• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Steam Deck |OT| Nintendo Switch 2

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


00:00 - Let's Start From The Beginning
00:24 - Preview of Steam Deck January
01:20 - First Previews of Steam Deck Going Out
02:10 - Steam Deck and Steam OS Makes PC Gaming Easier
03:40 - 40Hz Megaton News!
04:13 - Remote Play on Steam Deck is GO
04:25 - SteamDeck UI Available on Windows and WinDeck
04:50 - SteamOS 3.4 Allow Frame Tearing is HUGE
05:35 - The Future of Steam Deck
06:10 - Raytracing on a Portable Isn't This Year
 

kubricks

Member
Forza Horizon 4 really doesn't want to work in the Steam Deck right? Or am I doing something wrong?
Tried multiple proton versions, tried different resolution from native to lower + fsr upscale, tried graphics from low to high, tried limit fps. Nothing works, constant freezes while loading/saving.

What other good driving games do you guys recommend on the deck?
 

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
Forza Horizon 4 really doesn't want to work in the Steam Deck right? Or am I doing something wrong?
Tried multiple proton versions, tried different resolution from native to lower + fsr upscale, tried graphics from low to high, tried limit fps. Nothing works, constant freezes while loading/saving.

What other good driving games do you guys recommend on the deck?
Both FH4 & 5 are listed as Silver on protondb. Check the user reports as it does seem to be inconsistent from player to player.


For others, I am planning to give Art of Rally a try over the weekend.

I haven't played it on Deck but loved the hell out of Wreckfest on desktop. It's got a Gold rating over at protondb.

Horizon Chase Turbo is native on Linux but it way, way, waaaaaaaaaay more arcadey.
 

Mr Branding

Member
Forza Horizon 4 really doesn't want to work in the Steam Deck right? Or am I doing something wrong?
Tried multiple proton versions, tried different resolution from native to lower + fsr upscale, tried graphics from low to high, tried limit fps. Nothing works, constant freezes while loading/saving.

What other good driving games do you guys recommend on the deck?
Yeah, super salty this doesn’t work proper. It always crashes or freezes after aprox. 40 mins of gameplay tops.
Really hope it gets updates but I won’t hold my breath.

In the meantime I was playing the 2012 Most Wanted but can’t say I enjoy the gameplay 100% even if the open world and car selection is ok.
 

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
While it's on sale for $15 check out the Art of Rally. Any racing fans with a Deck should grab this.

Maiden Voyage Maiden Voyage this is right up your alley. Sorry to potentially add to the backlog.
Holy crap, man. You were right. I intended to just drive around a bit over lunch but I got completely hooked and put in 80 mins. I love this game so far. Thanks for the recommendation!
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
I wish we could play Game Pass games on Steam Deck without having to use xCloud. Doubt that'll ever happen though. MS wants those Steam sales.
There was some talk a while back about Gaben being open to Microsoft bringing PC Game Pass to Steam. My guess is that the legal hurdle involves all the other third parties that have their games on Game Pass and not Microsoft themselves. Hopefully some day they work that out.
 

Rex_DX

Gold Member
Holy crap, man. You were right. I intended to just drive around a bit over lunch but I got completely hooked and put in 80 mins. I love this game so far. Thanks for the recommendation!
I'm so glad you like it man!

It's funny because we just had a thread about this game's physical release and it seemed the consensus in there was that "it's crap."

I think a lot of people see the pretty pastel graphics and don't realize how unforgiving it is.

I love it though. Glad you do too. Happy drifting.
 

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
I'm so glad you like it man!

It's funny because we just had a thread about this game's physical release and it seemed the consensus in there was that "it's crap."

I think a lot of people see the pretty pastel graphics and don't realize how unforgiving it is.

I love it though. Glad you do too. Happy drifting.

I tried playing with my wheel and pedals but can't wrap my head around the third person view with it. I'll stick to playing on my Deck.

I love the controls. I immediately turned off the assists and have damage modeling cranked to the most severe. I kept the AI difficulty at the default, though I may bump it up depending on how brutal the later classes get. I came up 2nd place on my first career race series. That was after making a few major mistakes on those 2 races. I think bumping it up a notch or two might help me get better over the long run. Regardless, it's been super enjoyable to play so far.
 

Topher

Gold Member
This is why 64GB model with the 1TB 2230 upgrade+512GB/1TB microSD and SteamOS+Win10/11 is the way to go.

Amy Schumer Oscars GIF by The Academy Awards


Holly shit.....why do I keep forgetting you can do that.

Is there a guide for installing/dual booting SteamOS and Windows?
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
Amy Schumer Oscars GIF by The Academy Awards


Holly shit.....why do I keep forgetting you can do that.

Is there a guide for installing/dual booting SteamOS and Windows?
Deck Wizard has good tutorials on dual-booting. This is the newer way that boots to a OS selection GUI automatically. Something to note is that the SteamOS 3.4 update temporarily broke this method and it required a quick fix.


I still use the original method that boots to Windows automatically unless you power on with Vol-Down+Power. This way has worked for me for 7 months so I figured "don't fix it if it ain't broke".


Both ways it's best to have 3x 16GB USB flash drives. You can get a 3-pack of 32GB drives from Amazon for $17. I did text write-up of how I did it on Steam forums, but effectively you're making 3 drives: 1. Windows 10/11 installation drive 2. GParted 3. Steam Recovery drive. I add the Steam Deck Windows drivers to a folder on the Windows install drive.

I personally prefer Win10 over Win11, but either should work. I tried them both and I feel Win10 is more stable/reliable and I like the look better. There's a few quirks to understand when dealing with Windows on Deck:
---
-You can play Steam games without controller emulating software, but we're mainly after Game Pass and maybe EGS and GoG on the side for convenience. Once you're done setting everything up I would leave Steam installed on Windows, but make sure you change it in the Steam settings so it doesn't automatically boot with the Windows. For certain games like MCC it will cause a double button press on the A button and it took me forever to figure out the issue.
-Sometimes the Windows clock will de-sync making GP games unable to launch. It takes like 5secs to fix it, but it's another thing that can drive you nuts if you don't know what the issue is.
-SWICD is the best way to go for controller support on Windows. It will open on startup and it's really convenient. You'll want to go into SWICD settings and under "lizard mode"(KB/M support), disable key and mouse inputs. This will stop double button inputs.
-I install the Steam Deck storage controller(SD slot), but afterwards I go to Device Manger and disable it. This stop Windows from fucking with your SteamOS microSD card and throwing errors at you.
-Windows makes it easier to do mods, including DLSS-to-FSR2 mods for games that support DLSS, but not FSR2.
-Having Lossless Scaling is a useful tool for Windows to force certain games to fullscreen.
---
It seems like a lot, but once you do it it's something you can repeat without instructions, and you already have all the drives setup in case you need them. Videos like LTT's old "Windows sucks on Deck" put a lot of people off to using Windows on Deck. That shit is archaic and Deck users have really ironed out all significant kinks when dealing with the platform.
 
Last edited:

Topher

Gold Member
Deck Wizard has good tutorials on dual-booting. This is the newer way that boots to a OS selection GUI automatically. Something to note is that the SteamOS 3.4 update temporarily broke this method and it required a quick fix.


I still use the original method that boots to Windows automatically unless you power on with Vol-Down+Power. This way has worked for me for 7 months so I figured "don't fix it if it ain't broke".


Both ways it's best to have 3x 16GB USB flash drives. You can get a 3-pack of 32GB drives from Amazon for $17. I did text write-up of how I did it on Steam forums, but effectively you're making 3 drives: 1. Windows 10/11 installation drive 2. GParted 3. Steam Recovery drive. I add the Steam Deck Windows drivers to a folder on the Windows install drive.

I personally prefer Win10 over Win11, but either should work. I tried them both and I feel Win10 is more stable/reliable and I like the look better. There's a few quirks to understand when dealing with Windows on Deck:
---
-You can play Steam games without controller emulating software, but we're mainly after Game Pass and maybe EGS and GoG on the side for convenience. Once you're done setting everything up I would leave Steam installed on Windows, but make sure you change it in the Steam settings so it doesn't automatically boot with the Windows. For certain games like MCC it will cause a double button press on the A button and it took me forever to figure out the issue.
-Sometimes the Windows clock will de-sync making GP games unable to launch. It takes like 5secs to fix it, but it's another thing that can drive you nuts if you don't know what the issue is.
-SWICD is the best way to go for controller support on Windows. It will open on startup and it's really convenient. You'll want to go into SWICD settings and under "lizard mode"(KB/M support), disable key and mouse inputs. This will stop double button inputs.
-There's actually a version of AMD Adrenaline that you can extract from the driver package and use for AMD Chill(FPS limiter) and Vivid/Sharpen screen settings. AMD Chill doesn't work on every game I've tried, but many of them do work. Vivid really helps the screen pop.
-I install the Steam Deck storage controller(SD slot), but afterwards I go to Device Manger and disable it. This stop Windows from fucking with your SteamOS microSD card and throwing errors at you.
-Windows makes it easier to do mods, including DLSS-to-FSR2 mods for games that support DLSS, but not FSR2.
-Having Lossless Scaling is a useful tool for Windows to force certain games to fullscreen.
---
It seems like a lot, but once you do it it's something you can repeat without instructions, and you already have all the drives setup in case you need them. Videos like LTT's old "Windows sucks on Deck" put a lot of people off to using Windows on Deck. That shit is archaic and Deck users have really ironed out all significant kinks when dealing with the platform.


Wow. Thanks for that, man. Probably saved me a shitton of googling.

Alright......I'm on a mission now.

Excited Lets Go GIF
 

demigod

Member
Valve sent me a replacement. I asked them why my old one died and they wouldn’t tell me. Less than 6 months and the shit died on me and they won’t tell me why, not good Valve. So if it dies again in 6 months im screwed.
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
Wow. Thanks for that, man. Probably saved me a shitton of googling.

Alright......I'm on a mission now.

Excited Lets Go GIF
Right on, man. I don’t know what model you have, but if you’re looking to do the 1TB Kenpachii Kenpachii recently upgraded to a Sabrent Rocket from Amazon and it seems really fast. I used a WD SN530.

A page or 2 back there’s a big discussion on replacing the drive. There’s a couple other tips I was going to say like pinning the On-screen keyboard and Xbox app to the taskbar to make it fast and easy to open.

Let me know if you have any questions, and good luck.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Right on, man. I don’t know what model you have, but if you’re looking to do the 1TB Kenpachii Kenpachii recently upgraded to a Sabrent Rocket from Amazon and it seems really fast. I used a WD SN530.

A page or 2 back there’s a big discussion on replacing the drive. There’s a couple other tips I was going to say like pinning the On-screen keyboard and Xbox app to the taskbar to make it fast and easy to open.

Let me know if you have any questions, and good luck.

Not sure how it will go, but I'm going to try and run Windows off the microSD entirely. I have the 256gb and I really don't want to crack the thing open. Will see how slow it runs.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Valve sent me a replacement. I asked them why my old one died and they wouldn’t tell me. Less than 6 months and the shit died on me and they won’t tell me why, not good Valve. So if it dies again in 6 months im screwed.

Yikes. Hope you have better luck this time.
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
Not sure how it will go, but I'm going to try and run Windows off the microSD entirely. I have the 256gb and I really don't want to crack the thing open. Will see how slow it runs.
Right on. I can’t really give you any pointers on that since I’ve never tried running windows off an SD card. I came to a point Where I just didn’t want to have to deal with swapping SD cards and such. Originally I had the 512 GB model and I had one SD card for steam and one SD card for windows. I ran out of space and I got sick of swapping. Let me know how it goes.
 

kubricks

Member
Yeah, super salty this doesn’t work proper. It always crashes or freezes after aprox. 40 mins of gameplay tops.
Really hope it gets updates but I won’t hold my breath.

In the meantime I was playing the 2012 Most Wanted but can’t say I enjoy the gameplay 100% even if the open world and car selection is ok.
Especially when the Deck is perfectly capable to run the game smoothly. I get to enjoy driving around until it crashes when I try to enter a race. ;(
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
I just bought a Silicon Power 1TB microSD for $79 from Amazon. It's normally $89, but was on sale for $85 for a while. It recently dropped down to $79, so I pulled the trigger. It's U3, V30, A1. The faster A2 they sell was on sale for $89, but now it's back up to $92. The A1 card should be fine for most of what I'll be using it for on the Deck. It has similar IOPS as the TeamGroup 512GB Go I'm using, and slightly higher read/write. Silicon Power is pretty good, I used to have one of their 1TB NVMe drives that's in my kid's PC now, and it's also what I use in my modded 2DSXL. Probably going to put my 512GB TeamGroup Go microSD into my son's Switch Lite.

This will put my Deck at 2TB storage(1TB SSD/1TB microSD). Probably will change my setup to allocate more space to Windows. This time around I'll go with something like 200GB SSD+1TB microSD for SteamOS, and 700GB SSD for Win10. This will give me a lot more room for emulation on SteamOS, and GP on Win10. Also I just like upgrading my Deck. Thought about doing a 2TB 2230, but that shit is like $250-350.
 
Last edited:

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
I wound up putting in around 4 hours on Art of Rally yesterday. That's an insane amount for me on a weekday. I was able to win a series with the Ai at the highest and damage model at the highest. The weird thing is, I moved the difficulty back down afterward to compare, and I couldn't really tell the difference with times. I was able to get first with no mistakes +28 seconds. The second race I had 2-3 mistakes and got second place. On medium difficulty, I had 3 mistakes and took 3rd. I might just leave it on the most difficult to force myself to get better.

Anyway, this game is my new obsession.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Right on. I can’t really give you any pointers on that since I’ve never tried running windows off an SD card. I came to a point Where I just didn’t want to have to deal with swapping SD cards and such. Originally I had the 512 GB model and I had one SD card for steam and one SD card for windows. I ran out of space and I got sick of swapping. Let me know how it goes.

Hell yeah….

RxvCK0K.jpg
 
Last edited:
So I was playing last night. And must have hit some weird button combo , because this damn thing pops up in the upper left corner .

RthWhaa.jpg



Anybody know how to make it go away ?
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
So I was playing last night. And must have hit some weird button combo , because this damn thing pops up in the upper left corner .

RthWhaa.jpg



Anybody know how to make it go away ?

That's the performance overlay. Hit the hamburger button, scroll to the battery icon, then see what "Performance Overlay Level" is set to. You can turn it off, 1 will just show the FPS in the corner, and each level beyond will add more metrics / counters. It looks like you're at level 3.
 
That's the performance overlay. Hit the hamburger button, scroll to the battery icon, then see what "Performance Overlay Level" is set to. You can turn it off, 1 will just show the FPS in the corner, and each level beyond will add more metrics / counters. It looks like you're at level 3.
That's still not getting rid of it. I already had it set at 0. I swear this popped up when some odd button combo was pressed. What a stupid feature to have. Any other ideas ?
 

Rex_DX

Gold Member
That's still not getting rid of it. I already had it set at 0. I swear this popped up when some odd button combo was pressed. What a stupid feature to have. Any other ideas ?
It's a known glitch. Try setting the slider to 4. Then reboot. Then set it back to off. If the problem persists try moving it back to 4 and then to off again several times.

Edit - also confirm you are on the latest stable version. This was supposed to have been fixed.
 
Last edited:

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
That's still not getting rid of it. I already had it set at 0. I swear this popped up when some odd button combo was pressed. What a stupid feature to have. Any other ideas ?

More on Rex_DX Rex_DX 's post:


Seems to have been patched out once already, but I suppose the bug found it's way back. Some users also reported setting it to 1, and then to 2, then to 0 worked as well. I've actually experienced a bug in which I couldn't enable it - it would not show up regardless of setting. I had to set it to 3 and reboot for it to return.
 
It's a known glitch. Try setting the slider to 4. Then reboot. Then set it back to off. If the problem persists try moving it back to 4 and then to off again several times.

Edit - also confirm you are on the latest stable version. This was supposed to have been fixed.
Thank you ! That seemed to get rid of it. It was updated with the latest firmware already. The setting it high and rebooting worked .
 

Dr.Morris79

Gold Member
Can anyone help here, it's a simple one as i've fixed it before..

Currently playing my Ps2 Dropship through Emulation station (And Pcsx2..) and half the screen is missing, corrupted to a degree. I've fixed this before with a setting but for the life of me I cant remember what! I've checked Google but cant pin anything on the setting I need

Anyone know?
 

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
Can anyone help here, it's a simple one as i've fixed it before..

Currently playing my Ps2 Dropship through Emulation station (And Pcsx2..) and half the screen is missing, corrupted to a degree. I've fixed this before with a setting but for the life of me I cant remember what! I've checked Google but cant pin anything on the setting I need

Anyone know?
I haven't tried any emulation outside of Retroarch so I can't be of any real help here. Have you searched on Youtube as well? I've seen a decent number of guides on getting stuff set up before but haven't dived into those topics just yet.
 

Dr.Morris79

Gold Member
I haven't tried any emulation outside of Retroarch so I can't be of any real help here. Have you searched on Youtube as well? I've seen a decent number of guides on getting stuff set up before but haven't dived into those topics just yet.
Looked everywhere Maiden, the ironic thing is that I saw a fix less than a month ago, applied it to my series S Pcsx2 back then but had to scrub all the install, now i've come to the Deck and my brains utterly drawn a blank

I'll have a proper tinker later and stick the fix in here if I find it just incase anyone runs into it.
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
Looked everywhere Maiden, the ironic thing is that I saw a fix less than a month ago, applied it to my series S Pcsx2 back then but had to scrub all the install, now i've come to the Deck and my brains utterly drawn a blank

I'll have a proper tinker later and stick the fix in here if I find it just incase anyone runs into it.
If it also happens on Series S|X, then 01011001 01011001 or Esppiral Esppiral might be able to help.
 
Last edited:

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


In this episode of Budget to Best, Seth Macy sounds off on our favorite Steam Deck Docks for any budget! Sure, you could always just park your Steam Deck onto a simple stand, but why not go the extra mile and have it be able to play your Steam Deck games on your TV, too? Heck, with all the capabilities the Steam Deck has, we've gone even as far as finding a Steam Deck Dock that can helps it feel more like a portable PC! Give us all the ports! Storage expansion? No problem! Whether you're looking for something simple or not, these docks have something for everyone. What's the best Steam Deck Dock for your money?
 

kubricks

Member
Yeah, super salty this doesn’t work proper. It always crashes or freezes after aprox. 40 mins of gameplay tops.
Really hope it gets updates but I won’t hold my breath.

In the meantime I was playing the 2012 Most Wanted but can’t say I enjoy the gameplay 100% even if the open world and car selection is ok.

Seems like they fixed Forza Horizon 4 on Steam Deck or is it my imagination?
I follow the Forza official support FAQ for Steam Deck, stop using any form of proton, delete proton files for the game, update the Forza Horizon 4 game file, "Verify Integrity of Local Game Files" on Steam app then restart the system. It seems to work now? I have been playing on the Deck for almost an hour loading in and out of events and saving at the house etc and nothing is crashing.

If anyone have the game please try it out.
The link is here.
 
Last edited:

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
What is everyone playing on the Steam Deck currently?

I recently started Sunset Overdrive. And while it runs fine (apart from the corrupted save issue), I found the game extremely underwhelming. What a disappointment. I don't think I'll continue.
 

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
What is everyone playing on the Steam Deck currently?

I recently started Sunset Overdrive. And while it runs fine (apart from the corrupted save issue), I found the game extremely underwhelming. What a disappointment. I don't think I'll continue.

After finishing 100% achievements on Elden Ring I am playing through Dark Souls 3 for the first time. I've also got Art of Rally and Tiny Lands in my rotation for relaxing games.



 

JCK75

Member
Has anyone been playing Elden Ring recently and noticed a new bug?
I was playing the deck docked with a stadia controller and I just lost the ability to control the game, assumed it was the Stadia controller that was at fault so rebooted it and played it handheld..
happened again yesterday where the controls just stopped working entirely.
 

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
Has anyone been playing Elden Ring recently and noticed a new bug?
I was playing the deck docked with a stadia controller and I just lost the ability to control the game, assumed it was the Stadia controller that was at fault so rebooted it and played it handheld..
happened again yesterday where the controls just stopped working entirely.
That happened to me a few weeks ago. I always play in handheld mode so no external controller. Happened twice and hasn't happened again since.
 

Rex_DX

Gold Member
What is everyone playing on the Steam Deck currently?

I recently started Sunset Overdrive. And while it runs fine (apart from the corrupted save issue), I found the game extremely underwhelming. What a disappointment. I don't think I'll continue.
Tunic, The Witness, Death's Door; a lot of these stylized indies have been my bread and butter on the Deck. They run smoothly and are great to play on a handheld.

DUSK and Amid Evil, too are amazing though I do miss mouse aim.

AAA stuff I'd rather play on my TV or in ultrawide for the fidelity but it's cool to have the option to get them running on a portable.

I also second Art of Rally. It's kind of got a brutal learning curve though but not that bad and worth checking out for sure if you like racers.

I'm on mobile or I'd provide some links.
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
Still playing FFVII remake and Hot Wheels Unleashed.
—-
Got my 1TB microSD, so I spent yesterday reinstalling my dual-boot setup and games. After installing OSes I ended up with about 700GB(Win10) and 220GB(SteamOS)+1TB microSD for games. I’ve installed 20 games on Win10 and 21 games on SteamOS, and there’s still over 200GB available on Win10 and 220GB(ssd)+400GB(sd) on SteamOS. Tonight I’m going to load up EmuDeck and roms on SteamOS. Should take around 200GB.
 
Im currently playing Persona 5, while trying to get emulation set up slowly. I've been running into issues with Saturn emulation, but everything else I have thrown at it works like a breeze. I spend about 80% of the time with the deck playing games and 20% tinkering, which is a fun place for me to be. Added a new ssd (64 > 256) and may upgrade other stuff in the future.

All in all, the deck is the best vidya related purchase I have ever made.
 

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
 
Top Bottom