I GOT MY STEAM DECK! First Impressions, What I Like and What I Don't Like

[@Berengal]

You mentioned the gyro only working in Aperture Desk Job. That's actually something you can configure yourself with Steam Input in other games. Steam Input can also do a whole lot more to make the most out of the various control options the Steam Deck has. It's the type of thing that rewards the effort you put into it no matter how much or how little.

[@irvingchies1626]

I wanna press like but the like counter is "nice" right now, so I will get back when someone else messes it up

[@bland9876]

Your game has to support mouse and controller at the same time like Tomb Raider (2013) where I got the bow to act like Breath of the Wild Mess with mouse like joystick and it does work sometimes or you can go all keyboard commands which also works but neither of those are as nice.

[@temerenomine9698]

I tried aiming with the gyro, its very acurate.

[@tiagotiagot]

@@bland9876 It is possible to set the gyro to work for joystick input as well, in more than one way. Though. there's not many situations where that's better than mouse, besides a few things like steering for driving games, and in some cases as the pitch and roll stick for flightsims and such. And also, it is possible to setup a controller mapping that does not use controller emulation whatsoever, and does everything with virtual keypresses and mouse movements and clicks. Getting analog-like inputs for key-emulation can be a bit fiddly depending on the game though

[@Caleb5761]

I just want the Level1Crew to know that they really keep me going. I struggle with depression from time to time but 100% of the time without fail, I find myself just escaping the moment to enjoy the link show or whatever tech wizardry Wendell is doing. Thank you guys for just being decent people and producing awesome content.

[@cdoublejj]

You might also like the work the FUTO company/organization is doing

[@annakissed3226]

Hey Hugs. That could of been me writing that!!

[@bikeomatic8005]

I feel you brother, I got rid of my pc/laptop started getting out more and things got better, slowly but surely. There’s no easy way out and it will take time and effort. There’s no free lunch in this world so put in hard work and you’ll be rewarded, just be patient about it. Good luck!

[@Chris-B.]

It's a shame they don't read their own comment section. This is a positive one I feel they should have at least acknowledged.

[@Level1Techs]

But we do though....

[@examancer]

WENDELL! Welcome to the Steam Deck! You can turn on gyro controls in pretty much any game on a per game basis. It feels natural in some games and not in others, so I really appreciate that level of control. Also, don't sleep on the ability to install games on SD cards. It works shockingly well. I have the 512GB and have barely used it since I also have a 1TB MicroSD. I think the number of Steam Decks Valve is making both guarantees a bright future for linux gaming, and that almost all PC games going forward will work great on linux and great on the steam deck. It will be many years before any PC developers are willing to ignore the installed base of generation 1 Steam Decks. It sets a performance floor that developers will see as essential to meet to maximize sales. I think this console will have a lot longer legs, even for local play of AAA titles, than people expect. Plus, it will simply never lose the ability to play the enormous library of games it will play today as you stated.

[@KRAVER_]

Wendell and a Steam deck!! Prepping for some wizardry :)

[@louisharkna9464]

But I'm ALREADY playing Wizardry... ;)

[@Neumah]

Upcoming: Use your Steam Deck as a NAS/webserver via PCIe over Ethernet and drive your Tesla remotely while batch compiling git code automatically.

[@Charles_Bro-son]

@@louisharkna9464 I loved Bane Of The Cosmic Forge & Crusaders Of The Dark Savant, 6&7! :D

[@KRAVER_]

all those likes 👍 I guess everyone agrees, wizardry will be used. lol

[@dustinm4455]

Skipping all the repeated splash screen junk would be great and sometimes it can be skipped depending on the game. I bought a Steam Deck for similar reasons, and I hope they are successful in pushing that market. Valve has supported my library over generations where some consoles haven't or only have in a limited way. They could go away some day but at least they are trying for now lol.

[@paulwratt]

Yep, they do go away over time. It's been a few years, maybe a decade since I owned a windows game machine, and most of my library has disappered. But if you have them locally _that_ does not matter either.

[@acdbrn2000]

You can usually replace the splash screen videos with blank files or sometimes there is just a config option in one of the folders to disable them. I do it to most of my games. Also I agree that Valve does a good job of hosting games that are no longer for sale due to various reasons, but years later I can still install them and play them. The only time it really breaks is with those stupid games that have always online DRM… but for those I just install a crack or something similar and they work fine usually minus whatever pointless multiplayer junk they shoehorned in to justify the online DRM.

[@nap8187]

Typically under launch properties you can add a command to skip the intros. I have done this for Borderlands, All of the Dark souls games and Elden Ring, Doom Eternal, Dragons Dogma, TF2 etc etc. Hacks might be required for some titles but really it's easy for most titles to get rid of the intros.

[@TrueThanny]

Find the video files in the game directory and rename them. Some very poorly written games will not load when you do this (one of the _Assassin's Creed_ games had this problem). In that case, you need to procure a zero-length video of the same format and put that in place of the actual intro video.

[@MareLooke]

Ironically these used to be mostly skippable in the past, at least on PC. Guess we inherited that from consoles along with the stupid "Press Enter to continue" screens. Just take us to the menu, jeez... Feeling sort of vindicated in my complaining about these for the past umpteen years seeing Wendell also hates them ;)

[@CirynthLighthammer]

I can see Wendell doing a ton of videos for modding his SteamDeck. Please make it happen Wendell!

[@paulwratt]

Good to know he does not need to pioneer the heat spreader mod ;)

[@Prophes0r]

"modding"? You mean upgrading components? Putting a new drive into it isn't "modding". That leaves....cooling? Building a custom case? I honestly HOPE people aren't already doing chip-swaps on these already considering how friggin hard it is to get your hands on a working one.

[@paulwratt]

@@Prophes0r for people who are used to doing large package SMD replacements, this is not a problem (see 8Gb RPi400 & 3Gb RPi4 mods as an example) - LTT has already done a cooling mod, surprisingly successful I might add too (according to them).

[@hammerheadcorvette4]

I want to see Wendell post videos on how to ssh into servers or vps from the steam deck. Should be straightforward

[@raven4k998]

@@hammerheadcorvette4 wait till he manages to upgrade the apu in it

[@Terreos]

Both myself and my girl friend love out steam decks. Just chilling on the couch and playing games together feels oddly satisfying. Kind of like the good old days when me and my brother used to do this when we were kids. I've upgraded my ssd on my 64gb steam deck to a 512gb and it has not given me any issues. If I had to redo it I'd just go for the 512gb from the start. It's not bad to take apart. Just alot of small parts that I could break.

[@vincentgagnon8569]

I will probably get my email monday and i got a 512g WD SN740 2230 nvme. It is a Gen 4. I intend to swap it after testing the device for may be a month. I hope it is gonna work well. By the way still no Dock in sight ... bummer.

[@corbyn3326]

@@vincentgagnon8569 When did you reserve yours? Just curious for comparison to mine

[@vincentgagnon8569]

@@corbyn3326 July 31

[@corbyn3326]

Thanks for the info. I know a few people who reserved July 20th and just got their emails somewhat recently, so I’m interested to hear when you actually get yours

[@macbeardie]

Yay Steam Deck! Also, Yay audio!

[@Level1Techs]

AUDIO ENGAGED

[@macbeardie]

@@Level1Techs nice review, I'm glad I pre-ordered a stream deck in early February.

[@glennsteen]

Had mine since early may and... color me normie but I went with the 1 TB SD. Pretty important what you get (the whole A2, U3 etc thingy). I'm not going to open mine until something breaks. It has completely replaced all other gaming devices for me, even though the GPU/CPU isn't as performant as those devices. Game changer, indeed.

[@ThunderKat]

Anyone playing RiftBreaker try open the console and type the command "set camera_enable_zoom 1" "r_disable_fog 1" and "set sound_max_distance 500" fix some of the visual and audio issues when you play at this higher FOV zoom distance... You can set this commands on the initial_config file inside the game to set it permanently if you enjoy playing this way ;) Glad to see he enjoy the game, is a bit underated of a game but has lot of potential if they keep adding stuff to it on future DLCs.

[@deckverse]

Congrats! You're onto greatness here, since there's a lot to be discovered. A few important things - that'll be a long comment but it's worth it, believe me: Make sure to fully utilize the panel's ability to be set to 40Hz in game's where you can't hit a consistent framerate of 60 at 800p! (Details on that in my recent video, so feel free to check this one out - much appreciated!) Also an important note about FSR since I feel you will dig deeper into this: FSR in the Deck's quick menu is global and only helpful in some rare cases. It only works when the game is set to a resolution lower than 800, so let's say 540p because that's what most people opt to. Anyway: It's always better to leverage in-game features like FSR 1.0, 2.0, resolution scaling and such instead of the Steam Deck quick menu's FSR. Oh and also NEVER EVER TOUCH the framerate limiter in that said quick menu as well! (More details on why in my videos too.) Always try to set the refresh rate you're aiming for in the quick menu, let the framerate limit disabled (which comes enabled by default, which is kinda dumb in my opinion, Valve!) and utilize organic fps caps like V-Sync of a game for instance. Enjoy and thanks for your time!

[@jokerproduction]

I've been very tempted to grab one, but I'm waiting for the inevitable OLED version.

[@Its-Just-Zip]

Welcome to the steam deck family. And yes, as other people have said gyro control is not on by default in a lot of games, but it is very easy to set up I'm currently loving mine despite having it set up to do the tinkering that I had initially expected to be doing

[@PhoenixNoKiseki]

Firstly, shout out Wendell for watching Stargate. Second, my main reason for buying a Steam Deck (or it will be when I get one.) is emulation and playing old games. I don’t feel like it’s worth using a 4K display to play the Pixel remasters of the first 6 final fantasy’s. I’d rather play them on a handheld. Anything current I can play on console or on a gaming PC.

[@DinnerBeef]

Indeed

[@evilsam4]

Indeed

[@bugs181]

Indeed

[@cellprocessing6832]

Here is my question Wendell. I think your right about valve being the good guy. But part of that is them staying out of the stock market and largely due to Gabe. I hate being morbid. But what happens when Gabe passes? Valve is a company that is worth a lot for its size. I think they make more per employee than apple does. And a lot of money is to be made by having shares to sell on the market. I meet some of the people that create at Nintendo. And they do care. But they are publicly traded so there are suits making dumb policies to defend there IP to keep its value. Or at least they say. I believe at some point this will happen to valve.

[@TrueThanny]

We can only hope that he has chosen an appropriate successor, or made otherwise appropriate plans to keep the company going in the right direction.

[@juniorromero6119]

I hope Gabe outlives us all 🙏

[@alvallac2171]

*you're right (contraction of "YOU aRE") your = possessive *their IP (possessive) they're = contraction of "THEY aRE" there: for all other uses

[@Lestibournes]

What Valve is building is to a large extent an open platform. Even if/when Valve goes over to the dark side, a lot of what they've done will still be available for everyone.

[@GloriousEggroll]

Little tidbit that may help people out -- you can use steam button + X button to bring up the keyboard at any time, including in desktop mode

[@jonasga]

I have a Ryzen 5 5500U laptop with 2x8gb DDR4-3200. It's a 6 core 12 thread APU with Vega 8 graphics. I think it is mostly just a firmware revision of the Ryzen 5 4600U. I'm not sure if it is a bit faster or a bit slower than The Steam Deck APU, but I really quite like using it when I need to. A lot of the stuff I play works really well at super low power usage. I can run around with Guild Wars 2 open on battery and it chugs along 30 fps and doesn't get very warm. Ryzen APUs have been a lot of fun.

[@epicnoble]

Also Emudeck has been amazing on this. I have NES, SNES, Genesis, Dreamcast, PS1, Gamecube, PS2, PS3, Wii, and Wii U emulation working perfectly on it. It has become like a handheld gaming history machine, and I am able to enjoy every game I grew up playing with ease. One thing to consider by supporting Valve's endeavour. You are literally opening up the PC gaming market to another OS by supporting this product. If this succeeds, Linux could be the premiere place to play games via Steam OS. You won't be bound to Windows environments any longer if Proton and Linux via Steam OS manage to expand the market to more gamers via the steam deck. This is also introducing thousands of people to tweaking. The underlying Linux desktop mode is a great intro for people to get introduced to Linux. I am very excited about the implications of that.

[@TrevHolland]

"Also Emudeck has been amazing" So, you didn't watch the entire video before commenting. Got it.

[@epicnoble]

@@TrevHolland yeah I did watch the video he didn’t cover it was just stating it has been amazing for emulation overall

[@joshanders]

The deck has 'mostly' replaced my desktop as a daily gaming machine. AAA games, and games that benefit from higher resolution displays are still better on my desktop but otherwise gaming has been absolutely great on the steam deck. Battery life is my biggest gripe, but it's understandable and not to difficult to pick up a power bank for any time i can't be close to an outlet. I certainly hope we aren't tied to streaming in the future. Micron releasing that 2TB 2230 will be huge. Even if the deck can't keep up with AAA titles down the road it will still be a great handheld for older/retro games. Also, EmuDeck has been 'almost' flawless on my deck. I have run into a few issues with gameboy and xbox games specifically but those were fairly easily fixed. (The emulators didn't install properly) and now I can play all the old PS1/2, gameboy, NES/SNES etc games I used to play all the time without setting up the old consoles or being tied to my desk.

[@davidhettinger8873]

I totally agree and ultimately made my purchase a month ago based on the power of being able to stream to it. Parsec makes perfect sense... Now I just have to figure out what to do about the kids so there is time to play.

[@SethTierney]

I've been enjoying mine (64gb). I had issues with SD cards early on, but once I put in something that wasn't a cheapo brand it was fine. One thing I've noticed is that I don't use it in the same way I do my laptop or gaming pc. I am able to sit and focus on the game and not have the temptation to alt-tab or look at something on another monitor. I wouldn't use it for really long play sessions in UI-heavy games (Factorio, Project Zomboid, etc) but anything less complex has been great!

[@Level1Techs]

Subscribe and time machine

[@micobugija6284]

@The Real Cat of 2020 patreons get early access to Wizdel videos.

[@ZeroB4NG]

Lol, i have Duke Nukem 3D with Gyro on mine.

[@fohhee]

Base on reddit Steam Deck post, UK current shipping the August 2021 Steam Deck order, so basically you will get your deck close 365 day from the day you pre order. I order on 13 Oct 2021 but I am still put on Q3, so no chance for this month, might get it in mid September if I am lucky.

[@Putzpie4U]

Been watching since The Tek days and it's so cool to see you playing this like 7-8 years later and seeing how far linux has come along lol. Super pumped to see the steam deck linux video come out when you get to it.

[@ShogunnxYT]

The biggest “flaw” here is the release strategy. It’s weird that some can make a video like “hey guys here’s an unboxing and first impression of the Steam Deck”….. and there’s already a large group of folks yawning about the same thing. I’ve made mines into the perfect version. Dual booting , 2TB drive, ect… but that was months ago. Today, it still finds itself in its case on the floor behind the couch most times. It’s on developers now. Same as PS5: great potential. Great hardware. Now let’s start making some FUN games.

[@okojijoko]

Dope video! I picked up a 512 myself, but I'm still waiting. FedEx stated mine was delivered as of yesterday, but I had no FedEx truck even pass by our street that day.

[@LeJimster]

I got mine a few weeks ago. I primarily got it to support the effort Valve have put into Linux gaming. I've pretty much filled the 512gb nvme drive. I don't fancy taking it apart at this stage, so will get myself a SD card.

[@ZachDxn]

I agree Wendell, it's not perfect, but it 100% and absolute game changer! Still needs work, but has already come a LONG WAY, since I got mine 2 weeks after initial release. I LOVE THE STEAM DECK! Can't wait to see what Valve does with this new software platform.

[@TrueThanny]

It makes me unreasonably happy that Wendell knows what OS/2 is.

[@pilsen8920]

I have had a steam deck for about 3 months I love it

[@GamingBUFF]

Speaking of getting the most out of meager hardware, check out the DLSS 2.X -> FSR 2.0 mods that have started popping up for games like Cyberpunk 2077. It took a couple of days for a normie like myself to setup, but it squeezes better performance and or better image quality out of the deck which is amazing.

[@prychic]

Still waiting on mine. Feels like forever. Reserved back in feb.

[@rabbirt]

This is gonna be your most viewed video in a while. Bless the algo.

[@MacTX]

I haven't encountered many problems with mine and the minor hiccups have all been software based, something easily fixed. The hardware is surpassingly good as is, there is always room for improvements of course. Just about the only gripes I have they could probably put in the next version, eGPU support and a current gen 8-core CPU. Steam Deck would be perfect hardware wise in my eyes had it shipped with those. I've got mine set up as an emulation machine and it was surprisingly easy to setup with EmuDeck and it's a very capable machine in that regard. The hardest part was figuring out how to get my ROMs from their disc/carts to the Steam Deck. PS3 was super easy to dump the files, Blu-ray drive on my PC and a single turn key program that handled everything with the push of just one button. Some of the other consoles were a bit convoluted and required that I mod my console (not going do that) so gave up on them and got the files elsewhere. I get about 6 hrs. of play on the older stuff to about 3 hrs. of play on the newer stuff like PS3/Switch. Anything modern/current and I'll probably rather have that first experience on my ultrawide gaming pc rather than the Steam Deck. I'm using a 1 TB M.2 pulled from an Xbox Series X and so far so good. A little over 2 weeks of use and nothing out of the ordinary.

[@catriona_drummond]

I hope the irony, that the man who more or less killed physical game releases now goes and makes physical deliveries, is not lost to Mr. Newell.

[@roqeyt3566]

I like that someone as knowledgeable as Wendell is just having a good time with his deck :) Can't wait for the follow up!

[@ChipterLP]

Not only is this review great, but it also features Stargate! Amazing work Wendell and everyone else on the Level1 team

[@ChipterLP]

Might be a bit of a rough solution, but you guys should probably do a full ban on emojis in the comments. That should get rid of most of the bots, since KZbin isn't doing anything at all with them...

[@malifestro3319]

Finally! I can't wait to have a billion L1 videos on the Steam Deck. Unlock the magic Wendell!

[@igotheals]

I knew I loved Wendell for a reason, but couldn't pinpoint it - and then I see Dangermouse in his Netflix watch history, and it all clicked into place!

[@pioterowy1]

woah, what a nice review. It's pretty comprehensive and I enjoy the slower pace. Cheers!

[@MaleckinJinx]

1. There are many games that use the gyro controls (you said haptic but you meant gyro), you just need to change them in the controller settings. 2. AAA titles are like 30gb-50gb, way more than 3-4 titles can fit on a 512gb And AAAs getting optimized all the time.

[@Grimlo9ic]

Spot-on with the game intro portion. I feel like games should always have a -nointro flag available these days.

[@louisharkna9464]

On the streaming side, I will say that you all should go ahead and "add" your games from GOG and other sources (not gamepass) to your local Steam library. Being able to play games not 'purchased' through Steam via streaming is AWESOME. Was the 2400 baud modem a US Robotics or Global Village? Was the other computer stuff you traded for that toasterboy possibly a de-gunked Intellimouse? My younger computer janitor self wants to know!

[@mgkleym]

I've had my 64gb steam deck for a few weeks. Threw a high performance micro sd card in it and have had zero issues running games off it, only issue was god of war took a long time to install but for actually playing it load times are reasonable. Currently playing cult of the lamb and runs great even though it just launched today.

[@mueffe1357]

13:34 PSP have that sleep resume game feature. It is great for when you used up your battery, charge and resume later. It is a life saver (pun intended Lol).

[@adamcrux6829]

I hit the like button because you showed my favorite Tv series of all time when showing off the chrome browser. Yes SG1 (StarGateOne) is by far the best Tv series of all time. There are other really good similar series but SG1 is the best!

[@ineptwatcher]

One thing I wish Valve did is make this new version of SteamOS for the desktop. Sure, you can do that, there are guides, but honestly, I am lazy, I often don't have the time and I am not that sure of my own technical competency.

[@tacokoneko]

it's called holoiso but i installed steamos before holoiso existed and i can agree that it's not for people who don't have time for fixing it until it works

[@tacokoneko]

holoiso does work with NVIDIA but only some specific cards

[@tomb3782]

Sir, as always. Your analyses are fantastic! Can't wait to see to see what you a Steve do with the Steam deck.

[@mariozenarju6461]

I think most games allow you to skip the annoying intros through launch commands? Or heck, dig into the game's folder, and delete the intro videos themselves :'D

[@bland9876]

I've never tried putting my desktop PC into sleep mode while a game is running but I hope that if I ever did it would work just like the steam deck.

[@paulthebeardedonedowning6820]

yay you finally got it look forward to hearing all the wonderful; thing s you get up on it

[@XSpImmaLion]

Neat-o! Now Valve just has to sell this friggin thing in my country. xD Something I don't really get on the complaints side though... should people really consider the hardware "anemic" or bad in any way? I know Wendell talked about the Minisforum mini PCs there... but it isn't a proper comparison, right? Even though those are small, perhaps cause for deception, afaik they are not thin, don't run on battery, and don't have embedded displays... it's an entire other category. You can't really fit their mini PCs in a portable form factor, and I mean portable as in like the Steam Deck. It's not even that much a matter of component miniaturization anymore, it's about power draw and battery limitations. Like, in Deck's form factor, which is a relatively thin and light portable, with a battery as big as it likely could fit, not only the Deck is still the most powerful device out there, it's also the cheapest for spec. Well, at least afaik... if anyone has something better feel free to reply, I'm looking for it since I have no expectations Valve will bring Deck anytime soon where I live. xD Excluding other brands that came out first with the concept, like GPD, AyaNeo, OneNetbook and the like, which I also love just to be clear but are all more expensive and either lacking the RDNA2 graphics or using Intel Iris with wonky drivers... portable gaming is pretty much dead these days with the exception of the Switch which has a 6 years old nVidia SoC designed for Android tabletop. That I'd call anemic.... :P To be said, I guess this is also from where I'm coming from... I'm less trying to compare the Deck with the Switch, or looking at it devoid of comparisons from purely a gaming first perspective... I'm more looking at it with the evolution of ultra portables in mind. I've been following every release of GPD for a while now, plus a bunch of other ultra portable brands... and I owned a few semi-portables in the past such as Gole1 and Kangaroo PC based on Intel Atom architecture. Those were pretty powerful, cheap and surprising on their own back when they were released, but even then, nowhere near running anything even a low spec'd gaming PC or laptop could. It seems we had a paradigm shift when the GPD Win 3 came out, much like when the GeForce 10 series came out for gaming laptops and such. That you can play indie games, let alone a few triple A titles... it's just unprecedented, right? Anyways, glad to see the first impressions, and really curious what Wendell will have to say about running it as a Linux machine!

[@andre-le-bone-aparte]

@04:05 - An AMD APU inside the device... and Nvida Cloud Rendering. It's the love & hate relationship in action. Those two companies actually need each other more and more every year.

[@uss_liberty_incident]

For some reason I was under the impression you already had one. The Deck has been a wonderful way for me to increase my knowledge of linux while also being a great handheld gaming system.

[@oneuptheextraman]

I have pre-ordered mine. It is scheduled to arrive later this year. I plan to use it to game away from my computer desk, and game on my TV again (once I buy a dock). I hope it lasts for several years. I potentially see some games maybe making a steam deck mode where they try to maximize the battery, and lower the quality, and try to make it fit on the machine. I suspect it will last some time. At least I hope it does.

[@rev0lu7ion]

The biggest wow moment for me with steam deck is when I streamed and played aperture desk job at the same time in desktop mode. I wasn't sure a 4 core 8 thread cpu could handle a modern game and streaming at the same time but it was no problem.

[@aaronjohnson2547]

The Steam Deck has changed PC gaming for me I love not being tethered to my desk anymore. I don't think I can go back to gaming like I did before the Steam Deck.

[@Gillsystems]

I love mine, two weeks in. Only complaint I've had is configuring monitors in desktop mode when hooking up to 4k. The configuration screen is NOT user friendly for such a low resolution.. Running Steam OS and Win 11. That runs perfectly for XCOM 1... Which is the perfect game for this. Can't wait to see what wizardry you have planned for us...

[@dethbyneckbeard2435]

I can always respect another Stargate Fan...good video also lol

[@SNTrepie]

Got mine a couple weeks ago and love it. Been mostly playing Vampire Survivors on it and planning to work my way through all the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters soon. Only issue I've had so far wasn't with the Steam Deck itself but the 1TB SD card I got for it just kind of died when I plugged it into the USB adapter and was moving games from my PC onto it. While I was waiting on the replacement to come from Amazon I got around that issue by installing the Warpinator Flatpak onto the Deck and my PC running Fedora. Not the quickest method but it worked. Going to get the JSAUX dock soon and test it out on the living room TV.

[@therenzix]

Hundreds of comments about this are probably here but you have to add the motion control with the controller settings (which let's you put thumb on thumb stick and have motion controls)

[@Cronosonic]

Regarding not many games supporting the "haptic controls", as you called them (aka the combination of the gyro/motion controls and the capacitive sticks) you can use Steam's per-game input customization to set that up for literally any game you want. Really, Steam Input is amazing for control customization, especially in games that don't support controllers. I recommend trying motion controls as an aiming supplement for games like Doom Eternal, using the right stick or right touchpad for broader movements and the motion controls for precise adjustments, while it isn't quite mouse-level precision and speed, it's significantly more playable than just using a stick for aiming.

[@GeedunkGaming1]

So awesome you chose stargate sg1 😍

[@ryanmayobre7328]

I use Steam Link on a Wireguard VPN connection and the performance is great. If you have connection issues with Steam Link going to LAN networking, you might have to turn off the VPN and then re-run the Network Test within the app. That, in my scenario, fixes the migration from VPN to LAN. This might fix the TailScale problems if others are experiencing this.

[@jmb3d]

From my understanding, the Valve VR headset named Deckard will also have a processor that in combination with the Deck's processor would give you a good VR experience.

[@Splarkszter]

One thing is sure. If you still have a low end old computer. A steam deck is an EXCELENT choice. Because you CAN use it as a normal computer. Do your excels, modding, file manager. Steam deck is a 100% portable PC.

[@carlos2004]

i'll be playing my steam back log of older games, indies, and emulation (snes to ps2 mostly). i'm now in q3 and i'm really excited since i'll have it by next month. i'm going to be retiring my phone/kishi combo and my switch lite if the steam deck fits my needs.

[@JiminyP91]

Woooh Wendell all we had in our day was an A B button and start select with a single d pad.

[@banangineer2684]

I'm interested in seeing how you go about remote gaming. I discovered Moonlight + Sunshine as open sourced alternative to game stream and game hosting clients respectively and it's opened a lot of options in my home media. Moonlight runs as the client on my Steam Deck or any PC in my home, and Sunshine runs as my desktop host. Sunshine also works on PCs with AMD cards. Could be a fun topic for a video if you want to highlight the cloud gaming POV of the Steam Deck.

[@BloodshedRomance]

Really interested to see if you find a way to passthrough a mouse to a VM so it can be configured through a windows VM then released back to the deck.

[@Mike42998]

Just got my deck yesterday. been lots of fun playing civ6

[@izamanaick]

I do hope they release upgrade parts down the line, not just replacement parts. If they ever die shrink it, I would love to get some more mileage without buying a new device, even if it's not as good as a deck 2.

[@Cody4k]

I got my Steam Deck yesterday! Haven't done any linuxy stuff with it yet...

[@neandertalac]

Lucky you! In my country still not available 😭

[@The_Mup]

APU's may be advancing very quickly, *BUT* that does not mean that there will be another affordable handheld like the Steam Deck coming next gen. Currently the only competitors to the Steam Deck are from the likes of GPD and Ayaneo, and their devices are much more expensive for the same amount of performance. Valve have announced that they're planning to release a sequel to the Steam Deck but that is at least a few years out. So I would not agree with the idea that the Steam Deck is not a good buy right now due to upcoming APU performance increases because the only products that will see those APU's are mini-pc's or much more expensive handhelds.

[@The8bitbeard]

The forever console is right. I bought The Legend of Zelda on the NES back in the day. I cannot stick that golden cartridge into my Switch and play it. In fact, even though I've purchased that game on the NES, the GBA, the NES mini, the Wii, and the 3ds, Nintendo STILL wants me to pay an ongoing subscription fee just to play Zelda on my Switch. I bought Commander Keen for DOS back in the day. It came on a floppy disk. I still have that disk. If I want to, I can plug my USB floppy drive into my Steam Deck and run my original copy of Commander Keen via Dosbox, no problem. A 31 year old game and I can still happily play it on a modern system. Can I play my PS2 games on a PS5? No. And my PS2 won't last forever. Funny enough I CAN play my PS2 games on my Steam Deck. Persona 3 FES is a blast on that thing. There are now over 5000 Steam games that are either Deck verified or playable. That's a bigger library than any one console in all of history, and that's not even counting the tens of thousands of games you can play via emulator. Pretty impressive for a "console" that's only been out for less than a year.

[@ShinDMitsuki]

I'm very glad I care about so little AAA games. I play a ton of games, and every single one runs great on SD. Even Monster Hunter, my most played AAA game. I have no fear this device will last me years with no upgrade. The only upgrade I would want is more battery life for same titles. In a lot of lower demanding games I can get 5-6, but because emulation is demanding it's 3. If we could get 5 in emulators like ryujinx, *chef's kiss*

[@ugzz]

Great intro vid! I literally can't wait for more coverage on this. The Anticipation! Ever since I got my deck a few weeks ago all i've been thinking about is.. When is level1techs going to do some deep dives and cover some extras beyond the default stuff! fingers crossed :)

[@jonathanmelton5756]

Could you please do a tutorial on how to stream your PC games to your steam deck using your phones Internet? It’s almost impossible to find a decent guide on how to do this.

[@paulwratt]

"you have to wait for a whole minute for the game to load" - oh, we are truely in the end times :)

[@nogravitas7585]

When your runtime is measured in 3XX minutes max every minute counts, worse it isn't even loading it is just advertising splash screens.

[@RavingDavith]

Hi Wendell, I would really love to see you get into the docks and dongles that are being pumped out for the Deck because Im waiting for my deck and I psyched for it and the add ons

[@mitcHELLOworld]

Man, it is not too often that I don't agree with Wendell on things - but I feel like he really missed the mark on a lot of his takes on the Steam Deck.

[@atomictonic5459]

One suggestion. U need to install proton ge. Basically, all games that didnt run with stable proton, runs well with GE.

[@cppctek]

Heck yeah. I can’t wait to hear more about the nvme. I wanna do mine but thinking about 2242 2tb.

[@jerrywatson1958]

Well I had a choice to make complete my order for the Steam Deck or buy a Sapphire Toxic 6900XT LE w/360 rad for half price. I spent my savings on the Toxic. I may still buy one this year, it depends on Zen 4 motherboard pricing and DDR5 6400 memory pricing later this year. I would like to stream some games like you showed. That tethered to my cell phone over a vpn is great! I hope you do a video on setting it up.

[@Kazyek]

Even years for now, it will still be the perfect portable emulation device! EmuDeck is pretty great at making this easy for non-technical people too, although some of the emulators it ships are not the best ( both of RetroArch's N64 cores are horrendous, but installing the flatpak of m64p works pretty well, although it's input plugin sadly can't read a bunch of steamdeck inputs (can't read LB/LB/Start//Right joystick click & axis)

[@scarletspidernz]

2:58 Stargate SG1! The man has great taste!

[@Zaf9670]

The "thumb on the button" feature has been something from the time of the Steam Controller (gone but not forgotten). You can also use it with the Dual Shock controllers or probably anything with a IMU.

[@gertvisage]

Thanks!

[@jamielishbrook2384]

Factorio you say? Sweet. Been wanting to try that one. Any fun?

[@DavidWilliams-ie9xj]

Man I miss Stargate. Hope the Amazon corporate overlords builds on the IP.

[@qlum]

Been using mine during lunch breaks and on the train since I got it since april, and it's absolutely great. While I do wish they made it easier to run it with a different distro / vanilla arch under the hood, I still quite like it. It's a great way of tackling my almost infinite backlog of games I still need to play. Currently playing Nier Replicant which works perfectly if you set the refresh rate to 50hz. In terms of storage the way I use it is mostly one game at a time and so my 256gb is holding up nicely.

[@shadowtheimpure]

I just got my email 15 minutes ago, Steam Deck here I come!

[@Omegaxboy]

What date did you pre ordered?

[@shadowtheimpure]

@@Omegaxboy July 18th or 22nd, I believe.

[@hkoizumi3134]

I think majority of the people are getting steam deck for the backlog of older titles that aren't graphically demanding. The ones that are will most likely be played with their own desktop and if anything, streamed thru steam. So, having a beefy APU with Steam Deck 2 shouldn't be necessary.

[@Rexolaboy]

I didn't buy this for AAA titles, I bought it to play simple easy to play titles that I can pickup and put down while I'm waiting for a job to come through at work...I'd say AAA will stay on Xbox/PS/Nintendo and PC, the SD is amazing for your backlog of games from years past.

[@TheRelen222]

Same here. It's my go to for indie games and classic games. For that purpose, it should remain viable for years. Even when it becomes dated, it can easily be repurposed for an all-in-one retro machine.

[@Gondus]

There is a startup flag you can put on the doom eternal steam settings to skip the intro videos. I would say most games have "some" way to skip those kind of videos. Doing it is well worth the time saved.

[@ZeroB4NG]

and PCGamingWiki will usually tell you how to...

[@Four-sc6gj]

A lot of games allow you to launch them with command line args to skip intro movies, or tweak a config file to accomplish it.

[@VTOLfreak]

I reserved the cheapest version and my intention is to use it primarily as a remote client. So I don't really care about raw CPU/GPU performance as much. The form factor itself is the biggest selling point for me. Instead of playing my PC games at my desk, I can do it while laying on the couch.

[@DarksurfX]

I wasn’t going to get mine until after October. Decided to cancel preorder and get an AOKZOE A1 to install SteamOS on. I got tired of waiting for last gen tech after placing my order last year.

[@lonergothonline]

I wouldn't be surprized if most games have a launch option you can use to remove the logo's. like -nointro or something. maybe look into which of the games in your library support this through a list like pcgamingwiki or something. its like a thing I did in the 2000's. I still remember right clicking icon's on my desktop, going to properties, going to 'target' and pressing the end key then space, then something to enable cheats/console in most games.

[@anarekist]

Exactly how I use it, stream games from my gaming PC and cloud gaming, Xbox cloud is actually really great.

[@TesserLink]

i have the 256gb version, i would like to save up for a 1tb ssd and a 1 tb microsd since game devs dont compress anything these days