I don’t sound old, I am old. Remember Wang?

Never played games on a pc or phone etc. The Deck opened up a whole new world of games and getting away from console brain was liberating.

Glad you’re liking it!

There’s a lot of needless worry over Proton. I simply do not understand why.

It’s not like rolling back BIOS or installing outdated drivers because the new ones break everything, etc.

Check out these:

Users often (not always) post their working Proton version for any particular game on ProtonDB. There’s even a Decky plugin for ProtonDB so you don’t have to leave gaming mode.

Install ProtonUp-QT from the Discover Store and it’ll scan the games you have on your Deck and recommend which version to use, if that game is in ProtonUP-QT’s database.

And for any itch dot io game, just always use GE. It’s a miracle. You’ll find many useful tools along the way and yes, Linux is the only way to go, IMO.

It’s replaced my consoles entirely.

I got a Steam Deck to get away from the AAA/PSN/Xbox OnePass or whatever it’s called mindset, and I’ve never had any interest in PC gaming.

Consoles evolved the way cable TV did. Early cable didn’t have commercials; you already paid for content delivery by paying for cable. Now cable TV has wall-to-wall commercials just like air TV and you pay for cable also. The main reason I haven’t watched any TV at all in … decades.

That’s how consoles work these days. Sony, MS & Nintendo want subscription fees, shark cards, all that bullshit, on top of buying the games and the consoles themselves.

I tried to give my PS4 to a relative and even they didn’t want it. ‘Last gen’ blah blah blah.

My Xbox is a dedicated DVD player ever since my DVD blu-ray player kicked the bucket.

You most likely won’t need to use it anyways, at least I don’t, except:

I play a lot of itch games which are almost all Unity K&M games, and I have to use GE on all those games. I’m grateful for it.

I haven’t used anything but a Deck in over a year - no pads, never play on computer, etc. The Deck replaced my PS4 & Xbox One.

The Deck is extremely comfortable.

At the moment, I actually prefer the heavier OG over the OLED I just got. Last night I was working with both my OG and also OLED and I could feel the difference. But I’ll get used to it.

Forgot to add, you don’t have to install your games, you can just launch them through itch as regular, which is a good reason why to put the itch launcher as a non-Steam game.

I just did this for itch dot io. Not the others.

I used a program called Lutris, which is available in the Discovery Store. Download Lutris from the discovery store and it installs to Games on your application launcher, the Steam icon on the taskbar all the way to the left.

From there, open up Lutris. You might see some update screens, just let it run.

Now you have to add itch to Lutris. So:

In Lutris, press the + button in the upper left corner, select the first option and type in ‘itch.io’ (minus the '), select it and it installs the itch launcher into Lutris. Make sure to tick the box that says ‘make desktop shortcut’, you’ll need that.

You’ll get a bunch of installation screens, when that’s done you’ll get a ‘launch’ option but just ignore it and close out of everything.

This process will put a desktop icon for itch. It looks like a blank sheet of paper.

Right click on that, and select ‘add to Steam’. Now it’s a non-Steam game you can access from Game Mode just like any other game. You can delete that shortcut now if you want.

And that’s it.

That might sound laborious and all but it’s really simple. The hardest part is waiting for all the download/installation/configuration stuff to run.

In Game Mode just launch itch like any other game and you get the itch launcher and log into your account. From here you can install and update your itch games.

One thing to bear in mind is that itch installs your games but uses Wine, so they install on the c:\\ drive, which is hidden. So make sure you note where itch is installing your games so when you go to desktop to add your itch games as non-Steam games, you’ll need to tick ‘show hidden files’ and then just navigate to the subfolder where the .exe file is. All your itch games will be in that subfolder. This works just like Windows, if that helps.

Since the subfolder with all your games is like 6 subfolders deep, you can right click on that subfolder and make a desktop shortcut for it, so when you want to add a game that shortcut will take you directly to the itch games subfolder. All your itch games install to that one subfolder so the shortcut is super handy.

I’ve installed about 60 itch games this way. They all run perfectly but make sure you use Glorious Eggroll as compatibility.

Sorry this was so long.

If you can afford it, no worries.

Like, I won’t buy anything I’d have to pay interest on. So I have a limit in place and it’s not too damn high, I’m afraid.

I think a lot of people are like this.

But I was able to afford an OLED, and having been spoiled since the Vita, I got one, and it’s pretty amazing (except for the D-pad which I find so stiff it’s interfering with gameplay so I’m keeping my OG as well). Others might find the D-pad perfect, so I’ll caveat saying ‘the D-pad is not good for me’.

Oh they run so great. The originals of III & VC (and the stories games) & Chinatown Wars are mindblowing good. Plus you can get the original VC - the one that didn’t get changed to ease up on the Haitian prejudice. I have that copy physically.

Also playing Mario Tennis and the PSX WipeOouts. The Phantom mod for WipeOut 1 is amazing.

The Deck is emulation royalty, really.

I don’t have nothing but the box it came in, and the inserts, the cord that came with it, and the carrying case that also came with it.

No interest in the GO but I did wonder what will/would happen if Lenovo runs out of tablets.

I get at least one of these every day. Mine are like a little .png with the USPS logo and all.

Just found out this is called ‘smishing’.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who saw the picture and thought, ‘Steam Dick’.

Did anyone else find this inordinately stressful? I mean we’ve all been through some tough shit, between all of us here we can tick off every box, but this for some strange reason was agony.

If you’re into emulation, there’s an awesome turn based card game called Culdcept that’s too good to miss. PS2. I still have my physical copy, some things you just don’t want to part with.

I’m committed to my Deck, will be getting an OLED, the Deck has, without exaggeration, replaced by PS4 & Xbox One. I never played games on PC. And each day the Deck astonishes me more.

I’m giving my Ally to a relative but as I loath Windows for all kinds of reasons, including political ones, I did find it easy to use because: I used a few scripts and stripped it down to its bare minimum. It’s unusable as a PC. But it feels and even kind of works like a lightweight distro.

Note that I’m an atypical Ally user. I only play itch and Steam games, and emulations. But that’s what the Deck is for, and where it really shines. I have no use for Xbox pass or the latest heavy games etc., so the Ally turned out to be totally redundant, for me.

I can’t complain though, after stripping it down to the point of unusability as a PC, it was pretty easy to use as a games device.

Yeah we can prove proof of purchase and all that, but it will be out of warranty come end of November. So an RMA isn’t such a concern. Since he’s really into the newest Xbox games and Windows, he might just chuck it in the closet anyway, which is fine. But he might take to it, who knows. It’s still hands down the best handheld games machine and handheld computer out there.

I have a 512 from that last sale and will eventually get on the queue for an OLED, so there will be three units tied to my account. (I’ll never part with the LCD 512, it’s set up with ~150 itch games for which I scraped the artworks individually, no way am I doing that again).) It’s just unclear to me what, in practical terms, three units on one account means. On the other hand, probably 90% of resales are just factory resets, so at the end of the day, I guess it shouldn’t matter.

Pardon me for not checking first but how do you uncouple your serial number from your account? I’m giving my old 256 to a family member. (I keep my 512 bwa.)

My Deck is my only gaming platform since getting it a year ago, and I love it.

But I was also spoilt by the Switch & Vita OLED.

I’m gonna try to get a 512, but I reckon the second the buy option comes up they’ll all be gone anyways.

I hear ya but for a different reason. I scroll past half this sub coz I have zero interest in Balduers Gate 69 or Starfried or whatever the hell these AAAAAAAAAAAAAA games are called. I bought a Deck to get away from that culture. Fortunately, the Deck ticks off every point I needed ticked off. It’s just great, and the new Deck will be great, too.