I’m not familiar with steam so I planned to buy the steam deck with the condition that I can download windows so I can still play the other half of my games that aren’t on steam. However, someone’s just said the windows isnt supported on oled. Idc too much about quality, but the Oled has more storage so I don’t have to make the hassle of upgrading storage. People are saying wait a bit and eventually windows will be supported but idk. I won’t die without windows but I don’t want to sacrifice a lot of games I want to play. Using any sort of remote play isn’t available for me. Any other options other than buying the LCD?
They already have the APU Windows drivers out for the OLED. I think we’re just waiting on the rest (WiFi, Bluetooth, audio, etc.). If it’s like the first launch, it could take a few weeks to get all the driver on their site, but they’ll come around eventually.
If you only care about playing games with Anti-cheat software, or just using other game launchers in an easier way, then I would look at the ROG Ally or Lenovo Legion Go. Otherwise, the Deck runs almost everything else in its default set up.
Disclaimer, since both decks are functionally the same, albeit with some hardware differences.
Both decks can have windows on them, however they do not come packaged with windows, you will need to install it, ie, dual boot it.
Another thing is that you can run non steam games on the SteamDeck, it has a full desktop mode.
For instance, if you have epic Games/GOG games, you can use heroic launcher etc…
there are plenty of videos and guides that will help you through all of this.
So I would say most non steam games will work on the steam deck, but it will require some amount of initial tinkering, as would be the same with installing windows.
Feel free to ask more question if you need some more clarification!
Is the ROG ally too expensive? The software on that works pretty well actually, SteamOS-like overlay and a functional game launcher that lets you customize stuff. They also update stuff fairly frequently although not a lot has changed. The main downside is the whole SD card reader fiasco, but it’s super easy to exchange the SSD (easier then the deck, they even have cloud recovery so you don’t need a USB boot drive and it auto-installs your drivers).
I’m not sure why you wouldn’t be able to load windows on the Deck but you’d be on your own as far as updating drivers and software and stuff. Valve isn’t going to be working on optimizing for Windows.
It will be supported they already have the APU drivers. I’m sure the Bluetooth and wifi drivers will follow shortly. I have windows for gamepass on steamdeck and love it not sure why so many people complain about it. Make sure to also download powertools and other tools from github and set the UMA buffer size to 4gb.
Windows sucks on handheld. I tried them all now I’m back to a deck just for steam os. No it can’t play every game but it’s so much better to use day to day. Windows really needs to get there shit together.
Windows is pretty gross on these handhelds, it’s what holds the more powerful devices back in comparison to the steam deck. Sure all your launchers work in windows, but windows just isn’t all that good. Battery drain when asleep, games crash when trying to wake, and just other random odd behaviour.