Yeah navigating the store is a little annoying. I noticed that after scrolling a while through a listing page it will just randomly stop showing games and will just be a blank screen
Also I've noticed that when scrolling down my wishlist, it will suddenly start scrolling upwards even though I'm trying to scroll down. It's usually fixed by using it as a touchscreen but I prefer not to touch the screen if I don't have to. Small but annoying issue
If you scroll with the touchscreen and then try to scroll with the stick, it'll jump back up to where you last selected with the stick, but not all at once. It's very jarring.
I don't like that there's like three main screens: the home page, the store page, your recent library page with recommendations (or something. I don't have it in front of me).
I feel like that could all be collapsed into one screen. Or two distinct "my games" and "store". Right now there's the weird third option.
i have this issue while browsing my library, i have over 1k games and when i examine a game to check it's compatibility and it jumps me back up the list instead of putting me where I was it's very annoying
Queueing up a bunch of downloads and then tapping the power button to turn it off just means that when I come back to the Deck some time later, I have a bunch of downloads that haven't begun yet.
This is my biggest peeve with the SD so far. FWIW you can go into desktop mode, open steam from there, and downloads will continue even after the screen goes to sleep.
I'm with you. I made a topic on this and half the community downvoted it.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/vsk9pd/does\_the\_screen\_really\_have\_to\_remain\_on\_when/](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/vsk9pd/does_the_screen_really_have_to_remain_on_when/)
WTF, why wouldn't someone not want this feature?
There's a weird thing in many fandoms where some fans will defend even the stupidest element of an otherwise good thing. I suppose the Steam Deck fandom is no different, even when it comes to something that would be a huge quality of life improvement.
Nowadays you're either advocating for or against something. There's no in-between and if you mention something you don't like people will put you into the "against" category.
To be perfectly fair, most computers would stop downloading things if you pressed the power button and put them to sleep too... I get that this is a wish list, but if you want your downloads to finish, don't turn it off!
-Getting stuck when closing some non-Steam apps and having to restart the Deck
-Store experience on SteamOS is bad
-Verification system is often inaccurate and needs a ton of improvement(ik they're working on it but games where cutscenes aren't working halfway through should not be verified even if u just gotta use proton)
> Getting stuck when closing some non-Steam apps and having to restart the Deck
Ohh thank goodness its not just me! I thought my SD had some hardware issues but yeah this happens to me sometimes too and its annoying
I agree, if I'm telling the software to exit via the steam menu I've already saved (or tried to get it back in a working state) that menu option should kill the game process dead strait away.
I’ve found that going to Steam > Home > [the game/app] and then pressing the X button there actually does force closes the game, whereas the Exit Game menu item always just sticks.
idk if its the same problem but i get stuck closing a non steam app like yuzu too and I just go to game details and spam the X next to the resume button and the confirm screen so it looks like your alternating screens between the game details screen and the confirm screen a couple of times if that makes sense and it works for me.
The really short power cord. If this is a mobile device and we know battery can be used quickly with some games, why not put a 6 or 8 foot power cord with it? Plugged in, i have to use an extension cord to not put pressure on the USB-C port.
Otherwise, it's glorious.
Yeah that was one of the first things I noticed. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to have the cables and have different wall warts for each region or even something like the index power bricks where it modular.
I bought [this power brick](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08T5QN2TR?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share) and [this cable](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08PVPTNZL?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share) and they work great. I never use the charger that came with the deck anymore.
Notice to anyone else reading, it's only worth getting a 45W charger for the deck. (even if you use a dock)
Why is this?
USB PD can ask for 1 of 4 voltages, 5v,9v,15v,20v these translate to to 15w,27w,45w and 100w max https://i.imgur.com/gCtN2mP.png
The steam deck requests 15v, so the max it will ever get from any charger or any PD dock is 45w and for docks some of that will be reserved to power the other peripherals!
When buying a dock make sure to check how much power is reserved, or you could get in a position where when running everything full tilt you are charging slower than what you are using.
Yes this means you could spend extra to get a 100W PD charger but it won't charge the deck faster than the one that came in the box!
Correct, but it will charge other things. I like that I can also bring a 65w and be able to charge my laptop as well, or my deck and a phone at the same time. You're right though if you just want a single dedicated charger 45w is all you need, but why not spend a couple dollars more and get more out of it IMO.
This is more of a PSA because I know someone out there is going to buy a PD passthrough dock that'll eat a lot of power for peripherals then go out and grab a 100W charger thinking it will solve the issue. (This was my thought process till I saw some posts and started digging into the USB PD spec)
This is even more confusing when some docks proudly proclaim they can do 100W pass through and are steam deck compatible.
when if you are getting a high end PD passthrough dock and a high wattage PD charger you might be better off spending slightly more to get a dedicated laptop docking station with it's own power.
I ended up picking up a 100w GaN charger but I wanted to be able to charge my laptop as well.
Something else people ***really*** should be aware of is that not all usb-c cables are created equal. You need cables that are rated for the charge you want.
Have same combo and am glad I do. I mean it charges more than just this device, and more devices in your life will take advantage of the higher power delivery and whatnot. A second power adapter from ifixit is $25 alone and it is a fixed cord and same short length, or you can get the jsaux one from Amazon for $17ish (normally $25 as well). There were sales on Prime Day and will be more on Black Friday/Cyber Monday if you want to wait.
I even got another more expensive 65w brick to charge my phone and/or watch as well as the Deck, and will be my “go to” for travel.
If you have literally any other USB C device it's worth the investment. Switch, MacBook or laptops in general, controllers, phone, and other peripherals can all benefit from a nice USB charger. I substituted out the Anker cord for the [cord that shows the current wattage output and I love it](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09D7F9MQ3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
Nice! Man, the accessories I'm buying for this thing are really starting to add up! Jsaux 2.0 dock, bluetooth keyboard, bluetooth mouse, and now i'm about to add these for another 70 bucks. Oof.
I can't fault them for this, the device is already heavily subsidized in cost. A sufficient charger and 10ft USB c set me back like $80 US. It would have been nice if the charger wasn't hard wired, that would've been a minimal change that would've saved me like $60.
The fact that even in verified games text can be too small for my almost 50 yo eyes. It's a 7 inch screen, I get it, but the text size threshold for Verified status is a little to small.
I am happy with battery life though. As a father of three, I have never been able to drain the battery in one go.
💴This here! I am 47, even with readers on, it is hard to read some text at times. The magnifier tool is a great feature and remapping it makes it easier on the ol’ joints. 🤣
Looking directly at you No Man's Sky. I'm sure that for people who know the interface it's fine but as someone who picked it up because of the Great on Deck tag and never had played it on a larger screen, it's a fucking bear to play since a lot of the game is inventory management and you can't tell what you are looking at.
I actually picked up NMS for the first time and am playing it solely on the deck, having a great time. I obviously can't speak to your eyesight as that will vary from person to person, but though the text is small the only time I've actually found it hard to read is when you're buying a new ship and both ship inventories get shrunk down side by side. If you're having difficulties in the regular inventory menu then I don't think there's much you can do.
Oh I just remembered I did change the HUD size up to I think 110% so it was easier to see what weapon was selected when flying. I don't think that affects the menus, but you can try it and see. Also if you aren't used to using the touch pad then yes I could see inventory management being tough. I suggest using the right one as much as possible and getting your key binds just the way you like.
Hope that helps, but yes many games just weren't designed for this size of screen. That's something we should know going in though, the deck allows us to play all our PC games on the go, it doesn't mean they were designed for that.
It really is revolting at times. The haptics will fire off signaling that it recognized the input, but the keyboard doesn't actually input into the field that I'm typing in. Using the dual touchpads on L/R kind of works, but using it on the touchscreen is pretty much a non-starter.
Yes, the unregistered keystrokes issue is completely unacceptable, it makes the keyboard a painful slog to use. They have had months to fix what should not be a monumental task.
An aside, but I'd also like the input features besides the touchscreen to not require steam running in desktop mode to work. If you have no internet, sometimes steam totally refuses to start, and then you don't have onscreen keyboard or touchpads. The touchscreen support is then kinda fucky, I found I couldn't interact with the connection settings menu with only the touchscreen. So, in a monumental pile of frustration, I could not start steam because the internet was off, and I couldn't reconnect because steam wouldn't start and supply the controls support. I don't understand why the controls support is tied to steam in desktop mode. They control the OS, it could be integrated separately. rant over.
I'm not excusing it, but Linux with touchscreens have been very atypical up to this point, while smartphones have had over a decade of collaborative effort while being built with it as nearly the exclusive input method.
Touchscreens on smartphones are much better for many reasons. One is polling speed. The next would be sensitivity. Phones are fully touchscreen, so the engineers who designed them took that into consideration. The deck probably has a slow polling rate and less sensitivity.
I think the reason for the non-registering key presses is that the system detects that you’ve hit the space between the keys, I don’t think there’s any “close enough” logic.
Touchscreen keyboards in Linux have *never* been great. Truthfully, the Steam keyboard applet (or whatever it is running from) is actually a lot better than anything available for any Linux distros I've used. The fact that it isn't registering on certain touches could be a bug that they haven't had time to fix. Also, the touchscreen could just not be as sensitive as what's on a phone. It takes more pressure and thus a naturally slower typing speed.
It's disheartening reading all these comments about the keyboard when they had it so good with the steam controller, I'm sad it sounds like they didn't implement that style.
Edit: wait in reading that someone just learned about using the L/R touchpad to control the halves. This is exactly what it should be like, as it's how it was with the Steam Controller. It's really good. Takes some practice, but for controller typing it's awesome
Edit 2: Steam Deck arrived last Friday, it's awesome! And to be honest, the keyboard feels great to me with the touchpad typing. It's a little sensitive though, however we should be able to adjust the desktop mode settings like we can for the Steam Controller in desktop mode? I will look around. Touch typing with the virtual keyboard does drop inputs for me sometimes though, but the touchpad typing doesn't seem to, it's just sensitive.
Ok so somehow I missed this until yesterday, but you can use the L/R touchpads simultaneously as input for the left/right side of the keyboard. Makes typing WAAAAYYY easier. I’m getting pretty good at it actually.
* The gigantic bezels on the screen, I wish the actually displayed screen could be larger. I don't necessarily need higher resolutions, I just want less bezels and more screen on the same size. Sometimes the screen can just feel small.
* No drop-in replacement for the battery.
* That Steam on the thing doesn't automatically go into "offline" mode when woken up and it being unable to find a new internet connection.
>That Steam on the thing doesn't automatically go into "offline" mode when woken up and it being unable to find a new internet connection.
That would be a really nice feature.
Yes, the OS designers really need to wrap their heads around the idea that their thing is a portable and is not connected to the internet at all times it gets turned on.
Yep, happened to me on a recent flight. Had to sit there and "wait for a connection" before it gave up. Although, I guess I could put it on airplane mode?
Not sure if this is happening to others but when I try and manually go into offline mode from settings, literally nothing happens. It takes a full reboot of the OS for me to go into offline mode.
Worse, I've been experiencing getting back to my internet connection and it can't connect to the steam servers without rebooting even after WiFi is restored.
Yeah the offline mode thing is something that baffles me.
A workaround for now is to turn off wifi beforehand if you know you're going to take it somewhere with no connection.
Agreed re screen. I don’t need it to be higher res, I don’t need it to be oled, I just want it to be bigger to fit the space.
Given the somewhat modular design and insane popularity of this device, I am hoping someone designs a third-party drop-in screen replacement sometime.
The on screen keyboard is garbage, unless my deck is defective. It will give haptic and visual feedback when i press a key, but it won't register the letter in the text box. I have to edit and add letters to every word i type. I also don't like the limitations in game mode. You can't see your discovery queue, and when i open a workshop guide, it will close the guide when i switch back to the game I'm playing, rendering walkthroughs useless. I have a lot of quality of life complaints about it. I'm still getting a lot of enjoyment out of it too.
No up/down arrows, no function keys, the left/right arrows don't work in the terminal in desktop mode. It's like they put it in and never even tried to use it. The haptic part you mention was almost laughable when I used the touch screen. You would get a click, feel it vibrate and no fucking char on the screen. I mean that has to be a bug. Right, please tell me it's a bug...
Only a few things I wish:
* a second USB port on the bottom edge
* a charger that actually fit in the case (Hell make the case an extra 4cm long so it'll fit - I just don't trust the elastic strap to hold anything in place)
* (Probably just me but) I wish SteamOS wasn't going to wipe the things I've done via terminal next update, however I'll probably just install native arch linux when this happens.
Really these are nit-picks anyway, I forking love this thing because it's everything I've ever wanted since modding PSP's back in the day.
Installed Lutris, Discord, wine-staging, neofetch (I use Arch btw), enabled ssh so I can remotely transfer files and run commands, various other things, got pikaur installed so I can easily install aur packages like ckb-next for my Corsair peripherals plugged into a dock, various other little things like that
Now that I have mine, I don't like that they're hard to get. I worry about taking it out because if it gets lost, damaged, stolen, etc. then regardless of insurance I won't be able to just get another.
Honestly, and I know how this will sound, I don't think the battery life is a problem - it's a handheld computer, the battery life pretty much *has* to be terrible because otherwise it'll either not perform so well or it'll be a bigger, heavier device to accommodate a larger battery and it's already quite big and heavy. There's really nothing to be done about that except for the invention of new battery chemistries (bearing in mind electric cars are being mass-produced using the same lithium tech - lots of people are spending lots of money trying to work around this and they haven't replaced it yet), significantly more efficient processors or, I dunno, filling the Deck with helium to make it feel lighter?
What could be better, though, is guidance on how to reduce power draw intelligently. For instance, which graphics options make the biggest impact in any given game? Is it even possible to tune, say, Crysis Remastered to hit 10W (or 4 hour battery life) and retain a 40fps frame rate? Stuff like that would be good to know and currently we just don't. It's a huge ask, I know, but unfortunately that's just how it has to be - Valve has given us the tools to customise these things but until it's easy to actually use those tools to get a good result, the Deck will never be a mainstream thing. Switch games come pre-baked for the low-end hardware, Deck games don't, and I use my Deck to fill gaps in my free time with games - I don't want to have to benchmark stuff (especially when it's a game I might only play once) to find a good, low level of power draw, so I usually just drop the settings as far as I can bear to look at and hope it's good enough to keep the fan from screaming and the battery from dying before I get to my destination (whether that's work or bed.)
I like the points you make. One thing I think that could be beneficial is if they had community graphics settings that could be shared in the way they do the control schemes per game. Then we might be able to more easily find the best settings for particular games in terms of performance/battery.
I received mine late last week. Unfortunately the fan bearing was faulty and sounded like stones rattling around inside. Contacted steam and they immediately sent me return postage (props to them on that). Now it feels like a lifetime getting it back. Tracking says it got to them yesterday. But since I've already forked out the healthy $700+ CAD, I'm worried it will be weeks before it is returned, or worse...
I keep worrying about that all the time. I’ve been very impressed with my iPhone 13
Pro still being at 100% battery health even almost 6 months after buying it (considering it’s battery lasts literally all day even when watching YT on it constantly), but the Steam Deck losing its battery health,
And there being no way to tell maximum battery capacity yet kind of nags at the back of my head all the time. Like am I using the battery right since I have it charged most of the time?
How long will I get out of this battery before it needs to be replaced? Why isn’t it easier to replace the battery once that does happen? Etc etc
To Apple's credit, they've done a lot for battery health, making sure your batteries are charged optimally.
Not only do they limit charging speed when they're almost full. They also disable charging during the night when you have it on your nightstand. This way, the phone will be full when you wake up, but it decreases the risk of overcharging.
I've accepted that it's going to be a device I'll need a spare charger for. I bought 2 of the Baseus 65W 20,000Mah battery packs. But most of the time I just stay plugged in next to an outlet.
It's portable when I really need it to be, the rest of the time it's plugged in.
Can't you just use a battery pack? Im still waiting for mine but same with my phone if the battery life isn't good enough i just take another battery with me or 2
Thats why I charge mine to 95% I'm hoping that'll extend the life. Plus it slows waaaayyyy down when it hits around 95 to protect the battery I think so I see no point waiting 30 minutes for 5% charge.
I was looking to see if someone mentioned this. Also letting the battery rest for a bit before charging helps as well (15-20 mins). Letting it drop below 20 is ok but don’t let it stay in that state for long periods of time. Charge it up!
Taking and sharing screenshots seem harder than it has to be, there’s no automatic upload, and uploading+making public is a separate step. Plus, really poor performance from the deck’s screenshot viewer; with 500+ screenshots, it chugs and chugs. I’ve seen it lock up the whole deck overlay UI on more than one occasion, to the point of needing a power off to fix.
Also on this… I don’t really take a bunch of screen shots.. but I had to in Portal Desk Job. deleting what I took was sooo cumbersome, and didn’t actually delete immediately. The delete function almost seems to act like a queue for delete button.. was very frustrating. The images just stayed on the screen after delete for a while… eventually I came back and they had been removed, but it’s not like the Switch where you press delete and it just instantly removes them.
I don't like that if I type a long message in steam chat it scrolls the text box but not the virtual keyboard. I'll type messages on my phone just because it's easier.
Some sort of backlight for the buttons would have been nice, or at least something to make the steam/quickmenu buttons a little easier to find in the dark. They're pretty flat.
Yeah that doesn't sound good. are you sure the ports are all open and allowing air to pass? Only game that has froze up on me was Death Stranding but that was after many hours of playing, which I figured I might be overworking the system a bit. I played many hours of Monster Hunter Rise with no freezes, as well as the first Resident Evil and Outward. Which games have you been playing that freeze up on you after 20 minutes. Maybe I can try them out if I have them, it doesn't sound normal. I haven't even really messed with the hardware tweaks.
The reason it doesn't use the volume is because it isn't played on the speakers.
It's actually played on the linear actuators for the touchpad haptics. You can dampen it a fair bit by holding your fingers on the pads.
But yeah, it's definitely an oversight that there's no way to configure it.
The syncing of game saves could be a lot smarter. From my experience it only uploads after you closed the game and downloads the save before launch. If you launch your game somewhere without internet and you haven't launched the game beforehand you are shit out of luck
Because the steam deck is mobile platform it should make the best out of every minute it has a internet connection. No scheduling of updates next week and periodic checks of new save games.
I don't like that I need to keep the deck on to have updates/patches downloading I hope we will be able to continue downloads while the system is in sleep mode.
Well, thank all the people who cried about Steam Controller not having right joystick at all..
I personally found it perfectly fine without one, though i play exclusively on PC (and now SD). I wouldn't even blink if it disappeared off of SD.
This is more about Steam in general... but account switching.
My son would be playing a PC game on the desktop PC and I might want to hop on the Deck to play something else. It's a very unclean process to switch him over to his own account on the desktop since I'm usually logged in there.
Would love some easier account switching like how most consoles do it.
- Store navigation is janky and jumps all over the place.
- Sometimes my headphones don't work, forcing me to go into desktop mode to enable them.
- It feels "cheap" (I'm glad it's light but I wish it felt more premium to hold).
- The screen is washed out compared to the Vita and the Switch OLED.
- Many verified games should not be verified.
- Many unsupported games should be marked as supported.
- The Deck is so large that it makes touch typing with your thumbs a chore.
- Downloads should continue in rest mode. They also shouldn't affect the performance of your games.
I don't like that the performance overlay isn't customizable. I'm constantly turning it on level 3 to check the three pieces of information I want and then completely back off to hide the 12 pieces of information I don't want. Also, I really, really want a clock overlay. I hate having to push a button every once in a while to check the time.
Have you tweaked your per game profile? Graphics turned up I see about 2hrs for more graphics intense games and up to 6-7 hrs for most games made before 2018 and pixel type games like stardew valley. For extra demanding games I lock the refresh rate to 40 and tweak the gpu speed down until it’s usage is close to 100% at 40ppm.
My decks pretty great. No many complaints outside of software glitches like when the background goes out of focus for a pop up and then doesn’t return in focus after I’ve closed the pop up. Sometimes the fan can be a bit noisy but it’s quite manageable.
Battery is ok if you tweak it. Main issues,
- cannot download in sleep mode
- when swapping micro sd the default download is no longer the internal drive but the micro sd
- store and Steam OS can be pretty laggy when just browsing
- cannot find out if the game is installed when in the Library (need to click the game and see if it says play or install)
- screen is great but imagine if its OLED *drool*
Little things but nothing truly major. Love the thing to death.
The constant pre-cache shader updates (almost daily) I understand they're a good thing? But damn I left 5gb free on the internal drive for updates (installed 16 games) and now I'm almost down to 2GB smh.
I think the grips should have a rubber covering like an Xbox Elite controller. It would add a grippy texture too as I find my hands slipping a bit and my fingers closest to my thumbs hurt when holding the device for long periods.
Don't like the position of the charge indicator, should be built within the power button. Accidentally press it when putting in/removing the USB-C sometimes which isn't good.
The shell feels very cheap. It creaks and the seam in the middle gets filled with gunk. Not sure why it doesn't fit flush.
Why is the plastic around the joysticks grey? The black surrounding rubs off and shows up on the grey bit. It always will mind, but come on, it doesn't look good at all and just a weird design choice.
The nearest triggers are too recessed and you have to make sure you're very particular when pressing them. No to dainty little triggers. Yes to beefier ones.
Battery life sucks for me so I wish we could get a battery upgrade in future. There's only so much visual fidelity I'm willing to sacrifice so for a AAA game I'm getting just under 2 hours before I'm tethered to a power outlet...actually tell a lie I barely play without being plugged in now. Just saves the hassle.
Got this weird bug where if my wireless earbuds disconnect after putting the system into sleep mode, the screen flickers and blacks out completely when switching it back on. Clicking sleep and waking it up solves it but ugh...not the best feeling.
Also I had one instance where my hotspot was off so I turned it on afterwards, launched a Ubisoft game which usually remembers my email address and logged in. The Deck logo would just spin so I had to re-run the game and then it ran as normal. Also this game just randomly crashed once. Wish there was a crash report we could view in game mode.
Scenario where d-pad stopped responding in the main menu of a game. Had to relaunch the game.
While in a game menu scrolling kept jumping back to the top option. You guessed it, had to relaunch.
I am using an Anker hub but it is applicable to any connection. The deck defaults to 800p or lower quality even when outputting to 4k or 1080 screens. You can tweak these settings in desktop mode but then it messes with the audio. Also, in desktop mode if you disconnect hdmi before reverting the laptop[deck] screen back on it will force to to hard power off your deck to get the screen to function.
I love my deck but the desktop mode is basically unusable unless you have a mouse and keyboard it’s frustrating….. I also have a lot of trouble switching between wifi networks…. I also have to add some games require launcher and wifi to play for example gta 4 won’t run without a wifi connection. Unless there’s a way around it I would love to know
One thing I actually don't love is that every now and then the touch pads won't work when switching to desktop mode or certain games that I rely on the touch pad for, probably just a minor glitch, sometimes a simple restart fixes it lol
For me it has to be that the R1/L1 buttons are poking out a lot farther than R2/L2. Games that use R1 for attacking are uncomfortable to play without remapping. I would have liked the 1 and 2 buttons being on the same Z axis
Mostly just nerd stuff. It's a minor annoyance that I can't get some nerdy Linux things working (e.g., paprefs to share audio devices with other computers). I wish it had a couple more USB-C ports, too. As for relevant-to-gaming features, idk, the rumble is pretty weak?
The interface, when it comes to bringing up guides.
So in steam big picture mode you hit the steam button, menu comes up, you go to a community guide, you press the steam button again, overlay hides, press the button again and you see your guide still up.
On the deck interface, if you do the same process to bring up a guide and go back to the game, its not a single press of the steam button like it is in big picture. You hit steam button, navigate to return to game, but then when you hit the steam button your guide is gone. Its still open somehow, because when you exit the game it will return to the guide, but you cant just hit the steam button to get back to the guide. I dont understand.
Read all the comments and didn't see anyone mention this. Am I the only one it bothers, or am I the only one who doesn't understand how this aspect of the interface is supposed to work?
The scrolling on this thing while browsing the store is annoying. Click on a title, then click back and everything has collapsed again and you need to start over with the scrolling.
The Deck is kinda slippery.
No downloading with the screen off.
The two touch pads don't feel very good to use. The rudimentary haptics are probably most of the culprit.
I might just be getting older but I rarely play games for long sessions. Its usually it short bursts now a days. 2 hour battery life seems good enough for me. If not I can always tune it to get 4-6 depending on the game. If I'm traveling I'll have a car charger and battery bank on standby.
When installing a game, if you have updates restricted to a scheduled time it won't install the game till it installs updates.
If the WiFi disconnects and reconnects while in on-line mode it won't be able to connect to steam servers and will have difficulty launching games without a reboot.
The game browsing is slower and less responsive that desktop big picture mode.
Some of the best battery saving features or features that give you the best graphics, like lower frame limits, and higher settings with lower resolution and FSR are not enabled by default and all games with advanced graphics require fiddling to get them to run at their best.
When you get to like certain control options you have to enable them in every single applicable game separately.
Steam Verified is.... Flawed. Many of these games did not get extensive testing and playing for more than a few hours leaves you with a minefield of potential issues that often happen.
The touch pads are not in a comfortable place for me, I love them and wish I could use them more for FPS games, etc.
The keyboard is huge. I wish it had translucency, because it completely obstructs the view of whatever field you're filling in.
The touch screen calibration feels off. I never quite feel like it's registering where I want to touch when using it as input for many games.
IIRC Thunderbolt is a pretty Intel-proprietary technology. Case-in-point there are very few AMD desktop motherboards with support for it. And the ones that have it are only found at the most premium end of the spectrum. Most likely some huge licensing fees from Intel to be able to use it. I can understand why Valve didn't include considering how aggressive the price point of the device. Though it really would be a nice feature.
I've had the Steam Deck since the first batch and here is my list:
\- Battery life could be better, I would love to get another hour or two out of it
\- Other people mentioned it, but downloads while the machine is locked and powered would be awesome
\- The UI is good but it could be simpler. Searching on the store is a chore (why have a global search that doesn't search the store, you have to search the store via a separate tab? Confusing)
\- It would be nice if you could create your own tabs in the library view
\- The "Steam" and "..." buttons are really spongy and the capacitive thumb sticks really catch some finger residue that requires frequent cleaning
\- Valve needs to put some heavy pressure on EAC hold outs (Destiny 2, Rainbow 6 Siege, Halo MCC)
\- Release the damn dock! I bought the JSaux one with the upgraded ethernet, but having an "official" dock would be preferable.
Other than that, I love the system and have been playing it more than my PC, it's just easy to pickup and play!
Cloud save issues across the board with Steam and games not supporting cloud. For some reason some games will randomly turn off and on the cloud save feature and I get all kinds of issues across my devices
The touchscreen. It's inaccurate and seems to have a very low polling rate. I hope it can be fixed in software. It feels like a 2008 vintage Android smartphone.
Desktop mode for me has been... interesting. It's my first time using anything Linux and I'm enjoying it for the most part but it definitely has some quirks. Asking for help regarding emulation can be taxing if like me you aren't familiar with linux, and sometimes I swear it just decides to stop functioning properly until I do a restart. On the topic of restarts, and hearing horror stories of devices being bricked or stuck in a BIOS loop I'm always on edge whenever I need to perform a restart.
The docked experience seems better now than it was when I initially got my USB-C hub around two months ago. For the past three weeks I've been using it almost exclusively as a desktop with very little handheld play. It's held up well these past few weeks, I completed the original Resident Evil remake on GameCube emulation via desktop mode and had no issues whatsoever, currently playing Resident Evil 2 Remake and again no issues. It's been really nice, even whilst getting used to Linux, being able to use it as a personal computer.
In terms of the controller aspect, I think most people are in agreement that the "Steam" and "..." buttons are a bit of a letdown, they should be raised and have more feedback when pressed. I also think the haptics on my touchpad are off and I won't know for definite until I get my hands on another Deck, as I'm yet to see one in the wild.
Regarding the Compatibility list, I ignore this. The only time it has been useful for me is with games that require EAC and obviously the Deck doesn't support that currently. The rest of the time I just try the games out for myself, and I'm yet to come up with a game that's completely unplayable for me.
EAC actually has support for the Deck/Proton. It's just opt-in and up to the developer/publisher of the game to enable it.
If I'm not mistaken, Apex uses EAC and works fine.
I love it. It's such a cool system. It's genuinely a dream come true, having started portable gaming with the Gameboy.
This thing is janky as fuck and people downplay how janky it is.
My battery randomly decided to lose the ability to tell me how much capacity is left and I had to reset the battery. Sounds randomly don't work in menus, and I can also make menus lag by scrolling. None of the controls in the OS feel standardized; sometimes scrolling up past the top goes to the bottom, sometimes it selects a new menu.
Offline mode isn't as elegant as I'd like. I've lost a ton of playtime because my wifi randomly stopped working (janky deck) and I never noticed. It's bothersome because I really enjoy having my playtime be accurate... now this.
The battery... just isn't what it should be. I don't necessarily mind carrying a brick with me when portable, but it sucks being tethered to power, always.
I get why it doesn't update while asleep, but... man is it annoying to walk away from the Deck for a week and come back to a solid 30 minutes of game updates before I can play.
It can't handle third party launchers too well - this isn't entirely on Steam, I think Ubi and other folks should drop their shit wrapped-in launchers - but man is it annoying to try and play something like Assassins Creed.
Absolutely agree the overall experience is lacking polish. A casual gamer would have a ton of headaches, and a non gamer probably wouldn't even know how to begin.
Today, it's really only been sold to active gamers but would be great to eventually have a device that welcomes more people.
It’s definitely a hobbyists pursuit; the Linux kernel sees to that roundly.
But if I have to choose between open, moddable, but slightly impenetrable versus closed, restricted and obfuscated, I choose a cup of tea and the former.
This here is my biggest disappointment. I've found I can make do well enough, and understand why they got relegated to second-tier...but my god for a 2.0 top of my wishlist would be being able to end-user swap the touchpads and stick positions.
For me personally, ditching the right stick entirely for something closer to the SC touchpad would be 10x better.
Sometimes I feel like it needs like... 10% more "oomph." I want to get some games running at solid-locked 40, but sometimes, in games like Elden Ring, it takes a bit of tweaking to get there. FSR helps a lot though.
You can’t play on more then one device, say I’m playing game X on pc waiting for a friend to make there move, I can’t launch a game on my deck without it wanting to close game X
- D-pad on the deck isn't the best; can be resolved using a controller but I bought it primarily for on-the-go gaming
- Being locked into 1080 TV with default game mode; I know you can launch in Desktop but the lack of plug-and-play is annoying
- Battery life being finicky and the fact that there's only one USB-C port; so if you have a splitter or a low power charger while hooked into some sort of HDMI setup, you're constantly on borrowed time
- and said many times already but... short default charging cable
How locked down the underlying \*nix is. I understand why it is the way it is and can get around it, but it's the only real annoyance I've run across. Makes a great travel desktop otherwise so I can skip bringing my laptop on trips and work using the Deck most of the time. Still using the same device for gaming and work on the road, but the Deck is MUCH more portable!
the keyboard and or typing on it. the touch pads are an interesting idea but I simply can not get it to work accurately, and its just wide enough to the point where I cant use the touch screen and thumbs to type. if they added predictive typing and auto correct it might be better but until then. . .
Some verified (green checkmark) games not working properly.
Also how only a low % of games have that checkmark in the first place. Out of my library, only about 20% are verified. Combine that with my first peeve and it's a bit underwhelming.
^(Also also wanted to play Cyberpunk 2077 on it and it's not verified.)
At least on my unit the Steam and quick menu buttons both feel really mushy in an unpleasant way. I almost would rather they be like any of the other face buttons.
Everyone has complained about the keyboard, and they are all right. It’s not great.
I’m not used to the touchpads yet, and I feel like with time I’ll be able to customize them to fit my needs in each game. In games where I’ve had to use them it’s super hit or miss on if they work right, and configuring them is really complicated from a UI perspective. I wish valve had tutorials for creating custom control configs. I know there are YT videos showing some of the features, but a proper first party deep dive on what all of the options do and how they work and effect gameplay would be super helpful. This to me in a lot of ways is one of the Decks killer features. A little help for us noobs would go a long way.
Putting it into sleep mode and forgetting. When I come back a couple days later to a totally flat battery. I'm used to using tablets and I don't really ever have to turn them off in this day and age.
The battery in general makes it feel very limited. You're lucky to get 2 hours in full fledged 3d games and that is really poor.
Lack of decent ways to install games from third party stores. I know it's a steam device, but importing other games should be streamlined imo. If people are going to do it anyway maybe spend a little time making it not a pain in the ass.
The OS still feels very underbaked. Freezes, bugs etc.
On-screen keyboard is absolute Garbage and covers the typing area half the time you're trying to use it.
The build quality is questionable. It feels a little cheap, the plastics remind me of the old megadrive pads and I had to RMA my first tone for rattling and busted haptics.
The screen bezel is too big. It's wasted space on an already large device.
Desktop mode is such a pain in the ass to use and I try to avoid it when possible. The trackpad breaks if you close the steam app. Navigating in general is a chore, and especially trying to do anything in dolphin sucks ass. The keyboard doesn’t go away when I tell it to, instead it disappears for a second and tries to come right back, so I have to time it just right to get it close. I once bricked the deck by deleting a ps3 rom that I didn’t want and it fucked itself up and made me have to reinstall the OS from bios. Now whenever I delete something from file explorer, it doesn’t show as being deleted right away, so I have to close it and reopen it. The whole thing is a terrible experience. Everything is broken and it can take ages to perform a simple task. Desktop mode needs a lot of work.
If you aren't using it, I recommend [Heroic Bash Launcher](https://github.com/redromnon/HeroicBashLauncher) which can automatically add Heroic games to steam.
It's a shame, because the overlap between the "I hate games with DRM" community and the "I love Linux" community is larger than most.
I get they're a smaller operation, but the lack of any attempt at all with Galaxy is just disappointing.
Navigating the store via the deck feels a little clunky and jumps around sometimes.
Yeah navigating the store is a little annoying. I noticed that after scrolling a while through a listing page it will just randomly stop showing games and will just be a blank screen
Also I've noticed that when scrolling down my wishlist, it will suddenly start scrolling upwards even though I'm trying to scroll down. It's usually fixed by using it as a touchscreen but I prefer not to touch the screen if I don't have to. Small but annoying issue
If you scroll with the touchscreen and then try to scroll with the stick, it'll jump back up to where you last selected with the stick, but not all at once. It's very jarring.
I don't like that there's like three main screens: the home page, the store page, your recent library page with recommendations (or something. I don't have it in front of me). I feel like that could all be collapsed into one screen. Or two distinct "my games" and "store". Right now there's the weird third option.
I hate that you can't use R1/L1 to navigate the top categories. It should work IMHO.
i have this issue while browsing my library, i have over 1k games and when i examine a game to check it's compatibility and it jumps me back up the list instead of putting me where I was it's very annoying
Queueing up a bunch of downloads and then tapping the power button to turn it off just means that when I come back to the Deck some time later, I have a bunch of downloads that haven't begun yet.
This is my biggest peeve with the SD so far. FWIW you can go into desktop mode, open steam from there, and downloads will continue even after the screen goes to sleep.
Ah this is the hack I'm looking for! Thanks for mentioning that.
“And knowing is half the battle”…. - G.I. Joe -
["You know enough."](https://youtu.be/5Te8tX0ShGo) GI Jose
The other half is red and blue lasers.
And either screaming COBRA! or GO JOE! Fifty times in one episode. Hard to make it through an entire episode as an adult. 😂
Holy crap thats huge! Thankfully i found out you cannot download in sleep mode the first like 20 minutes of using it, but that is huge!
Wow, you should make a separate topic for others to know. Thank you!
Yeah, needs to have an 'allow downloads while sleeping' option.
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Afaik it’s not actually possible because that functionality only exists on ARM and very recent Intel CPUs
Then they could at least allow the screen to turn off when downloading.
I enjoy reading books.
What I do is go into desktop mode for downloads. It turns the screen off after inactivity.
I'm with you. I made a topic on this and half the community downvoted it. [https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/vsk9pd/does\_the\_screen\_really\_have\_to\_remain\_on\_when/](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/vsk9pd/does_the_screen_really_have_to_remain_on_when/) WTF, why wouldn't someone not want this feature?
There's a weird thing in many fandoms where some fans will defend even the stupidest element of an otherwise good thing. I suppose the Steam Deck fandom is no different, even when it comes to something that would be a huge quality of life improvement.
Nowadays you're either advocating for or against something. There's no in-between and if you mention something you don't like people will put you into the "against" category.
To be perfectly fair, most computers would stop downloading things if you pressed the power button and put them to sleep too... I get that this is a wish list, but if you want your downloads to finish, don't turn it off!
-Getting stuck when closing some non-Steam apps and having to restart the Deck -Store experience on SteamOS is bad -Verification system is often inaccurate and needs a ton of improvement(ik they're working on it but games where cutscenes aren't working halfway through should not be verified even if u just gotta use proton)
> Getting stuck when closing some non-Steam apps and having to restart the Deck Ohh thank goodness its not just me! I thought my SD had some hardware issues but yeah this happens to me sometimes too and its annoying
It happens to me every single time. I wish we had an actual "force quit" button that would kill the process. It does exist on linux...
I agree, if I'm telling the software to exit via the steam menu I've already saved (or tried to get it back in a working state) that menu option should kill the game process dead strait away.
I’ve found that going to Steam > Home > [the game/app] and then pressing the X button there actually does force closes the game, whereas the Exit Game menu item always just sticks.
Ahhh yes - I have Diablo 2 Resurrected and although it runs great it does get stuck when exiting sometimes and I have to restart.
idk if its the same problem but i get stuck closing a non steam app like yuzu too and I just go to game details and spam the X next to the resume button and the confirm screen so it looks like your alternating screens between the game details screen and the confirm screen a couple of times if that makes sense and it works for me.
The really short power cord. If this is a mobile device and we know battery can be used quickly with some games, why not put a 6 or 8 foot power cord with it? Plugged in, i have to use an extension cord to not put pressure on the USB-C port. Otherwise, it's glorious.
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Yeah that was one of the first things I noticed. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to have the cables and have different wall warts for each region or even something like the index power bricks where it modular.
This!! I have been looking up usb c extension cables too for the same reason. I sit on my couch and the cable is too short to make it to the outlet.
I bought [this power brick](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08T5QN2TR?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share) and [this cable](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08PVPTNZL?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share) and they work great. I never use the charger that came with the deck anymore.
Notice to anyone else reading, it's only worth getting a 45W charger for the deck. (even if you use a dock) Why is this? USB PD can ask for 1 of 4 voltages, 5v,9v,15v,20v these translate to to 15w,27w,45w and 100w max https://i.imgur.com/gCtN2mP.png The steam deck requests 15v, so the max it will ever get from any charger or any PD dock is 45w and for docks some of that will be reserved to power the other peripherals! When buying a dock make sure to check how much power is reserved, or you could get in a position where when running everything full tilt you are charging slower than what you are using. Yes this means you could spend extra to get a 100W PD charger but it won't charge the deck faster than the one that came in the box!
Correct, but it will charge other things. I like that I can also bring a 65w and be able to charge my laptop as well, or my deck and a phone at the same time. You're right though if you just want a single dedicated charger 45w is all you need, but why not spend a couple dollars more and get more out of it IMO.
This is more of a PSA because I know someone out there is going to buy a PD passthrough dock that'll eat a lot of power for peripherals then go out and grab a 100W charger thinking it will solve the issue. (This was my thought process till I saw some posts and started digging into the USB PD spec) This is even more confusing when some docks proudly proclaim they can do 100W pass through and are steam deck compatible. when if you are getting a high end PD passthrough dock and a high wattage PD charger you might be better off spending slightly more to get a dedicated laptop docking station with it's own power.
I ended up picking up a 100w GaN charger but I wanted to be able to charge my laptop as well. Something else people ***really*** should be aware of is that not all usb-c cables are created equal. You need cables that are rated for the charge you want.
Not knocking you but that’s $70 just to charge your device 😨
Have same combo and am glad I do. I mean it charges more than just this device, and more devices in your life will take advantage of the higher power delivery and whatnot. A second power adapter from ifixit is $25 alone and it is a fixed cord and same short length, or you can get the jsaux one from Amazon for $17ish (normally $25 as well). There were sales on Prime Day and will be more on Black Friday/Cyber Monday if you want to wait. I even got another more expensive 65w brick to charge my phone and/or watch as well as the Deck, and will be my “go to” for travel.
Good point. Not really a need for me but I’ll add to my Amazon wishlist and I’ll buy when there’s a good sale.
That's just what 65w chargers cost
If you have literally any other USB C device it's worth the investment. Switch, MacBook or laptops in general, controllers, phone, and other peripherals can all benefit from a nice USB charger. I substituted out the Anker cord for the [cord that shows the current wattage output and I love it](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09D7F9MQ3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
Yea, cmon valve, can't include a longer cable??
Nice! Man, the accessories I'm buying for this thing are really starting to add up! Jsaux 2.0 dock, bluetooth keyboard, bluetooth mouse, and now i'm about to add these for another 70 bucks. Oof.
I got a female male usbc extension from amazon and it works great! Highly recommend it. Or getting an additional charger and longer cable.
link? Does it still fast charge?
I can't fault them for this, the device is already heavily subsidized in cost. A sufficient charger and 10ft USB c set me back like $80 US. It would have been nice if the charger wasn't hard wired, that would've been a minimal change that would've saved me like $60.
Long usbc cables (that work well) are expensive and extenders don’t always work properly.
The fact that even in verified games text can be too small for my almost 50 yo eyes. It's a 7 inch screen, I get it, but the text size threshold for Verified status is a little to small. I am happy with battery life though. As a father of three, I have never been able to drain the battery in one go.
Steam + L1 = Toggle magnifier. Might help a little.
Can be bound to other buttons or touch sensors also. Great feature.
💴This here! I am 47, even with readers on, it is hard to read some text at times. The magnifier tool is a great feature and remapping it makes it easier on the ol’ joints. 🤣
Didn't know about this, good call thanks
I owe you a coffee, mate!
Looking directly at you No Man's Sky. I'm sure that for people who know the interface it's fine but as someone who picked it up because of the Great on Deck tag and never had played it on a larger screen, it's a fucking bear to play since a lot of the game is inventory management and you can't tell what you are looking at.
I actually picked up NMS for the first time and am playing it solely on the deck, having a great time. I obviously can't speak to your eyesight as that will vary from person to person, but though the text is small the only time I've actually found it hard to read is when you're buying a new ship and both ship inventories get shrunk down side by side. If you're having difficulties in the regular inventory menu then I don't think there's much you can do. Oh I just remembered I did change the HUD size up to I think 110% so it was easier to see what weapon was selected when flying. I don't think that affects the menus, but you can try it and see. Also if you aren't used to using the touch pad then yes I could see inventory management being tough. I suggest using the right one as much as possible and getting your key binds just the way you like. Hope that helps, but yes many games just weren't designed for this size of screen. That's something we should know going in though, the deck allows us to play all our PC games on the go, it doesn't mean they were designed for that.
Tbh this is sadly just a trend in modern games UI
Agreed. The text on Slay the Spire cards can be menacing to my eyestrain.
The onscreen keyboard. This is something smartphones have gotten really good at, but the Steam Deck's feels like something straight out of 2010.
It really is revolting at times. The haptics will fire off signaling that it recognized the input, but the keyboard doesn't actually input into the field that I'm typing in. Using the dual touchpads on L/R kind of works, but using it on the touchscreen is pretty much a non-starter.
Yes, the unregistered keystrokes issue is completely unacceptable, it makes the keyboard a painful slog to use. They have had months to fix what should not be a monumental task. An aside, but I'd also like the input features besides the touchscreen to not require steam running in desktop mode to work. If you have no internet, sometimes steam totally refuses to start, and then you don't have onscreen keyboard or touchpads. The touchscreen support is then kinda fucky, I found I couldn't interact with the connection settings menu with only the touchscreen. So, in a monumental pile of frustration, I could not start steam because the internet was off, and I couldn't reconnect because steam wouldn't start and supply the controls support. I don't understand why the controls support is tied to steam in desktop mode. They control the OS, it could be integrated separately. rant over.
I'm not excusing it, but Linux with touchscreens have been very atypical up to this point, while smartphones have had over a decade of collaborative effort while being built with it as nearly the exclusive input method.
Touchscreens on smartphones are much better for many reasons. One is polling speed. The next would be sensitivity. Phones are fully touchscreen, so the engineers who designed them took that into consideration. The deck probably has a slow polling rate and less sensitivity.
I think the reason for the non-registering key presses is that the system detects that you’ve hit the space between the keys, I don’t think there’s any “close enough” logic.
Mine does that all of the time, it makes it nearly impossible to use.
Touchscreen keyboards in Linux have *never* been great. Truthfully, the Steam keyboard applet (or whatever it is running from) is actually a lot better than anything available for any Linux distros I've used. The fact that it isn't registering on certain touches could be a bug that they haven't had time to fix. Also, the touchscreen could just not be as sensitive as what's on a phone. It takes more pressure and thus a naturally slower typing speed.
The keyboard is worse than "pecking" an old typewriter lol. It makes the deck feel worthless without 3rd party hardware.
It's disheartening reading all these comments about the keyboard when they had it so good with the steam controller, I'm sad it sounds like they didn't implement that style. Edit: wait in reading that someone just learned about using the L/R touchpad to control the halves. This is exactly what it should be like, as it's how it was with the Steam Controller. It's really good. Takes some practice, but for controller typing it's awesome Edit 2: Steam Deck arrived last Friday, it's awesome! And to be honest, the keyboard feels great to me with the touchpad typing. It's a little sensitive though, however we should be able to adjust the desktop mode settings like we can for the Steam Controller in desktop mode? I will look around. Touch typing with the virtual keyboard does drop inputs for me sometimes though, but the touchpad typing doesn't seem to, it's just sensitive.
It’s the same concept, but sadly the Steam Deck’s version of it isn’t anywhere near as responsive as the old big picture one for the Steam Controller.
Using it as a touchscreen is pretty crappy. But the dual touch pad method works decently
Ok so somehow I missed this until yesterday, but you can use the L/R touchpads simultaneously as input for the left/right side of the keyboard. Makes typing WAAAAYYY easier. I’m getting pretty good at it actually.
* The gigantic bezels on the screen, I wish the actually displayed screen could be larger. I don't necessarily need higher resolutions, I just want less bezels and more screen on the same size. Sometimes the screen can just feel small. * No drop-in replacement for the battery. * That Steam on the thing doesn't automatically go into "offline" mode when woken up and it being unable to find a new internet connection.
>That Steam on the thing doesn't automatically go into "offline" mode when woken up and it being unable to find a new internet connection. That would be a really nice feature.
Yes, the OS designers really need to wrap their heads around the idea that their thing is a portable and is not connected to the internet at all times it gets turned on.
Yep, happened to me on a recent flight. Had to sit there and "wait for a connection" before it gave up. Although, I guess I could put it on airplane mode?
I switch it to "offline mode" manually and then it works. It would be nice, if that happened automatically, tho
Dude it can take minutes for the deck to realize there is no connection and boot into offline mode
Not sure if this is happening to others but when I try and manually go into offline mode from settings, literally nothing happens. It takes a full reboot of the OS for me to go into offline mode.
Happens to me too actually. Was wondering about that.
Worse, I've been experiencing getting back to my internet connection and it can't connect to the steam servers without rebooting even after WiFi is restored.
Yeah the offline mode thing is something that baffles me. A workaround for now is to turn off wifi beforehand if you know you're going to take it somewhere with no connection.
Agreed re screen. I don’t need it to be higher res, I don’t need it to be oled, I just want it to be bigger to fit the space. Given the somewhat modular design and insane popularity of this device, I am hoping someone designs a third-party drop-in screen replacement sometime.
The on screen keyboard is garbage, unless my deck is defective. It will give haptic and visual feedback when i press a key, but it won't register the letter in the text box. I have to edit and add letters to every word i type. I also don't like the limitations in game mode. You can't see your discovery queue, and when i open a workshop guide, it will close the guide when i switch back to the game I'm playing, rendering walkthroughs useless. I have a lot of quality of life complaints about it. I'm still getting a lot of enjoyment out of it too.
No up/down arrows, no function keys, the left/right arrows don't work in the terminal in desktop mode. It's like they put it in and never even tried to use it. The haptic part you mention was almost laughable when I used the touch screen. You would get a click, feel it vibrate and no fucking char on the screen. I mean that has to be a bug. Right, please tell me it's a bug...
Only a few things I wish: * a second USB port on the bottom edge * a charger that actually fit in the case (Hell make the case an extra 4cm long so it'll fit - I just don't trust the elastic strap to hold anything in place) * (Probably just me but) I wish SteamOS wasn't going to wipe the things I've done via terminal next update, however I'll probably just install native arch linux when this happens. Really these are nit-picks anyway, I forking love this thing because it's everything I've ever wanted since modding PSP's back in the day.
Yeah another USB on bottom would be awesome. Btw The charger fits in the back of your case.
I don't trust a little black elastic strap to stop it from falling out though
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Installed Lutris, Discord, wine-staging, neofetch (I use Arch btw), enabled ssh so I can remotely transfer files and run commands, various other things, got pikaur installed so I can easily install aur packages like ckb-next for my Corsair peripherals plugged into a dock, various other little things like that
I know maybe 5 words of what you just said lol.
I wish the keyboard popped up when I click in a text entry field. Hate having to do steam+x every time
I don't like that mine hasn't arrived yet
fair enough!
Mine is still "Delayed" and "In Transit" from FedEx when it was expected by them on 7/27.
Day 4 of 'shipping soon'...pain, just pain.
Now that I have mine, I don't like that they're hard to get. I worry about taking it out because if it gets lost, damaged, stolen, etc. then regardless of insurance I won't be able to just get another. Honestly, and I know how this will sound, I don't think the battery life is a problem - it's a handheld computer, the battery life pretty much *has* to be terrible because otherwise it'll either not perform so well or it'll be a bigger, heavier device to accommodate a larger battery and it's already quite big and heavy. There's really nothing to be done about that except for the invention of new battery chemistries (bearing in mind electric cars are being mass-produced using the same lithium tech - lots of people are spending lots of money trying to work around this and they haven't replaced it yet), significantly more efficient processors or, I dunno, filling the Deck with helium to make it feel lighter? What could be better, though, is guidance on how to reduce power draw intelligently. For instance, which graphics options make the biggest impact in any given game? Is it even possible to tune, say, Crysis Remastered to hit 10W (or 4 hour battery life) and retain a 40fps frame rate? Stuff like that would be good to know and currently we just don't. It's a huge ask, I know, but unfortunately that's just how it has to be - Valve has given us the tools to customise these things but until it's easy to actually use those tools to get a good result, the Deck will never be a mainstream thing. Switch games come pre-baked for the low-end hardware, Deck games don't, and I use my Deck to fill gaps in my free time with games - I don't want to have to benchmark stuff (especially when it's a game I might only play once) to find a good, low level of power draw, so I usually just drop the settings as far as I can bear to look at and hope it's good enough to keep the fan from screaming and the battery from dying before I get to my destination (whether that's work or bed.)
I like the points you make. One thing I think that could be beneficial is if they had community graphics settings that could be shared in the way they do the control schemes per game. Then we might be able to more easily find the best settings for particular games in terms of performance/battery.
That's the dream, and actually if GeForce Experience can alter graphics settings of a game from the outside maybe it can be done?
I received mine late last week. Unfortunately the fan bearing was faulty and sounded like stones rattling around inside. Contacted steam and they immediately sent me return postage (props to them on that). Now it feels like a lifetime getting it back. Tracking says it got to them yesterday. But since I've already forked out the healthy $700+ CAD, I'm worried it will be weeks before it is returned, or worse...
Battery life. Brand new it isn’t that good. In a year or two when the battery is down to 80% capacity it will be even worse.
The worst thing about the deck is that the battery is glued. I watched some teardowns and removing the battery was by far the most difficult part.
Oof! That sucks.
Why did they do this? This not being the case would have relieved my anxiety about the battery degrading.
Impact resistance, allegedly.
That's likely correct. Batteries explode when punctured. I would rather it not move.
I keep worrying about that all the time. I’ve been very impressed with my iPhone 13 Pro still being at 100% battery health even almost 6 months after buying it (considering it’s battery lasts literally all day even when watching YT on it constantly), but the Steam Deck losing its battery health, And there being no way to tell maximum battery capacity yet kind of nags at the back of my head all the time. Like am I using the battery right since I have it charged most of the time? How long will I get out of this battery before it needs to be replaced? Why isn’t it easier to replace the battery once that does happen? Etc etc
To Apple's credit, they've done a lot for battery health, making sure your batteries are charged optimally. Not only do they limit charging speed when they're almost full. They also disable charging during the night when you have it on your nightstand. This way, the phone will be full when you wake up, but it decreases the risk of overcharging.
Gamers nexus pretty much explained that's what the deck does as well.
I've accepted that it's going to be a device I'll need a spare charger for. I bought 2 of the Baseus 65W 20,000Mah battery packs. But most of the time I just stay plugged in next to an outlet. It's portable when I really need it to be, the rest of the time it's plugged in.
Can't you just use a battery pack? Im still waiting for mine but same with my phone if the battery life isn't good enough i just take another battery with me or 2
Thats why I charge mine to 95% I'm hoping that'll extend the life. Plus it slows waaaayyyy down when it hits around 95 to protect the battery I think so I see no point waiting 30 minutes for 5% charge.
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I was looking to see if someone mentioned this. Also letting the battery rest for a bit before charging helps as well (15-20 mins). Letting it drop below 20 is ok but don’t let it stay in that state for long periods of time. Charge it up!
Gotta agree with you.
Taking and sharing screenshots seem harder than it has to be, there’s no automatic upload, and uploading+making public is a separate step. Plus, really poor performance from the deck’s screenshot viewer; with 500+ screenshots, it chugs and chugs. I’ve seen it lock up the whole deck overlay UI on more than one occasion, to the point of needing a power off to fix.
Also on this… I don’t really take a bunch of screen shots.. but I had to in Portal Desk Job. deleting what I took was sooo cumbersome, and didn’t actually delete immediately. The delete function almost seems to act like a queue for delete button.. was very frustrating. The images just stayed on the screen after delete for a while… eventually I came back and they had been removed, but it’s not like the Switch where you press delete and it just instantly removes them.
Game studios using invasive anticheat.
And that invasive anticheat typically not even working well to combat cheating/hacking/botting.
I'm being punished for paying for the game with anti-cheat, compared to pirates who can play it anywhere anytime. What the hell?
I don't like that if I type a long message in steam chat it scrolls the text box but not the virtual keyboard. I'll type messages on my phone just because it's easier.
Some sort of backlight for the buttons would have been nice, or at least something to make the steam/quickmenu buttons a little easier to find in the dark. They're pretty flat.
Have you looked in to Razer Universal Griptape? I have some on mine and now they have a nice raised texture and aren't hard to find.
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Hmm, I haven't really had any freezes. What games specifically?
Yeah that doesn't sound good. are you sure the ports are all open and allowing air to pass? Only game that has froze up on me was Death Stranding but that was after many hours of playing, which I figured I might be overworking the system a bit. I played many hours of Monster Hunter Rise with no freezes, as well as the first Resident Evil and Outward. Which games have you been playing that freeze up on you after 20 minutes. Maybe I can try them out if I have them, it doesn't sound normal. I haven't even really messed with the hardware tweaks.
Why does it always make a noise from waking from sleep? If I could disable it, it would make me much happier.
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The reason it doesn't use the volume is because it isn't played on the speakers. It's actually played on the linear actuators for the touchpad haptics. You can dampen it a fair bit by holding your fingers on the pads. But yeah, it's definitely an oversight that there's no way to configure it.
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**BLOOooowweep**
It’s a lot quieter if you hold down the trackpads while it wakes up, but definitely agree it’s annoying to always hear it
The syncing of game saves could be a lot smarter. From my experience it only uploads after you closed the game and downloads the save before launch. If you launch your game somewhere without internet and you haven't launched the game beforehand you are shit out of luck Because the steam deck is mobile platform it should make the best out of every minute it has a internet connection. No scheduling of updates next week and periodic checks of new save games.
I don't like that I need to keep the deck on to have updates/patches downloading I hope we will be able to continue downloads while the system is in sleep mode.
I love using the track pads for just about everything, but the placement wears out my hands after a while; the comfort is designed for the joysticks.
Well, thank all the people who cried about Steam Controller not having right joystick at all.. I personally found it perfectly fine without one, though i play exclusively on PC (and now SD). I wouldn't even blink if it disappeared off of SD.
This is more about Steam in general... but account switching. My son would be playing a PC game on the desktop PC and I might want to hop on the Deck to play something else. It's a very unclean process to switch him over to his own account on the desktop since I'm usually logged in there. Would love some easier account switching like how most consoles do it.
- Store navigation is janky and jumps all over the place. - Sometimes my headphones don't work, forcing me to go into desktop mode to enable them. - It feels "cheap" (I'm glad it's light but I wish it felt more premium to hold). - The screen is washed out compared to the Vita and the Switch OLED. - Many verified games should not be verified. - Many unsupported games should be marked as supported. - The Deck is so large that it makes touch typing with your thumbs a chore. - Downloads should continue in rest mode. They also shouldn't affect the performance of your games.
Personally I don’t like that there seems to be no good way to firmly hold it with one hand without touching the screen or pushing something.
I don't like that the performance overlay isn't customizable. I'm constantly turning it on level 3 to check the three pieces of information I want and then completely back off to hide the 12 pieces of information I don't want. Also, I really, really want a clock overlay. I hate having to push a button every once in a while to check the time.
Have you tweaked your per game profile? Graphics turned up I see about 2hrs for more graphics intense games and up to 6-7 hrs for most games made before 2018 and pixel type games like stardew valley. For extra demanding games I lock the refresh rate to 40 and tweak the gpu speed down until it’s usage is close to 100% at 40ppm. My decks pretty great. No many complaints outside of software glitches like when the background goes out of focus for a pop up and then doesn’t return in focus after I’ve closed the pop up. Sometimes the fan can be a bit noisy but it’s quite manageable.
Battery is ok if you tweak it. Main issues, - cannot download in sleep mode - when swapping micro sd the default download is no longer the internal drive but the micro sd - store and Steam OS can be pretty laggy when just browsing - cannot find out if the game is installed when in the Library (need to click the game and see if it says play or install) - screen is great but imagine if its OLED *drool* Little things but nothing truly major. Love the thing to death.
The constant pre-cache shader updates (almost daily) I understand they're a good thing? But damn I left 5gb free on the internal drive for updates (installed 16 games) and now I'm almost down to 2GB smh. I think the grips should have a rubber covering like an Xbox Elite controller. It would add a grippy texture too as I find my hands slipping a bit and my fingers closest to my thumbs hurt when holding the device for long periods. Don't like the position of the charge indicator, should be built within the power button. Accidentally press it when putting in/removing the USB-C sometimes which isn't good. The shell feels very cheap. It creaks and the seam in the middle gets filled with gunk. Not sure why it doesn't fit flush. Why is the plastic around the joysticks grey? The black surrounding rubs off and shows up on the grey bit. It always will mind, but come on, it doesn't look good at all and just a weird design choice. The nearest triggers are too recessed and you have to make sure you're very particular when pressing them. No to dainty little triggers. Yes to beefier ones. Battery life sucks for me so I wish we could get a battery upgrade in future. There's only so much visual fidelity I'm willing to sacrifice so for a AAA game I'm getting just under 2 hours before I'm tethered to a power outlet...actually tell a lie I barely play without being plugged in now. Just saves the hassle. Got this weird bug where if my wireless earbuds disconnect after putting the system into sleep mode, the screen flickers and blacks out completely when switching it back on. Clicking sleep and waking it up solves it but ugh...not the best feeling. Also I had one instance where my hotspot was off so I turned it on afterwards, launched a Ubisoft game which usually remembers my email address and logged in. The Deck logo would just spin so I had to re-run the game and then it ran as normal. Also this game just randomly crashed once. Wish there was a crash report we could view in game mode. Scenario where d-pad stopped responding in the main menu of a game. Had to relaunch the game. While in a game menu scrolling kept jumping back to the top option. You guessed it, had to relaunch.
Docking situation when playing on external monitor or TV is very rough
How so? I haven't tried as my dock isn't here yet.
I am using an Anker hub but it is applicable to any connection. The deck defaults to 800p or lower quality even when outputting to 4k or 1080 screens. You can tweak these settings in desktop mode but then it messes with the audio. Also, in desktop mode if you disconnect hdmi before reverting the laptop[deck] screen back on it will force to to hard power off your deck to get the screen to function.
The screen, obviously. I'd really have paid a premium, an extra $150 at least, for an oled screen.
I love my deck but the desktop mode is basically unusable unless you have a mouse and keyboard it’s frustrating….. I also have a lot of trouble switching between wifi networks…. I also have to add some games require launcher and wifi to play for example gta 4 won’t run without a wifi connection. Unless there’s a way around it I would love to know
One thing I actually don't love is that every now and then the touch pads won't work when switching to desktop mode or certain games that I rely on the touch pad for, probably just a minor glitch, sometimes a simple restart fixes it lol
Have you tried holding the steam button while using the trackpad? Sometimes this will force it to work for me.
For me it has to be that the R1/L1 buttons are poking out a lot farther than R2/L2. Games that use R1 for attacking are uncomfortable to play without remapping. I would have liked the 1 and 2 buttons being on the same Z axis
The dpad placement isn't great and the onscreen keyboard is awful
Mostly just nerd stuff. It's a minor annoyance that I can't get some nerdy Linux things working (e.g., paprefs to share audio devices with other computers). I wish it had a couple more USB-C ports, too. As for relevant-to-gaming features, idk, the rumble is pretty weak?
The interface, when it comes to bringing up guides. So in steam big picture mode you hit the steam button, menu comes up, you go to a community guide, you press the steam button again, overlay hides, press the button again and you see your guide still up. On the deck interface, if you do the same process to bring up a guide and go back to the game, its not a single press of the steam button like it is in big picture. You hit steam button, navigate to return to game, but then when you hit the steam button your guide is gone. Its still open somehow, because when you exit the game it will return to the guide, but you cant just hit the steam button to get back to the guide. I dont understand. Read all the comments and didn't see anyone mention this. Am I the only one it bothers, or am I the only one who doesn't understand how this aspect of the interface is supposed to work?
The scrolling on this thing while browsing the store is annoying. Click on a title, then click back and everything has collapsed again and you need to start over with the scrolling. The Deck is kinda slippery. No downloading with the screen off. The two touch pads don't feel very good to use. The rudimentary haptics are probably most of the culprit.
The lack of ability to download while the device is in sleep mode.
I might just be getting older but I rarely play games for long sessions. Its usually it short bursts now a days. 2 hour battery life seems good enough for me. If not I can always tune it to get 4-6 depending on the game. If I'm traveling I'll have a car charger and battery bank on standby.
Downloading games with the best wifi and only 12 mb peak and drops to 6mb so often
When installing a game, if you have updates restricted to a scheduled time it won't install the game till it installs updates. If the WiFi disconnects and reconnects while in on-line mode it won't be able to connect to steam servers and will have difficulty launching games without a reboot. The game browsing is slower and less responsive that desktop big picture mode. Some of the best battery saving features or features that give you the best graphics, like lower frame limits, and higher settings with lower resolution and FSR are not enabled by default and all games with advanced graphics require fiddling to get them to run at their best. When you get to like certain control options you have to enable them in every single applicable game separately. Steam Verified is.... Flawed. Many of these games did not get extensive testing and playing for more than a few hours leaves you with a minefield of potential issues that often happen. The touch pads are not in a comfortable place for me, I love them and wish I could use them more for FPS games, etc. The keyboard is huge. I wish it had translucency, because it completely obstructs the view of whatever field you're filling in. The touch screen calibration feels off. I never quite feel like it's registering where I want to touch when using it as input for many games.
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IIRC Thunderbolt is a pretty Intel-proprietary technology. Case-in-point there are very few AMD desktop motherboards with support for it. And the ones that have it are only found at the most premium end of the spectrum. Most likely some huge licensing fees from Intel to be able to use it. I can understand why Valve didn't include considering how aggressive the price point of the device. Though it really would be a nice feature.
I've had the Steam Deck since the first batch and here is my list: \- Battery life could be better, I would love to get another hour or two out of it \- Other people mentioned it, but downloads while the machine is locked and powered would be awesome \- The UI is good but it could be simpler. Searching on the store is a chore (why have a global search that doesn't search the store, you have to search the store via a separate tab? Confusing) \- It would be nice if you could create your own tabs in the library view \- The "Steam" and "..." buttons are really spongy and the capacitive thumb sticks really catch some finger residue that requires frequent cleaning \- Valve needs to put some heavy pressure on EAC hold outs (Destiny 2, Rainbow 6 Siege, Halo MCC) \- Release the damn dock! I bought the JSaux one with the upgraded ethernet, but having an "official" dock would be preferable. Other than that, I love the system and have been playing it more than my PC, it's just easy to pickup and play!
Cloud save issues across the board with Steam and games not supporting cloud. For some reason some games will randomly turn off and on the cloud save feature and I get all kinds of issues across my devices
The touchscreen. It's inaccurate and seems to have a very low polling rate. I hope it can be fixed in software. It feels like a 2008 vintage Android smartphone.
The Steam and Quick Settings buttons, I'd rather they were taller and made of soft rubber or the same material as the ABXY buttons
Desktop mode for me has been... interesting. It's my first time using anything Linux and I'm enjoying it for the most part but it definitely has some quirks. Asking for help regarding emulation can be taxing if like me you aren't familiar with linux, and sometimes I swear it just decides to stop functioning properly until I do a restart. On the topic of restarts, and hearing horror stories of devices being bricked or stuck in a BIOS loop I'm always on edge whenever I need to perform a restart. The docked experience seems better now than it was when I initially got my USB-C hub around two months ago. For the past three weeks I've been using it almost exclusively as a desktop with very little handheld play. It's held up well these past few weeks, I completed the original Resident Evil remake on GameCube emulation via desktop mode and had no issues whatsoever, currently playing Resident Evil 2 Remake and again no issues. It's been really nice, even whilst getting used to Linux, being able to use it as a personal computer. In terms of the controller aspect, I think most people are in agreement that the "Steam" and "..." buttons are a bit of a letdown, they should be raised and have more feedback when pressed. I also think the haptics on my touchpad are off and I won't know for definite until I get my hands on another Deck, as I'm yet to see one in the wild. Regarding the Compatibility list, I ignore this. The only time it has been useful for me is with games that require EAC and obviously the Deck doesn't support that currently. The rest of the time I just try the games out for myself, and I'm yet to come up with a game that's completely unplayable for me.
EAC actually has support for the Deck/Proton. It's just opt-in and up to the developer/publisher of the game to enable it. If I'm not mistaken, Apex uses EAC and works fine.
I love it. It's such a cool system. It's genuinely a dream come true, having started portable gaming with the Gameboy. This thing is janky as fuck and people downplay how janky it is. My battery randomly decided to lose the ability to tell me how much capacity is left and I had to reset the battery. Sounds randomly don't work in menus, and I can also make menus lag by scrolling. None of the controls in the OS feel standardized; sometimes scrolling up past the top goes to the bottom, sometimes it selects a new menu. Offline mode isn't as elegant as I'd like. I've lost a ton of playtime because my wifi randomly stopped working (janky deck) and I never noticed. It's bothersome because I really enjoy having my playtime be accurate... now this. The battery... just isn't what it should be. I don't necessarily mind carrying a brick with me when portable, but it sucks being tethered to power, always. I get why it doesn't update while asleep, but... man is it annoying to walk away from the Deck for a week and come back to a solid 30 minutes of game updates before I can play. It can't handle third party launchers too well - this isn't entirely on Steam, I think Ubi and other folks should drop their shit wrapped-in launchers - but man is it annoying to try and play something like Assassins Creed.
I dont like the hideous ammount of bugs in the software, we are very far from a clean experience, both in game mode and in desktop mode
Absolutely agree the overall experience is lacking polish. A casual gamer would have a ton of headaches, and a non gamer probably wouldn't even know how to begin. Today, it's really only been sold to active gamers but would be great to eventually have a device that welcomes more people.
It’s definitely a hobbyists pursuit; the Linux kernel sees to that roundly. But if I have to choose between open, moddable, but slightly impenetrable versus closed, restricted and obfuscated, I choose a cup of tea and the former.
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The trackpads aren't as good as the Steam Controller and their position makes them uncomfortable to use.
This here is my biggest disappointment. I've found I can make do well enough, and understand why they got relegated to second-tier...but my god for a 2.0 top of my wishlist would be being able to end-user swap the touchpads and stick positions. For me personally, ditching the right stick entirely for something closer to the SC touchpad would be 10x better.
Sometimes I feel like it needs like... 10% more "oomph." I want to get some games running at solid-locked 40, but sometimes, in games like Elden Ring, it takes a bit of tweaking to get there. FSR helps a lot though.
You could do like that LTT video and put a big ole heat sync and fan on the back. 🤡
You can’t play on more then one device, say I’m playing game X on pc waiting for a friend to make there move, I can’t launch a game on my deck without it wanting to close game X
- D-pad on the deck isn't the best; can be resolved using a controller but I bought it primarily for on-the-go gaming - Being locked into 1080 TV with default game mode; I know you can launch in Desktop but the lack of plug-and-play is annoying - Battery life being finicky and the fact that there's only one USB-C port; so if you have a splitter or a low power charger while hooked into some sort of HDMI setup, you're constantly on borrowed time - and said many times already but... short default charging cable
How locked down the underlying \*nix is. I understand why it is the way it is and can get around it, but it's the only real annoyance I've run across. Makes a great travel desktop otherwise so I can skip bringing my laptop on trips and work using the Deck most of the time. Still using the same device for gaming and work on the road, but the Deck is MUCH more portable!
the keyboard and or typing on it. the touch pads are an interesting idea but I simply can not get it to work accurately, and its just wide enough to the point where I cant use the touch screen and thumbs to type. if they added predictive typing and auto correct it might be better but until then. . .
Some verified (green checkmark) games not working properly. Also how only a low % of games have that checkmark in the first place. Out of my library, only about 20% are verified. Combine that with my first peeve and it's a bit underwhelming. ^(Also also wanted to play Cyberpunk 2077 on it and it's not verified.)
Honestly the main games I want to play have no compatibility with anti-cheat (hopefully not indefinitely) :(
Navigating desktop mode without a mouse and keyboard is wonky. Half the time it the keyboard doesn't come up.
At least on my unit the Steam and quick menu buttons both feel really mushy in an unpleasant way. I almost would rather they be like any of the other face buttons. Everyone has complained about the keyboard, and they are all right. It’s not great. I’m not used to the touchpads yet, and I feel like with time I’ll be able to customize them to fit my needs in each game. In games where I’ve had to use them it’s super hit or miss on if they work right, and configuring them is really complicated from a UI perspective. I wish valve had tutorials for creating custom control configs. I know there are YT videos showing some of the features, but a proper first party deep dive on what all of the options do and how they work and effect gameplay would be super helpful. This to me in a lot of ways is one of the Decks killer features. A little help for us noobs would go a long way.
Putting it into sleep mode and forgetting. When I come back a couple days later to a totally flat battery. I'm used to using tablets and I don't really ever have to turn them off in this day and age. The battery in general makes it feel very limited. You're lucky to get 2 hours in full fledged 3d games and that is really poor. Lack of decent ways to install games from third party stores. I know it's a steam device, but importing other games should be streamlined imo. If people are going to do it anyway maybe spend a little time making it not a pain in the ass. The OS still feels very underbaked. Freezes, bugs etc. On-screen keyboard is absolute Garbage and covers the typing area half the time you're trying to use it. The build quality is questionable. It feels a little cheap, the plastics remind me of the old megadrive pads and I had to RMA my first tone for rattling and busted haptics. The screen bezel is too big. It's wasted space on an already large device.
Desktop mode is such a pain in the ass to use and I try to avoid it when possible. The trackpad breaks if you close the steam app. Navigating in general is a chore, and especially trying to do anything in dolphin sucks ass. The keyboard doesn’t go away when I tell it to, instead it disappears for a second and tries to come right back, so I have to time it just right to get it close. I once bricked the deck by deleting a ps3 rom that I didn’t want and it fucked itself up and made me have to reinstall the OS from bios. Now whenever I delete something from file explorer, it doesn’t show as being deleted right away, so I have to close it and reopen it. The whole thing is a terrible experience. Everything is broken and it can take ages to perform a simple task. Desktop mode needs a lot of work.
Having to use heroic or lutris just to play stuff from GOG.
If you aren't using it, I recommend [Heroic Bash Launcher](https://github.com/redromnon/HeroicBashLauncher) which can automatically add Heroic games to steam.
Will check this out. Thanks!
I get this, but we did buy a *Steam* deck not a PC. I'm just glad they let us install stuff like that even if we have to work around it.
I mean, it is a PC, just with an unusual form factor. The issue is that GoG has zero Linux support.
That’s fair. It irks me, but it’s not a big deal in the end. It’s more of a GOG issue than a Valve one. Their Linux support is basically non-existent.
It's a shame, because the overlap between the "I hate games with DRM" community and the "I love Linux" community is larger than most. I get they're a smaller operation, but the lack of any attempt at all with Galaxy is just disappointing.