Steam Deck

Grumpypants

I think so. It was able to resize the steam OS partition without installing it again. So I'd assume the same is true for windows.

I've only got the 256gb one and didn't bother cleaning out some of the games. So hopefully I can tidy that up later.

It was more of an experiment to see if it would work out. And I did read that you can boot games from the SD card on both.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121514995#Comment_121514995

How old is it? If you’ve done the reimage, I’d say it’s a faulty storage drive that’s causing it. Are you still using the stock drive or have you replaced it?

DaveyDave

My 64GB model sometimes wouldn't turn on, then I'd plug it in and force a start up only to see it wasn't dead, sometimes it will say it's verifying the update but was on the most recent version. Although I think my OLED did that once too, it only happened the odd time so I never bothered reinstalling the software.

Is Windows difficult to get going? With the price of 512GB cards being so cheap (I bought at €80 at the start of the year!) I might throw Windows on a second SD card. The Steam version of Flight Simulator wasn't working for me, tempted to get Windows for non-streaming Game Pass if it works.

Wossack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121516445#Comment_121516445

Aug, but was a refurb, so likely that bit older again..

i went ahead and did the full factory reset from recovery media last night, and it stayed alive long enough for me to change over to the beta branch. Rebooted, went to check for any updates, were none (as expected) - sat on the home screen for maybe 30s and its back to a black screen & fans spinning state

its very difficult to get it to boot into any of the bios/boot/recovery modes at the moment (gave up last night). No response from my support case yet - though bad week for it in fairness

Grumpypants

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121516773#Comment_121516773

It is pretty easy to install Windows, especially on the SD card. But The SD card will be a bottleneck and it is kinda sluggish. This was half the reason I put it directly onto the hard drive which helps a bit. You can run games from the SD card on both Steam OS and Windows.

All you need is a Windows iso file. You can make this with the tool they provide, you then need a program called Rufus. This makes the ISO file a boot disk on the SD card.

Then switch off the Deck. Hold the volume down button and press on once to get into the boot menu. Select the SD card and Windows will install. You need the drivers from the Steam website for WiFi, Bluetooth, audio and graphics so have them downloaded and ready to go, and it first loads in portrait mode so you need to hold the deck sideways to find display settings and pop it into landscape. Only about 10 mins extra work.

Hellrazer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121515623#Comment_121515623

I want to try this. So for example I have a load of games installed on my drive or sd card (Im changing to a 1tb ssd over xmas) and I boot into windows - will those same games run if I boot into steamos? and vice versa?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121516810#Comment_121516810

Ah I'd definitely RMA it. It sounds hardware related as the things you have tried would be what pretty much would fix it if it was a software issue!

Grumpypants

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121517286#Comment_121517286

Hmm thinking about it I'm not sure. They just said you could play games from the SD card. But not if it was the "same" SD card. That was an assumption I made. Perhaps incorrectly.

I know when I last put in a steam OS filled SD card into my laptop it said to format it to use it in the pc. But that can happen even with correctly formatted ones.

On the hard drive itself I don't think so. Windows only sees a 60gb c drive. I don't see the games on the steam side.

But I'd play any games that run on steam OS on steam OS as it performs much better and keep the windows partition for just the windows essentials.

eggy81

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518721#Comment_121518721

But aren’t they all windows versions of games working through a proton layer? Should work I reckon

Grumpypants

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518740#Comment_121518740

I believe so, I think it's more the format of the SD card itself rather than the files. But again only guessing 😃

DaveyDave

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121516841#Comment_121516841

Would Windows be that slow? I find the likes of GTA V is grand on the SD card in terms of loading times, I wouldn't have thought Windows would be sluggish?

Penn

Got my SD for Xmas and have been playing bits of it here and again, switching between a few games to get a feel of it.

It's certainly an impressive machine, even the LCD model. Has a great weight and solid feel to it. Very responsive and buttons are all well placed (especially coming from the Switch which I didn't like too much in that regard).

Most of the games I loaded so far are the likes of Hades and Blasphemous, but I also loaded on MGS Phantom Pain and played a bit of it. Fair enough it's near 8 years old, but it looks and plays terrificly.

Very impressed so far. A hell of a bit of kit.

Grumpypants

It's very favourable to the older titles as the screen is smaller so it's more forgiving.

I picked up Against the Storm today. Seen a few recommendations for it, I've only just played the two tutorial levels but it plays well and looks lovely on the deck.

skerry

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121542203#Comment_121542203

Ive had Against the Storm recommended to me a few times too. Looks like an interesting mix of genres. Picked up Dredge yesterday, very good so far.

dulpit

Hey all, ordered an oled steam deck yesterday. Was toying with getting this or the ally, but ended up going steam deck due to perceived better support and general ease of use.

I have GPU, so windows was a consideration, but looks like I can dial boot easily enough? What should I be doing first things first to get myself set up?

Any recommendations on bits to pick up for it? I have £100 Amazon voucher to use...

Any recommendations on games? I don't really have a steam library as of yet, I think I have rdr2 purchased from a few years back and that's possibly it.

Anything else I should be looking at?

Grumpypants

Out of the box, at least for the first few weeks, I'd just stick with the standard Steam OS set up, and add some streaming via xcloud.

Game pass ultimate will let you stream the Xbox games using a chrome browser so it is very easy to set up, that's plenty to keep you going if you add a few steam games.

Down the line think about dual booting windows. I shared a video a few pages back on the flow I followed. It was easy enough. But the dedicated "windows use cases" are limited. I more did it to see if I could than I needed to.

Accessories,

Dock

Keyboard & mouse

Controller

Screen protector

65w Power bank

Kick stand.

The Dock is good if you ever want to play on the TV, but you can use almost any usb c dock. It doesn't have to be the official one. I do like when it sits into the dock and has power pass through.

A controller too if you don't have one. A PS5, Xbox etc will all work. A blue tooth mouse and keyboard are nice add ons.

Screen protector is handy too.

I got the Deck Mate system of attachments that gives lots of flexibility. Like adding kick stands, wall mounts.

Games. I like the short cycle games that you can pick up for 20-30 mins.

Against the Storm

Dave the diver

Vampire survivors

Darkest dungeon.

But everything plays fairly well so it will be more your preference. I play satisfactory, days gone, death stranding, resident evil, FIFA, etc. and they all play good.

Becky loader is great and has a load of great features that make changing the look and feel of the deck much easier.

robfowler78

Does FIFA work on Steamdeck? I had heard it doesn’t

Grumpypants

I've played it on the deck anyway, it's been a while so unless it's updated recently I'd say it does.

Wossack

Protondb is worth checking for compatibility queries:

https://www.protondb.com/

am not sure it’s the right one (ain’t a fifa person), but FC 2024 has reports of issues with the EA anti cheat failing to install so halting the show..

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121543374#Comment_121543374

I've purchased a Samsung SD card and a ugreen dock. I think I'm sorted for accessories then (I have mouse/keyboard/controller already). I got email to say dispatch is being prepared. I'm hoping by end of next week, what's people's experience been?

Grumpypants

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546629#Comment_121546629

Dispatching took a few days to get picked up. My 3-5 business days was more like 11. Once GLS pick it up you will see one final message saying it left Holland. Then it's on the boat to Ireland for about 7 days. But once you get the it's in Ireland message you should have it the next morning.

McFly85

Reinstalled EmuDeck on the OLED, Steam rom manager has gotten a massive upgrade since I first installed, so much easier to manage games!

My only gripe is the default Dreamcast emulator, flycast, is massively inferior to Redream which is annoying to get integrated with emulationstation, so for Dreamcast games I have to open redream instead of launching the game directly. Minor but annoying!

Dolphin runs like a dream though, F-Zero GX in widescreen at 60fps is still amazing to play.

dulpit

My Steam Deck has been "handed over to GLS" or "Left the parcel centre" since 29th December. I get it's New Years, but I was really hoping it'd be here by the weekend. No such luck I guess... And the various accessories I got for it (SD card and dock) came super quick, which is just typical...

Wossack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121516810#Comment_121516810

I am still in RMA purgatory unfortunately..

Started process on the 19th Dec

Steam only responded once a day, and agreed to RMA it on the 22nd (not bad in fairness)

Printed out my shipping label etc, and UPS collected on the 27th Dec, which was the earliest possible date with xmas etc

I dont know what happened with it though, but it wound up back on my doorstep on the 2nd Jan, with the UPS label reading 'Return to Shipper, reason for return: Service Disruption Occurred' (?).

Back onto steam support, who just gave me another shipping label/RMA sheet, and told me to try again.. no reason from them as to why the original attempt was turned back :( concerned this attempt will just do the same...

Collected again by UPS this morning (4th Jan)

Cross the fingers..

ironictoaster

Replaying splinter cell chaos theory even though SD says unsupported. Working perfectly fine with a community layout. Great game for 3 quid.

Thargor

Hated Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen when it first came out back in the day, think I refunded after a couple of days, tried it again on SD after someone on Youtube did a retrospective because the sequel is on the way and I cant put it down (even with the annoying text size), its turning into one of my fav RPGs of all time, and I got it for a fiver in the sale.

Really hope the Deck can run the sequel now but I doubt it will.

The Freeman

It's the same engine as the recent resident evil games so it should run very well at 40fps.

Just finished 4 remake and ran fantastically.

dulpit

Got my deck yesterday (after a bit of a delivery disaster - GLS seem to be fairly terrible). Set it up, installed a bunch of stuff and had a bash off aperture desk job. Feels lovely in the hands, and screen looks great.

What'll I start with now?

DaveyDave

Ah feck sake. Literally just downloaded a few Xbox 360 games to test Xenia as apparently it has improved in recent updates then my card said it need to be reformatted. There goes 450GB of classic games! Replacement on the way from Amazon at least.

Apparently there's a command you can type into the console in desktop mode to fix it, of course I found this out after I reformatted.

eggy81

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121581513#Comment_121581513

There is. Had to do it myself.