The official one is overpriced, but it does have a valve logo on it (I think?).
Donât worry, Iâll only make you do it again when you least expect it
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that was a pretty evil improv zone Jaffe
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Which model did you get? If itâs not too small and youâre not worried about having multiple games installed on it, you would be fine even with the 64gb model. The SSD is used for shader cache, but with the right micro SD card you can install the games on there and theyâll run fine, with minimal notice to load times. Iâve done a mix of both and never seen an issue with loading or performance.
Would like to hear about the official dock - Iâm tempted just for the DP/HDMI output options as Iâve not seen many from brands I trust with DP. I have one, a jsaux and sometimes there are issues with the power going into it, just because I have a USB hub (powered mind you) which causes screen problems.
Welcome to the coolest kids club too 
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RIGHT?! Like how dare.
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I got the smallest⊠I guess I didnât realize you could use microSD for the games! dang it. but maybe I can just return this 2TB ssd I bought and work with the microSD then, that would be handy. will do some research.
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A friend of mine has the 64gb with a 512gb micro sd card, no issues running anything at all. When you install a game, you can choose where, provided the card is formatted ready for the deck to read. But if you donât plan on having many games on there at once, you could get a smaller card.
As far as the card goes, people will say thereâs a difference between A1/A2 and there is, but really itâs based on your patience for loading. Weâre not talking about hours, maybe just a few seconds at most!
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Yeah, I have a 1.5TB microSD in mine just for my emulated stuff. But also threw a few higher end Steam games on there and they work fine.
And I heard the official dock isnât the best or most reliable.
I got the Baseus 6-1 dock after checking reviews, and it works perfectly. There are more options and brands, but it seems to be agreed upon that the official dock from Valve isnât ideal.
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I got the Sabrent $30 one and it works like a charm (@exodus they also have a Sabrent one with an M.2 slot, so if your ssd is m.2, you could just pop it in there without having to uninstall the existing one. You wouldnât be able to take those games with you portably, but it sounds like thatâs not your planned use for the deck anyway.)
I gotta say, all this conversation about which version of what to get to make sure the experience is optimal and how to avoid this or that pitfall is exactly why consoles are going to continue to exist.
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Totally agree. I love my deck and itâs changed how I play games now compared to how I did - but I love just buying something, putting a cartridge or disc in it and it works!
That universal experience is great and I hope it continues for a long time!
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Youâre not wrong, but when you get it up and running, you might see why Frank is right about PC being the future.
I agree that the best dock possible should come with the Steam Deck.
I also think you overcomplicated things by trying to install an SSD upgrade rather than just buying the base model with more storage like you would with a console.
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this seems like the right of it, to me. thereâs gonna be consoles as long as Nintendo believes it can make money/keep control over what theyâre doing via hardware. the switch won this generationâs âwarâ by catering to the people who Donât Play Video Games, Except for (animal crossing, or pokemon, or zelda, or smash, or etc. etc. etc.)
I would wager at least double digit percent of Switches have only ever played one game. emulating those games on Steam Deck or what have you makes sense to us, but not to I Donât Play Video Games Except person.
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why cant they make a good console though (this goes for sony and micro$haft too)
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I just think there will always be a space for simple managed gaming devices (consoles) that simply run games when you insert a cart or buy a game. $299 gets you a Switch that can play Fortnite in a few hours.
$399 + the price of a USB-C hub and controller gets you a Linux handheld that canât run Fortnite and a lot of other multiplayer Windows games without buying and installing Windows.
Even buying a prebuilt PC still requires knowledge to get things like controllers and storefronts set up. The 64GB Steam Deck required genuine Linux knowledge for managing the storage space (some temporary files canât be moved to an SD card). And Steam Deck still requires some knowledge of Proton and computers to run a lot of the worlds biggest games. Sometimes Stardew Valley just breaks for me when I move to my dock for example.
I love my Steam Deck, but I still spend decent time troubleshooting issues that my console never has. Lots of people only have that hour to play and will sacrifice an open platform for simplicity. I think that will always be the case.
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Well, consider that current consoles let you switch or add an SSD in about 5 minutes and sometimes you donât even need a tool. considering the steam deck came out several years later it was a bit surprising to me that it would be significantly more complex.
@esper Yeah, Sabrina Carpenter isnât gonna write lyrics about âI love to play games on the PCâ because it doesnât sound as cool as âswitch it up like nintendoâ and also (more than that) because the PC is still not for Regular People
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Gotta haze the new kid
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Yeah, Steam Deck is conceptually cool, totally get the appeal of all that breadth of PC gaming as someone who breathes video games, but I would also like to add that in addition to still having plenty of the semblance of PC fiddly-ness (less, but still!), it is ugly and about the size of a Penny Board. Switch still has a âyou can pull this out at the airport and itâs fineâ quality that these handheld PCs donât
Also, Tohou is one of the most right answers possible. I think I posted on here the other day that I try to look it up on Wikipedia once a year or so and still donât really understand what it is. Brandonâs explanation was actually one of the better ones Iâve come across
Double also, no idea which has more better games, but if we use the 1995 PlayStation US release date as a reasonable âthis is where most games became 3Dâ marker, that would mean that most games have been 3D for a significantly longer period than the period of when most games were 2D. If you call 1978 the start of the 2D era (Space Invaders release date, close to Atari 2600 release), 1978 - 1995 gets you 17 years. Even if you push way back to Pong getting into arcades in 1973 (and '73-'78 probably doesnât net you a whole lotta games), thatâs 22 years. PlayStation in 1995 to now is a clean 30 years. Everyoneâs old.
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This is a bit interesting to think about! âŠdo we mean âgames started using hardware to do transformation and rotations of points and polygonsâ or âgames that appear to be presented in 3dâ? I would argue the rubicon for the latter is somewhere closer to the 1993 release of Doom on PC. Even at the time everyone used some sort of awkward â2.5Dâ descriptor for it, but from that point onwards games presenting 3-dimensional worlds were increasingly common.
âŠwhich means thereâs even more 3D games.
indeed
Thereâs been talk about âthis may be the last console generationâŠâ for the last two or so, and as far as I can tell theyâve remained commercially successful. I expect there will be a Playstation 6, and probably some confusingly named new xbox in the future.
I may no longer be in the target market for any of them, however. Iâm highly unlikely to buy a Switch 2, at least.
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To be fair, I donât know anyone whoâs had to open their deck to upgrade any part of it. Everyone has either added a micro SD card or an external hard drive via the dock and thatâs pretty much covered it. Valve have been pretty open about how to get inside one and make upgrades, at the owners risk, yet I donât see a reason to unless the SSD really died or the sticks/buttons broke.
I have a 512gb deck, 512gb sd card which I use solely for emulation and a 2TB external SSD which is directly linked to a path on the sd card so all the games appear as on the sd card for emulators or emudeck. To get that configured how I like it took about 10 minutes top to bottom and it works like a dream. You do need a bit of Linux under your belt, and one amazing thing about Linux is there are a lot of people out there who know a lot about it and not only can help but will offer to as well.
Itâs not perfect by all means. Thereâs a lot of games you can struggle to run and one thing I have found is people have different experiences. Heroic is a game launcher for the Epic Games Store so you can play them on the deck - my friend has it working. I have tried countless times and doing exactly what he has done still canât get it to work! Thatâs an issue almost all games consoles never have to go through. I put a game in my DS, it works. You do it, it works. If it doesnât, probably not the console!
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