75% of the Most Played Games on Steam Are Playable on the Steam Deck
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1. The first party, deck verified steam experience is super smooth, feeling just like a game console. It's like a switch with a deeper library and better controls. I love the community contributed control layouts as well.
2. The hardware itself is fantastic. The controls are great for both gaming and light desktop computing. Great feel in the hands, pleasant screen for gaming, and really just a much more comfortable experience than sitting at a desk or playing on the TV. It feels like curling up with a good book.
3. Linux with great windows compatibility layer out of the box. You pop it over into desktop mode and you have a Linux machine with ability to run most of the software out there for windows. You plug in a usb-c hub and you have a full desktop, keyboard mouse experience. And if you really have the need, you can dual boot into windows.
4. An insanely helpful community. Tons of knowledge out there for getting it to do anything you can dream of. So many people hacking on their favorite game to improve performance or play experience. Many folks writing auto-config scripts for anything from turning it into a retro gaming powerhouse to tweaking the swap file performance characteristics.
This could be a big win for Europe as electricity prices are going up considerably.
That's before thinking about what your TV power usage is. A Steam Deck could use its own screen within that <20W power envelope, while a Playstation or a docked Deck is going to probably use an extra 100-200W on a TV.
It’s probably not going to keep up with a PS4 on a 1080p TV, but Valve has done a lot of optimisation work & the output might be surprisingly “good enough”.
This may actually be one of the biggest lasting impacts of the Steam Deck. It puts a lot of enthusiasts with a common interest on a highly reproducible and officially supported configuration. If a game doesn't work, you can file a bug with Valve on Github about it and most of the time it'll be fixed within a week. If the system itself is misbehaving, you can feel safe knowing that there are thousands of others on the exact same configuration.
Just two weeks ago, I had an issue with the system resuming into a blacked-out screen, so I vaguely Googled the symptoms and "Steam Deck", which led me to a Reddit thread with oodles of people experiencing the same issue[1]. Someone said it was a bug related to the new customizable boot animation feature -- I turned the feature off and I could go on with my day without even opening a single log file!
[1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/11ubgfl/latest_u...
Of course if you control the hardware and software stacks, it's leads to a better experience and community can build on it.
But I don't think that's really what the comment was about. I think what is really interesting here is the community.
I think the close collaboration between Valve and the Linux community is pretty unique. Mac has always had a very vocal fanbase, but Apple is a notoriously secretive and stubborn company. Valve is doing all of this work in the open including customer support, which is fostering quite a community. I think to compare it to Mac computers misses the point; Mac has an unusually large base of enthusiasts, much larger than the Steam Deck userbase, but it's not strength in numbers that is intriguing here.
> > An insanely helpful community. Tons of knowledge out there for getting it to do anything you can dream of.
> This may actually be one of the biggest lasting impacts of the Steam Deck. It puts a lot of enthusiasts with a common interest on a highly reproducible and officially supported configuration. If a game doesn't work, you can file a bug with Valve on Github about it and most of the time it'll be fixed within a week. If the system itself is misbehaving, you can feel safe knowing that there are thousands of others on the exact same configuration.
The community building that Valve does is important for this in my opinion.
If it’s hard-to-use, Kafkaesque, or unforgiving, users who are able to integrate the hardware/software into their daily lives are likely to see it as a trial-by-fire and be gatekeepers to others.
For real coding plugging in a dock and going real keyboard, mouse and monitor would be a must for most.
That's what I'm wondering about. Do those trackpads let you type without a virtual keyboard covering half the screen? That would be a killer feature for me.
With a docking station or a small Bluetooth keyboard you could probably turn the Deck into a portable dev platform, but it's simply not designed for text entry.
When researching before ordering my Steam Deck last week, I looked into it and found that the Lenovo Thinkpad dock that work sent me with my work laptop is said to work great with Deck. (I just received my Deck and haven't yet tried this, though.)
Well I've written thousands of lines of code in an 8x154 Termux terminal with Unexpected Keyboard. I got used to it.
I dunno about that. That's exactly how I've been programming for months now: an 8x154 Termux terminal with Unexpected Keyboard. I'm kind of hoping those touch sensitive pads will let me type without placing my thumbs over the screen.
Was the Steam Deck itself on sale? Or you bought a Steam Deck during Steam game sales?
How much did you pay for your Steam Deck, and what model/features did you buy?
Crazy how it's only been a year since the Deck came out, given the impact it's had on the gaming market.
I think the biggest obstacles are going to be getting companies to implement anti cheats that run on linux and not in kernel mode. Apparently Apex does this, but also apparently lots of cheats now target the linux implementation. Maybe valve can figure out an effective anti cheat system for linux and license/sell its use.
If Mac and Apple TVs become on par with Windows gaming, Mac and Apple TV will be the default choice for gaming.
There are already forks out there that make playing games on macOS possible by porting the many Linux wrappers. I haven't seen any of them take off, really.
I expect that most people who own a Mac simply buy a console for gaming.
Pretty straight forward! The Steam Deck is repairable and there are a ton of iFixit guides.
The only things I didn't really like were:
- Unhooking plastic clips on the case - I dislike this generally since I'm always afraid of breaking a clip
- Disconnecting the battery was a PAIN. Everything is pretty compact - it took a long time to get it out.
- Flashing the OS requires you to have a good internet connection - it won't tell you if it can't connect, it'll just say it's trying to connect. Just press B, re-select a network, and move into a better spot.
- During the flashing OS process the buttons won't work. They work after everything is done installing.
Can I ask what types of games do you play?
I feel like the ones I play wouldn't be as enjoyable on the Deck than on a big monitor with a keyboard and a mouse. Especially for very long sessions. Strategy, FPS, ARPG... I'm still thinking about getting one to occasionally play JRPGs (FFs, Yakuzas, Personas...) and other story driven games that were originally designed for consoles (God of War, Red Dead Redemption, The Last of Us...). I guess it works great for this type of games and it would be more comfortable than playing on a laptop in bed.
* A Plague Tale: Innocence
* Shadow tactics: Blades of Shogun
* Metro 2033
* Mark of the Ninja
* A way out (co op only)..
My only recommendation for playing in bed is that get some kind of stand or something so you can rest the deck on your chest/stomach and comfortably play for 2-3 hours at a time.
Maybe one of the fancy cases with detachable stands is better?
There maybe some community provided controller layouts to improve shortcuts.. but i haven't explored them yet.
Plus i really like the game so if there were any little annoyances i probably didn't notice them ..
There is a huge range of them out there I haven't played, and the Deck's hardware is extremely well suited to running most of them. I've found I've played stuff that completely passed me by on the desktop - Ni No Kuni, Valkyria Chronicles etc.
The less intense gameplay of these just fits drop in/drop out gameplay on a mobile device surprisingly well too, especially as the Deck can sleep the game at any point, regardless of whether you've been able to save in-game or not.
The PS4 era action games you list also work pretty well - thinking of the Deck as a portable 720p PS4 I think actually describes its abilities pretty nicely. Yakuza 0 clips along at a great 60fps with reasonable battery life on medium settings.
The only genres I avoid are the really mouse heavy ones - strategy games and anything first person. Outside of these two genres, most things do work well with a controller or the Deck.
Adventure/RPG/Story Games: Tomb Rader 2013 Trilogy (TR, Rise, Shadow), Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order; SOMA, RiME (both haunt me to this day, highly recommended), Skyrim/Oblivion, Assassins Creed 1-3, Black Flag
Racing: Grip Combat Racing, Redout
Shooters: Halo MCC, Bioshock 1-Infinity
Other: Rocket League, Minecraft - Java with shaders! With a LOT of tweaking, it's possible to add Minecraft Java as a shortcut and pre-load it with shaders and mods. It looks incredible and can easily handle 7-12 chunks at 60 fps with shaders depending the settings.
It’s going to be a lifesaver on the next long holiday drive with the kids.
Most smartphones are much more powerful in terms are hardware, better screen technology (OLED and high refresh rates)
More importantly, you can easily stream games on to them.
So why on god earth is everyone so excited about a crumby screen that can play a few games on medium settings?
The hardware may be more powerful on your phone (but it probably isn't). The screen is probably better but the steamdeck's screen is pretty great to my eyes.
I can also easily stream games to my steamdeck just like my phone, and sometimes do.. however that really only works if I am on the same local network unless I want to take a huge video compression quality hit.
I can take my steamdeck on an airplane and play any game that doesn't require a really reliable internet connection (or games without that requirement of course). But if you are trying to stream games, have fun with that I guess.
I've seen other cases where "not working" means "you need to hit Steam+X manually to open the keyboard in certain settings". These playability standards seem rather high, which isn't a bad thing, but can sew the numbers. On the other hand, you an find plenty of stories of users playing verified games that become bad later in the game, presumably because no company is going to spend 100 hours on every game to verify that every single thing works. I haven't run into that yet, though.
Steam Deck and Proton really changed gaming on Linux and otherwise. Certain features of well-integrated games (Euro Truck Sim providing a list of named actions for key binds, for example) are unlike anything I've seen elsewhere. The ability to add overlay menus, with multiple levels even, to any game add even more to the way you can play PC games with a controller.
At this point, I hope Valve releases a second Steam controller: one that's just the Deck without the PC inside. Coupled with the new Steam Big Picture, I'm confident Steam consoles could take off.
On one end of the scale, it's probably only adding 5 lines of code and could be done in 20 minutes by the right person...
But on the other end of the scale, the company that made the game may no longer exist, the employees working on the game may no longer work there, the build environment for the game might be highly custom and take weeks to re-set-up, etc. When re-built, a bunch of QA and testing ought to be redone, especially if the build environment is new and some stuff might not be at the exact same version, etc.
One way they could do that is require game developers to upload source code to some source code repo (perhaps a 'code holding company', whose expertise is looking after source code). Code in the repo could be built automatically, ensuring that at any time a hotfix could be made with little friction. When publishers upload to steam, they are also giving the right for steam to make bugfixes if the original developer wont/cant.
In practice, I don't think any side cares. Hitman 2 (also the remake) and later includes the option to play Hitman 1 through DLC so for new players the experience will be better sticking to the second version. That's why I doubt it's going to get fixed soon. The only people affected are the people running Steam as a console without a mouse attached, and that's a small minority of PC gamers.
Isn't this just a steam controller + the steam Link? I'm not clear on what you mean by "without the pc inside"
Is there anything handheld with a decent screen and controls that could stream games from my gaming PC?
The Logitech G Cloud may fit your use case. Though, for that price, I don't know you wouldn't just buy an entry level Deck. The Deck's 800p screen isn't the highest quality but I'm not sure if I'd rather spend as much money on an alternative that's useless on the go.
There are also special grips out there for tablets and phones to add controller functionality; that'd probably be a lot cheaper and easier if you already have a big phone or a tablet.
The Deck controls are worlds ahead of the Steam Controller. Better buttons, better hand positions, better quality, better all around.
If you want a controller where a touchpad is a secondary accessory, you already have a great option in the DualSense.
Since no-one else is listing the differences, here's what the v1 lacks in controls compared to the steam deck:
- Two joysticks (probably the main shortcoming of v1)
- D-pad
- Four rear buttons (the controller only has two)
- build quality (as others have mentioned)
- Touch sensitive joysticks (benefits motion control usage)
- USB CBut the inputs are more precise and the ergonomics are better. If you are using a Steam Controller correctly, your fingers (including thumbs) never scan over different inputs on the controller at all. Each rests over a single input among the touchpads, shoulder buttons, triggers, and back paddles. There's just nothing like it, either in terms of comfort or precision.
The Deck layout doesn't require any fiddling or for people to adjust their habits, but it can't reach the same heights as the Steam Controller.
It's cool whatever way anyone likes it— both kinds of controllers should exist. But for that to happen, Steam Controller v2 can't be Deck-based, because it doesn't fill the same niche.
If I had to hazard a guess as to why, is that every time they push updates to proton they don't test the whole catalog. So fixes and regressions happen without them knowing.
They also tell you when stuff like GloriousEggrolls fork of Proton (which has a few features not in the Proton upstream) is the solution to use.
Putting that aside for a second, it's a marvel how Steam basically managed to get people to use an immutable, almost entirely flatpak-based OS that works quite well. I have one and while Big Picture has a very sporadic meltdown (usually connectivity issues with Steam), desktop mode works almost perfectly.
I've never had a moment where the filesystem being root-locked was an issue for using it, which is quite the interesting experience coming from other Linux distributions where touching the root filesystem is at some point expected to change a config file or to enable a driver. To put it simply: "it just works".
[0]: https://protondb.com
The Steam Deck proves what Canonical and others have been trying to prove for years: restrictions can be good for your experience sometimes. I still despise Snap, but its model is extremely close to what Valve managed to succeed with. Fedora's attempt is even closer.
I don't think I'll ever accept snap in a world where Flatpak exists, but I think sandboxes are the future for letting normal people use Linux. The simple fact of the matter is that if you need to touch the terminal or edit obscure text files to do any normal task, your system has failed and it sucks to use. Take away a dev's ability to rely on that and software seems to get a lot better. Hopefully this trend will also slowly turn people on support websites to stop telling people asking questions to open a bash shell for changing things that have buttons and settings screens, though I fear I may as well wait for the Year Of The Linux Desktop.
https://github.com/SteamDeckHomebrew/decky-loader
This shows the protondb status directly on steam UI.
This means that playability standards aren't high, but rather their goals regarding these standards aren't high enough as they're too focused on some usability aspects (having to touch the screen once to use the "mouse" = no verified) and not caring at all in other regards (how a game actually feels to play on it).
Or you can go with the conspiracy theory that Valve is ok offering verified to publishers who want to pay for it.
Using Cyberpunk as an example again, it's only given "gold" (a tier below "platinum", and the difference between them is gold runs fine after weaks, platinum is out of box). Plus the comments there also usually give you settings or tips to squeeze out better performance. Sometimes even hidden stuff, like some people reporting an experimental proton version runs a native linux title better.
For wha it’s worth, I had random crashes with Hitman 3, though more recent versions of ProtonGE seems to have resolved it.
But a game called Ultimate Chicken Horse was labeled incompatible for a while because of a weird corner case with special characters.
I think over time they have been less strict about flat out incompatible flags but also the human review process leads to some variability.
I love this thing and the trackpads to me are key and none of the clones seem to want to or are able to replicate that part of the product.
Ultimately it is easy to push it beyond its guardrails to ensure a smooth experience for people who just want to play games without fuss and I think that is the right balance to strike with a device that has aspirations to be as mass market as a switch but has a core audience of enthusiast PC users.
But i have to admit that i was very wrong, and in the now 8 month i have had the device, it been my main vector for playing games and by a long shot.
The interesting thing about this device, at least in my case his that it changed my preferences in term of which game i buy and mostly play. I almost never play big AAA anymore and nowday focus on simple indie/pixel arts/2D games and for that this console really shines. Actually i would love to trade some of that CPU/APU performance for a better AMOLED screen and smaller size.
Now if only MSFT could also launch a portable console tied to a game pass subscription... One can only dream
The success of the Steam Deck and the success of Game pass means that I guarantee that MS have at the very least got an email chain around this possibility going on at the moment.
You can install windows on steam deck and use your game pass subscription.
Yep. I mean yes, it can run The Witcher 3 just fine, but Pizza Tower is where it's at.
I'm one of those people that has perpetually wanted to use linux as my main desktop, but inevitably find myself dual booting Windows for gaming, and then just making my desktop a Windows gaming box and then using a Macbook for dev work. I think I've had about 3 major runs of trying to be Linux desktop only, and that typically lasts just a month or two.
For the past year I've been using exclusively Linux (Pop!_os) as my desktop for everything I do, and that has involved quite a bit of gaming. It's really insane how giant a leap forward Proton (driven by the need for Steam Deck compatibility) is as far as Linux gaming goes. It does occasionally take a bit of tweaking to get things to work just right, but nothing too crazy.
It's also worth mentioning that, at least for me, System 76 has really solved the problem of "just open the box and turn it on" support for Linux. Extremely high build quality and most important, seamless support for Nvidia drivers. It is a blast to spend the day building deep learning models and then make use of that nice GPU to play AAA titles at max settings.
Any gamer who has been wanting to go full Linux Desktop for a while, it's really quite possible now.
My linux SSD is on its last legs though, and I've been planning to do a fresh install when I get a new one. I'm using Kubuntu currently but with all the headaches Snap has been giving me I think I'll give Pop!_os a try instead. Everybody that chimed in the other day on the thread about Ubuntu dropping Flatpak was raving about Pop!_os as a sensible alternative.
I just wish it didn't have such a silly name. :P
This is the real secret of the Steam Deck's success. And it's something Valve has been working at for a decade now, starting with Steam Machines which completely failed. It's a strategic move to reduce their reliance on Microsoft and it must be great for them to see it succeed now after failing for many years.
Like many of you here, I run Linux as my full-time OS, and because of that, I refuse to support any non-linux software.
I'm not a huge gamer, but I do spend several hundred a year on Linux games. I'm very excited for what the future will bring.
Though I really like it, the finishes are really not great compared to a Nintendo Switch. The plastic feels cheap, the case creaks a bit, one of the triggers squeaks, the buttons clicks are super loud, and well, a speaker broke. There are also a few small software issues that are definitely not deal-breakers, but quickly add up as annoyances.
I still find it's a good device, it does what I expected it to do (sometimes even better), but for the price, I expected something a bit more robust.
In terms of price, I'm not surprised in the difference in build quality. Nintendo is shipping five year old smartphone boards out for a premium price, that means the plastics can receive quite a bit of love. You couldn't possibly play PC games on Switch level hardware, not even on the 800p screen. As a result, Switch games run just as well or even better on the Deck once an emulator dev puts in the optimisation effort for a Switch game, despite the ARM to x64 translation overhead.
The Deck's PC competition all costs twice or three times as much, usually for good reason. There are gaming handhelds out there that will come with good build quality and run Windows so things like DRM are not a problem, but you pay for that luxury. They used to be priced even higher but it's clear the Deck has disrupted this part of the industry quite significantly.
PC gaming Windows licensing is probably not significant to their revenue.
For now, most PC gamers still buy laptops/desktops with Windows, or build a desktop and obtain a Windows key.
Xbox Game Pass seems to be an important piece of their plan, because subscriptions are gold.
They release games that are PC and Xbox compatible (that might work on other systems, e.g. Linux). As long as Xbox Games is selling games, they are less concerned with how the games are played.
Giving up the PC Gaming on Windows part of their strategy does not necessarily have a big immediate effect on Microsoft. (But may be short-sighted in the long term.)
I completely agree, although perhaps their hair is on fire, which has inspired them to acquire Minecraft and pursue Activision.
>The success of Steam Deck makes Linux a major gaming platform, opening the way for PC gaming to migrate to Linux.
I think this has been brilliant by Steam, is great news for PC users, but it's something that has taken time. It has been so frustrating to see articles in the Verge declaring that SteamOS, or the Steam Box/Steam Machine were 'failing' because they did not result in overnight market dominance. But they were necessary steps to get to this point.
Now if the Windows org is banking on gamers staying on Windows, then I can see why they'd be sweating.
100% for me. I loathe having to boot my Windows PC, figure out why the Keyboard isn't working, getting a different one, installing a driver update, restarting to update Windows because it's been so long since I last played, ...
What I want is either a small device that's aimed at gaming, I guess that would be a game console or a device that's small and portable that streams to whatever TV I want to play at (we have 2). I guess that would be Nvidia GameStream, is that still a thing? Oh and Linux, would I love to have the PC run Linux.
Aside from that, what would you even suggest Microsoft do? Building their own portable game console would be suicidal, with Nintendo firmly entrenched with a large stable of games on one side and Valve's Steam and their monopoly on Windows games distribution on the other, which even Epic flushing billions of dollars down the drain hasn't been able to dent. Even Sony bowed out of the handheld console market and they were in a much better position to compete.
Nah, there are much graver (pun not intended) problems on Linux, but especially not having a standard environment to program against (which libc will be available?), and even more so the terrible terrible binary backwards compatibility/longevity.
I don't use a Steam deck, but its success makes Linux a viable alternative for me.
Now... If a lot of people play on Linux (either directly like me or indirectly through Steam Deck), why would devs not make games directly for Linux instead?
They have tabloids in the start menu to supplement income, of course. There is a bit of truth in that joke, they have completely lost touch with their customers. You have PMs and designers making decisions about Windows... on their Macs.
Games were one of the few moats that Windows had. Now, you can get most productivity tools on a Mac, and most games on Linux. With no adverts on either. And the PC gaming customerbase aren't really tolerant of adverts. Possibly the only remaining advantage with Windows is that you can do both.
With the click on a button, I dive deep inside a the wonderful post apocalyptic hunter-gatherer world they created, in 2 seconds, thanks to the deck flawless sleep mode.
Seamless sleep is something you could never dream on a Linux system, and here not only it works, but it gives this nice instant experience of a console, for PC gaming.
It's so sweet.
(I believe they designed it that way due to the multiplayer features, which i don't care about.)
That's surprising; when I exit a game, it briefly shows the wrong total and immediately recalculates the value.
1) It doesn't matter if a game doesn't fit the handheld style. The deck is by all means a regular computer; plug a USB-C hub with a monitor and a M+KB and you're instantly good to go. I thought this experience would be crappy but the performance is insane for its price point. Obviously you won't be able to max AAA games, but it handles them quite well still. I organized my work desk so that all of my Macbook accessories passed through a single hub, and when I want to play something I simply unplug the hub from my computer and put it into the deck. Instant gaming machine.
2) Whole thing is extremely customisable and full of buttons. If you don't like the controls for a particular game, you can just make your own or download a layout from the community.
3) It actually got me to enjoy the handheld style. The small screen and trying to read really small text bothered me at first, but for some reason I feel that my brain and eyes "adapted" to it. Now, when I play with it on the couch, I get the same "feeling" as if I was playing on a huge screen and it doesn't bother me anymore. Not sure how to describe this, it was a really interesting surprise for me.
That being said, I'm surprised how well I can use the joysticks, trackpads, and tocuhscreens to comfortably navigate most games. I still wouldn't play Crusader Kings III w/o a mouse and keyboard, but man it's shocking to me how little I need to break them out.
Actually my biggest complaint at the moment related to Steam Deck is that the new Big Picture mode is absolutely broken on remote play. Maybe it's because I'm still using a Steam Link (I'd die for a new one to be released) but my god it's awful. So many annoying little bugs since they updated the UI to be the same as the Steam Deck.
Usually the remote play experience is slightly wonky but a little bit of tweaking gets me where I need to be, or Valve releases an update that will fix my issues. But I've been dealing with the following ever since the UI update and no fix in sight:
- Frequent, like 50%, of games won't have focus upon open. I have to open the Steam Link layer overlay and toggle on mouse controller mode, click the window to focus, and then open the overlay again to turn that mode back off. Often focus stays on Steam, so my controller is moving around in the Steam UI (I can hear the sound effects) instead of the game
- Same bug as above but in reverse: when I quit a game and land back in Steam, it isn't focused, and I have to jump through the hoops above
- Opening the store page for a game and then pressing B to go back loads the desktop/browser version of the store page instead, which has zero interactivity with my controller (I have to close the store and open it again, losing my place)
I don’t need crazy graphical settings (and as such, the Deck’s specs are fine) but I have a strong distaste for fan noise and short battery life, and the only way to get around those with some games right now is to turn settings down super low to the point of being an eyesore.
It would be be neat if Valve replaced its fan with one or two of those solid state cooling cards that got posted here a while ago. Seems like a perfect fit for that tech.
I would have loved if valve offered a tier with better screen. That would been a worth while upgrade.
Would definitely be a reason to upgrade to a V2 Deck even if the internals stay the same.
Link for people who didn't see the article, myself included.
- A better screen would likely require more power, especially if the resolution was higher. OLED screens are also prone to burn-in, which can be a legitimate concern, especially with games that have a persistent hud.
- I think it's quite impressive we've managed to get the current battery life, considering how relatively small the battery is.
Overall, it's a great first generation product, which would likely not have been possible just a few years ago.
Agreed that the current battery life is impressive, but even so for me it hangs in that awkward spot of "just good enough to be technically usable", at least where more demanding games are concerned. It's probably already amazing if all that's being played are older non-emulated titles that have low enough resource demands to be able to run the Deck downclocked.
Nvidia can still do better going forward, but but the bridge has to be built from both sides.
Valve getting the Steam Deck on retail is the next huge steps. Hopefully they are seeding decks to major game studios so they can target the hardware. Looking forward to a Steam Deck 2 with a better battery and OLED screen!
I was pleasantly surprised by the experience. About half my library was available. All the games ran perfectly.
Without a doubt, if more game publishers supported Linux, I would never fix that windows partition.
The Steam Deck version of the game might be my favorite platform for it. We can run in high quality mode at a full 60 fps. Don’t even get me started on the garbage pile that is the Nintendo Switch…
Sounds like you figured it out, so probably you know this, but the soft keyboard can be invoked using either the Steam API, or by triggering it with the standard Windows input accessibility APIs. So it usually works for games that already support soft input on Windows, with no further effort from the dev :) Maybe the TextMeshPro devs would be willing to add accessibility support in future versions, which would fix it on Steam Deck and also benefit Windows users.
* It's insanely heavy and if I don't support it with a pillow on my lap, my hands and wrists start tingling after about 15 minutes of play.
* The dock is absolute garbage and so is the support. It can't charge the deck fast enough AND power itself. With the standard charger the dock powers itself off, and with a more powerful one it stays on but the deck's battery will drain, and you get constant warnings about "a slow charger".
I've reported this on the forums and via official support months ago, I've tried two official chargers, and two alternatives (apple and dell), nothing works.
The only workaround I have to play on the TV with the dock is to disconnect the charger and play until the battery runs out.
I feel like I've been lied to and want to return the dock, but I couldn't get myself to do in in the hopes Valve will reward my trust and patience a fix. But I'm not holding my breath.
I'm an indie developer and I've always had plans to port my game from mobile to steam but seeing the steam deck gain so much traction really got me excited!
My game is very much a pickup and play type of game and I'm seeing small indie games like that excel on the steam deck. Vampire Survivors and Brotato to name a few.
I received my steam deck yesterday and played for a few hours last night. I can't tell you all how excited am to get my game ported over and verified for this thing. It really is an incredible piece of gaming tech and it's got me super excited as an indie game developer!
For anyone interested my game is called Command Center Earth. I'm set to launch a huge update next week (2.0.0)!
I get the feeling though that the scales are starting to tip in their favor where we are going to be needing them more then they are going to be needing us soon haha.
Kudos to valve though, it feels like they have been driving toward this dream for a while and they're finally starting to hit the sweet spot with the steamdeck.
Anti-cheat is a solvable problem here. Notably, Microsoft got Halo Infinite multiplayer (!) running flawlessly on the steam deck (which I assume means it'll work on a Linux desktop too!) But other big games still haven't bothered to add Linux support to their anti-cheat
I also just find it too big and bulky and I'm not crazy about how high and small the controls are. It feels like the ARM revolution has a lot to offer as far as making this kind of device nicer.
Personally i don't really fancy removable controller as they seam to add a lot of mechanical complexity and bulk to console design.
How is Apex steam deck certified?
Apex Legends was verified on Deck this month. I don't know what changed, but I assume Valve's efforts in the DRM space have paid off.
The reasons for why this is opt-in only are not public knowledge, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was some sort of special reduced-security mode. The APIs available to EAC-on-Wine are more-or-less a strict subset of those available to EAC-on-Windows, after all. FWIW: I don't think any Wine-exclusive exploits have ever been found in the wild.
[1]: https://dev.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-online-services-la...
Long term, maybe Valve could work with Epic to create a driver to support Easy Anti-cheat on Linux that works with Proton so that devs don't need to create a Linux-specific version of the game. Unfortunately, that'd likely be a considerable amount of work and Epic currently has no incentive to help the Steam Deck be successful.
However, that could change. PC gaming is so much more expensive to get into than when they first created the Epic Games Store. A PS5 is $400 — good luck buying/building a PC remotely as powerful as that for under $1000. A Steam Deck is also only $400, and while weaker, it is portable and can still handle almost all AAA games so far. The Epic Games Store is never going to be allowed on PS5, but it could be on the Steam Deck. Unless PC hardware prices go down, it's easy to imagine a future where PC gaming declines and consoles become more popular, which is not good for Epic (since their store isn't on traditional consoles.) But the Steam Deck, due to its low price, could very well compete with consoles, and Epic could have their store there. Obviously this future of Windows PC gaming declining is extremely far from certain, but it's nice to be prepared in case it does.
If they ever figure out you're running off of a Steam Deck, your account gets banned. Bungie support also went out of their way to specifically state that if you install Windows on the Deck (which some people do), they will still ban your account.
It's... an interesting decision to say the least.
> Destiny 2 is not supported for play on the Steam Deck or on any system utilizing Steam Play's Proton unless Windows is installed and running. Players who attempt to launch Destiny 2 on the Steam Deck through SteamOS or Proton will be unable to enter the game and will be returned to their game library after a short time. Players who are not accessing Destiny 2 through Windows and attempt to bypass the SteamOS/Proton incompatibility will be met with a game ban.
https://help.bungie.net/hc/en-us/articles/360049024592-Desti...
This hyperbole is really unnecessary. Game devs have many different incentives from a lot of directions that may result in a decision that is rational for them, that you dislike.
Not supporting Linux is fine, but banning Windows users because they have hardware you’re opposed to is absolutely awful. Any company that does that, even if acting rationally, should be subject to withering criticism and should suffer in the marketplace.
It means that if you enable EAC on Linux the security is low.
That's the the reason why Fortnite from Epic which owns EAC does not allows Fortnite to run on Linux: https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/149056592564871578...
1. The touch screen hardware is there, but the touchscreen software needs significant improvement.
2. The weight. Holding it for longer than an hour is… hard.
Bonus: Steam store on the deck is essentially a webview - clicking on a game from the store home page then clicking back loses all scroll progress. A better integrated store experience would be nice!
So that 20% is of the 1.5%, so about .3% of all steam users are on SteamOS Linux.
That new Monkey Island game, or any other adventure game, works great on Deck. Don't forget it has a touchscreen for your mouse input!
Rhythm games work great, no input lag.
I haven’t played the first one, but the second one is excellent and is my favorite game of the year so far, and probably last year too. And as already mentioned, it plays great on the Steam Deck.
I highly recommend it.
Steam Deck Verified: 26 / 97 = 26.8 %
Steam Deck Playable: 47 / 97 = 48.4 %
Steam Deck Unsupported: 22 / 97 = 22.6 %