Submitted 5 months ago by Guadin@k.fe.derate.me to steamdeck@sopuli.xyz
https://k.fe.derate.me/m/steamdeck@sopuli.xyz/t/194183
I was wondering how much you are using your Steam Deck? And did the games you play on it change since you bought it?
I find that I used it a lot when I first got it, but my usage has gone down in the mean time. That's mostly because I play games that are not a great fit for the Steam Deck (strategy, building, etc.) and I prefer to play those on my PC.
I bought it rather than upgrading my gaming PC which I built back in 2016. So it’s my primary gaming machine now. I use it every day.
That was my move as well. I did do some upgrades on my PC along the way, but the base was still from 2009 (and I must say, it functioned surprisingly well). But a couple of months back I upgraded my PC as well. But the decline in play time on the Steam Deck was started before the upgrade.
Yeah my 2016 build still holds up pretty well. It’s a 970 and 8gb of RAM (but I gave it a big swapfile) and it’ll still run basically any game. I’ve never much minded medium or low graphics settings anyway
Yeah, during work breaks or when chilling in the living room with my wife while she does her hobby stuff.
It’s not my main machine by any stretch of the imagination but it does get regular use.
I exclusively use it. For most games it works great, for some games it doesn’t, but that’s fine for me.
Never really used mine much at all.
Same. It’s been great on a few occasions, but I’m not playing much in general. It still came down to a third of my playtime being on Steam Deck last year.
Though I have to say I did use it more than I expected over the last two years.
If you’ve got kids and a partner, you can’t go sit at your computer or take over the living room TV…
So, yeah, I use my Deck all the time. I take it with me on work and road trips but I’m always driving or working so it honestly gets most of it’s use on the couch. Six feet from the much more powerful gaming PC and six feet from the living room media PC that can also play games. Hundreds of dollars of GPU in one room and hundreds of hours using the Deck instead.
My steam deck is my gaming device.
I play all kinds of games on it including strategy games like Beyond All Reason. With gyro it works totally fine.
You can play BAR on the steam deck!? That’s awesome! But how are the controls? Playing without keyboard/mouse?
gyroscope input to supplement joystick controls, see my comment here
touchpad + gyro works too!
Wut?!? How was installing BAR? Been wanting to try it but haven’t had the time.
step 1: switch deck to desktop mode
step 2: open up Discover (flathub preinstalled package manager) and search for Beyond All Reason, click install
step 3: if you want to be able to play it in gaming mode navigate to the app in your start menu in desktop mode and then rightclick “add to steam”
step 4: play BAR!
I do not game as much as I used to a decade ago and my gaming laptop had been dead for a while. The deck helps me casually pick up gaming every now and then. I am more interested in single player games now.
Count me in that group. Mostly single player games that I can pause at a moments notice when my wife wants something. 🤣🤣
Same, but a lot closer to 2 decades. But I still pickup humble bundles from time to time. Now i finally have a device to go through them.
My time and ability to game has led me to almost exclusively play on my steam deck, and I now game a lot more than I’ve gotten to in a decade.
For the past couple of years (I upgraded to the OLED) I’ve pretty much only purchased/played games that will play well on the SD.
I like many games that are really only suited to a bigger screen or mouse/keyboard, but not enough to get any of them, because I know I won’t be able to play them consistently enough to even remember what was going on since I’d played last.
Long COVID tied me to my bed. The Deck is the only gaming device I can comfortably use there.
That sucks man. Nice to have the Steam Deck then. At least you have some form of entertainment.
Wish you the best and good recovery. I assume you also use it as a stationary machine connected to the tv/monitor?
Na, don’t really watch TV. But I’ve got a laptop on a rolling table.
Some bpap sessions helped me get off bed after COVID, and gym helped me get back to “normal” after some months. Don’t know if it can help you, but hope you get better.
Got the original not long after launch. Upgraded to OLED right around when it launched. I have some times when I don’t play it, but not often. Recently I have even been playing some RTS games since I got the controls working fairly effectively.
Many games I used to play on my Playstation I am now instead playing them natively on Deck. It’s comfortable. I love handhelds.
I really wish they’d release a steam controller 2, now that they’ve learned a bit more, and now that people are embracing the control scheme.
I hope too! I think they did not figure out how to make the controller not too big with the two touch pads, without sacrificing the other important elements. That was one of the deal breaker for the original Steam Controller, alongside the not that much optimal ergonomics in the hand. If Valve can pull off a Steam Controller 2 that is inline with the Steam Deck and is capable of replacing my Xbox controllers, then I would happily pay full price at launch (after reviews off course). It could be the ultimate game controller.
my steam deck is my main daily device. I use it for most stuff. I own consoles, but its just so much easier to use the deck cause I can keep everything in one place.
steam, emulation, I even use it for youtube. docked to my TV.
Currently, no. But I also haven’t opened a game on my PC in months, since that time sadly has to go towards my Master’s thesis. But ever since I got the deck, I have heavily used it. It’s easier to pick up and put down than the same game on PC, so I just do (did) more frequently.
Daily and by that 2-3 hours a day.
I bought it instead of that Portal for the PS5 so as to stream games from my PlayStation so the family could share the TV but I found I am now just buying games for it (the Deck) solely and not using the PS5 anymore.
Use it every day. Being able to suspend and resume so smoothly usually makes it preferable to my main PC even if both are available. There are only a couple games (mostly hard fps) that I prefer to play on the PC instead.
Suspend and resume are indeed fantastic. There is no wait time before you can game.
I use it to game when I visit my mom but I don’t use it at home. So it depends on how often I visit my mom :D
I’m at a very “play for couples minutes when and where I have time” phase of life. So my gaming is almost 100% on my SteamDeck.
Twice a week maybe three times in bed when my hands hurt too much to play on normal controllers.
I hate my weak AF 38 year old Fibromyalgia body. 🥹Image
So I have a glass etched OG 512 LCD and a limited ED oled because I’m on life crisis #4 abouts.
The oled definitely feels lighter after handling both. And better WiFi is also nice.
I use mine all the time when I’m on vacation or otherwise out of town, and every once in a while when I’m at home. I was able to play almost anything I wanted to so far, though I find games like Factorio a bit cumbersome without a mouse/keyboard setup. Bought the original 256gb deck on launch.
I just have it hooked up to the dock and play it on my TV mostly like a portable itty bitty PC. I have an Xbox controller and a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse so I can play basically anything but fallout 4 since they thought it would be hilarious to remove menu prompts from that game when you use the deck on a TV. No idea why but yeah I can do most stuff with it so I do.
I just plugged it to my TV to remote play GoW on a big screen.
No other device can pull this off with 4k Stream, HDR, Surround Sound, full DualSense support and sub-1 frame (of 60) latency.
I use mine a ton. I actually prefer it (or Switch) for 90% of games. I have a PS5 and gaming PC and I actually bought the PlayStation Portal because as it turned out, I just like the format more than playing on TV. (I know about Chiaki — the Portal is seamless so I can hand it to a kid without getting them set up first and it never really disconnects.)
I think in part, it’s just a function of age. I don’t necessarily have uninterrupted time for big, cinematic games that work best on TV. Half of them have a 2h intro before you can even play the game. So, I end up playing games like Hades where I can get a few runs in and stop if I’m interrupted.
Almost every day, it’s really helping get through the backlog I’ve built up over the years!
I use mine pretty often. I mostly play retro and indie games. It’s an amazing piece of kit.
It definitely is, and I really enjoyed it when I got it. But I do run into the limitations of the device. Those limitations are by design because I would like a bigger screen, but putting a 17" screen on a handheld doesn't make it a handheld anymore. So my usecase might not fit with the device anymore. I do use it sometimes to play sports or casual games. But that's about it.
A whole bunch. After watching Fallout on Prime, I was inspired to try the series again (started and stopped both FO:NV and 4 several times in the past). I’ve played through all of Fallout 3, NV, and their DLCs, and I’m currently in the Nuka World dlc in 4. They all run fabulous on the deck. I work from home, so the thought of gaming in the very same chair I’ve been in for 8 hrs is unappealing. But lounging on the couch with my deck is fantastic!
I’m in the same boat but having a blast with FO76. I’m glad I waited since the rocky launch back in 2018 - while the game is still far from perfect, it’s a lot of fun to play and Bethesda did a good job fixing up the game.
Is the game still only multiplayer without any NPCs?
I plug mine into a hub with hdmi and ethernet to use it for desktop gaming, and then use it as a handheld whenever I need to go on a trip. The performance is definitely… unusable in many games on the 1440p display I have it hooked up to, but I don’t mind running games at a lower resolution or with FSR.
It was setup as a desktop PC for my kid, (official dock, 1080p display, kb+m) for the last year and a half. Bit of an experiment on my part here, because I was curious to know if it was really viable.
The short answer is: yeah, kinda, but with big caveats.
The long answer is:
It’s surprisingly unreliable. We have had frequent issues (once every two weeks or so), with peripherals suddenly stopping to work for no apparent reason, or the system being slowed waaaay down. Turning it off and on again worked most of the time, but that is not something I expected from a Linux-based machine.
I think this might be an issue with the official dock. I’ve got a third party dock that’s a lot more stable. The biggest problem I have here is that the port not being thunderbolt or usb-4 limits your dock options a lot
I’m the same: I used it a ton when I first got it and now it’s collecting dust. Here are my personal issues with it:
I guess I essentially just wanted a Switch that could use my Steam library for 2D indies and older games.
Aside from that, I think I also kinda bought it to rejuvenate my interest in gaming, but it only did that for a few months. That has nothing to do with the Deck though.
Yeah, that last part about getting my gaming vibe going is something I recognize. I used to get a lot of joy out of gaming and could spend hours on it. Now it is feeling more and more like something I do just to pass time.
I really like the dumb detachable controllers on the Switch. I love that form factor. I wish I could play 2D or low res Steam games on the Switch. But I don’t really want to buy a Switch without that, and the hardware is kinda underpowered, and there’s no Linux support that I know of.
I don’t have a room that would justify a desk. I use the SD daily and it’s faster than my other options anyway.
Yes! I like to play on the bed so there’s nothing better. I’m playing forever skies on pc because it freezed the steam deck when I tried to start it but any other game it’s on the deck
Same with me. 90% of my gaming time is in bed after my kiddos have gone down to sleep, so there’s no substitute. I’ve used it almost every day since I got it in December.
I do want to set up game streaming from my desktop, but I just haven’t got around to it yet, mostly since it means I need to set up my WiFi mesh which I’ve been procrastinating.
derbolle@lemmy.world 5 months ago
almost every day for a year. my gaming pc often collects dust