I had an old MSI gaming laptop from 2016 which was amazing for me (I always had slow, 2nd hand laptops before) and now I’ve sold it and my PS Vita in order to buy a Steam Deck. I want to play Elden Ring, the Souls series, Sekiro and some indie games like Vampire Survivor. I also want to emulate games (Gameboy gen up to PS2 gen). Would that be a good investment or should I just go for a PC? I travel frequently because of my job.
Sounds like a Steam Deck would be perfect for you tbh. Unless you are planning to play some rather intensive games, you probably don’t need a PC.
You won’t be getting 60fps in Elden Ring most of the time and as time moves on, there will be more and more games that won’t hit 60fps on the steam deck but can still be played. Starfield is a notable example.
If you aren’t bothered by that, go for it.
The deck is an absolute beast for indie games and the controls are incredibly good, so you can play stuff like factorio almost as well as with a mouse. If you fly often, factorio alone could make the deck worth it. They call it cracktorio for a reason, it just makes time fly.
I haven’t emulated much, but emudeck made it super easy (I’d almost say foolproof) for SNES and C64. Wii games are a bit of a pain because of the controls, but older stuff is generally fine.
I don’t have to play games on ultra 8k 4trillion fps. I could barely run Dark Souls 3 on lowest settings on my old laptop. So I’m happy if it runs well and looks okay
You will love the deck then
IMO 40 with some drops is your best bet. My experience is that the drops are mostly during exploration and not in combat. I don’t think I’ve been killed because of drops.
Forcing 30 adds noticeable input lag.
Visually, it’s technically not impressive once you get the performance where it should be, but I think the design looks really good. There are spots, especially in some of the castle/dungeon like areas, where you can look over a ledge and recognize all the stuff you just climbed and battled through that really give the whole thing a beautiful sense of scale.
I would also argue the new portable from said company emulates incredibly well on most titles.
As a fellow traveler, a Steam Deck is an absolute game changer
Oh yeah I bring my steam deck with me on all my work trips (and fun ones too ofc). It’s makes work trips much more bearable.
It’s much easier to carry around compared to a laptop, less heat, you can use it on a plane all the time without being cramped, you can play it a few minutes, switch it to standby and then resume later whenever you have a few minutes more…
Yeah you’re constantly stopping and starting while traveling so the standby feature is clutch.
What you have listed is perfectly fine for the steamdeck, you can load in plex and spotify as flatpaks and then add them as a non-steam program to broaden it’s useful ness when away.
Neat! (As a non-Steam Deck owner but eyeing with desire) I hadn’t thought about putting Plex on it.
Not OP, but do you know if I could do something like join a Google Meet while playing a game? Bit specific but it’d really be useful to me.
Definitely possible but you’d probably want a dock and a couple of monitors at the least. And your gaming performance would likely be compromised as videoconferencing is a relatively intensive task.
You can use Discord as there is a flatpak I would imagine meet would run as a web-app so open the steam browser login and go or make an electron/web-app from the page would be my goto.
Cheers!
I’ve sold it and my PS Vita in order to buy a Steam Deck
Sounds like you’re more looking for affirmation rather than asking a question. Also posting here is likely to get you the answer you’re looking for. So here it is:
Yes, you should absolutely buy a SteamDeck.
You can even use it as a laptop if you really want to.
No I’m broke. I had to sell it in order to get something new. I also sold my old laptop. And I still need 20$. I know not having money is not an issue for some of you guys but for me every penny counts.
I don’t understand why you replied to me with this. I didn’t say anything about money.
Being a 40s gamer with bad eyes, the only thing I dislike about the Deck is the small screen size, which keeps me from using it handheld as much as I’d like to.
But it’s my only PC currently, and it’s fantastic docked with Bluetooth M&K. In every other way but the native screen, it’s exceeded my expectations.
Down the road when it’s time to upgrade, I’ll probably get a device with a larger screen, but I will always love the Deck, which has convinced me that I’ll probably never main a laptop again.
I replaced my PS4 with it. I game on the couch handheld style when I don’t want to annoy my wife. I game on the TV with MnK blue tooth or my old ps4 controller when i do.
Thank you I find it really heartwarming that you still play video games.
Why? I mean those who first grew up with games can be 50+, and it’s not like all games are for children.
I’m 47 and love my steam deck!
@morgan_423 @neku Never say never. I think maybe I should get a ps5. I know I am missing out gaming at high settings.
Steamdeck will be a good replacement for a gaming laptop and less expensive. Mine is 1 year old. Almost every games work well on Linux thank to Valve and Wine, i don’t see any problems with your games. And you can emulate old game on Linux but i never tried it.
There is some issue :
- you can’t play Kenshi, City Skyline. You will need a dock, keyboard and maybe a bigger screen.
- Some game use a launcher that will block ya from playing it. Hence why some player decide to install Windows. (Blame the editor, not Valve)
- The Steamdeck handle well AAA title but it will drain its battery quickly. Elden ring can last 2h i think.
And imho, you should never install Windows. Why ? To increase Linux market share. So game editor will work on their launcher and make them compatible with Linux. And there is plenty gaming console on Windows, lot PC on windows. Windows’s gamers have plenty options (ROG). So just for this one, we should accept the Steamdeck as a Linux gaming machine, for once.
When you say you can’t play Skylines, that’s just because you don’t like the control experience, right? I used to play it with a Steam Controller occasionally so I feel like I wouldn’t mind too much haha.
Yeah, it was slow i tried to lower the resolution but it was sluglish :( Maybe connecting to a bigger screen with a keyboard will improve the experience. did you see, there is city skyline 2 that is coming out soon ! this is a great year for gamers ! :D
Steam Deck is excellent for work travel. Easy to set up and play in bed at a hotel.
I’m in a long distance relationship and regularly go 4h by train
The Steamdeck is so worth it if you travel regularly
Well worth it given your use cases.
I’d definitely utilize Proton DB to figure out what games work well on the Steam Deck. The verified badge on steam doesn’t usually give an accurate assessment of what will play well on it.
I got one for my wife last Christmas, but our 19-year-old daughter countermanded it, and has something like 15000 hours logged, while maintaining a near-perfect GPA.
So apparently it works.
I bought an external travel monitor just recently. 15-16", 10800 mah battery, 1080p. Very thin. Plug it into the usb c and the screen even have touch. I can now play on a bigger screen without the need of a tv or even a power socket. Pair this with a dock, a small keyboard and wireless mouse and you basically have that laptop for when you need it. Brings cost up somewhat for sure. But now you can use it as handheld, on a screen, or on the tv.
I have had great times with my Deck, I picked up the 256 GB and upgraded with a 1TB MicroSD. I have to say, as hardware goes, it’s quite solid. It’s also very easy to get into the Linux backend and set it up for emulation and other side loading, and it does 6th Gen and back reasonably well, with a couple forward for the Nintendo line. I haven’t tried it myself but as I understand it, it’s a reasonably good build even for the switch. I’m not usually a device fanboy but I’m actually looking forward to the next iteration.
As for high performance, I can verify for Elden Ring, as with pretty much all of the modern titles, it runs at a steady 30 FPS 720p, with the occasional dip. If you fly long flights a lot, it’s great - just be cognizant of the low battery life and run on AC where you can.
If your computing needs are light, you can definitely use a steam deck as a laptop, but while traveling it won’t be a great experience for general computing. As a game system, it’s amazing. I absolutely love my deck.
I completed Elden Ring on the Steam Deck without problems and I assume the other Souls games would run even better. Vampire Survivor also runs fine, no surprise really.
It is awkward as a laptop, but for gaming it is really nice. It’s the closest you can get to a gaming console for PC games.
From what I’ve seen it looks and runs decently smooth even on a bigger screen
Yes, I played most of it docked to my TV using a PS5 controller and only some undocked. There is no difference between docked and handheld mode like for the Switch though so it is fine either way.
Just don’t expect the highest quality settings for any recent AAA game. Due to hardware specific optimizations it is seriously impressive what the machine can actually run.
Sorry, I cannot really answer this. I am using the docked USB ports for mouse and keyboard receivers and have never tried any external storage.
Hahahahahaha
If you’re interested in emulation, then the Steam Deck is worth your whole. There’s a program called Emudeck that will set you up with all the emulators from Game Boy to PS2 (and more). It’s easy to download and run and will do a lot of the configuration for you. While I haven’t played any PS2 games on it yet, I have played GameCube games and they run just fine, and most of the older systems will also run well.
