My experience with the Steam Deck OLED

Thanks Value for blessing us with Steam Deck. And then later with the newer OLED model. I've had my Steam Deck for a couple months now and I love it so much I had to make a 40 minute video dedicated to this device.
Timestamps
0:00 Intro
1:04 Hardware
2:04 Ergonomics
3:19 SteamOS
8:07 Linux
11:15 Docking
11:53 SteamGames
13:18 Terraria
13:29 Don't Starve
13:35 Rocket League
13:48 Stardew Velley
14:06 Cuphead
14:11 Cat Quest
14:25 Overcooked 2
14:35 Borderlands 2
14:53 Resident Evil 2
15:25 Master Chief Collection
15:54 Cyberpunk 2077
16:24 Helldivers II
16:41 Half-Life
16:47 Left 4 Dead 2
17:10 CS2
18:15 Morrowind
18:37 Oblivion
19:02 Skyrim
19:21 Dishonored
19:33 Dishonored 2
19:48 DOOM
20:13 Tomb Raider
20:36 Shadow of the Tomb Raider
20:55 Phasmophobia
21:28 Valheim
21:47 Lethal Company
22:09 Dragon Ball Z Kakarot
22:29 Dragon Ball FigherZ
22:43 Star Wars Battlefront 2004
23:03 Shadow of Mordor
23:32 Plants VS Zombies
24:04 Delver
24:27 The Sims 4
24:58 Thief 2014
25:07 This War of Mine
25:18 The Escapists
25:32 The Escapists 2
25:46 Cities: Skylines
26:23 The Witcher 3
26:47 Plague Inc: Evolved
27:06 Little Nightmares
27:21 Granny
27:39 Soulcalibur VI
27:53 House Flipper
28:03 Stray
28:25 Hogwarts Legacy
28:43 Emulation
32:50 What I love
34:30 What I dislike
36:14 Price Comparison
38:14 Upgrading the Storage
40:18 Should You Buy A Steam Deck?
Music by Jalen

[@NeilMoore]

@YogertPC, Be **very** careful holding the Steam Deck OLED with one hand. I had to send my first OLED back because it developed nauseating creaking noises on the ABXY side because I kept holding it one handed. Any time I wanted to show off my Steam deck to my brother, or hand it to him, I would take either my left or right hand off the Steam Deck and this would put unnecessary strain on whichever side I was holding. So, when I got my replacement OLED, I tested it. I tried to make it creak by applying pressure to either side, and while it wasn't creaking, it felt like if I continued applying pressure to it, I would eventually damage it, causing the creaking to come right back. There aren't many screws holding the front and back shells together near the far left and far right where you're gripping the system, and I think it's for that reason, the creaking can occur over time. Not only that but, the OLED is actually a bit lighter than the LCD model, which means that it might be more fragile or more susceptible to creaking issues. It seems reasonable to suggest that "being lighter" is generally synonymous with "being less rigid". Therefore, I immediately put it in the Killswitch case and I'm very careful to pick up the Steam deck from the center, or using two hands. I prefer to always pick it up using 2 hands, because if I apply too much force when picking it up from the center, the Steam Deck might develop a hairline crack in the plastic right above the screen. That happened to my LCD model. I felt the need to let you know about this because you were manhandling your Steam Deck around 11:40. I wouldn't DARE do that even for demonstration purposes because every time you do that, you're putting a huge amount of strain on one side of the system and when you find out it creaks, you'll wish you were more careful because it's extremely annoying. My fundamental biggest gripe with Steam Deck is the sticking B button. I had to vigorously sand down the shell around the B button using 400 grit wet or dry. It took over an HOUR. I had sticking issues with my LCD model, my original OLED model, and my replacement OLED model. I was very unlucky to encounter the same issue consecutively across all 3 models. I finally broke down and sanded the plastic. I no longer have a sticking B button and it's finally glorious. The reddit members suggested only about 15 seconds of vigorous sanding would be needed, which is either a blatant lie, or I'm just insanely unlucky and mine required much much more sanding. I used half a sheet of the wet or dry and it took well over an hour. I even had to cut the wet or dry into strips and taper and round the strips in order for the sandpaper to fit between the button and the shell. Redditors suggested the sticking B button is a self resolving issue as it would wear down over time--this was not the case for me. Mine only worsened over time, and this is the replacement OLED model that I have absolutely babied. It was very annoying. For that reason, I have to dock half a star from the Steam Deck. Another major gripe of mine is the Bluetooth audio. I have $250 Samsung earbuds, and the audio is fantastic... until it isn't. Crackling, delayed, stuttering, unreliable audio. I have to toggle bluetooth off/on to resolve it. Bluetooth issues have been a major issue. Another gripe: when I first got my OLED model, i had to completely disable ipv6 on my entire network to resolve slow download speeds. I couldn't even patch my steam Deck until I did that, and figuring out ipv6 was the cause took many hours of research and trial and error. The OLED model uses a different wifi chip than the LCD model, and I'm not the only person with these wifi issues. I'm at 16:00, and I noticed that you're playing FPS games without Gyro, but you did mention Touch Pad. I really need to make a tutorial that demonstrates how to play FPS or Third person games with Gyro, because not doing so is extremely unpleasant. I'm now at 21:28 If you Check out Valheim or Turbo Overkill, and search for "Creepio" when searching for Controller Layouts, you should see mine appear. I really like my Valheim one. Valheim's inconsistent framerate makes gyro w/ flickstick inconsistent, which is why I use gyro w/ trackpad for making quick camera rotations. However, Turbo Overkill's framerate is more consistent, therefore gyro w/ flickstick seems to work well with that one. Also, I think I had to force Valheim to use the latest experimental proton because I was having issues. Definitely check out my Creepio controller layout, and be sure to disable gamepad in game. You'll want to use mouse and keyboard with my controller layout for the best experience. I would personally put Valheim in the A tier but that's only because I spent a substantial amount of time tweaking my Valheim controller layout. If you do check out my controller layout, you might have issues getting the Gyro to work. If that happens, remove L3 as the gyro activation button, and then add it back. Then in game, press L3 to activate gyro. You'll have to do this when bringing up any menus as well. I really need to make a video demonstrating my Valheim controller layout because it's honestly pretty sick. Regarding Shadow of the Tomb Raider, I recommend force enabling Proton because by default, Steam Deck uses the Linux version of that game. This means that if you want to play the campaign on the Steam Deck, and then pick up where you left off on your Windows PC, you won't be able to because the Linux Gamesaves are separate from the Windows Game Saves. So, to sidestep this problem, just force enable Proton for Shadow of the Tomb Raider and you'll be able to pick up where you left off. Also, if I recall correctly, the Proton version of the game even runs better than the Linux version, but don't quote me on that. My memory is sometimes weird. Also, I highly recommend you create a controller layout for keyboard/mouse and enable gyro aiming when using bow and arrow for more accurate and precise aiming. Okay I have finished watching the video. I have to say, I think you glossed over Gyro. Gyro is an extremely important thing to the Steam Deck, and I feel like you didn't give it hardly any attention. Gyro is implemented like a freaking BOSS on the Steam Deck. It's an absolute killer feature. Gyro Mouse Camera aiming with Flickstick or Trackpad aiming is a very potent combination. Gyro has a TON of settings you can configure so that you can tweak the aiming to your exact liking. Edit: I see now you did at least mention gyro around the 17:00 mark. 👍 I know you mentioned the Trackpads a couple of times, but I also think you didn't pay too much attention to those either. It's easy to forget that the Steam Deck has trackpads, and finding ways to utilize them is how you get the MOST out of the Steam Deck. This is what separates this system from the competition (Rog Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and MSI Claw). Those trackpads make navigating with a mouse 100x more comfortable. They're great for Wii cursor when emulating the Wii. They're great for Virtual Menus. The trackpads make RTS games like Starcraft and Command and Conquer playable, which would be downright AWFUL to play on literally any other gaming handheld. They're great for games like Trine, where you must draw squares and straight lines to spawn objects. Also, the Steam deck has 4 back buttons, whereas the Rog Ally has only 2. Those 2 extra back buttons are so freaking useful because you can bind things like, "CTRL" to L4, and "SHIFT" TO "L5", your "Use" key to "R4" and you still have one back button left over for other things, like switching between your different weapons based on how long you hold the R5 button for. My Valheim controller layout is a perfect example of how to utilize these extra buttons meaningfully. Here's a quick list of the games I've really enjoyed playing on the Steam deck: Spider Man, God of War, Valheim, Lego Star WArs, Helldivers 2, Scars Above, Prince of Persia, Star Wars Force Unleashed, Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, Grand Theft Auto V, Angry Video Game Nerd, Ori and the Will of Wisps, Ori and the Blind Forest, Cuphead, SteamWorld Dig 2, Star Wars Battlefront II, Doom Eternal, Celeste, Trine 1 and 2, Duke Nukem 3d 20th anniversary world tour, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Bioshock Remastered, Gears 5, All of the Tomb Raider games, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: shredder's Revenge, Hades, V Rising, Oddworld New n Tasty, Alien Breed Impact, Kena Bridge of Spirits, Portal 2, Alien's Fire Team Elite, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, Yoku's Island Express, Spelunky, Broforce, Waves 1 and 2, Sonic Lost World, Luxor, The Ascent, Star Wars Episode 1 Racer, Guacamelee 1 and 2, Yooka Laylee and the impossile lair Anywho, great video. Thanks for making it. :)

[@YogertPC]

Good info, thanks for letting me know!

[@YogertPC]

Pinned for others to see

[@NeilMoore]

@@YogertPC sweet thank you

[@thegoodlife167]

Nice, lots of info here - also, shout out to Prince of Persia

[@EricSikora-rt3fr]

I absolutely love my steam deck OLED 1TB model. It's so legit. I haven't even had it for a full 3 weeks and it's also my favorite device as well. Can't wait to utilize it further with emudeck and many more amazing things. It's a dream handheld come true. I love it. I'm also a baller who enjoys chillin playing classics and also fresh new games as well. This thing rocks. I cant stress enough how glad I am I got this and also that I didn't get the competitions offerings. I love Valve for making this incredible gem 💎

[@arthuralmeida6049]

same, my first month with it and have using it since day one, at first took me a few days to configure everything I wanted, like heroic, emudeck, deckloader and streaming, will replace my PC (ips monitor) and tv (lcd) to watch things, not only Oled make everything look better the resolution also help, not everything has 1080p or higher resolution

[@dementedp]

Very good video as I am considering buying my first Steam Deck. Thanks for the info and time on it. Loved your style and way of explaining things. Got my sub.

[@KikoBG12]

Nice games 🔥 subbed! Got my lcd deck 512 gb+ 512 gb sd card for 330$ and i love it

[@209elpepe]

Love the way u explain stuff 👌 freat steamdeck teacher

[@oscopin74]

I absolutely love my OLED deck. More than the original 512 LCD unit I had. Best piece of tech I've bought in a decade or more. Anyone who says the trackpads are useless, is obviously not a real PC gamer, or tinkerer.

[@Rogério_Martins]

Hi, just a tip but you could probably have more battery time in some games if you tweak the TDP. The battery gain without loss in performance changes from game to game, on older titles you can play using only 8/9 Watts and on newer titles you can manage with 11 Watts, it differs. I'm still halfway through the video but since you didn't mentioned I suppose you might not be aware of the feature. Either way thanks for the video.

[@Counterstrike0777]

These little skits in between the review are hilarious!! 🤣

[@ArtoriasNX]

I use mine every day as my main and only computer and aside from the first hurdle getting used to linux, I haven't run into a situation where I couldn't do what I needed to do. Basically a good laptop experience, and at only 45w is insane. And if I've ever needed to use the terminal (which was a scary prospect) I just had to copy and paste haha

[@rolfwaerness]

honest review/experience. what i like! excellent job bud

[@hourglass8450]

Got the LCD version second hand recently and loving it! Thinking of saving up for the OLED version lol

[@NutrigrainHulk]

Had a 512gb oled since December, I ended up using xcloud and remote play with my PC waaaay more than I expected to, haven't needed to upgrade the storage as a result. Really love the deck.

[@johnboy4955]

My guy, I play CS2 on my steam deck LCD just fine and I pop off. You can absolutely play counterstrike on that OLED and it will run even better than mine does. Understandable if you have a beefy pc though. Jealous of you I bought my LCD a month before the OLED got announced. Just upgraded my 64 gb to a 1TB and I’ve never done any kind of hardware install or replacements in the past. Such an amazing device and entry point for someone who’s scared to spend their life savings on a build. Cheers to easy and fun gaming :)

[@WASSMAN376]

I love this channel

[@sbutcher79]

FYI My sd card refused to format. I had to format it in my switch first and then the steam deck would format. Hope that helps someone.

[@Sampson_YT]

Nice video! Small correction, as far as I know there aren’t any Hall effect sticks for the Oled yet, only the lcd models. I know gulikit has said they’re working on some, but I don’t believe they are released yet.

[@bcij1137]

Great video, have 2 questions: How you made the steam deck act as a secondary monitor? Would you be using steamos as your main when it comes out to public for everyone?

[@YogertPC]

I use a USB C dongle that has HDMI that I plug into alternate monitor. Then on the Desktop, right click, ‘Configure Display Settings’ and from there I can move the screens around, change refresh rate, and decide which monitor is my primary. I have played around with Holo ISO, and I currently have Bazzite running my living room, which opens up into gaming mode, and has some nice software to enhance out of the box gaming experience. I may switch to SteamOS whenever it fully releases, but I probably won’t stay on it. Im used to distro hopping now, and i’m currently running Nobara

[@morkanz6998]

great review! Hoped it could handle cs better while docked

[@henrriquetordoya1637]

A tip to preserve battery life is using plugin loader with power tools that allows you to set limit charges that even works when off

[@koen-mj8]

I think either Deck you go with will provide immense happiness, as it has me! I got my 1TB LCD for $310 a few months back, since then I have adored it. I've looked at the OLED a few times, though for my purposes, the LCD does anything and everything I could really want, and if I did buy an OLED, with my large game library, I'd likely just use the LCD as a side piece device and OLED as a main, both with top tier storage and emulation setup. I think once people learn how to truly and properly use it, they'll love it! Especially once people learn about the many tricks, like playing games installed from flash drives as side storage, tri-booting WIndows 11, Linux, & Batocera, as well as learning to collect abandonware. There's so many great things the Deck can do no matter what model you get. I prefer offsite storage for abandonware games and onsite storage for emulation through both Windows and Linux, though it's really up to anyone to decide what they want, everyone will have a different use case really.

[@thegoodlife167]

Love my deck, been doing XCOM2 with the Long War mod, its amazing running around with fully modded M4s and SCARs

[@PapaZigg]

I'm very happy with my sd oled. Just got it a few days ago

[@FFE0]

Btw i just subscribed your content is decent i hope you keep doing youtube

[@YogertPC]

Thanks, me too

[@FFE0]

4:53 damn you didn't have to come at me like that 😔

[@MK_1Ultra]

I love my SD Oled. I take it everywhere now. (Dang his hair GREW!! So long in just 2 years!) My deck's replaced my laptop on travels entirely bc it's portable enough to carry in a carry-on and easy to work on spreadshees, and I can game on it.

[@nsawatchlistbait289]

Nice vid

[@Poposomeone]

I appreciate you shouting out smaller companies such as ltt.

[@valhallaoutcast]

the OLED has been my favourtie gadget I purchased in a long time, I have a higher end PC so its no primary but its given me an excuse to get though my backlog of indie and older games while away from the desk I put a 2TB SSD and 512G micro SD card in mine

[@DuckTreeGaming]

Great video thats helped me decide I should get one😊my laptop shall remain strickly for music making as its not even made for gaming. This device seems too handy not to have, & steam is a fantastic platform to buy games from for the amazing sales & free online play (for games supported on steam deck)!

[@gamingguru2k6]

My biggest issue with most handheld PCs is that they are too big. All of them are otherwise really good. This includes the Steam Deck. I settled on the GPD Win 4 because of the small size and it is almost good enough to just replace my desktop. Most people won't want it because of the price. Everything has drawbacks. Edit: if you just want portable gaming in your house, and you already have a good PC/Router, then a smart phone, steam link app, and controller gives you sometimes a better experience. You can get non-steam games to work through Steam Link.

[@oscopin74]

I bought the 512 OLED as well and upgraded to a 2tb m.2. I currently have 32 games installed with a out 500ish gigs left. Nothing on an Tf card but emulators and roms.

[@mmgbtv]

you can turn the gyro on for any game

[@fumangus69]

0:53 The constant camera angle shift is confusing me a bit, is kinda annoying. I'll keep watching the vdieo seems pretty good and I'll came back later for more feedback.

[@Andoonline]

He recorded this video in multiple timelines

[@capothefool]

Regarding the discord streaming part, since ANY 3rd party client is theoretically against TOS (even tho no records of bans for 3rd party clients exist and they usually turn a blind eye), you could give vesktop a try. I used to run your exact same config, but vesktop is basically a discord wrapper + vencord, but you can use it without plugins and themes and have a fairly normal discord experience with audio and screenshare

[@pixelatedzephyr6325]

i havent gone through the whole video yet but in case its not in the video, nested desktop is a thing i feel that its faster than using the switch to desktop button if you just need to real quick do something that requires desktop that would take you like less than a minute to do, another thing im pretty sure botw is the same on switch and wiiu exept it runs better on deck through cemu than yuzu ive found that its very playable through cemu

[@donaldolafaurie]

I got the 64 gig version and it sucks. I can’t even download any emulators. It’ll fill up too quickly.

[@YogertPC]

Have you added microSD or upgraded the internal SSD?

[@Side_show_]

Thanks Tommy Wiseau

[@YogertPC]

Ooh thats a new one, I appreciate it

[@Mellow-YT]

Bro our steam library looks the exact same 😂😂😂 the GameCube games and all

[@Hpalhazred]

Dragon Ball Fighter Z work fine with Proton Ge 7.55, you can even upscale the resolution to get rid of the aliasing, however The D-pad is a catastrophy (Worse than the 360 dpad) for fighting games, i hope they will fix it for the Steam Deck 2. In some games instead of forcing quit i make a shortcut: as a first command Alt and F4 as a second one, and to avoid any accident i choose long press as a trigger.

[@arthuralmeida6049]

What I like the most from watching videos about steam deck is that I always find something new i could use, I'm still in the fist 1/4 and the prism launcher was a nice discover already, the oficial launcher still has the bug of not staying logged, the official statement is just a f* off fix it yourself, as a new linux user I not in the mood to learn a lot of thing to stay logged in minecraft yet xd

[@YogertPC]

Agreed, the prism launcher is a life saver

[@J.Wick.]

It's fantastic. Especially for x Cloud or Moonlight, or GeForce Now. But still plenty capable on it's own. Perfect mix of power & efficiency. And I'm not even getting into emulation.

[@supermugiboy]

6:05 MEEEEEEE! I'll upgrade the SSD eventually, but my 512gb sd card has been holding me down just fine. EDIT: Also, weirdly enough the SD preset in Cyberpunk is really not good. With some custom settings, you can get better visuals and performance.

[@danielvazquez3323]

I actually just ran Cs go today and was getting 90fps!

[@KotchcusDomesticus]

Who has its back buttons scratched, I do.

[@GhostLinx]

For your aiming problems you should dabble with gyroscope aim

[@YogertPC]

I briefly mentioned it in the Left 4 Dead 2 section, as well as in a cut Portal section. The gyro is great to fine tuning aim but its not a save all imo

[@GhostLinx]

@@YogertPC I guess so , maybe the legion go has the edge when it comes to aiming with their joy con mouse thing , pricing and portability leave to be desired though. Also unrelated but I opted for buying a tablet and a phone controller (gamesir G8) for local game streaming as I rarely leave a certain perimeter around where my pc is, with my router the lag is under 15ms so it is not that noticable is most of the games I play, plus the tactile screen works pretty well with moonlight for games that use mouse imput I know what I chose to do Isent for everyone but I'm sure there are many people who don't realize the difference that it makes to play games with large screen compared to the steam deck and how well wifi 6 works for this use case, maybe I should make a video talking about all this instead of this comment section 😅 great video btw !

[@YogertPC]

If you make a video, i’ll watch it

[@gagothesour]

I don't have an OLED one, because that wasn't available back when I pre-ordered it, but I already ran couple hundreds of hours of elden ring on it with no issue. With that in mind I assume that all other souls games will run on it no problem either, so it's really hard to pass the opportunity to display your anger issues in open public (if you didn't git gut by that point).

[@adambester3673]

hey sorry I deleted my comment about not being able to play CS2 because I got to the part of the video where you explained it. I hadn't realized you had already responded to that comment.

[@YogertPC]

S’all good. People do tend to do that, so I thought i’d at least give the cliffsnotes rather than just saying to watch the video, but I did think it.

[@Simsonlover222]

i was very surprised by the performance of this... of course it cant play the latest and greatest well... but seeing fallout 4 or red dead redemption 2 running on this device natively... it feels very absurd... witcher 3 also... such heavy hitter open worlds yeah you need to limit lots of them at 30 frames but i dont mind... i have the same opinion as you... seeing what it can do is very impressive... and the fact that this is basically a pc that runs thousands of pc games is crazy af i have a 4k gaming pc but i would not be upset if the steamdeck would be my only choice

[@deVryz]

Good review, but my man needs to discover gyro in shooters :)

[@YogertPC]

I briefly brought up the gyro in Left 4 Dead 2 which is handy, but its not a save all

[@qchtohere8636]

@@YogertPC Honest question, have you tried joystick/mouse emulation gyro with activate on touch? Because for aiming, it IS a save all imo. I can't play any FPS without it since I discovered it on the Steam Controller. Also, DBFightersZ works with ProtonGE 7-20 for offline play. Great video btw.

[@Natzawa]

Just wait until you get a good android tablet with a larger screen. It’s not as good for emulation but it’s nice to have a larger screen than the SD. I own an SD and prefer the tablet over it just because it’s the perfect screen size imo.

[@Natzawa]

The SD is better for PC games or emulators that work better for it than the tablet.

[@HowdyYT]

The 🗿 button

[@thatonelem]

I have a 224 GB LCD, 14.7 free and 116.7 gb sd, 11.3 free

[@silentplayz6797]

Bro you’re one funny mf 😂

[@Dean123123100]

Why was Borderlands 2 so orange ??? Was Donald Trump in your ateam deck, jesus christ my eyes hurt for that 10 seconds that it was on my screen (i played the video in 2x speed so idk how long it was on screen, but still ouch)

[@YogertPC]

Yeah that was my bad. Night mode was on while recording, and it gave everything an orange tint

[@Dean123123100]

@@YogertPC oof, I don't think it should appear on recordings though?

[@dannyd4339]

Why does he look like your average "let me tell you why communism is better" redditor

[@Andoonline]

As his co host let me tell you… it’s because he is lol 😂except he’s never used Reddit… but he’s also never used communism so I guess you could say he’s not that. but he is a linux user so maybe he’s both you’ll never know. all you know is he is fine tuning his Linux desktop experience so often he will never actually enjoy/use his desktop experience

[@dannyd4339]

@@Andoonline lmaoo hey I resent that. I'm a Linux user too

[@Andoonline]

@@dannyd4339 don’t you have weather python scripts to install right now?

[@dannyd4339]

@@Andoonline hey hey hey I'm not THAT much of a Linux user. I will stick to steam OS for now since it comes with everything I need pre-installed and I use it mostly for gaming anyways because it has better performance than windows

[@Andoonline]

This man is really out here, saying the steam deck is better than the ROG ally because of blast processing.

[@shaolin95]

Well it is better because of the OLED alone vs the sad IPS

[@YogertPC]

@shaolin95 if IPS is sad, then TN must be depressed