You’re welcome Just thought of some other things. The recent fan-curve improvement has made things warmer but quieter with the slower fan. The Deck is allowed to get warmer without speeding up the fan. This is great for less demanding games. I think the sides of the joysticks or the joystick holders, should be cushioned in some way. I noticed when playing Fallout 4 just now that they’re quite ‘clacky’ when I tap the edges of the joystick holders with the joysticks. Again not so much of an issue with my headphones on. The sound from the speakers is great for a handheld. It’s really hard to give an accurate battery life reply. But … a beautiful looking but undemanding game like Hollow Knight is about 5.5 hours. Fallout 4 just now said I had 59% battery left and estimated 1.25 hours of battery left. The Deck forecasts based on how demanding the game has been as to how long the battery will last. The problem with this Deck guess is that I haven’t got outside yet. I’m indoors at the start of the game and that has to be pretty undemanding graphically. I noticed the fan was most active as I got outside of the starting location in Fallout 4. (Edit: those figures I gave are adjusted for being outdoors and the Deck warmed up) There have only been a few times since buying the power brick that I’ve had to use it. The Deck will announce 10% battery left, then 5%, then 3%. If the game is very demanding it won’t be long after the 3% announcement that it shuts itself down. I’ll start gaming from say 7:30pm to 11pm and not need the brick. Like i said though I’ve put a tonne of hours into Hollow Knight and it doesn’t stretch the Deck at all. Funny enough I have my iPad on an extendable arm off the back of the sofa and in front of my face (great for watching game tips on YT) at about 1.5 to 2 feet away and I’ve had to plug that in to the brick more times. One of the first games I played on the Deck was Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Released 12 years ago. 3rd person game. But it looked lovely on the smaller screen. (Edit: it’s great how old big screen games look wonderful on the small screen) Played really well. The only niggle was that the camera would sometimes be annoying. This isn’t a Deck thing though, it’s been mentioned over years by PC gamers. So I guess if devs set up their cameras properly then there shouldn’t be issues. I’m not missing the widescreen … although if Fallout 4 and Skyrim were properly supported for ultra wide I would most definitely be playing them on my main PC. I moved Hollow Knight from internal to SD and launched the game to menu screen … 26 seconds. Moving the install back to internal and launched is … oops error message. There we go, see it’s not all perfect just yet. Apparently I can’t move HK content to internal because the content is locked … mmmmk. Restarting Deck. And … done. Moved HK no problems. /shrug Valve is improving everything a lot. In the first weeks we were getting updates every day. Now it’s every few days. Anyway - launching HK from internal … 25 seconds. During the HK launches, Steam does its usual cloud sync and decoding launch files or whatever the security is it uses, then you see the Team Cherry dev logo appear and then a “this game saves … do not turn off” screen, then to menu. I’m guessing the fix could be done in software. I remember moving from quality ball mice to optical and having the same issue. And from optical to laser had the same issue initially. Now we’re all back to optical. Lifting the mouse and replacing was an issue until the hardware manufacturers fixed it. Thank god. It’s the browsing and how some content is displayed. I had the Index and Half-Life: Alyx was an incredible VR experience. But unless Valve commits to putting out a quality VR game every year or two then I think VR hardware is only to be revisited every 5 years. So I’m now sitting and waiting to see what new hardware comes out over the next 2 or 3 years.
awesome write up. I cant honestly wait for my deck, hoping to get the email any day . Have a screen protector, micro sd and 512 m.2 for it waiting (got the 64gb model). My main plan to use it is gonna be on my hour lunch break at work, and at night occasionally before bed, i spend alot of my day at work, at night studying (ccna currently), so i give myself like an hour or a tad longer to chill with a game or a book depending on my mood. (sometimes audio book or whatever), but very much looking forward to this one.
I think you’ll be happy. One other thing I love … the power button will put the Deck to sleep. So I can be playing a game and suddenly remember I had to leave the house for something - I don’t have to get my character to a save position, not go through the menus and save - I just tap the power button and it sleeps that exact moment in time. Ina few seconds as well, really quick. 24 hours later tap the power button to start playing - a few seconds - the game is right there where I left it. These are the YT channels I follow for Deck news and reviews. https://youtube.com/c/DeckReady https://youtube.com/c/FanTheDeck https://youtube.com/c/Gamingonlinux https://youtube.com/c/ModernVintageGamer https://youtube.com/c/MrSujano https://youtube.com/c/NerdNest https://youtube.com/c/pcgamer https://youtube.com/c/Pc-gamingIt https://youtube.com/c/RetroGameCorps https://youtube.com/c/ThePhawx All of these channels have put out some good Deck content.
Do let us know how you get on with the storage upgrade - I'd also be tempted to go this route if it's not too much faff...
Deck came, really nice little machine, an hour in decided time to up the storage, so out with the ifix it tool kit, easy to open, out with the old, in with the new, fire in a usb with the steam recovery image and wola, 512gb steam deck for £390 all in, got a few accessories too, grabbed a matte screen protector from brotech, a usb c to usb a adapter and a usb c hub with hdmi out etc. So far i have installed about 25 odd steam games, most of which seem to work really well. Emulation station, of which all the usual lower tier ones worked fine, gba, snes, n64 (surprisinging smooth), sega, ps1 etc Ps2 nfs carbon was a tad ..... jittery, but i havent played with any settings as of yet. Added some non steam games that i had from disk, very varied results, Assassins creed 2 just would not work no matter what i tried, same with the need for speeds, underground 2 and carbon, eventually got the Ubisoft connect software working and rebought ac2 to see if it worked (was a quid), and wola, ac2 working. Dont seem to be digital version of NFS i can buy tho oddly on origin so will look at that later. Battery is very very varied, but on average im hitting about 2-3 hours, cant complain, does my lunch break for an hour, and in the evening, fire it on charge and its good for the next day. The linux os is fairly nice, enabled ssh to save my self going back and forth with usb drives etc, overall tho, so far very happy with it.
Sounds an absolute winner! Couple of questions on this if I may: does whipping out the internal storage leave it with onboard OS storage or do you have to clone across to your new drive? do you know if it takes any more than 512GB, or is that a hard limit? what's the fastest type interface drive it can handle (I'm assuming PCIe3)? where did you get a 512GB for £50, or was it lying around? Cheers bud!
No cloning the system, just switched out the nvme drive like a pc, they have a recovery image you just reflash using usb like installing an os, same thing. Its not hard limited, people are putting 1tb inside but thats way out of my budget I had ordered the ssd on ebay about 7 months ago, i bought it in anticipation of the steam deck, so at that time it was a pure gamble, i thought, when these release the price will go up, and it has getting a 512 now is 80 quid plus. i have to say tho, very very much loving this thing. Even tho theres alot of tinkering you have to do if you wanna get certain things to dun, its still been great.
well didnt get an email, but did get a notification on steam app on my pc just now. despite having a aya neo and a one x player i cant wait
I still haven’t gone back to my main PC yet. Just happy on the sofa; headphones on; Deck in hand. I’ve bought a load of Deck Verified games (Valve were betting on this I guess). But I have a big library of games that I’m going back over, and the Deck has breathed new life into them. Still haven’t got round to emulation. That’s going to keep me busy for a long time when I eventually do it.
Im a tad gutted as im not getting as much time as id like with the new job, alot more travel involved, well until next week, start on my 2 days wfh which is good, save me some petrol as well . But i have loaded up a whole bunch of games, surprised how many games thats not from steam work on it, not just emulation, i have like the tell me why collection on the ms store, was pretty much a drag and drop of the files to the deck and point steam and proton at it and away it went, had to do the artwork a little custom but worked a treat. Tbh im missing assassins creed, totally gonna complete the ezio series again, so good
Got my deck a few days ago. Some games work great, still trying to figure out setting custom control settings.
Really is a cracking device, i have spend alot of time tinkering with it ..... maybe more than playing with it in some cases. Loving the old nfs games, what you planning on playing on it
Im trying to get bloodbowl 2 working but its challenging me. I have been really enjoying "Into The Breach", also starting a fallout 4 play through, might try some Xcom too.
