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Playing old games is the main reason I'm excited for these types of handhelds. It's also why I may not be getting a Steam Deck versus similar alternatives. The
by 1MachineElf 4y ago
Playing old games is the main reason I'm excited for these types of handhelds. It's also why I may not be getting a Steam Deck versus similar alternatives.
The lower-spec handhelds by Abernic and Retroid, for example, can handle lots of emulation, Half Life 1, Counterstrike 1.6, Unreal Tournament 1999, as well as OpenMW. None of these depend on Steam or Proton.
The higher-spec Steam Deck, at 2-3x the cost, comes into play for newer titles. For me, that's Fallout 3/NV/4, STALKER, Metro, Oblivion, Skyrim, Dark Souls, and Elden Ring.
- smoldesu 4y ago> None of these depend on Steam or Proton. The Steam Deck doesn't depend on Steam or Proton either, FWIW. If you want to throw Lakka or another homebrew emulation OS on it, it should work out-of-box. That being said, I get the appeal of other/simpler handhelds for retrogaming. The Steam Deck's real party trick is a powerful GPU at a decently low wattage, which will go mostly unappreciated playing Symphony of the Night.
- NexRebular 4y agoDoes the deck run anything else than Windows or linux? Or is it vendor locked with proprietary drivers?
- tadfisher 4y agoThe proprietary stuff is all firmware. It runs open-source GPU drivers and everything else is mainstreamed in Linux. So if BSD has the drivers, you could theoretically run it.
- Arrath 4y ago> Playing old games is the main reason I'm excited for these types of handhelds. Same! An often unspoken benefit to playing older games is that they are a good deal less taxing on the hardware, allowing you to stretch out the battery life. I love it.