Soooo been eyeing a SteamDeck for awhile now and thinking of grabbing one. I don’t have a PC and at this time, I don’t have any space to own one anyways. I do play whatever steam games I can on my MacBook but it’s… rough to say the least. Would love everybody’s thoughts on one, pros, cons, etc. I am completely new but I’ve read that only certain games work on it, others not at all, and then some that do but aren’t SteamDeck “verified”? I believe that’s the way it was listed. Again, completely new so not sure. Welcome all suggestions, thoughts, opinions, etc.
Proton db has a more complete list of what runs and what doesn’t, as well as what tweaks they may need.
Compatibility is going to be way better than a Mac though. You could always hook up a mouse and keyboard if you want to use it like a regular computer too.
Verified games will run pretty much perfectly, tested themselves by Valve. Playable games will also run p much great most of the time but you’ll have to tinker with some settings. Unsupported games are either not working or haven’t been tested yet.
What I recommend:
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Think of what games you want to play on the steam deck. Doesn’t have to be steam games, anything. Emulation, other launchers, whatever
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Go on protondb and look at if people have gotten it to work. (or go on the steam store and check the badge - but I prefer proton for the non verified games)
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Go on youtube and look for actual gameplay of the thing on the deck. There are a million videos of people just trying to run the most obscure games on there
An option step would be to go to https://steamdeckhq.com/ and check their reviews on the game and what settings they run it at.
This will probably greatly reduce your anxiety about whether something works or not.
If you can play most of the stuff you want? buy it.
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do you have a small list of the kind of games you want to play? the main problems are games with anti cheat and games with their own launchers. games with anti cheat you can check https://areweanticheatyet.com/ to see if your game works on the deck. if you’re adamant about playing those games you’re better off dual booting or installing windows, or getting an ally/legion go or something
for games with their own launchers, it can get annoying. rockstar launcher sometimes breaks games for me and whatever ea calls their client now occasionally breaks too. they get resolved and the community usually has some fixes. its annoying but works most of the time, at least for the games i play
i play a lot of deck unverified games and jrpgs. most deck unverified games work well for me and if they don’t, the latest proton from the protonup-qt app usually fixes it https://davidotek.github.io/protonup-qt/. same with jrpgs. else you can hop over to https://www.protondb.com/ to see community comparability rankings, tips, and fixes