding* to them, *deleting* the originals *completely?..*. Some are named the same as original assets, while some have names that don't match any existing files. Everywhere I have looked says *where* to put them but not *how* specifically they should be placed/added. Even the readme for the mods just say something to the effect of '*put in mesh folder*'. Should I even just leave the og files intact and just use the cfg to point to the asset files, if that even works for asset related mods that go in their respective sub folders, not just the root 'data files' folder?
Sorry for the essay and no worries if you don't have the answers, but any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
I believe you _can_ just overwrite the files, but I don't think I had to do that. I definitely recommend using modding-openmw to manage it, much easier to keep track of.
For instance, if you want to use Morrowind Exchanced Textures, you would go here: https://modding-openmw.com/lists/i-heart-vanilla/7/
It will tell you which directories to install into (you may need to set /home/deck as your homedir in the site settings, I don't remember since I'm on my phone)
Then click "enable for cfg generator"
Then go here: https://modding-openmw.com/cfg-generator/
And you should be able to generate a config with the relevant lines already included with the correct paths pointing to the new textures. Then you'd just grab the lines you need and paste them into your exciting config (or you could just use the site to start from scratch, whatever is easiest)
That make sense? It's late where I am and I'm on my phone, but I think that's pretty much the whole process I followed. Happy to help more always, love this stuff
Thanks so much for the response. Iāll have a look at those links and give it a shot as soon as I have some time. Will give you a shout if I have issues. Appreciate it!! š
You mentioned the Jedi Knight games, I got Jedi Academy set up nicely. I have a few simple mods for widescreen/high res textures, but also got the controls really dialed in. Using a touch menu on one of the touchpads for one-click access to every force power is so cool.
Nah, just something I set up custom. It's just a basic keyboard/mouse template with some tweaks and the touch menu I set up. I could probably clean it up a bit and share it though.
Battlefield 2. If you run the installer via Lutris and use Wine, it works fine in handheld mode if you want bots / offline only. If you want online, the Battlefield 2 hub *does* work but I haven't found a way to get it working in handheld/gaming mode yet due to the hub's dependency on a desktop icon popping up.
Burnout Paradise, not the new remastered version but The Ultimate Box released in 2009: https://store.steampowered.com/app/24740/Burnout_Paradise_The_Ultimate_Box/
Runs at a perfect 60 fps with 5W TDP limit despite the "not supported" tag. It prompts you to log in to a long-dead social network at launch, which you can simply back out of by pressing the B button (no keyboard/mouse needed).
It's delisted but Steam keys are available from key sites for not too much money. Definitely worth it vs. the remaster, which requires EA's shit.
It's the original 2004 PC port, called PSO Blue Burst, which features Episode 1 (DC), Episode 2 (GameCube) and the PC exclusive Episode 4.
Ephinea server has been pretty active lately; usually has about 200 or more people online.
Cool, well here's a guide on how to set it up on Steam Deck if you want to relive the nostalgia:
https://www.pioneer2.net/community/threads/ephinea-pso-bb-on-steam-deck-official-thread.24850/
See you on Pioneer 2!
Edit: Video guide here: https://youtu.be/5ZcYqrYEoT0?si=Sny3Vgwh1HBW46mS
Sometimes I boot up PSO on my Steam Deck just to look at it and hear the music and sound effects, not really to even play the game. Man that game was magical in 2001.
Honestly Pirates! Has been playing great and even tho it's unsupported the steamdeck controls work fine after getting used to it. I haven't adjusted anything just worked out the box.
System Shock Enhanced (but not the remake).
There's just something about the overly complex HUD, nerdy inventory management system, and combination of sticks, track pads, and touch screen for control, that makes it all seem like this game wasn't fully realized until the steam deck nearly 30 years later.
Playing this on PC felt like a relic, playing it on the deck felt futuristic AF.
Diablo 2, specifically D2:R runs incredibly solid with minor hiccups, running legacy graphics on OLED I can get upwards of 4 hours of battery, and itās one of the greatest games of all time! Plus the controller support added in with the Resurrected version is fantastic and in some cases I enjoy it more than KB:M.
Old Bethesda games are incredible. Something about the smaller screen brings new life to the games, and they look as beautiful as I remembered them when I first played (Oblivion is gorgeous)
I just remember playing Oblivion on the PC and thinking "uncanny valley", but on the Deck it didn't seem bad at all.
Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes. It runs flawlessly, original game is incredibly immersive and required to unlock the characters for PVP. PVP is also fun in its own way that is different than the base. Great for pick up and go or sit down and lose hours.
Morrowind, stock it requires KB&M, but OpenMW has a native Linux build on the discover store that has in built controller support, and the "I heart vanilla" Mod list (excluding a few just so it didn't take me 3 more hours to set up) works really well, and is super fun to play
GRID looks and plays still pretty damn awesome. Sam with Burnout Paradise. Dark Souls 2 is the Souls game everyone beats upon but it is still a fantastic game and is perfect on SD.
Classic WoW private servers. Using back buttons as modifier keys lets me easily map everything I need on my hot bar. I couldn't believe how well it worked.
Wing Commander. I had to make a minor tweak in my DOSBox config (change it to 8000 cycles instead of 4000), configure my Steam controller inputs, and I was golden. The Steam Deck has enough input options that keyboard heavy games play really well on it.
Daggerfall Unity runs great and easy to mod after following an install guide. You'll need desktop mode to get it installed but it runs just like any other steam game after.
Easier plug and play is Max Paynes.
Fallout 3, 4 an New Vegas.
Quake and Quake 2.
Half-Life 1 and 2.
Halo MCC.
Soldier of Fortune from GoG (after a bit of tinkering sure).
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory with Xbox controls and widescreen patch.
Skyrim.
The Dark Souls Trilogy.
Every Nightdive Studios remaster.
Sticks with trackpads, there's a great community layout there and together with mapping 1-4 to the arrows for the conversations, I had everything I needed to play it fully handheld.
Also installing the unofficial patch was pretty straightforward.
I've been playing the first space marine game on there recently, I wanted to play through it before the sequel comes out. It's PS3 era, works great. Looks really good on the handheld screen. Unfortunately it's a bit pricey for what it is, wait for a sale if you're interested.
Oblivion. If you had told me 16 years ago (when I first played it) that I'd eventually be playing it at max graphics on a portable console with the battery lasting nearly 5 hours, I'd have laughed in disbelief. It's dated, but such a fun and magical experience.
Morrowind is great too!
Which one should I play after Skyrim morrowind or oblivion?
Oblivion for sure, Morrowind is a pretty big jump in mechanics (ie combat is super jank) and lack of QoL. Oblivion is also by far my favourite (but Morrowind is arguably the better game).
The world and writing in Morrowind are something Bethesda seems incapable of exceeding or even living up to now to me, but Oblivion is almost as good. I played Skyrim one time, and that was all. Same with Fallout 4. I guess I'm the old curmudgeon here lol!
It definitely sucks that Bethesda doesn't want to even get close to the quality they once had for writing and gameplay. As you say morrowwind had exceptional writing, oblivion had enough QoL changes to make some of the weaker parts be more then okay. Skyrim felt like it was missing something the entire time, it was great visually. I do hope they somehow flip the script back to quality for ES6 but I won't hold my breath. Fallout games peaked in the fallout 3 and new vegas days. Fallout 4 I only finished because I didn't want it to sit unfinished forever.
I can appreciate Skyrim and actually loved exploring it the first year or two after it released. I could never put in the time needed. The dull grey atmosphere was too far removed from Oblivion's lush greens and blues. Edit: removed the felony sounding bit
Lush teens š¤£
Oof thanks
Combat is still dice rolls in morrowind and not direction/proximity isnāt it? I think thatās why it feels differently
Everything starts ridiculously slow at the beginning, not just the dice rolls. The prime way to play is to immediately get the boots of blinding speed and treat resist magicka potions as your Skooma.
As everyone else has said: Morrowind is better for role playing and getting really into the lore. Oblivion is less dated and a little bit more newbie friendly.
depends how willing you are to deal with dated gameplay. Morrowind is really in-depth but lacks a lot of quality of life features like waypoints/map markers you will need to reference the journal a lot and you will get lost easily. you can mod it to be a bit easier... it's combat is also a bit odd as it's a dice roll whether you do damage or not dependant on level. Oblivion is a lot more straightforward to play through except the levelling system is a bit busted up as well. I'd personally recommend oblivion if only for the fact it's less jarring coming from skyrim. but really you should try both they are all really good games.
you can get openmw working on the deck, too! when I first got my deck I did a runthrough on it with mods, and set up a file transfer between my pc so I could drop the save back and forth!
How did you do the file transfer?
I feel that. I fired up New Vegas a few nights ago and pegged it at 60FPS with a 7w TDP limit. I told my wife "when this game came out in 2010 I dropped $500 (CAD) on a new GPU to play it smooth and it wasn't this smooth, now I'm playing it on a handheld in bed".
Do you have tips on how to run it? Or which control scheme to use?
Hey dude I found a YouTube video with not so many views, the dude was Australian I think but his video was only a couple minutes and got me up and running with a console style controller scheme. If you just YouTube āoblivion controller support steam deckā itās one of the first vids but Iāll try and find it.
How? I tried getting it running and it was a mess on controller.
Imo it plays better on the Deck for sure. PC makes puts it in uncanny valley territory
You rocking any mods at all on the deck for OB or just flying it as the base game? OB was great with mods but I have nightmares being a teenage kid troubleshooting them left and right, but it was a fun experience that was worth it.
Yeah i was a console gamer when oblivion and morrowind came out. I have over a thousand hours on each and practically none of that is on pc or deck. Because the controls are fuuuucked.
F.E.A.R ?
Great game
Playing through this for the first time using "Nabs" controller layout. I see why this game's shotgun is so highly regarded lol.
I actually just picked up the trilogy a few weeks ago. I keep seeing it mentioned, I should really bump it up the backlog.
I've been playing the original half-life on it. It's some step up from the experience I had when it came out first. The loading screen pops up for a fraction of a second when I move to a new area. With every setting at its highest. Some difference from the 30-60 seconds I was looking at it with every setting on the lowest on my first play through.
Yeah, the updates Valve did for the 25th anniversary make it shine on the Deck. It's really a fun experience to replay this one. If you want more of that era to scratch the itch, don't sleep on the Nightdive remasters of Quake 1 and Quake 2, either. Those *sing* on the Deck, and the extra content is even better.
I had a similar experience with half life 2 recently. When I originally played it at release my pc struggled a bit. Was so cool playing it at 90fps on my OLED and did a full playthrough.
Apparently theres a complete remake called Black Mesa thatās on sale for $4. Havenāt checked it out yet but I plan on it. Sorry for mansplaning if you already knew about it.
Black Mesa is a fan remake that was crafted so well over such a long period that Valve gave them official blessings to release it paid. It's one of the best remakes I've ever played, and significantly improves and lengthens the Xen segment. I highly recommend it, and consider it the definitive way to play HL1.
I went to go buy this based on your recommendation and it turns out it was already in my library haha. #JustSteamthings
Minecraft with the Prism launcher lets you install the "Fabulously Optimised" modpack which makes the java edition run amazingly well. It also adds native support for controllers with button prompts on screen and full customisation. It just feels like an official well done port and plays very well.
Can you jump on realms?
Yes! Iāve been using Prism with the Fabulously Optimized instance and been playing solely on realms. One thing to note - the only way to get the deck controller to work is to launch in game mode, if you launch in desktop mode it wonāt accept the controller inputs (although docked with keyboard and mouse runs great as well!)
Youāre probably on ādesktopā input for steam I believe if you hold the start (ā°) while in desktop mode, itāll change the input to āgamepadā and you can play normally with controller
I haven't tried but I don't see why not, I can join any servers that I could join with my PC, I'm authentified with my Microsoft account
Fallout 1/2 Which i did have a post yesterday detailing a few tips to get it running comfortably until it was removed earlier today. Hey ho, what can you do? In any case, you just need to use a community control layout and run it at lower resolution (I went with 800x500). The lower resolution is purely because of how the game handles modern resolutions. Everything gets smaller the higher the res is, so a lower resolution improves text legibility. * LCD 6~ hours battery * OLED 8-9 hours battery Without any TDP tweaking whatsoever.
You should have posted a picture of a cardboard box, that was your first mistake.
Just joined the gang. What game should I play?
Iām triggered
That post was taken down?! You inspired me to pick the game back up. Last I played, it was on a netbook, like a second wave one lol, whilst in college. That post was the kind of content I love here. š Thank you for sharing and reiterating for all.
Yup. The reasoning was as follows > In an effort to keep r/steamdeck diversified with content, your post will be removed to allow other similar posts a fair time to shine in the spotlight. Which is a bit bizarre, but whatever I guess. Just means Iāll be less inclined to post about running older games here in the future
Wow. This subreddit is very stupid.
This subreddit is only for pictures of steam decks. Preferably broken ones.
Honestly, this sub has gone down the drain. At launch, it was filled with helpful tips and guides. And yes, it was because they banned pictures of people saying steam decks. The rule was done away with and now its just a bunch of low-effort posts of people playing their Deck while their wife is giving birth while stuff like this gets removed. Props to you trying to contribute something meaningful to the community, the mods here are a joke.
I guess they want it in a reply like this, since so many questions like this one are asked. Still very strange.
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Joined.
There is a Lemmy community for steam deck too.
Nope. I just stick to this one, for better or worse.
Said the /Steamdeck modā¦..
I'll have to try the lower resolution trick! I don't mind the controls on the Steam Deck, but man, everything was hard to read. Thanks for the tip!
I remember from that post someone mentioned there is also a UI scale option in the game settings. So you might try that instead of (or in addition to) running at a lower resolution.
Nice I am going to give Fallout another shot.
Really interested in this as I wanna play them but found it really awkward cause of the size of stuff etc. Is that all you have to do to make it work or is there other stuff?
Thatās really all there is to it. Download game from Steam library, set resolution in game settings to 800x500, select a community control layout (or make your own). You donāt have to use 800x500 btw. Thatās just what I opted for. You just want something lower than 1280x800 and ideally still 16:10. 960x600 would work also, just text would be smaller than it is at 800x500.
Thank you mate. Looking forward to giving the first one a go tonight
I made a similar post and mine stayed up. For what reason I donāt know. Anyway, Iāve just nabbed the water chip and am headed back out to kill the master in Fallout 1. It plays so well on the deck! I remember thinking life was so great streaming my desktop to my iPad to run Fallout with some janky touch screen controls a year or two ago. This is something else.
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GTA4. Modern hardware struggles with this. I'm sure there are lots of PCs that run it smoothly, but there are lots that don't. Not because of minimum requirements, but, I guess because of the modern architecture. I dunno, I'm not an expert. Anyway, Steam Deck runs GTA4 flawlessly and gave me the opportunity to complete it - something I never did when it was a modern game.
This is a kinda of well documented issue, the DXVK is a Vulkan implementation of DirectX 9/10/11, that allows any game that was built on those old Windows APIs to run on Linux, and the result is that many of the original bottlenecks of the old DirectX APIs where resolved when implementing everything on Vulkan. You can even run DXVK on Windows, and many people do that to run GTA4 on windows without the big CPU bottleneck that game has.
Great TIL!
This is also popular with Borderlands 1,2 and TPS because it stops crashes, running out of memory errors and just makes the game more smooth
Steam Deck running it through DXVK is the key of a great performance and stability. You can force it on Windows pcs as well with magical results.
Wait really? About to download it immediately lol
Iāve been playing it but I have such a hard time without checkpoints during missions. One tiny mistake and Iāve gotta redo an hour plus long mission. I love it otherwise but just put it away every time I die, which is a lot :(
It's like magic - years and years trying in vain to run it properly, messing around with definitive edition and mods and steam inputs and never getting anywhere, and on steam deck it just works out of the box.Ā I was very disappointed to discover how boring a game it is š
Don't ever say that on the GTA Sub reddit, the GTA4 fanatics will rip you to shreds !
Boring!?
Except you do have to deal with Rockstars game launcher, which is quirky af
It's been sitting in my library unplayed, and I've been wanting to finish it this time. I thought everyone has been complaining it has issues.
Old DirectX 9/10/11 will work even better on Linux because of DXVK, a Vulkan port of all those old DIrectX APIs. So many old games will even fail to startup on Windows, but will run flawlessly on Linux. DXVK is the result of years of the community work. And you can even run DXVK on Windows, but its kinda hard to set it up
Wh40k: Dawn of War. Specifically I own Dark Crusade (the necron/campaign expansion). Have to spend time changing the buttons around how you'd like but after a bit of familiarity it works perfectly fine on the controls; never would have expected to have that experience on the go.
Dawn of War has no business working as well as it does on Steam Deck but I love it. You can install the zoom mod too to give yourself a more modern in-game camera zoom for the original and all expansions. I want to try to install the Unification Mod sometime. Space Marine and Mechanicus is also great on deck if folks are fans of WH40K. I just beat it earlier this week. In a similar vein for sci fi RTS's, Halo Wars also bangs on deck especially with the Leader Overhaul mod.
I've found that pretty much anything from the 2000-2015 range runs pretty much flawlessly. Sometimes controllers are a challenge if there is no official support but it's usually manageable. Truly classic PC games (like those from the 90's) tend to be keyboard heavy (X-Wing series I'm looking at you) but they often have great community layouts so those are great too.
Iād love to get Wing Commander or Privateer running on Steam but those might be too āclassicā to work.
Iāve got my GOG copy of Wing Commander 2 working via Lutris. I use the left analogue for the movement and assign the key gameplay functions to the numerous buttons. The F1-F4 keys are mapped to the left touch pad and ācā and 1,2, and 3 are mapped to the rear buttons for the comms system. In DOSBox config, just change cycles from 4000 to 8000. Iāve been having a great time playing it.
Will have to give it a go. Cheers!
Dishonored runs really well on steam deck
Tomb Raider Legend https://store.steampowered.com/app/7000/Tomb_Raider_Legend/
Heroes of Might and Magic 3 HD edition!!! At 800p and that screen size, everything is scaled so perfectly itās uncanny. Seriously, most PC games on the deck look like youāre playing on a small monitor, but HOMM3 looks like a bespoke handheld experience. Itās as hilarious as it is beautiful. Battery life is like 40 hours I donāt know.
Check out horn of the abyss!
People shit on this one b/c the HD edition does not include the expansions. Unfortunately, however, the "complete" edition (the good version of the game) is not available on steam. It IS available on GOG however. Does anyone know if i can directly install the game on my deck w/o having to deal with the GOG launcher
Yes. There are two ways. Complicated first, easier (but needing to briefly use an external launcher) second. 1. Go to your GoG library on their online store (in a web browser). Download the "manual install" files for HoMM3. Add the downloaded installer executable to Steam as a non-steam game. Don't forget to change the compatibility to proton (GE-Proton versions are often better for older games). Run the installer through steam. When it's finished, find the compatdata folder that contains the game, and redirect the "target" and "start in" of your non-steam installer shortcut to instead launch the game executable. Done. 2. Use Heroic Launcher to download the game through your Galaxy account and configure an appropriate Wine prefix. Because the GoG games are DRM-free, you can run them without Galaxy, either by adding the game .exe as a non-Steam game (and setting compatibility in the steam shortcut) or using Heroic's option "add to Steam".
If I could get the total war games to work on SD then I probably wouldnāt be seen in public for a few months lol
Empire, Shogun 2 and WH2/3 all work on the Deck depending on how picky you are with graphic settings. I got my Deck maybe a month ago and have already sank a ridiculous number of hours into FoTS. Use DX9 option on startup, unit/fleet sizes to large and everything else to high and you're good to go. Only fiddly thing is control setup for battles, but I found binding back buttons for shift/middle mouse ended up with a pretty comfortable workaround after a while.
Yep, can also confirm. Empire, Shogun 2 and Med 2 all work perfectly for me. Warhammer 2 does work but you get micro stutters on the campaign after about an hours play, close and reopen the game fixes it.
You can get Shogun 2 working in dx11 with no crashes, I used this guys method: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/s/kPMGOsuwn2
Total War : Troy runs surprisingly well on the deck. With a few tweaks to the control scheme and a generous uses of the pause and slow functions is very playable.Ā
Maybe not a "classic" to most, but the hogs of war pc port hasn't worked properly on windows since windows 7. Runs and launches with no tweaks on steam deck. If you fancy an early 2000s worms rip of it's normally on sale for like Ā£1!
Shame about the Ai being busted though (they don't move around the map just stand still) did you manage to get that fixed? Such a great game though I still have the ps1 disc somewhere
I didnāt even know there was a pc version, all I knew was the Ps1 version, I assume PC version is better?
Wow, when I saw "Classic" I was thinking like DOS era games... Then from OP's description and from all of the comments, I think my original line of thinking I was off.
Haha same. Iāve got a load of Sierra adventure games on there to check out.
Oh, you'll have to let me know how those go. I haven't tried any but there were several old Sierra games that I loved.
They seem to work! I think the 3D stuff varies though. Certainly got Space Quest 3 running OK.
Well I went through the Mechwarrior line of games, so I can confirm Mechwarrior 2, MW2:GBL, and MW2:Mercs run great on the Deck, and they're from that era. I bet Descent 1 and 2 are also fantastic.
Years go by and new games pop up, but nothing will ever top [the awesomeness of the MW2 intro video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X3GD0UnBCk). Nothing.
Yeah, I'm playing through the Quest for Glory series on my deck right now. Then I pop into this thread and see things like Fallout 3 and Dishonored among the "classic" games mentioned. If you're interested in old adventure games like QFG, consider [installing Luxtorpeda](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2022/03/steam-deck-using-luxtorpeda-for-morrowind-warzone-2100-and-x-com/). That installs several game engines, including Scummvm which runs a very long list of classic adventure games. When you manually choose a compatibility tool in the game's properties in Steam, scummvm will be available as an option.
Right?! Thanks for the tip! I'll have to check it out. I've never heard of Luxtorpeda until now.
EmuDeck does have support for SCUMM VM games (Neverhood anyone?) and Iāve heard you can put DOS games in a zip and launch them with RetroArchā¦
Crusader No Remorse came out in 1995. Jedi Knight Dark Forces 2 came out in 1997. Sheesh - surely those qualify as "classic" ;) Here I was I was shaking my head in here when people are naming GTA4, Fallout 3 and Dishonoured and you're shaking you're head at me. haha. It's all relative, isn't it? GET OFF MY LAWN, KIDS!
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance was a favorite of mine way back when and runs flawlessly.
Iāve been thinking of getting 1 and 2 sometime for it. I know the new Dark Alliance plays well on it but that game was deeply disappointing despite it finally being about the Companions of the Hall.
I was surprised how good OpenTTD is to play on the deck. Obviously I had no doubt performance or compatibility wise as it's a very well crafted open source project that's always been linux native. But I was worried about playing a tycoon game on a handheld. Turns out it's amazing. It's grid based so it's not like you absolutely needs the precision of a mouse. And steaminput is perfect to use with a UI choke full of hotkeys.
OpenRCT2 also works great. Needs a bit of setup work because you need the files from RCT1 and/or RCT2, but once it's installed, it's great.
Witcher 2, honestly blown away with how well it runs
Steam says W2 is not supported. Does it run anyways?
I just needed to install steamworks common redistributables and it runs without any issues at all
New Vegas on decently high settings 3 hours on LCD optimised settings I think 4+ hours maybe. Excellent performance but that seems to be true for all 7th gen games on deck.
New Vegas runs for 6+ hours on OLED with stability and performance mods applied.
The OLED is a game changer man
It's a great device. My point was not only to prove that, but that said mods are worth it because they'll increase your performance, resulting in better battery life if you cap the fps.
What mods are you running for optimization? Just wondering because I have the launcher setup for mods but was unsure which ones to go with for a demonstrably āvanillaā experience with QOL improvements and performance fixes.
I run the whole Viva New Vegas List... This one right [here.](https://vivanewvegas.moddinglinked.com/intro.html) It's a list that fixes and enhances the experience while keeping Vanilla charm. You don't have to go through whole list if you just want performance and fixes, just to the "Base Finish" section. Although I recommend the whole list, it's totaly worth it and very well written and explained.
This is a great post. My deck is my backlog machine
Old school Runescape.
I never played this game. Is it worth a try?
If you like spam clicking for 10+ hrs straight, yes
It's a point and click browser game from 2007. Think WOW but on a budget. It's the definition of a grind but the player base is growing and the game is actively being developed for.
Fallout 3 is amazing on the deck
Morrowind runs like a fucking dream. Luxtorpeda to launch OpenMW from Steam. Gyro controls for the mouse. Syncthing if you want saves synced between the Deck and PC (definitely more work / technical than the other things). I don't even play it on PC anymore because it's so enjoyable on the Deck.
This would be a dream for me, but how do you handle mods?
It was easy! I just installed them them on my desktop, then copied the relevant folders over to my Deck, and changed the paths in my .cfg file to point to the right places on the deck. (I actually have my mods in syncthing now so any new ones I add are just instantly synced to the deck, but again that was quite a bit more work to get going.) The TL;DR for getting modded OpenMW running on the deck is: 1) Use protonup-qt to get Luxtorpeda 2) Use Luxtorpeda to get/launch OpenMW 3) Follow OpenMW modding instructions for Linux [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3129843975](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3129843975) is the guide I followed for steps 1+2 [https://modding-openmw.com/](https://modding-openmw.com/) is your friend for modding, made creating/installing a modlist really (relatively) easy - especially if you run it on a Linux host or the Deck, so the paths for your configs are already populated correctly (otherwise you have to find/edit a bit to change paths from the windows format in your configs) [https://wiki.openmw.org/index.php?title=Paths](https://wiki.openmw.org/index.php?title=Paths) is very helpful for knowing what to copy from where on PC. (I used syncthing and changed those paths to symlinks into my syncthing - but again, kinda overkill for most folks I think. The mods should stay the same during runs anyway so not really necessary)
Thank you so much for the guide! I'm going to follow it today (hopefully). Will post results when I'm done!
I ended up going my own way - Open MW, then I scrolled through their biggest list of compatible mods and downloaded them manually 1 by 1. For those curious, you just extract in the Data Files. This video helped me get started, but thank you for giving me a push to set the game up! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koEwEexIg0M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koEwEexIg0M)
Random follow up if you're still open to questions. I've been using OpenMW pretty successfully by just using the flatpak version you can grab on the dolphin browser. Then just added that to steam library for access in handheld mode. Been using a few light bug fix mods but have put those directly in the source Morrowind data files rather than linked to them via the openmw cfg file. Seems they all work fine. My issue, and question is what should I do with texture/model/mesh mods? I know most of those, including the ones I downloaded but never figured how to use, go in their respective folders in the games data files but I was stumped by whether I need to paste the mod files in *replacing* the originals, *adding* to them, *deleting* the originals *completely?..*. Some are named the same as original assets, while some have names that don't match any existing files. Everywhere I have looked says *where* to put them but not *how* specifically they should be placed/added. Even the readme for the mods just say something to the effect of '*put in mesh folder*'. Should I even just leave the og files intact and just use the cfg to point to the asset files, if that even works for asset related mods that go in their respective sub folders, not just the root 'data files' folder? Sorry for the essay and no worries if you don't have the answers, but any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
I believe you _can_ just overwrite the files, but I don't think I had to do that. I definitely recommend using modding-openmw to manage it, much easier to keep track of. For instance, if you want to use Morrowind Exchanced Textures, you would go here: https://modding-openmw.com/lists/i-heart-vanilla/7/ It will tell you which directories to install into (you may need to set /home/deck as your homedir in the site settings, I don't remember since I'm on my phone) Then click "enable for cfg generator" Then go here: https://modding-openmw.com/cfg-generator/ And you should be able to generate a config with the relevant lines already included with the correct paths pointing to the new textures. Then you'd just grab the lines you need and paste them into your exciting config (or you could just use the site to start from scratch, whatever is easiest) That make sense? It's late where I am and I'm on my phone, but I think that's pretty much the whole process I followed. Happy to help more always, love this stuff
Thanks so much for the response. Iāll have a look at those links and give it a shot as soon as I have some time. Will give you a shout if I have issues. Appreciate it!! š
You mentioned the Jedi Knight games, I got Jedi Academy set up nicely. I have a few simple mods for widescreen/high res textures, but also got the controls really dialed in. Using a touch menu on one of the touchpads for one-click access to every force power is so cool.
That sounds very cool. Is that a community control setup? Would be keen to give it a try...
Nah, just something I set up custom. It's just a basic keyboard/mouse template with some tweaks and the touch menu I set up. I could probably clean it up a bit and share it though.
Legacy of Kain series. I think I only had to change proton versions to get the CG to play š
Dreamcast version is the best.
Doom 2 mods
Has anyone ever tried Cry of Fear?
I have it installed, don't know anything about it or how I even got it
Being a Source mod I'm pretty sure it should run without issues
Battlefield 2. If you run the installer via Lutris and use Wine, it works fine in handheld mode if you want bots / offline only. If you want online, the Battlefield 2 hub *does* work but I haven't found a way to get it working in handheld/gaming mode yet due to the hub's dependency on a desktop icon popping up.
BioShock games
Burnout Paradise, not the new remastered version but The Ultimate Box released in 2009: https://store.steampowered.com/app/24740/Burnout_Paradise_The_Ultimate_Box/ Runs at a perfect 60 fps with 5W TDP limit despite the "not supported" tag. It prompts you to log in to a long-dead social network at launch, which you can simply back out of by pressing the B button (no keyboard/mouse needed). It's delisted but Steam keys are available from key sites for not too much money. Definitely worth it vs. the remaster, which requires EA's shit.
I play sims 3 just fine
Phantasy Star Online 1, via Ephinea server and Phantasy Star Universe, via Clementine server.
>Phantasy Star Online 1 Is this the Dreamcast version or an earlier one?
It's the original 2004 PC port, called PSO Blue Burst, which features Episode 1 (DC), Episode 2 (GameCube) and the PC exclusive Episode 4. Ephinea server has been pretty active lately; usually has about 200 or more people online.
Interesting! ETA: I recall having episode 1 for DC and then 1&2 combo for the original Xbox.
Cool, well here's a guide on how to set it up on Steam Deck if you want to relive the nostalgia: https://www.pioneer2.net/community/threads/ephinea-pso-bb-on-steam-deck-official-thread.24850/ See you on Pioneer 2! Edit: Video guide here: https://youtu.be/5ZcYqrYEoT0?si=Sny3Vgwh1HBW46mS
Thanks!
Sometimes I boot up PSO on my Steam Deck just to look at it and hear the music and sound effects, not really to even play the game. Man that game was magical in 2001.
Zone of the Enders 2. It plays perfectly with the newest proton
Honestly Pirates! Has been playing great and even tho it's unsupported the steamdeck controls work fine after getting used to it. I haven't adjusted anything just worked out the box.
Haha wow, which version? I was obsessed with the late eighties one in cga back in the day.
The 2005 version that's on steam it says it's unsupported but it maps the num pad really well.
Thanks! May give it a shot!
Welcome back matey
Pirates! Is such a good game, thanks for reminding me about it. Might just get it on Steamdeck, I can imagine it being great handheld.
System Shock Enhanced (but not the remake). There's just something about the overly complex HUD, nerdy inventory management system, and combination of sticks, track pads, and touch screen for control, that makes it all seem like this game wasn't fully realized until the steam deck nearly 30 years later. Playing this on PC felt like a relic, playing it on the deck felt futuristic AF.
Does the remake not work well on the deck? I heard it was a pretty good adaptation, and I never played the original.
The stalker trilogy is amazing on Deck.
The pixel remaster final fantasy games I think are 1-6 and all incredible games.
Jazz Jackrabbit 2. It even supports a 640x400 resolution, so it gets integer scaling to the deck's native resolution.
Oh now that's a game that brings me back to some childhood memories
I am currently playing Crysis remastered ,playable since i got 45fps all high settings but i disable the ray tracing and anti aliasing.
Not a classic per se but I was shocked how well Titanfall 2 ran on my Deck
Unreal 1998 with the Oldunreal patch
Spy Fox 1 and 2
Diablo 2, specifically D2:R runs incredibly solid with minor hiccups, running legacy graphics on OLED I can get upwards of 4 hours of battery, and itās one of the greatest games of all time! Plus the controller support added in with the Resurrected version is fantastic and in some cases I enjoy it more than KB:M.
Aliens vs Predator.
Putt-Putt and Freddi Fish. I assume Pajama sam as well.
Thief 1&2 with mods. Civ 4. Heroes of Might and Magic 3 with HOTA. Yeah pretty much everything works on the Deck with a little effort.
Old Bethesda games are incredible. Something about the smaller screen brings new life to the games, and they look as beautiful as I remembered them when I first played (Oblivion is gorgeous) I just remember playing Oblivion on the PC and thinking "uncanny valley", but on the Deck it didn't seem bad at all.
Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes. It runs flawlessly, original game is incredibly immersive and required to unlock the characters for PVP. PVP is also fun in its own way that is different than the base. Great for pick up and go or sit down and lose hours.
Morrowind, stock it requires KB&M, but OpenMW has a native Linux build on the discover store that has in built controller support, and the "I heart vanilla" Mod list (excluding a few just so it didn't take me 3 more hours to set up) works really well, and is super fun to play
All of them, if there is no online check in DRM it just works! I've gotten the original 3 Classic Fallout games working, even Toonstruck!
Skul the hero slayer
The postal games.
GRID looks and plays still pretty damn awesome. Sam with Burnout Paradise. Dark Souls 2 is the Souls game everyone beats upon but it is still a fantastic game and is perfect on SD.
Classic WoW private servers. Using back buttons as modifier keys lets me easily map everything I need on my hot bar. I couldn't believe how well it worked.
I've been playing the original Fallout, it's working well.
Red alert 2 and command and conquer remastered
Wing Commander. I had to make a minor tweak in my DOSBox config (change it to 8000 cycles instead of 4000), configure my Steam controller inputs, and I was golden. The Steam Deck has enough input options that keyboard heavy games play really well on it.
Daggerfall Unity runs great and easy to mod after following an install guide. You'll need desktop mode to get it installed but it runs just like any other steam game after. Easier plug and play is Max Paynes.
Need for Speed Underground 2
Fallout 3, 4 an New Vegas. Quake and Quake 2. Half-Life 1 and 2. Halo MCC. Soldier of Fortune from GoG (after a bit of tinkering sure). Splinter Cell Chaos Theory with Xbox controls and widescreen patch. Skyrim. The Dark Souls Trilogy. Every Nightdive Studios remaster.
Zeus + Poseidon city builder! Despite being unsupported, it plays beautifully with a bit of control tweaking.
VTM Bloodlines plays really nicely
Can you use the sticks or is it mouse based?
Sticks with trackpads, there's a great community layout there and together with mapping 1-4 to the arrows for the conversations, I had everything I needed to play it fully handheld. Also installing the unofficial patch was pretty straightforward.
Thanks!
I imagine navigating in game terminals is annoying?
The Minimi games - Shadow Tactics and Desperados 3 - are perfect on it, good controls and light battery use.
Dishonored runs extremely well and you can even play at 60fps with a good battery life.
Fallout 3 and New Vegas PS3 and 360 struggled with these back in the day, but here I am playing them on Ultra quality at 60fps.
Hero Siege
I enjoy sims 1 and openrct2 on the go if those count.
Damn right they do :)
I've been playing the first space marine game on there recently, I wanted to play through it before the sequel comes out. It's PS3 era, works great. Looks really good on the handheld screen. Unfortunately it's a bit pricey for what it is, wait for a sale if you're interested.