Steam Deck after 5 MONTHS: one major concern...

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00:00 Intro
00:43 Sponsor: Secure your internet connection with Safing
01:38 How has the hardware aged?
04:49 Software experience: much, much improved
09:57 Gaming performance: good, but I have concerns
14:04 Non Steam Games and Desktop mode
17:04 After 5 months? Still recommended?
19:26 Sponsor: Get a device that supports Linux with Tuxedo
20:29 Support the channel

Well, I'm happy to report that it hasn't aged, really.I did notice a bit more creaking when picking up the deck up, especially on the left side.

I can feel the plastic of the case "clicking" into place underneath the trigger. It's not broken, but it definitely feels less solid than it once did.

Also, the Deck can get pretty dirty, pretty fast.

I spent most, if not all of my gaming time on the Steam Deck since I got it, I didn't use my gaming PC, or my Xbox, for more than one or 2 hours each in total, over 5 months.

23 hours of Vampire survivors, 6 hours of Hades, 10 hours of Crash bandicoot, 13 hours of the Sinking City, 22 hours of Rise of the Tomb Raider, 7 hours of Horizon Zero Dawn, 15 hours of the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot, 18 hours of God of War, 7 and a half hours of Warhammer Space marine, 5.5 hours of Lara Croft Go, 7 hours of firewatch, 5.4 hours of Hitman Go, and 6.4 hours of Portal 2, and a few more hours here and there in various titles I tested, games from the Heroic Games launcher, and more.

And in all that time, the Deck has gotten BETTER at playing these titles.

What has changed, is the size of the game library. Since I got it, the Deck has passed the 4400 titles certified mark, when it was only at around 1500 5 months ago. And a bunch of my games are already in that list. 37 out of my 203 titles are Verified, and 105 in total Playable and Verified, so slightly more than half my library. Only 44 are marked as unsupported.

Now, gaming performance is where I'm having some doubts about the staying power of the device as time moves on.

Don't get me wrong, games run mostly really, really well. Out of all the games I played, 3 exhibited performance issues that made them hard to play in good conditions.

They're Horizon Zero Dawn, The Sinking City, and Rise of the Tomb Raider.

These are relatively graphics intensive games, for sure, and not very old, but they're not from 2022, and the Deck is already struggling to play them. And of course, a few examples don't make a general statement, but it does create a bit of concern. For games that will drop in 2 or 3 years, will the Deck be able to play them in acceptable conditions, with acceptable performance? I'm not convinced.

For indie titles, there are absolutely no issues whatsoever.

You could also use Bottles to install Origin, Ubisoft Connect, or even the Epic Games Store, but I don't have any games on these other stores, apart from the Epic Games Store, so that's the one I tried, and I mainly played Enter the Gungeon, and Abzu.

The experience of playing these games is just as good as playing any Steam game!

Now speaking about the desktop mode, it hasn't really improved at all in the past 5 months. Apps that you installed through flathub still receive regular updates, but the base system has not. It's still on plasma 5.23.5, when Plasma 5.25 is out and 5.26 is 3 months away.

Updates using Discover are also super unreliable, with discover crashing very often wile updating with various error messages.

[SuperMario.]

I would argue that "optimised for Steam Deck" in the future wouldn't mean "developed for the 1% of people who brought the Steam Deck" but "developed for a low end PC gaming standard popularised by the Steam Deck". A wide majority of PC gaming users are still using a 10' series GPU and a 4 to 6 core CPU targeting 1080p, games made with the Steam Deck in mind will cover those systems in the wild today with the Steam Deck itself just being the worst case scenario. And while hardly anyone has a PC worse then the Steam Deck nowadays, any PC manufacturer can use the Steam Deck specs as a template for thier own low end hardware.

It's something the PC scene needed. A standardised low bar to test for minimum requirements.

[missedgnomer]

Something that was not obvious to me with the Deck is that you can use the touchpads to interact with the on screen keyboard in a split keyboard layout. This is now my preferred method of interacting with the virtual keyboard.

[Evilatem]

I would say at $400 to have the ability to to play nearly EVERY game from 1977-2022, the SteamDeck is punching well above it's class. Just because it's a PC doesn't mean it's users want ultra high end graphics. The first thing nearly everyone does with it is load up emulators to have 100s to 1000s of games ready to play.

[StrikerTVFang]

You concerns about the future games running on the Steam deck aren't taking into consideration that devs are now AWARE of the steam deck and now have a machine to build versions of their games towards. For example Square Enix announced that they will be keeping the Steam Deck in mind for their newer games.

A lot of the older games having performance issues is because they are being fed through a compatibility layer they weren't even built for in the first place. And these games haven't had updates specific to the Steam Deck at all.

I'm not worried about Steam Deck's longevity.

EDIT: After getting further into your video I see you brought up this point! So good! 🙂

[Schlumpsha]

What I would personally like to see is downwards compatibility with Steam Deck 2 hardware components. That way people could buy, say, a brand new motherboard on IFixIt, drop it into their Steam Deck 1, and be prepared for years to come.

[anon_y_mousse]

I think for the type of game I like to play, it'll probably be good to go for decades. Most of what I play are RPG's, but they're also old. Of course, it would be overkill for just emulation, but being able to play all of my old games plus the possibility of playing a new one would be awesome. I haven't played any games released in the past 10 or 15 years, but that may change if I get a Steam Deck.

[MinecraftEpicPlayer]

Glossing over the fact that it's amazing the Deck could run AAA in the first place, I think these driver-related stuttering issues you mentioned will actually likely be less of a problem in newer Vulkan and even DX12-utilizing titles. And furthermore the AMD driver will improve as time goes on. So I think the Deck might be able to play the latest 2027 AAA game at 600p/30FPS. Not the greatest, but by all means acceptable.

I might imagine that Valve might not ever release a SD2 or it might be 5+ years from now. I don't think waiting because you're worried about future AAA compatibility is all that smart.

[HasanBabasi]

I got my steam deck just a few days ago and the emulators enough are worth it for me. Playing crash bandicoot 2 brought such a smile on my face, felt like my inner child was smiling too. I know I can get emulators on other devices but something about having the deck feels special.

[Arkhamlabs]

Strange, I thought the point of using ARCH linux was for valve to be able to update the system as needed and without restriction, yet they've completely ignored the desktop? Plasma 5.24 was a buggy mess and your video showing Discovering crashing is proof of that. You'd think they at least update that.

[DavidHelloWorld]

I thought I had lost my interest in video games for a while, at least the past few years, but something about the Steam deck has me playing games like I used to as a kid again, spending hours in a game, and just really enjoying the experience of it. I haven’t spent more than an hour gaming on my desktop PC for years.

[lepatenteux]

The parts you shown where Rise of the Tomb Raider stuggles, they also struggle on my PC... I run an RX580 and I had huge FPS drops at 1080p in the same areas. I think it is an issue with the Linux port. I have to try it on the Windows version to confirm...

[tobeyakhtar]

Just a bit of a note. The newer models have fixed a lot hardware wise. The steam and option buttons are raised so they are less mushy and the fans have been replaced with a much quieter model

[merthyr]

With the impact that SteamDeck is having, there's a real chance that larger teams will make games optimised for the Steamdeck well into the future (2-5yrs at least). Many games will be out of reach, sure, but the deck and similar-spec handhelds that are launching this year will make a real and measurable impact to developer incomes if they're ignored.

[iodreamify]

I guess like any console with static hardware, the more time it exists the harder it'll be to run newer titles if devs don't jump on board and don't optimize their games. Traditional consoles have strict guidelines exactly for this and devs themselves are eager to squeeze the last drop of performance for that hardware.

So i'd say it's Valve's goal now to sell enough of these quickly enough so that devs finally get the message on their end. We're not talking just compatibility anymore that's forever plagued gaming on linux but performance on a handheld where battery life is a concern too. Huge props to Valve for doing all of this but i still wonder if it'll be enough.

[Hhhhhh-szud]

I’d argue the desktop version has improved a lot just by the fact that now you can use steam+X to pull up the keyboard

[kevinbreen]

We can always hope that either FSR 2.0 will improve or there will be a 3.0 that will work for the deck. Still, though, to have so many playable titles on a mobile platform is incredibly insane and awesome. The deck is also repairable, which is a massive plus for me. Can't wait for mine to arrive and get to game in comfort again. Thanks for the honest review and update Nick! Steam Deck 2.0 will likely fix quite a few issues but will also likely cost a bit more. Worth it? Definitely.

[mrxmgs]

I am excited to see what a 2nd gen deck can do. Considering Ryzen 7000 will come with RDNA Graphics 🤤

[ProvAlex]

Man it really is a shame the desktop mode is so out of date. Software like Plasma and Discover have come so far since 5.23.5. The steam deck has significantly better specs than my work laptop. Lots of underutilized potential.

[TechJoltd]

I think AAA titles should focus on lower end hardware because if they keep trying to push the hardware, the hardware is just gonna become more power hungry. its gone to a point of where its uncomfortable looking at the power draw leaks for next gen gpus. They'll also leave a huge portion of gamers who won't upgrade because they can't or upgraded too recently to justify it again.

[trailblazercombi]

14:05 The gaming industry is evolving so rapidly even 5-year-old desktops struggle to run AAA games
It's a tough time being a portable games console in those trying years of constant evolution