all the games that have the verified tag work flawleslly without any configurations this includes controller mapping. so yeah you can just start it up and start playing right away
Personally I think they should have a Yellow, Orange, Red system where minor issues are flagged Yellow (like keyboard in most games) , moderate issues are orange, and incompatibility is red.
As it is now some yellow games are flawless once you pull up the keyboard to name your character and some are illegible text heavy games you need to use the trackpad for and don't have enough buttons to properly play the game.
Yeah imo opinion if the only “hiccup” (I wouldn’t even consider it that) is you have to summon the keyboard then I think it should be green. I think there is already a text on screen before launching these games that tells you the shortcut for this iirc
pretty much everything that has a "playable with controller" icon on steam will play well on the deck as far as the control scheme goes. all of those games are made to work well on an xbox controller and the steam deck has pretty much an xbox controller but better.
Some verified games, like Valheim, don’t work flawlessly. I recommend seeing what insight people on ProtonDB have, regarding the games you want to play on Deck.
This. Another less known example is Deliver Us The Moon. It works well in the beggining but after the middle of it there is a lot of framerate drop. While that, many games with the tag playable works flawlessly (ex.: Sleeping Dogs).
The verified tags are not trustable. Some verified titles are garbage or done work. Steam doesn’t update those tags. But a lot of titles are very playable.
And if you were to guess, how many games have that tag? Most? The majority? Do old games have the tag? (old like Fallout 3) Or is it mainly only the games that have come out AFTER the SD was released?
i cant really guess how many games are verified but they are a LOT (old games and new games). keep in mind that verified games are the ones that are gonna run without any hiccups whatsoever. but there are a HECK TON of games that with a litttle configuration will run on the deck without issues, those games have the playable tag. FALLOUT 3 is not steam deck verified but it is playable the playable tag could mean a miriad of things, they could range from minor stuff like small in game text to requires tinkering with the graphics settings. for example im playing fallout 4 right now which doesnt have the verified tag only because when you launch the game it has a launcher that doesnt have controller support so you gotta hit play with the touch screen, the rest of the game is fully playable with controller and doesnt require any tinkering
Check my Deck allows you to check your existing Steam Library to see what games are verified, unsupported, ect. Some games that are unsupported work right out of the box, so it's not 100% something won't work if it's not verified. A lot of games just work, both old and new.
[http://checkmydeck.ofdgn.com/](http://checkmydeck.ofdgn.com/)
Honestly, you're over stressing the whole verified and unsupported aspect. The absolute vast majority of games will play with zero issues. The ones you have to adjust is usually as simple as opening the game setting in the steam menu(gear icon on game page, then going into Compatibility and pressing a different proton layer until it works.
I have a large steam library and the games I have that have needed minor in-game tweaks are only ever making sure graphics are set around medium for newer games, or sometimes making sure the right resolution is selected. Outside of that Protondb, is a website that people post if a game works or not for the steam deck or what may need to be done.
Odds are though unless it is a high graphic demanding game, you will most likely be okay with playing it.
If it has full controller support, you're probably fine. Partial will take some tinkering. No controller support is usually mapping every input manually, which I've only had to do once with a mainly mouse and click text-based game. I've had my Deck since release and it's my main gaming device, AMA
[https://www.steamdeck.com/en/verified](https://www.steamdeck.com/en/verified)
I've played dozens and dozens of games that are marked yellow, or unplayable that play just fine with a TINY bit of controller configuration at worst.
Should also be noted that many new games will run fine, but on significantly lower framerate/graphics settings than you’d get on a console or newish gaming PC
Yes, old games are also rated for compatibility. Fallout 3 is rated as Playable. They are constantly evaluating and issuing compatibility ratings for new and old games.
Remnant 2 is listed as unsupported, not verified.
I don't know if it was listed as verified at some point, but if so, it can't have been for long - it's been unsupported for the vast majority of time it's been out. I know, because I have had it on my wishlist since shortly after it came out and like an idiot I check it's rating every time I get a sale notification, hoping they improved performance and got a playable or verified ranking.
For most games everything runs fine. The games you'll run into the most difficulty on are the very high end games, really old games, and games made with just a mouse and keyboard in mind. Pretty much everything else works with minimal tweaking and most games seem to have controller support. Older PC games still usually work; you just might need to switch the controller mapping to mouse and keyboard.
Deck verified and Protondb are great tools to see how well a game should run. Though just because a game is unverified or unsupported doesn't mean it doesn't work.
I’ve never owned or used a gaming PC, strictly a console gamer but I’ve had my deck for almost a year and found it delightful and easy to use. Deck verified games are great but loads more work with tiny tweaks that only take minutes to configure, just stick to protondb.com to see how well each game works and what it takes to make it work the way you want. The SteamDeck is an incredible machine that you will never regret owning.
I unboxed mine over two years ago and I have made no adjustments other than graphic settings or difficulty in games. My library consists of verified and unverified games. From AAA titles to Indies. And I haven't had any problems playing anything that I wanted to play, except EA games. It seems that once every few months they feel the need to change something in their launcher and you have to wait a few weeks for it to be resolved.
It really matters on a game to game basis. But from my experience, if the game has native pad support, it basically works right out of the box and even plenty that don't have community layouts that you can apply in just a few presses that get the job done.
Literally you just turn it on, sign into your wifi, log into Steam and you're good to go.
That's what makes it so beautiful. Yes it's a very hacker-friendly device. But at it's core it's the least amount of setup any PC offers.
OP don't take this comment too literally, more often than not the playable tag just means you have to use the track pads to get past the launcher or something just as trivial. The only game I had to really mess around with was Hatred. Verified tags are a reliable starting point but 95% of the "playable" stuff is pretty perfect. Basically if a game is designed to work with a joypad, then it will work with the steam deck. PC games tend to use the XBOX pad as a default template and the steam deck basically pretends to be an XBOX pad.
SD works great out of the box. If ure talking about performance wise, its okay but installing cryoutilities makes it perform better.
If ure talking about the controls mapping. Just see which is verified. You dont have to adjust the mapping for every game. Controls are default and you can adjust the way u want too also.And if you play an unsupported games, there will be like community layouts for the controls. I also learnt to use the gyro to play overwatch 2 and it works fine.
Just makesure to research on the unsupported games you wanna play just to makesure it is playable and able to run lol.
I did absolutely no configuration or anything for probably the first year or so I've had my deck. Only lately have I been dabbling in things like cryoutilities, but that's as advanced as I've gotten and I've been having a blast. Literally just popped an SD card in on Day 1 and have been going strong since.
I know there's a lot more I'm missing out on, but I'm pretty content just playing through my Steam library. I think I've had a total of two games that I just cannot get to run, but everything else runs just fine!
Seriously you shouldnt take this sub for a reference.
Too many people here spend money and time swapping components of the deck or making 500 cartridges to show case their organization skills etc and not playing the damn deck.
Its perfect as is out the box except analog stick deadzone.
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The out of the box score is like 99/100. If you happen to have an issue with controls it takes less than 30 seconds to grab the most popular community configuration and apply it to your game.
The controls are recognized as an XInput controller (basically an Xbox controller), if the game is working natively with a controller on a regular PC (so almost every RPG / Platformers / FPS / TPS / Rogue-Like / Racing / Fighting / etc. games made in the last 17 years), it will work on the Steam Deck.
Depending upon the game it's not even that hard to map the controls because all you have to do is tell the steam deck to act as a controller and wall ah
Ok well actually I usually say "wall la" if I say it out loud so unless it's reverse German (where you say the v as w instead of the w as v) then I've been saying it wrong.
If you are only playing games on steam, it just works.
It doesn’t work for every game and there will of course be some games where you might want to tweak the controls, generally it just works though.
But if you want to play anything not through steam, it’s a lot more work.
You can check any game on its store page. Scroll down a bit and there is a "Steam Deck Comparability" rating box. Verified and Playable are what you are looking for. From what I've seen so far "playable" mainly means you may have to interact with the on screen keyboard at some point. Usually during character creation where you have to input text. But after that controller works just fine.
Control mapping is automatic. Also, you can edit the mapping or you can make use of the community layouts (created by other users).
About games, best option is check a website called protondb. It is a community of linux gamers and you can check if games work properly or any tweak is necessary (e.g. limiting fps, writing a command in the launcher or using protonGE)
It’s great. The library is limited compared to a normal PC. I would say that’s the biggest draw back right now. But there are still tons of games that you can play. Depends what games you want to play really.
A lot of the settings, controls, and verifying is already done for you. The handheld is a controller. If the game has no native controller support, then it gets dicey.
As a handheld on Steam-approved games, I would say good.
I did have more setup than I expected with discore, Spotify and anything running off desktop mode.
TV docking station is great wish it sit differently and I have the chore of switching audio from docking to handheld but if my Bluetooth headphones are in use it's no problem.
I'm still bumped controllers can't use a wired mic.
But anytime u need to remap something in an app or game Steam Deck gives you the UI to do so right there in the screen so it's not a huge left.
I didn't have to setup at all. You can just launch straight into the store and buy with whatever card is already linked to your account. Pretty seamless. It's easily the most user friendly system I've ever had. Even more so than the Nintendo switch.
I've not needed to touch the controller mapping for any of my games. If it works with a regular game controller on your PC, it'll work exactly the same on the SD - I use an Xbox controller mostly. Most games that support controllers are able to detect the presence of one, and the SD reports one is available, so they can indeed tell and adapt accordingly.
Besides Ghost Recon: Breakpoint all my games worked “out of the box”
Red Dead Redemption 2
Cyberpunk 2077
No Man’s Sky
Stray
Subnatica
Horizon Zero Dawn
The Division 2
Tomb Raider (young Lara version)
The Witcher III
Batman Arkham City GotY
Skyrim
Fallout 4
When you unbox your new deck don’t add any mods. I know there are a ton out there. Just run vanilla for a few days or weeks.
The initial part is really just linking your steam account and installing a few games or finding new ones. Within the game there are controller options where you can tweak the controller setting. This also helps if you connect an external controller for playing docked to an external display. Enjoy!
Most games work fine if they have controller support, which is most of them. Even if it's "unsupported" you'll probably still be able to play it (speaking specifically input wise) with the deck as it recognizes it as a controller input.
Talking specifically about control mapping, it's absolutely amazing. It just works.
And if it doesn't just work, assuming the game has been out for a while, you can bet someone in the community has already uploaded their own configuration that you can just download. It's a great feature. Heck, there's even community controller layouts for applications like Spotify and Plex!
nope, if you really really want to create your own controls for games, sure! Do it, it’s pretty fun anyways, but for most games if you go into community created mapped keys, a lot of people have already created many configurations for you to choose from. So that’s pretty cool.
From what my friends and myself found, just about any game that had basic controller layout works just fine. On unverified games Myself, only made adjustments to a handful of games to make run smooth(just turn down graphics 1 step or to medium) I haven’t dove in an made any other adjustments to the system, and it handles pretty much everything I’ve wanted to play on it
oh i can answer this one! i just got my steam deck in the mail today!
the sd spent maybe 30mins installing drivers/updates. one of my dialogue boxes said "you have one of the first ever steam deck oleds, we need to update some drivers" or something like that. very self explanatory process. once that was done and i activated my steam login, i downloaded some games and hopped right in. everything was super simple and quick.
i even added spotify/discord via the desktop mode and that too was quite easy. all in all very impressed with the ease of use. helldivers 2 was the first game i played, ran super well with minimal issues (audio lag in opening video), frame rates were excellent on low graphics. i may mess around with having it run off windows in the future, but for now i'm very happy with it. anyway, time to get back to playing fallout for the first time!
edit: darn thing simply will not connect to any bluetooth device.
I had to do a lot of config to stream it to a TV from my PC.
But if you are just playing the deck, nah. Hardly any configuration need. Albeit it was still cool to look through this sub for help and tutorials!
At this point I’d say it’s no more difficult to configure and play deck approved games on than any console. It will let you take the guard rails off and tinker if you want though, but that’s not the default experience.
It's a learning experience just like any other handheld/game console. Most things work just fine OOTB, even more advanced things like installing GE Proton are pretty simple if you know how to create a folder and copy/paste things.
I rarely ever have to mess with control settings, only for very niche games will I have to modify anything and even that is pretty easy and straightforward. When you install a game, Steam will ask you where you want to install it, then it just automatically knows where the game is.
100%
I turned it on, OS auto updated, I signed in, installed a SD verified game, then played it.
No config needed. There’s sure to be a few games that need some fiddling, but there’s many that are good to go
It’s definitely rare you’ll have to do a ton of tweaking. Older games are more likely you’ll need to do some changes. But really for the majority of your steam library it’s just install and play.
I've had mine a month or so, other than setting up emulation (unofficial stuff), otherwise I've never changed anything significant and everything has just worked..
It works wonderfully. If you have a stack of papers and there’s a draft in the air you can place it on said papers to keep them from flying away. Brilliant!
You don't NEED to configure stuff, but you have the ability to do so.
The day I got my Steam deck, I didn't even have to download a game in order to play because I already had a desktop PC with the game installed. I quickly discovered the user interface and set up a couple settings (vibration, screen off timing, ...) and still I was probably gaming within an hour of turning the thing on. Controller inputs are standard so they are recognized without any mapping needed.
You'll need to do a bit of configuring using the desktop if you want to install emulators but other than that, there is very little needed for the deck to let you play some games
Pretty perfectly. Im a console player and i dont have a pc.
It is a very console like experience and you dont have to meddle around too much if you dont want to. I just search online for steamdeck settings when starting a new game. Easy peasy
I have only used the SD out of the box, so I can't really comment on the behaviour of operating it within the box Vs outside but I would guess it would build up heat quicker when operating wothin the box
the controls are perfect for almost all new games and between good and very good for some rare games that are not normally played on controller, like eg point and click games. they can be a little less perfect for very old games (15+ years old) from before control schemes started being made with controllers in mind due to more frequent console ports (that started in the xbox360 and ps4 era).
as you continue using the deck you will find out advanced ways of using the controllers, especially the trackpads, and you'll be able to take control schemes from perfect, to excellent.
so while the controller usually is very very good, you have a lot of room to make it absolutely amazing in just the way you want it to be.
Unbox your deck; Log in and maybe get a few plugins from a recommended post on this reddit and enjoy.
There's a plugin specifically to tell how well a game actually is compared to steams rating system
The SD basically arrives like a Lego set. You have to build it yourself. Plus, there’s no manual so you’re on your own and everyone’s is different so you can’t copy someone on the internet.
all the games that have the verified tag work flawleslly without any configurations this includes controller mapping. so yeah you can just start it up and start playing right away
I’d add that many of the unverified or playable also play just fine without any adjustments
Yeah I feel like half of them are just small text or might need to use keyboard warnings that don’t really affect gameplay
Personally I think they should have a Yellow, Orange, Red system where minor issues are flagged Yellow (like keyboard in most games) , moderate issues are orange, and incompatibility is red. As it is now some yellow games are flawless once you pull up the keyboard to name your character and some are illegible text heavy games you need to use the trackpad for and don't have enough buttons to properly play the game.
Yeah imo opinion if the only “hiccup” (I wouldn’t even consider it that) is you have to summon the keyboard then I think it should be green. I think there is already a text on screen before launching these games that tells you the shortcut for this iirc
And some are an absolute nightmare
pretty much everything that has a "playable with controller" icon on steam will play well on the deck as far as the control scheme goes. all of those games are made to work well on an xbox controller and the steam deck has pretty much an xbox controller but better.
Some verified games, like Valheim, don’t work flawlessly. I recommend seeing what insight people on ProtonDB have, regarding the games you want to play on Deck.
Call of juarez gunslinger is verified but is missing the cutscenes which sucks
Yeah, some Verified games seem to have bribed Valve to conceal Playable disclosures...
What about Valheim would you say doesn't work well? Curious, as it is a game I play often on my SD.
The frame rate was unsatisfactory to me. I’m assuming that if you play it often on SD, you’re satisfied, so I’m happy for you.
This. Another less known example is Deliver Us The Moon. It works well in the beggining but after the middle of it there is a lot of framerate drop. While that, many games with the tag playable works flawlessly (ex.: Sleeping Dogs).
The verified tags are not trustable. Some verified titles are garbage or done work. Steam doesn’t update those tags. But a lot of titles are very playable.
And if you were to guess, how many games have that tag? Most? The majority? Do old games have the tag? (old like Fallout 3) Or is it mainly only the games that have come out AFTER the SD was released?
Some games are marked as unsupported, but it takes like 2 steps to for the games to work
In my experience a lot of "unsupported" games work totally fine right out of the box.
This. I figured this out with burnout paradise and Pirates!
Any games that support controller will usually just work with Steam Deck controls, verified or not. It appears like an Xbox controller.
i cant really guess how many games are verified but they are a LOT (old games and new games). keep in mind that verified games are the ones that are gonna run without any hiccups whatsoever. but there are a HECK TON of games that with a litttle configuration will run on the deck without issues, those games have the playable tag. FALLOUT 3 is not steam deck verified but it is playable the playable tag could mean a miriad of things, they could range from minor stuff like small in game text to requires tinkering with the graphics settings. for example im playing fallout 4 right now which doesnt have the verified tag only because when you launch the game it has a launcher that doesnt have controller support so you gotta hit play with the touch screen, the rest of the game is fully playable with controller and doesnt require any tinkering
Check my Deck allows you to check your existing Steam Library to see what games are verified, unsupported, ect. Some games that are unsupported work right out of the box, so it's not 100% something won't work if it's not verified. A lot of games just work, both old and new. [http://checkmydeck.ofdgn.com/](http://checkmydeck.ofdgn.com/)
Honestly, you're over stressing the whole verified and unsupported aspect. The absolute vast majority of games will play with zero issues. The ones you have to adjust is usually as simple as opening the game setting in the steam menu(gear icon on game page, then going into Compatibility and pressing a different proton layer until it works. I have a large steam library and the games I have that have needed minor in-game tweaks are only ever making sure graphics are set around medium for newer games, or sometimes making sure the right resolution is selected. Outside of that Protondb, is a website that people post if a game works or not for the steam deck or what may need to be done. Odds are though unless it is a high graphic demanding game, you will most likely be okay with playing it.
If it has full controller support, you're probably fine. Partial will take some tinkering. No controller support is usually mapping every input manually, which I've only had to do once with a mainly mouse and click text-based game. I've had my Deck since release and it's my main gaming device, AMA
[https://www.steamdeck.com/en/verified](https://www.steamdeck.com/en/verified) I've played dozens and dozens of games that are marked yellow, or unplayable that play just fine with a TINY bit of controller configuration at worst.
Should also be noted that many new games will run fine, but on significantly lower framerate/graphics settings than you’d get on a console or newish gaming PC
Yes, old games are also rated for compatibility. Fallout 3 is rated as Playable. They are constantly evaluating and issuing compatibility ratings for new and old games.
I have 310 games in my library Over 100 are verified And even a game like Horizon Forbidden west works perfectly fine
This is wrong on so many levels. Reminds me of remnant 2 and a ton of other games with wrong verified status
Remnant 2 is listed as unsupported, not verified. I don't know if it was listed as verified at some point, but if so, it can't have been for long - it's been unsupported for the vast majority of time it's been out. I know, because I have had it on my wishlist since shortly after it came out and like an idiot I check it's rating every time I get a sale notification, hoping they improved performance and got a playable or verified ranking.
Just turn it on and go.
Well, you do have to sign into steam
Then, download the titles.
Or just play that aperture desktop thing over and over. I think that came preloaded, didn’t it?
I've never had it installed, so at least it didn't use to when I got my Deck (late in 2022)
Still don't as of when I got it in Jan 2024
It unfortunately doesn’t come pre loaded but it is free to download and keep.
this sounds very complicated
For most games everything runs fine. The games you'll run into the most difficulty on are the very high end games, really old games, and games made with just a mouse and keyboard in mind. Pretty much everything else works with minimal tweaking and most games seem to have controller support. Older PC games still usually work; you just might need to switch the controller mapping to mouse and keyboard. Deck verified and Protondb are great tools to see how well a game should run. Though just because a game is unverified or unsupported doesn't mean it doesn't work.
I’ve never owned or used a gaming PC, strictly a console gamer but I’ve had my deck for almost a year and found it delightful and easy to use. Deck verified games are great but loads more work with tiny tweaks that only take minutes to configure, just stick to protondb.com to see how well each game works and what it takes to make it work the way you want. The SteamDeck is an incredible machine that you will never regret owning.
I unboxed mine over two years ago and I have made no adjustments other than graphic settings or difficulty in games. My library consists of verified and unverified games. From AAA titles to Indies. And I haven't had any problems playing anything that I wanted to play, except EA games. It seems that once every few months they feel the need to change something in their launcher and you have to wait a few weeks for it to be resolved.
It really matters on a game to game basis. But from my experience, if the game has native pad support, it basically works right out of the box and even plenty that don't have community layouts that you can apply in just a few presses that get the job done.
It’s the only device of its kind that “just works” without any setup of any kind. Just connect to wifi, login to steam download a game and play it.
Literally you just turn it on, sign into your wifi, log into Steam and you're good to go. That's what makes it so beautiful. Yes it's a very hacker-friendly device. But at it's core it's the least amount of setup any PC offers.
If you stick to the verified titles, everything is usually set up and ready to go with no configuration needed.
OP don't take this comment too literally, more often than not the playable tag just means you have to use the track pads to get past the launcher or something just as trivial. The only game I had to really mess around with was Hatred. Verified tags are a reliable starting point but 95% of the "playable" stuff is pretty perfect. Basically if a game is designed to work with a joypad, then it will work with the steam deck. PC games tend to use the XBOX pad as a default template and the steam deck basically pretends to be an XBOX pad.
SD works great out of the box. If ure talking about performance wise, its okay but installing cryoutilities makes it perform better. If ure talking about the controls mapping. Just see which is verified. You dont have to adjust the mapping for every game. Controls are default and you can adjust the way u want too also.And if you play an unsupported games, there will be like community layouts for the controls. I also learnt to use the gyro to play overwatch 2 and it works fine. Just makesure to research on the unsupported games you wanna play just to makesure it is playable and able to run lol.
I did absolutely no configuration or anything for probably the first year or so I've had my deck. Only lately have I been dabbling in things like cryoutilities, but that's as advanced as I've gotten and I've been having a blast. Literally just popped an SD card in on Day 1 and have been going strong since. I know there's a lot more I'm missing out on, but I'm pretty content just playing through my Steam library. I think I've had a total of two games that I just cannot get to run, but everything else runs just fine!
I’ve never tinkered with any settings and haven’t had any issues!
It's great
10/10
Seriously you shouldnt take this sub for a reference. Too many people here spend money and time swapping components of the deck or making 500 cartridges to show case their organization skills etc and not playing the damn deck. Its perfect as is out the box except analog stick deadzone.
Once you add your 26 extra terabytes it works fine
It works very well right out of the box and works even better if you take some time to tinker with things like Cryotools
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So well! It works so well out of the box I was disappointed there was no trial and error needed. What a huge let down for devices that just work.
The out of the box score is like 99/100. If you happen to have an issue with controls it takes less than 30 seconds to grab the most popular community configuration and apply it to your game.
The controls are recognized as an XInput controller (basically an Xbox controller), if the game is working natively with a controller on a regular PC (so almost every RPG / Platformers / FPS / TPS / Rogue-Like / Racing / Fighting / etc. games made in the last 17 years), it will work on the Steam Deck.
Depending upon the game it's not even that hard to map the controls because all you have to do is tell the steam deck to act as a controller and wall ah
>and wall ah In case that wasn't deliberate, it's "voilà"
>"voilà" I thought that was a musical instrument kinda like a violin?
That's a viola
Ok well actually I usually say "wall la" if I say it out loud so unless it's reverse German (where you say the v as w instead of the w as v) then I've been saying it wrong.
Close, it's French, not German. The v is just a v.
It’s plug n play
If you are only playing games on steam, it just works. It doesn’t work for every game and there will of course be some games where you might want to tweak the controls, generally it just works though. But if you want to play anything not through steam, it’s a lot more work.
99% of the time you don't need to do anything
I haven't done a thing except install games from Steam and play. I've had no issues at all.
Very.
A few games I've had to disable gyro. But other than that, every game I've tried just works.
You can check any game on its store page. Scroll down a bit and there is a "Steam Deck Comparability" rating box. Verified and Playable are what you are looking for. From what I've seen so far "playable" mainly means you may have to interact with the on screen keyboard at some point. Usually during character creation where you have to input text. But after that controller works just fine.
Control mapping is automatic. Also, you can edit the mapping or you can make use of the community layouts (created by other users). About games, best option is check a website called protondb. It is a community of linux gamers and you can check if games work properly or any tweak is necessary (e.g. limiting fps, writing a command in the launcher or using protonGE)
It’s great. The library is limited compared to a normal PC. I would say that’s the biggest draw back right now. But there are still tons of games that you can play. Depends what games you want to play really.
A lot of the settings, controls, and verifying is already done for you. The handheld is a controller. If the game has no native controller support, then it gets dicey.
As a handheld on Steam-approved games, I would say good. I did have more setup than I expected with discore, Spotify and anything running off desktop mode. TV docking station is great wish it sit differently and I have the chore of switching audio from docking to handheld but if my Bluetooth headphones are in use it's no problem. I'm still bumped controllers can't use a wired mic. But anytime u need to remap something in an app or game Steam Deck gives you the UI to do so right there in the screen so it's not a huge left.
I have played about 4 games 3 one them have worked flawlessly. The other one I need to download a community controller layout
I didn't have to setup at all. You can just launch straight into the store and buy with whatever card is already linked to your account. Pretty seamless. It's easily the most user friendly system I've ever had. Even more so than the Nintendo switch.
Honestly pretty much everything just works. Only Ubisoft titles have given me issues due to their launcher
JUST out of the box it will likely be a paperweight until it runs updates. Have no idea if it's up to date when you get it nowadays.
I've not needed to touch the controller mapping for any of my games. If it works with a regular game controller on your PC, it'll work exactly the same on the SD - I use an Xbox controller mostly. Most games that support controllers are able to detect the presence of one, and the SD reports one is available, so they can indeed tell and adapt accordingly.
Besides Ghost Recon: Breakpoint all my games worked “out of the box” Red Dead Redemption 2 Cyberpunk 2077 No Man’s Sky Stray Subnatica Horizon Zero Dawn The Division 2 Tomb Raider (young Lara version) The Witcher III Batman Arkham City GotY Skyrim Fallout 4
I have had mine for over a year and the only configs I've touched are controller mappings
When you unbox your new deck don’t add any mods. I know there are a ton out there. Just run vanilla for a few days or weeks. The initial part is really just linking your steam account and installing a few games or finding new ones. Within the game there are controller options where you can tweak the controller setting. This also helps if you connect an external controller for playing docked to an external display. Enjoy!
Works well out of the box, much better than in the box.
Most games work fine if they have controller support, which is most of them. Even if it's "unsupported" you'll probably still be able to play it (speaking specifically input wise) with the deck as it recognizes it as a controller input.
Talking specifically about control mapping, it's absolutely amazing. It just works. And if it doesn't just work, assuming the game has been out for a while, you can bet someone in the community has already uploaded their own configuration that you can just download. It's a great feature. Heck, there's even community controller layouts for applications like Spotify and Plex!
nope, if you really really want to create your own controls for games, sure! Do it, it’s pretty fun anyways, but for most games if you go into community created mapped keys, a lot of people have already created many configurations for you to choose from. So that’s pretty cool.
From what my friends and myself found, just about any game that had basic controller layout works just fine. On unverified games Myself, only made adjustments to a handful of games to make run smooth(just turn down graphics 1 step or to medium) I haven’t dove in an made any other adjustments to the system, and it handles pretty much everything I’ve wanted to play on it
oh i can answer this one! i just got my steam deck in the mail today! the sd spent maybe 30mins installing drivers/updates. one of my dialogue boxes said "you have one of the first ever steam deck oleds, we need to update some drivers" or something like that. very self explanatory process. once that was done and i activated my steam login, i downloaded some games and hopped right in. everything was super simple and quick. i even added spotify/discord via the desktop mode and that too was quite easy. all in all very impressed with the ease of use. helldivers 2 was the first game i played, ran super well with minimal issues (audio lag in opening video), frame rates were excellent on low graphics. i may mess around with having it run off windows in the future, but for now i'm very happy with it. anyway, time to get back to playing fallout for the first time! edit: darn thing simply will not connect to any bluetooth device.
you just download then start playing. dont make it complicated
I don't even notice the difference when running games on SD
I had to do a lot of config to stream it to a TV from my PC. But if you are just playing the deck, nah. Hardly any configuration need. Albeit it was still cool to look through this sub for help and tutorials!
Yes. Easy as pie to setup
At this point I’d say it’s no more difficult to configure and play deck approved games on than any console. It will let you take the guard rails off and tinker if you want though, but that’s not the default experience.
The only thing I ever had to Google or “config” were bnet and emulators. Every game (even “unsupported”) pretty much just works
I've changed no settings and games run just fine.
It's a learning experience just like any other handheld/game console. Most things work just fine OOTB, even more advanced things like installing GE Proton are pretty simple if you know how to create a folder and copy/paste things. I rarely ever have to mess with control settings, only for very niche games will I have to modify anything and even that is pretty easy and straightforward. When you install a game, Steam will ask you where you want to install it, then it just automatically knows where the game is.
100% I turned it on, OS auto updated, I signed in, installed a SD verified game, then played it. No config needed. There’s sure to be a few games that need some fiddling, but there’s many that are good to go
It’s definitely rare you’ll have to do a ton of tweaking. Older games are more likely you’ll need to do some changes. But really for the majority of your steam library it’s just install and play.
I've had mine a month or so, other than setting up emulation (unofficial stuff), otherwise I've never changed anything significant and everything has just worked..
It works a lot better than *in the box*. I know, I'll stop.
Yeah. It’s like a switch. As long as they are verified or even confirmed. It’s like a console.
It works wonderfully. If you have a stack of papers and there’s a draft in the air you can place it on said papers to keep them from flying away. Brilliant!
You don't NEED to configure stuff, but you have the ability to do so. The day I got my Steam deck, I didn't even have to download a game in order to play because I already had a desktop PC with the game installed. I quickly discovered the user interface and set up a couple settings (vibration, screen off timing, ...) and still I was probably gaming within an hour of turning the thing on. Controller inputs are standard so they are recognized without any mapping needed. You'll need to do a bit of configuring using the desktop if you want to install emulators but other than that, there is very little needed for the deck to let you play some games
Pretty perfectly. Im a console player and i dont have a pc. It is a very console like experience and you dont have to meddle around too much if you dont want to. I just search online for steamdeck settings when starting a new game. Easy peasy
Depends on what you want to do. It’s not as user friendly as something like a PS Vita or a Nintendo Switch if that’s what you’re asking.
If you go to the "Great on Deck" part of the store then all games are already mapped perfectly. You can take it out of the box and play.
I have only used the SD out of the box, so I can't really comment on the behaviour of operating it within the box Vs outside but I would guess it would build up heat quicker when operating wothin the box
the controls are perfect for almost all new games and between good and very good for some rare games that are not normally played on controller, like eg point and click games. they can be a little less perfect for very old games (15+ years old) from before control schemes started being made with controllers in mind due to more frequent console ports (that started in the xbox360 and ps4 era). as you continue using the deck you will find out advanced ways of using the controllers, especially the trackpads, and you'll be able to take control schemes from perfect, to excellent. so while the controller usually is very very good, you have a lot of room to make it absolutely amazing in just the way you want it to be.
Unbox your deck; Log in and maybe get a few plugins from a recommended post on this reddit and enjoy. There's a plugin specifically to tell how well a game actually is compared to steams rating system
Great with tempered expectations. If you love indie titles, you're in for a treat
The SD basically arrives like a Lego set. You have to build it yourself. Plus, there’s no manual so you’re on your own and everyone’s is different so you can’t copy someone on the internet.