What's the cheapest thing you had bought that by the end of its usefulness made you say "wow, this was worth a lot more than what I've paid for!"
What's the cheapest thing you had bought that by the end of its usefulness made you say "wow, this was worth a lot more than what I've paid for!"
Mine... My Xbox 360 slim only costed 129 euro back in 2012 and to this day still work like brand new, you would think that the disc drive would stop working but no. Never had the need of open it or clean it's insides. Still great, I just don't use it anymore since I feel it's outdated and loading speeds are better nowadays.
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My steam deck. Mine is still less than a year old, but holy shit I've been using the fuck out of mine. Worth every penny.
Steam Deck was so good, it made me question if I should ever buy a $2000 gaming PC again.
I'm currently on Year 6 and was considering getting a new graphics card. Then Steamdeck came out and found I didn't even need it, since I barely play games that require that level of power.
Oh and I'm currently playing Elden Ring right on my big screen TV with my Steamdeck and it looks great.
Ye. I still need an expensive PC for stuff like VR, 3d modeling and game dev, but it's replaced my main PC for most games. Hell, I don't even really need an expensive PC for the shooters I enjoy because most of them are either old or indie stuff that'd run on a $300 PoS from 10yrs ago. However, it's definitely made me question the necessity of a gaming rig in this day and age. The convenience outweighs the visual downgrade by a long shot.
I do have a few things I wish the deck had, such as:
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The ability to define and bind touch-screen gestures (like binding a two-finger pinch gesture to the scroll wheel to zoom in). The touch screen is a bit useless outside of using the keyboard. It'd be nice if it had more utility.
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The ability to pick a cloud-storage provider to use for automatic 3rd-party game sync. It sucks that I can't play a non-steam game on my deck and then resume on my desktop or vice versa.
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An AMD-compatible version of DLSS or a DLSS capable processor. FSR is great, but let's be honest, DLSS is higher quality.
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The ability to suspend games to disk. Linux supposedly has this ability via CRIU, but they'd have to implement it. The ability to save-state like a console emulator would be sick.
However, I've been in love with my deck since I got it.
The ability to pick a cloud-storage provider to use for automatic 3rd-party game sync. It sucks that I can't play a non-steam game on my deck and then resume on my desktop or vice versa.
Admittedly it's a bit of manual tech fiddling involved, but you can accomplish this by using network shares and some careful scripting. For example, I've got both my desktop and steamdeck with a launch script configured in Lutris on both. The script symlinks a network share path to the appropriate save game location for each game before running the game. Granted you have to figure out where each game wants it's save to be stored, but that's not too difficult once you get used to it.
Fiddly and nerdy for sure, and not for the non technical, but it's pretty nice, I've found! Would be even better if there was some more automated solution though.
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There are so, so, so many good games that are still fun to play today. Why do people subject themselves into the whims of companies such as Bethseda, EA, etc?
I don't use mine a ton because I have a good gaming PC at home, but when I'm out for a while, I take it with me. It's taken the place that my Switch and my laptop used to occupy, and I've barely touched either of those since I got my Deck.
Definitely don't regret the purchase.
I have a good gaming PC in my living room. Still I find myself on the couch with my steam deck very often.
I've found myself using my deck way more than my PC. I've barely touched my PC since I got my deck because it can run most of the games I want to play, either natively or via proton/wine. Granted, most of the games I've been playing recently are either slow-paced and can be played with the deck controller (like The Sims 2, or OpenRCT2), or are better on a controller than m/kb (like animal crossing or mario).
I definitely still have things I still need my PC for, either because they won't run on my deck (VR stuff), are difficult to play on a deck (mainly shooters), are more suited for a physical keyboard (filling out forms), or the deck can technically handle but doesn't have performance to do it well (like 3d modeling or game dev). However, my deck has become my main PC when it comes to games.
I definitely prefer to play on a bigger screen.
Can you connect a steam deck to an external screen? (Genuine question.)
With a USB-C to hdmi adapter or a dock, you can.
I have a switch is it still worth it to pick up steam deck? Tbf I don’t really use the switch all that often mainly game on pc
Absolutely. The Steam Deck is a gaming PC, but handheld. The iGPU in the Deck is approximately equivilent to an RX 580, for reference.
Yes. Barely touch my switch, use my steam deck all the time. For me it's the library that makes the difference. Switch is just the switch library, while the steam deck can play just about anything a PC can play + just about any emulatable consoles (including the switch). I've actually been slowly downloading ROM versions of my switch games so I can play them on my steam deck. It sucks not to have the online capability or being unable to sync my saves with my switch, but meh.
I barely got much usage out of my switch but the Steam Deck has been well worth it. I like the customizability, ability to emulate, bulkier build that feels more like holding an actual controller, and larger game library. I love playing rogue-likes on it like Hades, Slay the Spire, and Balatro. Really good combination for quick pick up and play sessions.
It's definitely worth it. Since you game on PC, you already have a library of games for it, and steam sales frequently let you get games for pennies on the dollar.