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I would love to hear from Deck owners that have migrated from or also have a 4k capable gaming PC tower. I know the difference in specs and performance and I'm

I would love to hear from Deck owners that have migrated from or also have a 4k capable gaming PC tower. I know the difference in specs and performance and I'm not expecting this to compete. But I'm interested in the experience, how enjoyable it is to play on this compared to the PC. Do you play on a monitor or TV? Do you use the controls on the Deck or attach keyboard or mouse? Is the dock worth it? Things like this.

dadoomer 4y ago
I have not felt like getting the Dock, since the experience has been great out of the box. Maybe if I didn't own a PS5 I'd get the Dock for couch gaming. But some 3D games might suffer in 1080p output. The controls are obviously perfect for games that support gamepads (which is a surprisingly substantial fraction), but even some keyboard and mouse-games can be played, specially those that do not require super fast reaction times and a million keybindings.
horsawlarway 4y ago
I fall into that category - I have two 4k screens and a desktop that I do a good bit of gaming on, I also have a steam deck. I find they excel at different things. I don't feel locked to a desk with the deck - I can grab it and go chill on the couch with my wife while she's watching a show. I can also lug it around on vacation/trips as an alternative to my personal laptop, since it's a real linux machine. I've done work on it while travelling without any problems (although I did have an external mouse/keyboard for that). Where it doesn't really excel is information dense games - I really enjoy rimworld/factorio/ck3/df style games, and honestly - I still prefer playing them on the large screens because it's just hard to deal with the much smaller screen real-estate on the deck. It's doable - but it's not as fun. On the other hand - I hadn't touched a pokemon game since I was a kid, and I've played through several of them on the deck. They're a blast. Most games that are designed for a small screen/controller are really great on the deck. Most rpg style games are pretty solid as well. Again - the only games I've really felt limited on were the ones where I just needed more screen real-estate, because the game was designed entirely around PC play on a large screen. I have not personally bought the dock from valve since I already have a usb-c dock and it works fine with the deck. It handles being docked to a 4k monitor without any issues, although I don't game much in that setup - I mostly do productive/work tasks. As for controls - I think the most revolutionary part of the deck is the control overlay they have going on. Being able to customize any button to almost any input is very, very cool. there's a LOT of power there, and I really haven't felt the need to plug in a mouse/keyboard for gaming (even for very mouse-centric games). The only exception is text input: it's still fairly slow and clunky with the default controls. You won't be playing "Mavis Beacon teaches typing" on it. But it can handle pretty much every other game I've tried (some better than others, but none so bad I couldn't play at all). My opinion: It's a complete steal for the price. I still probably do more gaming on the desktop, but not by all that much, and the fact that it's a true general purpose computer and not a hamstrung, locked-down, consumption only device is a huge breath of fresh air. Makes for a great little travel computer.
ranger207 4y ago
I have a capable Linux gaming desktop, a decent enough Linux laptop, and a Deck. The Deck doesn't really compete with the desktop as much as it competes with the laptop. While I'm at home for the most part I prefer the much larger screen and multiple monitors of my desktop, especially for information-dense games like Factorio or Terra Invicta. Most of what I use my Deck for at home are lighter games that don't take as much brain power and I can play while in bed or whatever. However, one niche that the Deck is definitely better than my desktop at is emulation: projects like EmuDeck have everything set up to be a (mostly) slick plug-and-play experience once you have it installed, with the result being that I can drop a rom into a folder on the SD card, refresh the game library, and it'll be ready to go, often even with community Steam Input configurations for that specific game. This is significantly better than on my desktop. Away from home the Deck is far more comfortable to use than my laptop, even with an external mouse. I don't typically use my laptop for info-heavy games like on my desktop anyway due to the lack of extra monitors, but even for mouse-heavy games like Shadowrun the Deck is better. I do still carry my laptop on trips and use it in bed, on the couch, etc because it's much easier to use for productivity and web browsing. I could carry an external monitor and keyboard for my Deck but why, when a laptop takes just as much space as those?

dadoomer 4y ago

I have not felt like getting the Dock, since the experience has been great out of the box. Maybe if I didn't own a PS5 I'd get the Dock for couch gaming. But some 3D games might suffer in 1080p output. The controls are obviously perfect for games that support gamepads (which is a surprisingly substantial fraction), but even some keyboard and mouse-games can be played, specially those that do not require super fast reaction times and a million keybindings.

horsawlarway 4y ago

I fall into that category - I have two 4k screens and a desktop that I do a good bit of gaming on, I also have a steam deck. I find they excel at different things. I don't feel locked to a desk with the deck - I can grab it and go chill on the couch with my wife while she's watching a show. I can also lug it around on vacation/trips as an alternative to my personal laptop, since it's a real linux machine. I've done work on it while travelling without any problems (although I did have an external mouse/keyboard for that). Where it doesn't really excel is information dense games - I really enjoy rimworld/factorio/ck3/df style games, and honestly - I still prefer playing them on the large screens because it's just hard to deal with the much smaller screen real-estate on the deck. It's doable - but it's not as fun. On the other hand - I hadn't touched a pokemon game since I was a kid, and I've played through several of them on the deck. They're a blast. Most games that are designed for a small screen/controller are really great on the deck. Most rpg style games are pretty solid as well. Again - the only games I've really felt limited on were the ones where I just needed more screen real-estate, because the game was designed entirely around PC play on a large screen. I have not personally bought the dock from valve since I already have a usb-c dock and it works fine with the deck. It handles being docked to a 4k monitor without any issues, although I don't game much in that setup - I mostly do productive/work tasks. As for controls - I think the most revolutionary part of the deck is the control overlay they have going on. Being able to customize any button to almost any input is very, very cool. there's a LOT of power there, and I really haven't felt the need to plug in a mouse/keyboard for gaming (even for very mouse-centric games). The only exception is text input: it's still fairly slow and clunky with the default controls. You won't be playing "Mavis Beacon teaches typing" on it. But it can handle pretty much every other game I've tried (some better than others, but none so bad I couldn't play at all). My opinion: It's a complete steal for the price. I still probably do more gaming on the desktop, but not by all that much, and the fact that it's a true general purpose computer and not a hamstrung, locked-down, consumption only device is a huge breath of fresh air. Makes for a great little travel computer.

ranger207 4y ago

I have a capable Linux gaming desktop, a decent enough Linux laptop, and a Deck. The Deck doesn't really compete with the desktop as much as it competes with the laptop. While I'm at home for the most part I prefer the much larger screen and multiple monitors of my desktop, especially for information-dense games like Factorio or Terra Invicta. Most of what I use my Deck for at home are lighter games that don't take as much brain power and I can play while in bed or whatever. However, one niche that the Deck is definitely better than my desktop at is emulation: projects like EmuDeck have everything set up to be a (mostly) slick plug-and-play experience once you have it installed, with the result being that I can drop a rom into a folder on the SD card, refresh the game library, and it'll be ready to go, often even with community Steam Input configurations for that specific game. This is significantly better than on my desktop. Away from home the Deck is far more comfortable to use than my laptop, even with an external mouse. I don't typically use my laptop for info-heavy games like on my desktop anyway due to the lack of extra monitors, but even for mouse-heavy games like Shadowrun the Deck is better. I do still carry my laptop on trips and use it in bed, on the couch, etc because it's much easier to use for productivity and web browsing. I could carry an external monitor and keyboard for my Deck but why, when a laptop takes just as much space as those?