Steam Deck OLED: My Main PC & Game Development Machine

[@vexvesper]

I'm living out of my car doing DoorDash and Uber eats saving up for a new car. I traded in my desktop for a steam deck because I can't very well use a desktop now can I? And I'm getting a portable 15.6 in monitor and a dock in the mail today. The portability of this thing is insane

[@MadRDev]

Yes it is! I have all my stuff with me everywhere I go. I'm also planing on taking it with me on a trip for watching some movies and playing some offline games. Running VLC can get me up to 9.5h of battery life - that very nice too!

[@brayanfernandes371]

​@@MadRDev you should try mpv, in my opnion is better than vlc

[@TimelessGamingSoftware]

In the mail? To your car?

[@dmoster]

Been thinking of doing this very thing in tandem with one of the upcoming iPads for my computing setup. Been trying to decide if Steam Deck will provide all the extra utility I’d need and this has been extremely encouraging. Thank you for the timely and thorough review of this setup!

[@MadRDev]

Thank You for the comment! If You are ready to deal with the Drawbacks and few crashes on extra-heavy usage I described + encounter some of Your own, I say go for it! The portability has been excellent. I just take it everywhere and have my stuff with me all the time. And for me using it for productivity it has been very decent.

[@flipcats]

Having the same dilemma lmao

[@Kinos141]

Tip: Don't play intensive games in Desktop mode. Steam Deck can't handle that. Play it in game mode.

[@MadRDev]

💯 % Agreed! Like I said I was able to hang desktop mode with a game one one screen, twitch on a second screen and KZbin video for my son on the Steam Decks screen. Also Path of Exile was not too good on desktop mode, but great on Gaming mode. On the other hand CS2 worked fine in desktop mode, but did not work as expected in gaming mode

[@Moshugaani]

I wonder why there's a difference in performance between the modes? You'd assume it's the same Proton and the same hardware driving it.

[@MadRDev]

@@Moshugaani Probably some extra processes and services running on the desktop mode ect. I experienced this with Baldurs Gate 3 and Path of Exile. "Non-heavy" games as well as CS2 felt ok.

[@Jimblemimble]

This is sick! Been wordering if you could use a steam deck like this. Might get one now to replace my laptop

[@MadRDev]

Yeah, it's pretty good! Might be my all time favorite device. It has its flaws, especially when using it as a PC and running some heavy tasks, but for me it totally works.

[@chocolover1998]

I want to become a game developer so I can to listen to people playing my game/games

[@MadRDev]

@@chocolover1998 Sounds like a great sound!

[@chocolover1998]

@MadRDev is python beginner friendly?

[@dominik2327]

Mixed DPI scales for different monitors will be supported (and fine for most apps, minor asterisk here) when Valve decides to ship new version of SteamOS with Plasma 6.x on Wayland (display system) instead of X11. It's already in a very good shape and progressing quickly.

[@MadRDev]

Nice to hear that, I can't wait! This really important for me since I change from fullHD to 4k monitors very often.

[@LegendaryLLama-hz8db]

also doing this, using my deck as a main pc. I was an arch user before so the switch was seamless. I really cant tell the difference to be honest.

[@MadRDev]

Cool! I used to use Win, a bit of Mac and a bit of Ubuntu. So it was pretty easy for me as well. If in the future I'll buy a PC, Linux will be my main OS... not sure about the specific distro yet.

[@lightningvini]

I use arch btw

[@مجتبى-ط2ه]

i was thinking about getting a steamdeck for both pc use and games

[@MadRDev]

Nice! Just be sure You are ready to deal with the drawbacks I described and encounter some of You own related to Your use case. For me it works very well - hope it does for You too!

[@chinmoybiswas8257]

Hello! Do you use aseprite with mouse and keyboard?

[@MadRDev]

Hey 😊 Yes, I use everything with a mouse and keyboard. As well I do it with a 4k monitor and in desktop mode.

[@chinmoybiswas8257]

@@MadRDev you earned a sub!

[@sinanermis]

awesome video but something is off with sound. imo you should look into it for later videos. keep creating awesome content man!

[@MadRDev]

@@sinanermis Yeah, at the start, first part of the video i was forced to do bg noise auto removal, recorded everything with a open window next to me. Thanks for the kind reply!

[@NikuaRanger]

Perfect video

[@FalconGamz]

hey even i was looking for someone who is using the steam deck as their main pc cause i was thinking of doing the same

[@AlxTheProgrammer]

Using my ROG Ally as my new main PC. I develop AI software and it has no issues! Been going handheld with no external keyboard or mouse for almost a week now. Definitely slower but I'm speeding up as I slowly configure the OS to work better for the controller.

[@MadRDev]

That's cool! Are You typing, developing using the controller and onscreen keyboard too? Plan on getting a dock?

[@AlxTheProgrammer]

Sorry if repost, comment disappeared on my end. @MadRDev I have a dock, but the controller and touchscreen combo is so portable and convenient. I've set up macro buttons for common shortcuts (like F12 for the dev console or F5 to run/debug in VSCode). Voice typing works well for most things, and I'm using GitHub Copilot for coding. I'm experimenting with voice commands and Copilot's quick insert for hands-free development. My next project is a better on-screen keyboard with potential ChatGPT integration for on-the-fly macros. This could really streamline input for this kind of setup.

[@JamieR]

@@AlxTheProgrammer That's really interesting 😁How's the experience like to code without any external keyboard? I'm debating getting rid of lenovo yoga laptop for Ally X and use it for music production / coding/ design and gaming. Just worried it will be a bit tricky without external tools, and small screen size for portable work.

[@AlxTheProgrammer]

@@JamieR Honestly not terrible as it has all the keys except the numpad but obviously a lot slower. I don't have an issue with typing as much as I do with trying to get the mouse exactly where I need it to select text and such and have resorted to using the directional pad to move the cursor. It took me a good month to get used to it, now I bought a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse and I'm using the ROG controls less but I still don't have any huge negatives. I can do just about everything without any external devices.

[@AlxTheProgrammer]

@@JamieR As for the screen size, it's not bad when you are holding it in your hands as it's close to your face. Once I extend my arms out all the way or put it on the table in front of me, I have to lean in to see a lot, and I have better than 20/20 vision so it might be a problem to some.

[@Gamerpreneur_id]

How steam deck compared to mac mini m4 for simple 3d game development using unity?

[@MadRDev]

Unfortunately won't be able to compare and give a good answer, since I don't have a mac mini and mostly do steam deck gamedev in Godot.

[@ligarubene7889]

Good honest review, wife approves

[@MadRDev]

Thanks Wajf

[@zacharyjordan399]

Nice video! Do you have any experience using Unity Engine on this machine? That's the engine I have the most experience with and I'm curious how it works with Steam Deck (without using a windows installation) I think it's cool how you did all of this in the default linux OS.

[@MadRDev]

Thank You! I have not used Unity on Steam Deck yet, but I have seen that You can. Unity hub is available on the Discover store and VS code as well. It just needs to be configured and proper sdk set up. Not sure about the performance, might be ok. Some videos could be available explaining and testing this I think.

[@zacharyjordan399]

@@MadRDev Yeah, I'd personally watch a video on that subject if you made one. There are other videos about it, but not many and they aren't as good as the one you made here.

[@johnrysinss]

My concern is the battery, do Steam Deck support bypass charging?

[@MadRDev]

@@johnrysinss As I have read it supports it, and also I have not experienced any issues with the battery life yet.

[@The1aw]

Do you use Unity on the Steam Deck? Or do you use a PC well working for your job?

[@MadRDev]

For the main Unity Job I got a beefy laptop. But steam deck can run Unity too for simple projects if needed!

[@AnotherSigmaGaming]

I want to learn how to game dev on steam deck

[@MadRDev]

@@AnotherSigmaGaming It is easy to start. Go to Desktop Mode, Open Discovery store and install Godot. Then check a beginner tutorial on KZbin. I suggest a longer one that is more like a course and goes more in depth.

[@stefanstefanov00]

Aseprite has a native linux build in steam.

[@MadRDev]

Thanks, will have to try it out!

[@cqllel5186]

Ugh.. I was supposed to receive my Steam Deck OLED on Friday. It's been sitting at a facility since Thursday in my city, just 2.9m away. And they're REALLY gonna fcn make me wait until the estimated delivery date of "Monday" And on Friday, the UPS truck arrived, but he just drove by! BRUH. It just feels like a deliberately personal attack smdh

[@MadRDev]

That's sad, but it's going to be there soon, hold on! I too refreshed the tracking page many times a day while waiting. As someone who uses metric system at first I thought You had the facility 2.9 meters form the place You live, but it's probably miles 😂

[@cqllel5186]

@@MadRDev Yeah it's in miles lol. I wish it was meters smh I wanted to go pick it up, but my parents are lazy

[@MadRDev]

@@cqllel5186 Can You do that in the middle of an active delivery?

[@cqllel5186]

@@MadRDev IDK. I figured it'd be possible tho if it's at your local facility place. IDK how they ship things or how to tell where you package is at exactly

[@Moshugaani]

If my desktop PC suddenly died, I wouldn't even be that miffed because I'd still have the Deck. 😅

[@MadRDev]

Except if You loose some data, but other wise You would be all good 🤩

[@Moshugaani]

@@MadRDev Oh yeah, there's that. But probably the data could be salvaged from the hard drives ~

[@picklepopsickle]

same it isnt easy but same lol