Overall I love it, have used it WAY more than I expected. I am disabled and many days stuck in bed so this thing has just been perfect for me, not having to be up at my computer all the time for gaming related stuff.
A few tips for people new to the Steam Deck:
- Get a SD Card to store games, I use the main storage for updates and apps and sometimes a game or two but not many games, I put most those on my SD card.
- Get a Docking Station, even if its not the official one from Valve, it is great for hooking up to your TV to play and also good for if you want to hook up a USB storage stick or an external hard drive,etc… Also can use it for a plug in if you have a mouse or keyboard you want to use when its docked. Many good uses for it, I picked up a 3rd party one and its been mostly great (the bottom things came off but I just put my own ones on there that are used for the bottoms of chairs and desks).
- Get Decky going on your Steam Deck, it works awesome and I have not had any big issues. The ones I use are: ProtonDB, Animation Changer, Storage Cleaner, VibrantDeck, Steam Grid DB, CSS Loader and Bluetooth. Adds many good things that I find useful. Get Decky and mess around to see what ones work best for you.
- Get CryoUtilities. This is pretty awesome here, I waited about 3 months to try this and I wish I would have got it right from the start. Easy to install and helps a decent amount for performance.
- When you launch each game for the first time, press that button below the RIGHT Mouse pad. This will bring up a section for Performance. Set each game how you want it for Power usage and Framerate and Hz limit. I have mine set to low power usage for the default, but then every game I play has its own settings for framelimit, power usage,etc…
- Have had a blast setting up 4 xbox controllers when family comes over and hooking it up to the TV, works really good with wireless controllers (just make sure the are updated and they should work).
- I use Lutris for playing Diablo 4 and Diablo 2 Resurrected on Battle.net and also some Epic game games. For me it has worked great.
- Set your Sudo password and save it to a text file or something incase you forget it, its needed to install CryoUtilities.
- Yes its great for Emulation but I would honestly say wait a few months to try that stuff, try out your old steam games, try some new ones, try your battle net, gog and epic games out,etc… and then later start to tinker with some emulators if you are interested.
- I am sure most won’t agree, but I love using it before bed as I am laying in bed to watch a movie or tv show. You can either stream something from a browser or you can also download say VLC from the Discovery app and watch your movies you have backed up from DVD, Bluray, downloaded, etc…
- Have fun! You will learn and enjoy this thing more and more as you learn the ins and outs of things. Also, check out youtube videos and reddit places, you will find some interesting things about the steam deck around those places.
My favorite games on the Steam Deck:
- Elden Ring, runs well once you get settings right and have CryoUtilities done up. This got me back playing it again and I have played it a ton on here
- Pretty much any Bullet hell/Vampire Survivors style game, like Halls Of Torment, Fatalzone, Death Must Die, Army of Ruin, Brotato,etc…
- Sea Of Stars and Tactics Ogre: Reborn are great modern jrpgs style games that control good and look good on SD
- Thronefall, really fun tower defense style game that controls great with a controller
- Witcher 3 Next Gen
- Diablo 4, I have been playing the non steam game for awhile now, works good with Lutris, but now that its on steam even better time to play it. Handles great with a controller, performance is good to.
- The Pale Beyond, one of my favorite games this year, perfect for the steam deck.
- Resident Evil 4 Remake, runs great and looks awesome on the Deck
- Tape 2 Tape, me and my Nephew love playing this game in coop on the Steam Deck on the big tv with controllers, its great fun.
- Terror of Hermasaurus, another great game when friends or family are over, good silly fun
- Tetris Effect: Connected, works great :)
- Batman Arkham City
- Cuphead
- Dave The Diver
- Dirt Rally 1
- Disco Elysium
- Risen
Anyways, just some thoughts from an older gamer who has had the Steam Deck for a little over a year now. Take Care
You must log in or register to comment.
Nice list thanks for posting. I would like to mention that it’s a super bad practice to leave your sudo password in a plaintext file on the same machine
Why tf would you advise people to put their games on SD cards instead of the faster NVME inside ? Please anyone don’t follow this stupid advice. Just use the storage of your deck. Use the SD card for other smaller indie games or storage to play with, but run your main AA or AAA games on the SSD.
Great to hear your tips.
I just got a 1TB san disk extremt card and hope to installl som bigger games on it for when im travelingThanks for the tips!
No problem at all, was hoping it would help atleast one person but many people have commented saying thanks for shared the post, I appreciate all the love! Usually just lurk around here but thought it was time to make a decent post :)
Take Care
Im without SD card, docky and cryo, I only have a random USB hub and I’m happy.
post 3.5 update, I believe CryoUtilities is no longer needed. Pretty sure the developer came out and said as much.
No. They have done some tests that still show it can be beneficial in some cases, results are not fully conclusive yet. That being said, it is less beneficial now since the new update does some of the same stuff cryo does.
- Get Decky going on your Steam Deck, it works awesome and I have not had any big issues. The ones I use are: ProtonDB, Animation Changer, Storage Cleaner, VibrantDeck, Steam Grid DB, CSS Loader and Bluetooth. Adds many good things that I find useful. Get Decky and mess around to see what ones work best for you.
I had my OG 512 Deck for over a year, and never bothered putting Decky on it. I finally did it on my OLED the other day, and I absolutely love it. I’ve got HLTB, ProtonDB badges, Switch home screen, CSS Loader, and more. I’ve already spent an obscene amount of time just browsing all the custom artwork for games. I could not recommend Decky enough. Every Deck owner should be using it.
There’s a part of me that looks forward to being sick and bed ridden with the flu so I can be in bed and play the games I bought from the last sale. They’ve been on my wishlist for a year and I really want to play them.
Currently I need to do drywall in my bathroom, fix my truck to sell it, get quotes from a roofer, and pull 10-12 hour shifts at work. I’ve been looking forward to winter all summer so that the projects would stop and I can finally sit tf down for a couple of hours, but it’s looking like I’m not going to get a break until January when we take time off and lock ourselves in a cabin for a week to get our baseline again.
I like to play the little story and puzzle games because they’re quick and I can complete one in an afternoon so I don’t lose track of where I am over the next month where I’ll maybe get 1-2 hours of free time a day.
This week I had time to beat Gorogoa after I installed a 1tb SSD in my deck. Next week I am going to learn how to emulate some of my favorite PS1-2 and SNES games that I own.
My uncle is a paraplegic and got me into gaming when I was a kid and we’d always play Tetris or a racing game together. He’s always been really into flight simulator. He can wheel his chair right up to his desk and travel the world!
Well he used to. Parkinsons has taken hold and his dementia is making it hard for him to talk. Sorry, I didn’t mean to get sad here, it’s just the holidays and I haven’t been able to make time to go visit him.
Can I hijack this to ask if anyone has been able to have animated game art without causing the interface to slow down and lag when you move through your library? I added animated art to 8 or so of my games, but the UI would frequently hang for a second or two as I was moving around. I had to take the animated artwork off, because it just wasn’t worth it. It looks so pretty though.
Can you set the steam deck as a plex server, with files stored on an external disk?
VibrantDeck? In this day and age?
haha, maybe its just me, I prefer to have it :)
Thanks for sharing!!! Mad helpful lol
This is exactly why I posted for a change haha. Have a few friends who just got Steam Decks and I have been meaning to put a little post together for awhile, so thought it was a good time now. Glad its helped even just a few people, take care
Solid advice. Simpl thing i did was addedbrave as a steam game so you have a browser in steam os is good too. Great for pulling up a walkthru, or wikki.
Deathblade is hunting you…
Fools! Never mention that name when the word Cryoutilities is used!
Speak his name 3 times and he’ll appear in your bedroom to uninstall cryo from your deck. You’ve been warned
Tape 2 Tape is such an awesome game. Can’t wait to try it on deck. Thanks for the tips!
No problem! Really fun doing the campaign mode together on the same team. Have a blast on it when my nephew is over, he loves hockey and has a blast on this one.