Valve introduces Steam Deck

[BillionBisonBucks]

Wii U emulation I would hold out if you have other stuff you want to do on the deck, as CEMU is about to get a native Linux port within the next few months. However if you want to play stuff now, it should still be great on the deck.

Wii U emulator Cemu getting closer to Linux and Steam Deck support

Work continues on the Wii U emulator Cemu to bring it over to Linux, and with that gain Steam Deck support.

www.gamingonlinux.com

Oh, excellent. Yeah, I can wait for native support. I have hundreds of unplayed games that are suddenly catching my eye.

 

[Stasi]

I finally got my email look forward to finally playing around with it. Anyone got any tips for running PCSX2 on it? That's basically all I want it for.

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

I finally got my email look forward to finally playing around with it. Anyone got any tips for running PCSX2 on it? That's basically all I want it for.

Just download emudeck. Basically does everything for you.

 

[Clem Fandango]

Email came through. I had kinda forgotten how expensive this thing is! Is it worth £550?

I travel at least once a week for work, so I should get plenty of use out of it. Also I haven't had a gaming PC since about 2008 (when I moved to Xbox 360, then PS4), so I'm hoping there's been some good PC only games that I've missed out on.

 

[Stasi]

so I'm hoping there's been some good PC only games that I've missed out on

Probably not too many exclusives you would want to play on the deck given the controls but post 360 era is the time most big releases got decent PC ports with good controller supports so you'll have a huge choice of ports if nothing else. I look forward to playing handheld Oblivion myself.

 

[Xarpho]

One of the things that almost lulled me into a Switch was most of the games that I had and enjoyed playing on PC also had Switch versions, but I didn't want to re-buy them (and the save files wouldn't transfer).

I wonder how games with monitor-intended UIs work (like Factorio).

 

[Pissmaster]

One of the things that almost lulled me into a Switch was most of the games that I had and enjoyed playing on PC also had Switch versions, but I didn't want to re-buy them (and the save files wouldn't transfer).

I wonder how games with monitor-intended UIs work (like Factorio).

I tried Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 on mine. It's not great. Your finger's too fat to accurately touch UI elements on the touchscreen, so you'll be controlling the mouse using the right trackpad. Text can be very tiny and hard to read, even if you have perfectly fine eyes, due to the screen resolution being only 1280x800. The screen is on par with the Switch's screen (non-OLED). If your game of choice uses a lot of keyboard shortcuts, you can try your hand at mapping them all yourself, considering the Steam Deck has a generous amount of buttons. If you must play monitor-intended games portably, you might be better off with a small laptop instead.

 

[BillionBisonBucks]

I tried Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 on mine. It's not great. Your finger's too fat to accurately touch UI elements on the touchscreen, so you'll be controlling the mouse using the right trackpad. Text can be very tiny and hard to read, even if you have perfectly fine eyes, due to the screen resolution being only 1280x800. The screen is on par with the Switch's screen (non-OLED). If your game of choice uses a lot of keyboard shortcuts, you can try your hand at mapping them all yourself, considering the Steam Deck has a generous amount of buttons. If you must play monitor-intended games portably, you might be better off with a small laptop instead.

It's worth noting that there's an OS-level magnifier hotkeyed to steam+L1. Less than ideal, but it's been a godsend for playing some older games due to the problems you outlined.

 

[Xarpho]

I feel stupid for asking about Factorio since they just announced a Switch port today.

Probably won't perform well sales-wise since the game is expensive and the Switch version has no mods, but they have all but stated it's a way to implement controller features in the main game, and probably UI for smaller screens too.

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

Just wanna say I still laugh at the beginning of this thread. People genuinely thought this thing was going to flop/be shit.

 

[Stasi]

I feel stupid for asking about Factorio since they just announced a Switch port today.

Probably won't perform well sales-wise since the game is expensive and the Switch version has no mods, but they have all but stated it's a way to implement controller features in the main game, and probably UI for smaller screens too.

I wouldn't be too optimistic. A while ago I wanted to play Pathway with a controller and it had no support despite a Switch version also being available, it took the devs forever to patch in controller support on the PC even after releasing a Switch version.

Anyway, pretty happy with my deck so far, emulators work flawlessly out of the box with EmuDeck and the set up was painless. Playing PS2 games on a handheld is pretty insane to me. I also got the steam version of Vice City up and running, its listed as not supported but there is a fan patch (which was a simple drag and drop) that adds full controller support and other graphical and performance fixes and it works perfectly.

I have a ton of repacks and cracks downloaded and still need to figure out how to get pirated games to run, seems to be little info online and people are suggesting different methods, Lutris seems to be the main go so I'll try that later and see how it goes.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Probably not too many exclusives you would want to play on the deck given the controls but post 360 era is the time most big releases got decent PC ports with good controller supports so you'll have a huge choice of ports if nothing else. I look forward to playing handheld Oblivion myself.

Oblivion controls like shit without tweaking the controls. The cursor flew all over the place, but even after fixing that it didn't feel smooth so I didn't get far at all. I'm sure enough messing with it would help, but New Vegas played fine right away, so trying Oblivion next was a bit disappointing after that.

 

[The Ghost of Kviv]

There's a mod that changes Oblivion's UI to SkyUI and adds controller support: https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/48577

 

[Stasi]

There's a mod that changes Oblivion's UI to SkyUI and adds controller support: https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/48577

The only issue is that the radial menu quick select thing doesn't work (or didn't when I tried it on PC) so you had to download other controller customisation software. Should not be a big issue on deck, it's got custom control set up built in and I've seen people using the trackpads with custom set ups to make it work well.

I'm yet to fully mess around with installing windows games on mine, been pretty content with playing emulators on it as well as Vice City and San Andreas.

 

[ZMOT]

I wouldn't be too optimistic. A while ago I wanted to play Pathway with a controller and it had no support despite a Switch version also being available, it took the devs forever to patch in controller support on the PC even after releasing a Switch version.

port might have been outsourced, city skylines has a console version but the PC version doesn't (unless it changed in the meantime). no big deal since I assume certain games are a bit of a chore on a screen that small.

 

[KorokiKokoro]

Email came up when I got back from work, wasn't expecting to get one till the end of September but I certainly won't complain.

Wanted to give an update since I've used it for a while, really enjoying it so far and I especially enjoyed using as an emulation device for PS1 and PSP games.

Just a couple of things I want to note:

1. Even though some games say they're unsupported I was able to get some unsupported games running with little issue. Maybe Proton updated and Valve didn't update it's verification yet or maybe they just didn't test it properly. You can also probably install ProtonGE from Flatpak and you might be able to run some games with it like Just Cause 2.

2. For some reason when I got my deck I wasn't able to use the discover app as I kept getting an error message involving the appstream. Being as I was a newbie to Linux I was stumped for about an hour trying to fix it and when I finally found the solution it was on a Reddit post with one comment so I gathered it was just a rare issue some shipped models had. The solution was to just use the terminal to delete and reinstall Flathub and the apps would load again. It is a rare issue though and I imagine most people didn't have this problem so it's not that big of a deal.

 

[Stasi]

really enjoying it so far

How are you finding the ergonomics? Its a bit of a chonker but I've found it very comfortable, people keep comparing it to the Switch for obvious reasons. Ergonomically it is leagues better IMO, I've been playing on deck and slowly going through Dark Souls on Switch and going deck to Switch is honestly painful.

Even though some games say they're unsupported

Is this on steam itself or ProtonDB? I think the steam one is a bit bullshit, like I mentioned GTA games are listed as unsupported but work great. I think its because the base game has no proper controller support and Valve don't want to mark anything as working that requires third party stuff. Incidentally, if anyone plans to play the classic GTA games use this mod. Literally a drag and drop, only issue I found was on Vice City for weapons that have free aim like the heavy machine guns the aim defaults to the right stick. Obviously fucked because the fire button is also on the right side. I just mirrored the B button to one of the rear paddles on deck.

Also, for anyone who wants to move files to the deck, there is a lot of info out there most of which I found to be completely shit. The easiest guide I found was some rando on reddit. Works great for moving roms to set up emulators.

Spoiler: File transfer guide

If you don't want to install anything on Steam Deck there's an easy way to transfer files between Windows and Steam Deck using SCP protocol.

I'd recommend this guide for people who are already familiar with the Linux environment, as usual I don't take any responsibility for any problem that should occur on your Deck, you're doing this at your own risk.

Unless you have a keyboard connected you will have to use the Steam Deck on-screen keyboard to run some of these commands, you can enable it by pressing Steam + X.

On Steam Deck switch to Desktop mode and open a command line (Konsole).

If you haven't done it already, setup a password for the Linux account running the following command.

passwd

Run the following command, this starts the SSH daemon which is required in order to connect using SCP.

sudo systemctl start sshd

Run the following command, this enables the SSH daemon to run automatically whenever you turn on your Steam Deck.

sudo systemctl enable sshd

That's it!

Now on Windows download WinSCP, I recommend the portable version, launch WinSCP and connect to your Steam Deck using SCP protocol, the IP address (you can find this in the Steam Deck settings), the username (in my case it's deck) and the password you previously set. The first time WinSCP will ask if you want to trust the fingerprint, click Yes and you're good to go.

Many folders/files on Steam Deck (including the ones you're probably interested in) are hidden by default. To view these folders/files go to WinSCP Options, Preferences, Panels and check "Show hidden files".

 

[ShitLurker]

Well, fell for the hype and have reserved a 256gb deck. How long more or less you lads think I'll have to wait?

And speaking of emulators. Saw sonethint about emulating directly from the SD card. It's called Batocera.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w3fZa1A68FY

Anybody fiddled with something like that?

And on the topic of Emudeck, running games stored in the SD card works fine?

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

Well, fell for the hype and have reserved a 256gb deck. How long more or less you lads think I'll have to wait?

And speaking of emulators. Saw sonethint about emulating directly from the SD card. It's called Batocera.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w3fZa1A68FY

Anybody fiddled with something like that?

And on the topic of Emudeck, running games stored in the SD card works fine?

The queue has literally caught up. If you just reserved it today you should get your notification tomorrow.

I have no idea about that Batocera but I run everything through my SD and I haven't had any issues.

 

[KorokiKokoro]

How are you finding the ergonomics? Its a bit of a chonker but I've found it very comfortable, people keep comparing it to the Switch for obvious reasons. Ergonomically it is leagues better IMO, I've been playing on deck and slowly going through Dark Souls on Switch and going deck to Switch is honestly painful.

I don't really have any major criticisms in terms of how it feels, it fits in my hands just fine and I've never once felt uncomfortable while holding it. I suppose the remappable paddles at the back can sometimes be a pain but I barely use them anyway.

Is this on steam itself or ProtonDB? I think the steam one is a bit bullshit, like I mentioned GTA games are listed as unsupported but work great. I think its because the base game has no proper controller support and Valve don't want to mark anything as working that requires third party stuff.

It was on Steam's end yeah, I think this may be an issue on Valve's end because the game I played was Trails in the Sky FC which was apparently tested way back in February and hasn't been tested since. The last update for Proton as of writing was in August so it's probably just really outdated. The only issue I had with the game was the d-pad not working but that's fixed through controller settings anyway.

On ProtonDB it has a platinum rating (but still with the unsupported logo) and several user comments saying that the game works perfectly fine on the deck as well so Valve probably just hasn't updated deck verification for a lot of games yet.