I am currently interested in buying myself a steam deck. I mostly play AAA games, but I’ve read some posts here where people talk about the steam deck not being able to run current day AAA games very well. I’m kinda worried that the deck won’t be able to play AAA titles that release over the next 3-4 years and that I’ll be wasting hundreds of dollars if I bought one today. If I am ok with playing games at 30 fps, would it be a good decision to buy the deck now for AAA gaming?
Define AAA. Specifically, what console generation’s AAA games are you looking to play? The Steam Deck is roughly equivalent to a PS4 in terms of power. So PS4-gen and cross-gen AAA games should run fine on Steam Deck at 30fps. Games that exclusively target the current PS5/Xbox Series consoles on the console front will likely exhibit sub-30 frame rates on Steam Deck, with some exceptions of well-optimised games that can still be made to run well. And certainly don’t expect AAA games from the next generation a few years down the line to run well (or at all) on Steam Deck.
… But PS4 titles (OLD) PS4 AAA’s don’t run well. My first 3 AAA’s titles were HZD, Days Gone & later GOW - I had all 3 on my PS5 but these came at a cost of £150 on Steam.
I primarily want play AAA’s - my 512gb can’t play them well - lots of slowdown, low fps. I now play those same games via Chiaki because it trounces the Steam duplicates.
I’m going for the Legion Go once the 1tb comes to the UK market. The other way would be to put up with the limitations of my much slower Deck until the Z2 extreme becomes the new chipset to have in a year or so.
Chiaki & PS5 is a great combination, I just wanted the 8.8’ screen now, I can read all the text on screen easily, I struggle with the Deck.
No.
Yup. Steam Deck was more than enough to get rid of my PS5.
Personally, I rely on more powerful hardware (laptop, in my case) to play anything the Steam Deck can’t at full speed. A lot of the more demanding AAAs not only run at an inconsistent 30fps, but require potato settings to get there. Now, I do have more powerful Windows handhelds, but if I have choose between the convenience of SteamOS with several hours of battery life vs Windows jank with 1 hr of gameplay max, I’m taking the Steam Deck every time. I’m playing through Last of Us Part 1 right now, and while it doesn’t run well on Steam Deck, running it better on the ROG Ally will mean I have to be tethered to the wall. At that point, I may as well just use a laptop which will run it much, much better.
Tl;dr No handheld plays all games well. Handheld Windows is atrocious. Use Steam Deck/SteamOS for anything it does well, do the rest on a laptop.
I did the same, more or less. I got mine with the grand idea of AAA titles, but the indies more than stole my heart. I’m playing my Steam Deck more than my Series X and computer though, for what that counts
Honestly, the Steam Deck is barely hitting stable 30fps in AAA games that came out this year. 3-4 years from now on? Nah, future’s looking dim, buddy.
I am currently interested in buying myself a steam deck. I mostly play AAA games
Then I would say: no
Playing AAA games like this:
- 7" screen
- 30fps
- low settings
- Steam Deck fans on full tilt
Is just not great. Sure its better then nothing if you are on the go. But if you are at home - its 10x better to play the games on a big TV with proper sound system and much improved FPS / graphical fidelity.
Also BEWARE !!!
- There are already AAA games on the deck that dont run / run like dog-poop.
- And it will get worse with more modern game releases