You are sacrificing power for mobility and playability with the Steam Deck. I own both a Steam Deck and a gaming PC, and I use each for different games. These days, modern AAA gaming often can’t run on Steam Deck well, including some hits like Baldurs Gate 3 (in the 3rd Act, the rest is fine). However, 75% of my overall gaming time is on the Deck these days. The ability to turn it on and just start playing on the couch or in bed is fantastic, and the support for different control schema like gyro and touchpads make it incredibly playable.
A modest PC is going to push better graphics and higher refresh rates, and will also make some games actually playable, but this becomes a decent sacrifice in mobility and convenience.
If mobility is merely a bonus and your deck would be docked the vast majority of the time, I’d go PC, but I suggest seriously considering the convenience of portable play even within your home. The OLED screen is wonderful for years-old AAA games that go for 2 dollars on Sale, indies, and more. I’m absolutely having a blast with Crosscode and intend on moving over to Another Crab’s Treasure and Nine Sols next.
I honestly haven’t considered using the steam deck in my house outside of the dock. Playing on the couch is definitely an enticing idea. The prospect of poor AAA support isn’t a huge deal. Baldurs gate 3, the new dragon age, the new Warhammer game (if that’s considered AAA), helldivers, and the new god of war games are the only recent titles that have jumped out at me. I’ve really wanted to get more into indie games, theres so many that seem interesting and innovative, and with the pace of steam deck adoption, I feel like I wouldn’t be missing out on much with it. I’m still 50/50 on the decision. Gaming around the house has definitely given me something more to consider though!
The Steam Deck is how I prefer to play the majority of indies, so if that’s your goal, it’s great. Watch performance videos though of games you are interested in.
I played through all of BG3 with no issues. It was a pleasure. The only real graphics hiccup I had was when i stacked barrel after barrel of smoke powder in Gortash’s throne room and one shotted him.
whether you go handheld or desktop PC depends on what you plan to play and how often you play “handheld” and “sitting at home”
can I throw in an odd alternative 3rd option. Not the steam deck specifically, but many of the windows gaming handhelds have USB 4 support. with that, they enable the user to use an external GPU if they wanted. So if you wanted a better “docked experience” you can get one later down the line and treat it like some middle ground from having a “desktop” pc and handheld pc on demand. down the line you can choose to upgrade one experience or the other when the time is right if you would like a middle of a choice option.
this option is not very setting friendly though, as youd constnatly have to switch back and forth if you choose this path
Whichever way I went, I was planning to use Linux for my OS, so I haven’t really considered a windows handheld until now. I might have to look into those a bit more. I’m not opposed to windows per se, but I do like how light most Linux distros are. It would free up more resources for gaming, and considering my budget, I could definitely use the extra wiggle room haha
I play pretty much everything on my steamdeck. For price vs usability, it’s incredible. It’s also nice that you can get an idea of how games work on it before you buy them, so you don’t get stuck with a game that won’t run on your computer.
It’s also nice that you can get an idea of how games work on it before you buy them
Oh interesting, you mean like the “verified on deck” thing? Or are performance stats accessible easily? I don’t have one so I’m not exactly sure, but this does sound nice. I feel a lot of stress sometimes if I need to spend a long time playing with graphics options during the 2 hour refund window
So, you have deck verified vs playable vs unsupported and you have protondb scores to let you know how playable the game should be. Beyond that, developers try to hit steamdeck playable as a development goal. They won’t try to optimize for your computer, since they don’t know what you’re running, but they have the specs for the steamdeck, so they try to make it run on that!
That’s definitely an added bonus. Having been a console player for the majority of my life, learning and researching parts and compatibility has been a bit confusing for me. Especially since I was planning to build a Linux machine. I like that building a PC offers versatility and an opportunity to upgrade parts down the line for a better experience/ longer lifespan, but there’s something to be said for the convenience of knowing that something will just work out of the box
There will be ways to force your Windows 10 machine to pull down the continued updates meant for government and extended support contracts, just like there was for Windows 7.
Not a good or particularly safe way to keep your PC, and even the extended updates will stop eventually, but worth knowing in case anyone is afraid of making the full switch to Linux.
Only complaint at this point is the desktop system blocks unfocused windows from capturing keypresses. (A sensible security measure).
But it prevents Discord from picking up my PTT keybind when not in a full screen game.
the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames
Fun fact for those interested the STALKER series was partially inspired by the book A Roadside Picnic. A movie was released in 1979 that was also inspired by it named Stalker.
I tried it, found it had horrible latency, and threw it in a box.
I’ve been using the (wired) Gamesir T4 Kaleid on my desktop and loving it.
I’ve been using an XBox Elite (the one that worked, not the one I sent back because the trigger was broken) and it’s been okay, but the dead zones are much, much larger than the Kaleid. I looked at Gamesir’s wireless options, but wasn’t impressed with the reviews, so I haven’t tried any yet.
Yeah, it does. This can sometimes require launching steam in Big Picture Mode first, then select the game you want. A bit annoying to take that extra step but Steam has upped their ps5 controller support lately.
But I play mostly from gog, and my Intel GPU doesn’t play nice with the steam overlay (transparency becomes black and everything becomes 5 fps)
Also it means I have to waste 15 precious minutes troubleshooting the game. Pad isn’t recognized, try via steam, add it manually, see if it works via xinput, and so on.
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