Valve introduces Steam Deck

[The_Red_Man]

As for setting up emulation on Steam Deck there is Emudeck.

Eden is a currently maintained fork of Yuzu if you want to do Switch emulation. People complained of other emulators not being able to handle Tears of The Kingdom. On Eden, it's actually playable. There's some additional guides on getting it working right on the Deck, such as PowerTools or adjusting memory clocks in the BIOS. It's not hard, and also hard to break shit on Deck uness you're REALLY trying.

As far as playing really demanding games, Steam Link exists and works well. I honestly use my deck as a companion to that because I can't really stay lashed to my desk, but I'm still at home and might want to play something when I'm on the shitter or settling down for the night in bed. All the PS2 games I've tried work great and RetroAchievements makes things interesting.

All in all I recommend it. Wait for them to go on sale. I got the 512GB OG one for like $350, and micro SD cards are cheap as fuck.

 

[GeorgeFloydFentanylStash]

You guys reckon the Steam Deck is worth it in 2025? I know there's the ASUS Rog Ally X, Legion Go and others but I've been eyeing up the 1TB OLED and getting cold feet knowing there are competitors, but I unironically trust Valve in their quality.

Absolutely yes. I don’t play UE5 games. And i go out of my way to avoid 99% of those games. But i’ve gotten some decent performance out of 2077 by going with the recommended steamdeck settings. Halo MCC ran like a dream. Emulation is great up until you start with PS3/360, then it gets spotty. If you want to see performance, i’d just go to youtube and search whatever game name with Steamdeck at the end.

Even games i’ve pirated like Rebirth and GoT work good on it. However if you get the LED version, you might find out you’re sensitive to PWM. Sometimes it makes my eyes tired and i need to nap. No device has done this to me

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/1337

 

[hog cranking frog]

Anyone looking to improve upon Steam Link give Sunshine/Moonlight a try. https://github.com/FrogTheFrog/moondeck

Uses similar tech under the hood for games steaming but you have a lot more control over the bittate and latency than with vanilla Steam Link. Found it's a lot more reliable.

 

[A pig by Jove!]

Eden is a currently maintained fork of Yuzu if you want to do Switch emulation. People complained of other emulators not being able to handle Tears of The Kingdom. On Eden, it's actually playable. There's some additional guides on getting it working right on the Deck, such as PowerTools or adjusting memory clocks in the BIOS. It's not hard, and also hard to break shit on Deck uness you're REALLY trying.

As far as playing really demanding games, Steam Link exists and works well. I honestly use my deck as a companion to that because I can't really stay lashed to my desk, but I'm still at home and might want to play something when I'm on the shitter or settling down for the night in bed. All the PS2 games I've tried work great and RetroAchievements makes things interesting.

All in all I recommend it. Wait for them to go on sale. I got the 512GB OG one for like $350, and micro SD cards are cheap as fuck.

Never used Eden myself, but I'm pretty sure Emudeck also gives you the option to install a Ryujinx fork called Ryubing, or at least operates on a "bring your own package" principle for it. It's been too long since I installed it. Either way, I use that particular fork to play MHGU with friends. The netplay works great, it still seems to be the most active option at least for emulated GU, and the game itself runs like a dream even after applying a 60FPS patch. I'm guessing that for heavier titles Yuzu forks still hold the crown though.

 

[There Is Light At The End]

So, I have been using steam deck for almost 2 months. It's great so far. Even pirated a few games like cyberpunk and elden ring. They run pretty good. And that's because Valve used common sense in design - you don't need super-duper mega HD resolution with 6 gorillion Hz on such small screen. I'm old enough to remember that lowering resolution improves framerate

 

[Hooked on phobics]

So, I have been using steam deck for almost 2 months. It's great so far. Even pirates a few games like cyberpunk and elden ring. They run pretty good. And that's because Valve used common sense in design - you don't need super-duper mega HD resolution with 6 gorillion Hz on such small screen. I'm old enough to remember that lowering resolution improves framerate

Get a hardshell / screen protector. A few other accessories like a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse go miles

Glad you like it though, and got that and not a switch 2

 

[regalterry]

And that's because Valve used common sense in design

Basically the Gameboy vs Game Gear situation.

Nintendo could have used a better screen for the Gameboy, but they correctly recognized that battery life and price were more important than flashy doodads, and thus basically won the market for the next 20 years.

They only released a version with a better screen and backlight when technology had advanced far enough to make such features energy efficient and cheap to use in manufacture.

Valve too is doing something like this, relying more on the robustness of the hardware and software, than in trying to make it the most powerful portable PC on the market.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Basically the Gameboy vs Game Gear situation.

Nintendo could have used a better screen for the Gameboy, but they correctly recognized that battery life and price were more important than flashy doodads, and thus basically won the market for the next 20 years.

They only released a version with a better screen and backlight when technology had advanced far enough to make such features energy efficient and cheap to use in manufacture.

Valve too is doing something like this, relying more on the robustness of the hardware and software, than in trying to make it the most powerful portable PC on the market.

Nintendo is just greedy, they could've had a backlit screen and still made it affordable. Maybe even color too. The real reason Game Boy win is it had good games. It launched with Mario and Tetris. If anything they'd probably have fared even better than they did, and their competitors worse.

 

[regalterry]

Game Boy win is it had good games.

Game Gear had good games too, it launched back when SEGA was hitting Nintendo where it hurt.

The problem was that it ate batteries, had a much shorter battery life, the better screen made it more expensive and the need to make colored, higher resolution sprites probably increased development costs.

Call them greedy if you want, but I maintain that every design choice during the Gameboy development was deliberate, and the goal was not simply cutting costs.

 

[There Is Light At The End]

Get a hardshell / screen protector. A few other accessories like a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse go miles

Glad you like it though, and got that and not a switch 2

I already have glass screen protector. Since I play on deck in my bed, so kb+m is redundant.
Edit:
It's so easy to use, especially if you have some skills with Linux. I launched OpenMW on it