I am thinking of getting one of the OLED versions. Do any of you people have one?
I would probably mostly be playing stuff like Stardew Valley, JRPGs, and using C64/SNES emulators on it, but would be interested in streaming stuff like BG3 from my PC to it also.
There's another thread below about this re Valve
You can play all those things on it. It can run BG3 natively on the deck, or you can stream it via GFN or you can use Moonlight, etc. for PC streaming (can also do gamepass, chiaki for PS4/5 streaming, many other things). All those things work well and are pretty easy to set up.
I had the original and flipped it for the OLED. For me, subjectively, it's the best gaming device of any kind I've ever had.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 05, 2024, 12:49:05 PMThere's another thread below about this re Valve
Didn't notice it... thanks!
I'm waiting about a week and they'll order a Steam Deck.
I think I'm going to get Fallout 4 and see how easy it is to mod on the deck. I expect I'll put Skyrim on there too.
... but also catch up on some of my backlog.
I booted it up. Runs 60 FPS pretty solid. Looks like you can install Bethesda hosted mods from the game menu normally - need to use the virtual keyboard or an external KB to enter the credentials. Anything more fancy than that I would presume you could do but you'd probably have to go into desktop mode.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 20, 2024, 01:59:31 AMI booted it up. Runs 60 FPS pretty solid. Looks like you can install Bethesda hosted mods from the game menu normally - need to use the virtual keyboard or an external KB to enter the credentials. Anything more fancy than that I would presume you could do but you'd probably have to go into desktop mode.
I've found a few guides on how to use Nexus mods, so that's what I'm going to try out. I don't have any desire to explore the Bethesda hosted mod-eco system, to be honest.
By the way, do you have any inside tips or tricks on what to do when you first start using the deck? Any settings you should obviously change or must-have utilities etc?
To install Nexus mods you'll need to go to desktop mode. It's actually pretty easy to navigate for even someone like me with zero Linux experience; it's got a normal folder type structure and downloadable apps. The one thing I'd recommend if you plan to spend a decent amount of time in desktop is a cheap dock so you can navigate using a KB, mouse and external monitor. You can easily program the trackpads to act like a mouse but for longer work its not optimal.
Desktop mode is needed for some other things, like adding non-Steam games to steam. That includes things like setting up an internet browser that can be accessed from game mode. You also need to go there if you want to run emulators (which EmuDeck makes really easy to do). I also used it to set up GFN access from game mode - I find GFN to be Deck complementary in that it allows you to run high-spec games through streaming at minimal battery drain. The only downside is that you can't configure Steam Input separate for each game that way (see below).
One of the first things to do is get and play Aperture Desk Job (it's free). It's basically a demo for the Deck control scheme and features and a pretty fun game to boot.
In terms of utilities, I think it's worth adding "Decky Loader" which gives access to a bunch of useful plugins. Eg one of gives times to beat for your steam games, one of them notifies you when Epic or Gog has free game promotions, etc. Another one allows you to set up the ability to run games from those other stores.
You may want to enable the performance overlays. There are different levels. I find the most useful are Level 2 (just gives FPS in top left), and level 3 - also gives power usage and estimated remaining battery.
You can change the boot up screen and other cosmetics. There's a bunch of available boot up screen videos, which finally gave me a chance to use my "steam points"
The biggest thing to tweak is steam input for the controls, which can be done on a game-by-game basis. The customizability is amazing and it's a key factor that puts Valve above the competition. For most significant releases you can access "community" configurations, some of which are quite good, and you can tweak and edit them as you wish. If you are not accustomed to playing around with steam input, there are tons of YT videos on the subject. I watched the ones from the NerdNest guy because he's closer to my age range and has mostly similar attitudes about gaming. He's got some about using the trackpads to build customizable radial menus, which can help playing something like BG3 or strategy games. But there's a lot of options. You can get in real deep and start playing around using gyro and Flickstick for FPS like the cool kids do these days.
Thanks for all of that :)
After getting used to gyro for aiming I genuinely cannot play fps games on Steam Deck without it now.
Ordered the deck last night, and a dock (thanks Minsky for that recommendation).
Nice. I love mine and play the shit out of it.
I got tired of using my old PS4 controller with the deck and ordered one of these:
https://www.8bitdo.com/ultimate-2.4g-wireless-controller/
I was playing GTA5 on the Deck last night and I couldn't find any controller config I was comfortable with, and it'll be nice to have a controller with buttons arranged and color-coded the same as the onscreen prompts.
So I've really enjoyed the deck so far.
Decided I wanted to play stuff before getting into mucking around with settings and mods and whatnot. So I got Fallout 4 and it's been good so far. Though now I'm mucking around with settlement building and I'm not sure how much I want to play a building sim or not.
... maybe I'll install Sleeping Dogs and see how it goes.
In the reddit Steam Deck forum, Sleeping Dogs comes up often as a title people recommend in a couple of different contexts:
a) apparently runs very well
b) is a great game not everyone has heard of
:cool:
Quote from: Caliga on July 06, 2024, 02:29:02 PMIn the reddit Steam Deck forum, Sleeping Dogs comes up often as a title people recommend in a couple of different contexts:
a) apparently runs very well
b) is a great game not everyone has heard of
:cool:
B shouldn't be the case here at Languish.
Sleeping dogs 2 now.
It's sad this whole gta like genre seems to have died.
Quote from: Caliga on July 06, 2024, 02:29:02 PMIn the reddit Steam Deck forum, Sleeping Dogs comes up often as a title people recommend in a couple of different contexts:
a) apparently runs very well
b) is a great game not everyone has heard of
:cool:
:)
Quote from: garbon on July 06, 2024, 02:31:02 PMB shouldn't be the case here at Languish.
Yeah... I do kind of bring it up every so often :blush:
Quote from: Josquius on July 06, 2024, 03:09:27 PMSleeping dogs 2 now.
It's sad this whole gta like genre seems to have died.
Every couple of years I come across the possible murmurings of maybe Sleeping Dogs 2 potentially becoming a thing, but so far nothing's materialized.
Hope springs eternal, of course :D
As for my first motivation for getting the Steam Deck, I attempted to get modded Skyrim to work on the deck.
I found a reddit post with links to some dude (pikdum - which in danish translates to "cock-stupid") who's made some sort of simple script click to install vortex and make it work on the deck with just a few extra steps. I tried it out, and it didn't work. So so far, I'm 0 for 1.
That said, I remain optimistic. Apparently Nexus has a new app in Alpha which is supposed to work on the deck - so if it gets stable maybe there'll be a truly idiot proof way to install mods.
Quote from: Jacob on July 07, 2024, 09:10:44 PMQuote from: Caliga on July 06, 2024, 02:29:02 PMIn the reddit Steam Deck forum, Sleeping Dogs comes up often as a title people recommend in a couple of different contexts:
a) apparently runs very well
b) is a great game not everyone has heard of
:cool:
:)
Quote from: garbon on July 06, 2024, 02:31:02 PMB shouldn't be the case here at Languish.
Yeah... I do kind of bring it up every so often :blush:
It really was a great game :cheers:
Quote from: Jacob on July 07, 2024, 09:18:12 PMThat said, I remain optimistic. Apparently Nexus has a new app in Alpha which is supposed to work on the deck - so if it gets stable maybe there'll be a truly idiot proof way to install mods.
I heard Nexus is launching on Linux but it's being rolled out game by game with Stardew Valley either the first or one of the early ones.
Quote from: Jacob on July 05, 2024, 12:39:07 PMSo I've really enjoyed the deck so far.
Decided I wanted to play stuff before getting into mucking around with settings and mods and whatnot. So I got Fallout 4 and it's been good so far. Though now I'm mucking around with settlement building and I'm not sure how much I want to play a building sim or not.
Sim Settlements 2 is a great way to handle building settlements.
Quote from: grumbler on July 08, 2024, 04:38:09 PMQuote from: Jacob on July 05, 2024, 12:39:07 PMSo I've really enjoyed the deck so far.
Decided I wanted to play stuff before getting into mucking around with settings and mods and whatnot. So I got Fallout 4 and it's been good so far. Though now I'm mucking around with settlement building and I'm not sure how much I want to play a building sim or not.
Sim Settlements 2 is a great way to handle building settlements.
The mod sounds great. On a casual skim I came across some claims that it's pretty resource intensive, which might be a challenge on the Steam Deck. Does that match your experience?
Re: getting Vortex up and running on the deck, I've come across a few tutorials for doing it using Lutris / Proton Experimental (I think it was) / some other things that essentially puts Vortex (and Skyrim / Fallout) in a Windows environment on the deck.
Do any of you know if there are performance implications to this (or other things to look out for)?
So it appears I've successfully installed Mod Manager 2 on my deck and can launch Skyrim through it. I haven't tested it with any actual mods yet, as Nexus was down for maintenance when I did this.
I would've preferred Vortex since that's familiar to me - it's what I've been using on my PC - but I didn't have much luck with the tutorials I tried to follow.
Lots of folks prefer MO2 to Vortex, so I'm sure it'll be fine once I'm used to it.
I'll eventually try this also. I play a lot of Stardew Valley on my Deck.