steam deck, Valve’s pretty good handheld gaming PC, has been out for a year, and it’s also currently 10% off — its first ever price cut. The temptation you’re currently feeling to buy a Steam Deck for such a low price is undoubtedly strong (I’ve been there and understand), but as a huge fan of Steam Deck, I have to share some thoughts to get you ready for what’s to come Prepare. As great as this device is, it has its limitations.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of things you should know, or even how every Steam Deck user feels about the machine. These are just notes that I feel are important. With this in mind…
- This is not PS5: This might be obvious, but I think it’s worth mentioning that while the Deck is powerful enough (eg, for a handheld device – much better than the Switch), it won’t run Returns like the PS5.
- Don’t set all visual settings to max: Again, maybe obvious, but this is no replacement for a home PC with a modern high-end GPU. You need to compromise on things like texture detail, shadow quality, and environment detail. I tend to focus on how much better I can make handheld games look compared to the Switch, so every level above is a win in my opinion.
- frame rate matters : In an ideal world, you’d be running all your games at 60FPS and laughing, having the most fun time imaginable. The problem is, the Deck can’t run all games at 60FPS, and doing so too often drains the battery like eating pizza. To be clear, I love pizza. So changing the refresh rate to 40 in the performance settings on the deck itself can give you a nice balance between smooth gameplay and less battery usage.
- Don’t count on using non-Steam games: Potentially get your GoG and Epic Games Store games running on the Deck. There are launchers that can handle this, but it’s not simple for the average person, and it’s a bit of a hassle to get started. Initially, I tried unsuccessfully to get various non-Steam games to work, and I found that I ended up wasting a lot of spare time.
- Emulation is very good, but see above: Steam Deck is a beast when it comes to simulating older consoles. There are a million guides on how to do this on the web and YouTube. But again it will come down to timing. I tinker so much with various emulators that I find I don’t play any games for more than a few minutes to initially test them. If you like tinkering, ignore it and enjoy yourself.
- buy keyboard and mouse: I 100% recommend getting a bluetooth keyboard and mouse if you plan on doing any tinkering whether you’re playing on the deck’s screen or outputting it to a TV/monitor. Both peripherals can be mimicked with a standard Deck, but it’s clunky and the on-screen keyboard is especially cumbersome to use.
- old games are your friend: I’ve gotten some of the latest games up and running on the Deck, and it’s impressive to see, but there’s always a part of my brain that says I’m not seeing them at their best. This is where old games come in. dig out? Perfect deck. Dragon’s Dogma? Great top set. If you’ve missed games from over 10 years ago, chances are they’ll be great on the Deck.
- Buy as much storage as possible: Games today are huge, not only in terms of play time, but also in terms of digital storage space. Some games are over 100GB, so if you like to play several AAA titles at once, you’ll want at least 256GB. I bought the cheapest Steam Deck and added an SD card. I have no regrets.
- Installing a lot of games can cause other problems: Steam Deck has become my gaming console. This is what I do when I have 20 minutes to spare. Having a lot of games to choose from can actually be a bad thing when you’re pressed for time. Choose paralysis to rear its head, and you’ll end up with nothing to do. I only have two games installed at a time now, and I’ve made more progress through them since then.
- Do not turn on performance override: I learned my lesson here. Again, this might not work for everyone, but for me I find myself playing the game more fun when I’m not constantly tweaking things to keep the FPS steady at 40. A small number in the corner of the screen meant that most of my time was spent changing game settings rather than actually playing the game. If your PC game is tuning, you can turn on more stats, but if you want to use the Deck as a console, never turn it on.
- Oh yes, the Steam Deck is not a console: If your gaming experience is almost exclusively on consoles, you’ll be a little shocked by the Deck. Some games on Steam won’t work at all. Some are poorly optimized and some require a lot of fiddling to work well. Stick to the curated section of the Steam store designed for Deck users, and you’ll be mostly fine, but you still won’t get the super-smooth, frictionless experience you get on Switch.
- Home streaming could be great: If you really want to play the latest high-end games on the Steam Deck, it’s an option for those with a great gaming PC. Steam has built-in streaming technology that you can set up to stream games from your PC to your Deck.i tried this Marvel’s Spider-Man Running on my 3060 PC. I can use DLSS and enable ray tracing, which means the game looks much better than running it locally on the deck. If your home network is good enough, you won’t really notice most games being streamed.
That’s it. If that hasn’t put you off, order the Steam Deck. For me, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever bought. If you purchased Steam Deck, please let us know what you think in the comments below.
