A year later, and this is the ONLY video I found with info that's ACTUALLY USEFUL. Not just 'buy this, buy that,' or 'you can change the settings in the settings menu.' Thanks man.
My favorite part? Just pulled it out, downloaded my games and it generally just worked. All the tweaking and customization is AMAZING but it's the fact that the Steam Deck is so functional "out of the box" that is what's most impressive to me. I appreciate Steam's open hardware philosophy, but only because they back that up with a quality default product included with that hardware ❤ Valve's nailed it with this one. 👍
I just ordered Steam Deck. For me it is combination of both - good out of the box experience plus the possibility of using this portable Linux PC as such, without limitations. If it comes to gaming from what I checked there are ways (easier or harder) to install games from other launchers (GOG, Amazon games app, ea app and possibly others) not all of them might work flawlessly and might need additional tweaking but this possibility is not blocked by Valve. I saw a few videos on the subject of using Deck as a PC and from what I saw it should be good enough for me: browsing the web, using Google apps, once in a while editing spreadsheet or a text document. Sure I get that this is low power PC (even in comparison to my almost 7 year old laptop) but should be good for basic stuff. It is up to user what they want to do with their hardware. And many people who just want a portable gaming device do not have to care about underlying OS level, just use it as is, after learning how to use a few features (setting the game settings, setting power consumption, setting refresh rate to balance the quality and battery life).
Yeah honestly that has been great. I am a nerd and love tinkering with my PC but sometimes you just want that console experience of having something just work the way it is. Valve really managed to make the console experience a thing for PC games and its great
This may sound silly, but adding a Steam Gift Card ($20 is the sweet spot) as a stocking stuffer for that special someone with their shiny Steam Deck should be considered.
@@aryanmoodyyou're not joking tho. I know you habitually abuse your family members including infants and extremely elderly if they don't gift you $200 steam cards.
Vibrant deck : Saturation to 130. It's the most important thing to set up and a game changer for the deck. I've try a lot of saturation settings and 130 is perfect
@@elytrous4898 "ruining the viewing expereince" lol. Going by the recommedations of MANY large youtubers that have experience with Steam Deck apps, He did the right thing. ive heard many say that using 'vibrant deck' to increase saturation is the closest thing to having an OLED screen. Just tried it myself last night and is a deffinate IMPROVEMENT.
I've had the Steam Deck for 5 months now, and I wish someone would make an all-in-one advance tutorial for Steam Deck users. Things like installing Proton GE, Lutris, adding custom cover arts and boot animations, and other even technical and coding tricks that I don't know of. It would definately help people from bricking their Deck like in the past. Edit: Thank you for all of your suggestion and help, but what I meant wasn't that I don't know how to do it, but rather new users who just got the Steam Deck will have to go through all the channels and websites you have mentioned, rather than an all-in-one detailed guide which would save both time and effort for them.
I think people that don't want to research the best channels for Deck info are probably not going to go out of their way to watch an all-in-one video either, there would be way too much information that they're not interested in and who the heck wants to skip around in an hour long video(or longer) for the stuff you need when you can just search what you need and get a video specifically for it. Alternatively, put all the useful videos into your own playlist and start sharing that around for new users.
I'll just say that Lutris is a waste of time on the Deck, Proton all the way baby! For games from different launcher you get Heroic Launcher (I don't personally bother with non-Steam games for now) and the way that works they ask you for your login and password and they're a middle man in the login process so it is sketchy but apparently they're also very legit so proceed as you wish with that.
for the third year in a row now, i would like to thank you for uploading on Christmas Eve. i'm yet again, about to eat dinner by myself, but this will help keep me entertained for 18 minutes. merry christmas to everyone who may read this ^-^
A hiccup I ran into was INSANELY slow download speeds (3gb game taking 8hrs to install) after some researching, I learned that the steam deck's SD card format software can sometimes cause issues with the drive. If you reformat it via the linux desktop instead it seems to work better. Helped the download speeds a lot!
Anything is possible. All I know is that since I reformatted as described, everything has been downloading substantially faster. Also, none of my other wireless devices had the issue.
I had this issue till SteamOS 3.4 came out, SD card went from slow to quite comparable with the internal SSD. Using the right SD card should be quite a game changer.
Bob, I was wearing headphones and during your ad, the knocking freaked me the F out as it came from outside my window. So A+ sound editing and thanks for the video!
Really cool stuff, thanks for sharing this with us! Two major things to highlight though: First: I would highly recommend learning about the "Golden 40" that leverages the 40Hz capabilities of the Deck's display. Inevitably, you'll often end up worrying if a recent release can run at 60FPS on there. The Golden 40 would massively help here: Due to the fact you can lower the panel's refresh rate to 40Hz through the Quick Action Menu, you are able to go for 40FPS instead of 30. Why you may ask? Despite a 10FPS additional payload to the Deck's graphics APU, 40 FPS is right in the middle between 30 and 60 FPS in terms of frame pacing - meaning a nearly-60 FPS experience. Try it out! If you want to see this in action, feel free to give an older video of mine a shot, where I tried to explain this comprehensively. Second: Sleep has been massively improved with SteamOS 3.4, so it's in fact more of a "per-game decision", but I'd definitely try it regularly out, because with games that CAN be put to sleep, it's such a blessing - especially as gamer dad. I guess many of you can relate. Cheers!
Can you please explain how sleep works with the deck in general and also how it works with the update? Or maybe link to a video with the answer? I just got it for Christmas and have only begun diving little by little into it.
@@andydarling8951 It's really easy: Sleep works for all offline-games but may also result in audio issues after wakeup in rare occasions. Those can be easily fixed by a reboot of the device itself. You can't brick anything while trying this out on a per-game basis. Just make sure to save the game before you try it the first time. :) Online games put to sleep inevitably will end up disconnected, but that's self explanatory.
@@deckverse about the audio loss, totally! That happens with phone apps so I’m used to it. Guess I wasn’t sure if just tapping on the power button actually puts it to sleep or just turns off the display cuz the Steam logo appears for a few seconds. Thank you for the response 🙏🏻
I was pleasantly surprised how great 40fps looks when I got my deck. I started locking almost all games there and it looks "almost" indistinguishable from 60.
15:55 You're able to change controller priority in the input settings while in-game. No need to quit the game and relaunch with a different controller.
Brought it for my nephew birthday as a gift to him he's only 12yr old been 6 months he loved it hell forget him i loved it soo much next month i brought it for myself and it is sooo soo soo much fun i come back home from work and i pick up the deck every single day and play and it works perfectly i am yet to have any issue whatsoever for 5 months its a godgiven tech honestly
One of the things that I've actually found that's SUPER helpful is the community controller layouts. You can make really detailed controller layouts fairly easily, and with the community layouts there's generally someone who's already made a pretty decent layout and done all the hard work and testing for you. Hell, when I went to try a fairly new early access game like Project Playtime, there was already several great controller layouts that have thousands of hours of playtime! The most helpful one for me has gotta be the community layouts for Minecraft, where having a good layout is night and day for playing it without ripping your hair out in frustration.
Decky plugins is also pretty essential in my opinion. Gives you tonnes of customisation options within a simple UI but also gives you access to the power tools which can help you emulate certain systems better. For example, setting the number of cores being used by the deck to 4 seems to boost fps on almost all switch emulation I've tried.
Yeah, the Deck is pretty usable out of the box (after an update for good measure), but you can safely get some significant performance boosts out of the PowerTools plugin for Decky and CryoByte33's CryoUtilities script (don't forget to increase VRam in the BIOS settings). Disabling SMT using PowerTools usually leads to massive improvements in emulators and older games that can't take advantage of more than 4 cores anyway.
I'm sure many people have commented the same thing, but I feel like it's important: Switch has an ARM processor, which is the primary reason for downloading while asleep. ARM tends to have better power management, and can basically stop specific processes in the background, like a running game (at least that's how I think of it). The steam deck has a amd64 processor, so when it's asleep, it's asleep. They could potentially make it so the screen can turn off while it's downloading, but it'll still be on.
Just got one today for Christmas from my mom and girlfriend and I was so excited, I’m an Xbox gamer and I have like 30 days on Elden Ring at this point. So first thing I did was bought it again on the winter sale and now I’m halfway done with it all over again. 😂
The KDE linux desktop is fantastic. As a fulltime linux user anyway, it's handy to have what is basically a 100% gaming desktop, with a simple dongle, for well under $1000. However, you can minimize or even eliminate dongle use by getting a keyboard and mouse that connect via bluetooth. That said, I have a 2-year old cablecreation dongle I use to just hook up wired/USB input devices, and a portable external display.
Okay okay okay. Bob, I have started watching your content a lot over the past few weeks. Binged almost every Nontendo episode and I've been loving all of your Wulff Den videos as well. Your ad spots are genuinely hilarious. It's basically unprecedented that I enjoy the sponsor spots as much as the rest of the video, but you nail it every time. Love what you're doing.
My steam deck arrives tomorrow and I'm so excited! I ordered it thinking it was literally just steam so to see everything else you can do is like bonus upon bonus
Just ordered mine today because I'm now on a schedule at work where I work on low-volume Saturdays so I needed to have something to keep myself entertained. I'm super psyched. Planning on loading a PS1 and PS2 emulator onto here so I can revisit some of my comfort RPGs like the Wild Arms series, Suikoden, and Xenogears.
Settings -> Family -> Authorize Library Sharing on this device. If gifting a Steam Deck to family member it's worth sharing your library to help them get going. I also went a step further to hide mature games didn't want my kid playing. Also, if gifting to a child, you can set family mode up so they can't access the store.
Dude I gotta really thank you for all your videos in the past year. I ordered my Steam Deck in November of 21 and received it in August of 22. Watching your videos not only helped me decide to buy the Desk, but also prepared me for everything I would face. From navigating a linux desktop, to retro arch, and dipping my toes into other tech-y-game-y projects unrelated to the Deck. Thank you so much for all your content man. Informative, fun, incredibly well put together. Whether you see this or not, I wanna thank you for everything you've done for all of us little content consuming gremlins
The steam deck actually recognizes windows formatted flash drives. So place your files on a flash drive formatted fat32 or exfat for windows, and use the steam deck dock or a USB-C hub to connect a mouse and the flash drive. Then just go to file explorer in desktop mode and drag and drop. No need for external programs that cost money
I keep mine docked, have a Jausx Dock specifically, with the ethernet support. I picked up a few controls, including an XBox One controller as well as a USB Keyboard and Mouse. I had a steam link from before, which is compatible with the Steam Deck for transfering my game to my 40' TV, with surround sound. I play it pretty constantly too, even though it sits next to my PC full time. It's that good to have and use!
You don't need the "Show Perf Overlay" option on, that's only so it shows up in the main Steam OS UI instead of only in game, you can just adjust the "Performance Overlay Level" slider in games to get the FPS counter to show up normally.
Pro tip: in lieu of plugging in to a dock or monitor, Steam Link is a serviceable way to more easily use desktop mode. It basically turns whatever device you link to (in my case, an iPad Pro with Steam Link app) into a VNC client. You can then use the iPad peripherals to interact with the Steam Deck desktop. Not perfect, mind you, but very handy in a pinch. And in a fast enough connection, streaming games to a larger screen can be fun as well.
Worst part the deck cant even stream directly with my gaming laptop,The next room over which is a shame since the vita and the ps4 pulled it off perfectly and with no active wifi i played so much bf4 on it
@@neoandroid8586 just figured it out yesterday, thought it might be worth sharing. I didn’t realize you could stream from the desktop, but sure enough, it works without a hitch! Add a Bluetooth keyboard (or a Magic Keyboard case) and it’s like your iPad is running Linux!
For downloading, I set them all going in gaming mode, then switch to desktop mode where I have it turn the screen off (but not sleep!) after a minute in the Setting>Power options~. Then you can leave it overnight or whatever and BOOM, all downloaded.
Tip for downloads. Switch to desktop mode. You can reliably download with the screen off. There's a power setting icon next to the clock, where you can adjust how fast the screen turns off and not to ever put the system to sleep when plugged.
Man… my daughter (3 months old) has been crying non stop… well I’ve been holding her and comforting her for a while now… fed her.. burped her.. did everything I could to make her better. Well nothing worked I wanted some background noise… and I watch your channel a lot… so I turned this video on.. would you know she’s smiling ear to ear! Send me your cash app I feel like I owe you man!
i wanna see Wii U emulation on the steam deck, by plugging it into an external monitor and using that as the top screen, and the steam deck as the game pad. its like its built for it, honestly. you could also do DS and 3DS emulation with it really well.
From what I've heard, it's overly complicated to do something like that bc the wii u gamepad used a very specific way to communicate with the console and mimicking that would be a pain
I got mine last summer, and am loving it. Definitely my most played gaming device next to PS5. I kinda wish I bought a 64 GB and upgraded the SSD…granted 2TB SSD’s were not available when I got my Steam Deck, and they started at like $400 when I started seeing them a few months later. But I was able to get a 2TB SSD+ 1TB micro SD (I broke the first one opening my steam deck).
Just remember, you should only use an m.2 2230 NVMe SSD. If you use anything larger, even if it fits, it can cover the charger IC and cause it to overheat.
@@mostcoolkid78 I got a WD SN740 2230 from Aliexpress $249 free shipping. It took like 2 weeks to arrive and works perfectly after using Clonezilla to clone my 512 GB hdd. I was initially nervous but I figured that all 2 TB 2230 SSD’s at the time (I think till now too) came from China anyway.
For the arcade box, rather than putting a Steam Deck in there I recommend putting a full mini-ITX system instead. It'll be a bit more work to get up and running, but in exchange you can put in a 5800X3D, a 6950XT, and multiple terabytes of high-speed storage.
@@mikearisbrocken8507 It's an arcade cabinet. While fun and exciting (much like a smart with a V12), there are very few that would consider it sensible and compact.
I actually have Windows 11 dual boot installed on my Steam deck, and it's also a fantastic experience since I have access to other launchers like Game Pass. It's my usual daily driver. The folks at Valve have made the drivers available for us tinkerers out there, and it's great. There are several guides on how to get Windows 11 up and running with controller support. SteamOS is also pretty neat. Thanks for the review!
I'm very interested in doing these, but need to know if I can have both boot options on one SSD and if I can transfer my Win11 "digital license connected to my Microsoft account" from my laptop to the deck (I'm considering buying a Pro license key for the laptop to get remote desktop capabilities, and then I don't have to buy a key for the deck).
If you use a flash drive formatted for Windows then transfer your roms that way you don't run into issues with sd cards being formatted for Linux. The Steam Deck also emulates Switch and Wii U VERY Well. It's not just up to Game Cube. I was playing Pokemon Violet yesterday. It was fantastic.
For transferring files I've tried using both warpinator/winpinator and also KDE Connect, both apps that can be found in the discover store. They work really well and were pretty easy to setup. Winpinator was a bit easier to send multiple files but KDE connect has some cool things like also having a phone app which will let you input mouse controls, media controls, or send your clipboard between your phone, pc and steam deck which I thought was super neat!
I literally just picked one up about a week ago because of one of your vids. Absolutely in love with it. I’ve watched a few of these vids, but yours as usual takes the cake. Good job. High five. Thanks bob.
I think the biggest thing to get done before you can REALLY enjoy games on the steam deck is to set the gyro options just the way you want them. The options for it are varied and very specific, so you can spend hours tweaking. Do you prefer tilting or rotating for your left and right? You can set that all up in the settings menu. I played around with those options for 3 hours on my friend's steam deck, had the time of my life.
as a console player, i can say that the sales came as an amazing surprise! if a game is quite old, you can often get them for £1 or less, which is amazing!
If you get this comment, DON'T TRUST IT. It is a scam, for proof, check the username of the account. If it is wulffden, it might be real, though if it isn't, it's fake. This includes wulffden77, or any other combination of numbers.
Idk if anyone else feels the same, but even though I have tons of games on GOG and Epic, I'd be willing to rebuy most of them on Steam just for the ease and cleanliness, and one-stop cloud saves. Valve was brilliant to make this hardware to boost software sales, imo.
@@BRxRanger True, I'm well aware. But most of the smaller indie titles you can usually find pretty cheap and the alure of having them all so cleanly through steam instead is strong.
I finally bought one the other day. It's the older non oled version but was quite affordable so well worth it and wow! It really is that good. I'm mostly using it for emulation and you're right, it's so easy to get going and once you do, there's basically nothing it doesn't emulate.
Just a heads up the "unsupported" games most of the time will still work atleast from my experience, most of the games I have that are "unsupported" simply show the wrong controls (keyboard instead of controller) but otherwise are 100% playable.
Fun fact, ChatGPT was trained with internet data before the release of the Steam deck. When the model is eventually updated it will probably spill out something that actually makes sense.
First thing im going to do is download Hades and Hades 2, and a game that 2 of my friends play. Im going on vacation next week with my little brother so im definitely bringing it with me
I'm only just getting bold enough to start tinkering and modding with it. (Afraid to break things.) Definitely gonna try some emulation in the next couple weeks though.
You have the most entertaining and (often times) hilarious sponsored ads! I have never seen a UA-camr create so much effort and comedy into an advertisement where most people would just give a monotonous script about why one should buy their sponsor's products.
I really appreciate these videos they really show off good features that you don’t often see in reviews. I’m currently deciding between Aya neo or the steam deck and the big factor for me is simple mod support since I often need to find accessibility mods. Currently a point in aya Neos favor seeing as they have windows support
TIP for people doing an SSD upgrade: make sure your SD card is removed whenever opening or closing the backplate. After replacing my SSD, I removed and put the SD card back in. Then I realized I put a screw in the wrong place and opened it back up not thinking about the SD Card and it snapped in half. I lost a 1 TB lexar play sd card 😢
Project Killswitch's included kickstand includes little spots to put microSD cards, so if you like to play a few large games, you could always keep them on microSD cards as if you're playing an old cartridge game.
For those wondering Terraria does not auto upload your save file to the cloud. I know this because if you swap a power supply in a PC and you don't swap the cables then any components plugged in will get fried so all my hard drives got fried and I had to reinstall Windows from scratch.
Ouch that sounds very expensive. The only time it's safe to keep the cables attached and swapping the PSU is when you swap from one identical one to another identical one after an RMA. If you switch brands or anything you're likely to have a very bad day. Sorry that you lost all your data hopefully you had a backup.
@@Trekeyus surprisingly I did have a backup. Like I lost a few things but some of the things I thought I hadn't backed up I found in the rong place on my backup drive.
Just a heads up, don't get the base model with 64 gigs if you have a lot of games. Regardless of sd card the games you play save shader caching onto the console and that stuff adds up fast. You can have a 1tb SD card and if the shader files are too much at best you'll be able to install 8 games because of all the shaders taking up space.
@@nicekeyboardalan6972 that's what I'm gonna do but do you really think the average person is gonna wanna open up a $400 device without any knowledge on tech and next to nil experience? I think most people would rather fork over the extra cash to not deal with the stress.
@@nicekeyboardalan6972 an average person won't do that and risk of damaging something that expensive. What you just described is not average consumer but above average
I could genuinely see me dropping my PC within 10 years time or so to have something like this as my main platform. It's not quite powerful enough for my tastes yet but we're getting close.
@@Rodlene Can't really decide that for you I'm afraid - Ask yourself if you want a full fledged PC thats a bit weaker, or if all you want is a gaming device.
Not really, once you put a screen protector on (which you probably would want to), it negates the benefit of the anti-glare screen. I myself bought the 512GB and kinda wish I got a cheaper version since the only benefit I use is the Dex-85 virtual keyboard which I can live without.
It's not. Just upgrade the ssd yourself and save $100-200. I wish I knew this before I pre orded a year ago. 9/10 you're putting a screen protector on it too
for research purposes, 17:00 was the time of the vídeo when i remebered to leave a like. just kidding, thanks again boby, I finally got my deck, so time to watch all steam deck videos again.
Your ad skits are great! I also love how you always poke fun at beatemups lmao. Idk why I always watch these beginner steamdeck guides since I have one, but I always enjoy hearing other peoples opinions on the steamdeck! Such a great device.
It's sad that when I heard Bob say "update it", my gut reaction was skepticism because I'm so used to wanting to not update consoles, since the ways you hack the console for homebrew usually rely on vulnerabilities in old versions But then I remembered that it's the Steam Deck. You can already do whatever you want with it. Phew.
9:00 There is a way to download your games, while the screen is off. Go to desktop mode, go to power management and set the "Dim screen" and "Screen Energy Saving" to 1 minute. After 1 minute the screen will turn off, but the download will continue.
A year later, and this is the ONLY video I found with info that's ACTUALLY USEFUL. Not just 'buy this, buy that,' or 'you can change the settings in the settings menu.' Thanks man.
Picked one up in pristine condition from a friend for $280. I’ll be trying it out tomorrow!
My favorite part?
Just pulled it out, downloaded my games and it generally just worked. All the tweaking and customization is AMAZING but it's the fact that the Steam Deck is so functional "out of the box" that is what's most impressive to me. I appreciate Steam's open hardware philosophy, but only because they back that up with a quality default product included with that hardware ❤ Valve's nailed it with this one. 👍
I just ordered Steam Deck.
For me it is combination of both - good out of the box experience plus the possibility of using this portable Linux PC as such, without limitations. If it comes to gaming from what I checked there are ways (easier or harder) to install games from other launchers (GOG, Amazon games app, ea app and possibly others) not all of them might work flawlessly and might need additional tweaking but this possibility is not blocked by Valve. I saw a few videos on the subject of using Deck as a PC and from what I saw it should be good enough for me: browsing the web, using Google apps, once in a while editing spreadsheet or a text document. Sure I get that this is low power PC (even in comparison to my almost 7 year old laptop) but should be good for basic stuff.
It is up to user what they want to do with their hardware. And many people who just want a portable gaming device do not have to care about underlying OS level, just use it as is, after learning how to use a few features (setting the game settings, setting power consumption, setting refresh rate to balance the quality and battery life).
My favourite part is the phone slipping out of his hands
When I pull it out, it doesn't always work
@@lukasadamson6091gotta work on the pull out game
Yeah honestly that has been great. I am a nerd and love tinkering with my PC but sometimes you just want that console experience of having something just work the way it is. Valve really managed to make the console experience a thing for PC games and its great
This may sound silly, but adding a Steam Gift Card ($20 is the sweet spot) as a stocking stuffer for that special someone with their shiny Steam Deck should be considered.
Silly you! You forgot the extra 0. I punish my family otherwise. 🎉🎉🎉
Edit: I feel I should clarify that THIS IS A JOKE
Possibly but most pc gamers will have 1000 unplayed games
@@aryanmoodyjoke? maybe to you it is. If they don’t give me 100 EACH it’s 3 weeks back in the gulag.
@@pachurro2762 Nice, I like an old fashioned rustic aesthetic, thrown into the van and taken to the torture chamber, I call her ‘Good Ol’ OOWWWWW’
@@aryanmoodyyou're not joking tho. I know you habitually abuse your family members including infants and extremely elderly if they don't gift you $200 steam cards.
Vibrant deck : Saturation to 130. It's the most important thing to set up and a game changer for the deck. I've try a lot of saturation settings and 130 is perfect
How do I get this?
Why would you ruin the viewing experience like that
@@elytrous4898 "ruining the viewing expereince" lol. Going by the recommedations of MANY large youtubers that have experience with Steam Deck apps, He did the right thing. ive heard many say that using 'vibrant deck' to increase saturation is the closest thing to having an OLED screen. Just tried it myself last night and is a deffinate IMPROVEMENT.
@@elytrous4898120 is great.
@@elytrous4898it improves it. The default is sort of bland, or lacking. Just needs more saturation
I've had the Steam Deck for 5 months now, and I wish someone would make an all-in-one advance tutorial for Steam Deck users. Things like installing Proton GE, Lutris, adding custom cover arts and boot animations, and other even technical and coding tricks that I don't know of. It would definately help people from bricking their Deck like in the past.
Edit: Thank you for all of your suggestion and help, but what I meant wasn't that I don't know how to do it, but rather new users who just got the Steam Deck will have to go through all the channels and websites you have mentioned, rather than an all-in-one detailed guide which would save both time and effort for them.
@Jack your mother didn't hug you...
I think people that don't want to research the best channels for Deck info are probably not going to go out of their way to watch an all-in-one video either, there would be way too much information that they're not interested in and who the heck wants to skip around in an hour long video(or longer) for the stuff you need when you can just search what you need and get a video specifically for it.
Alternatively, put all the useful videos into your own playlist and start sharing that around for new users.
I'll just say that Lutris is a waste of time on the Deck, Proton all the way baby! For games from different launcher you get Heroic Launcher (I don't personally bother with non-Steam games for now) and the way that works they ask you for your login and password and they're a middle man in the login process so it is sketchy but apparently they're also very legit so proceed as you wish with that.
fan the deck has a vid for his, its this q4 review
That's not how open platform works. You're suppose to find solutions to your problem on page 58 of the forum written 8 years ago.
Just purchased the OLED Deck. Had to make another stop here. Thanks brotha!
for the third year in a row now, i would like to thank you for uploading on Christmas Eve. i'm yet again, about to eat dinner by myself, but this will help keep me entertained for 18 minutes.
merry christmas to everyone who may read this ^-^
Merry Christmas to you too, buddy!
merry christmas! 🎁
Merry christmas to you from Thailand :) ❤
merry Christmas!!!
Merry Christmas to you
A hiccup I ran into was INSANELY slow download speeds (3gb game taking 8hrs to install) after some researching, I learned that the steam deck's SD card format software can sometimes cause issues with the drive. If you reformat it via the linux desktop instead it seems to work better. Helped the download speeds a lot!
Thx for the imfo
By linux desktop, do you mean Desktop Mode of Steam OS?
@notyusof yup! Google the process, though. I don't remember the steps.
Anything is possible. All I know is that since I reformatted as described, everything has been downloading substantially faster. Also, none of my other wireless devices had the issue.
I had this issue till SteamOS 3.4 came out, SD card went from slow to quite comparable with the internal SSD.
Using the right SD card should be quite a game changer.
Bob, I was wearing headphones and during your ad, the knocking freaked me the F out as it came from outside my window. So A+ sound editing and thanks for the video!
Really cool stuff, thanks for sharing this with us! Two major things to highlight though:
First: I would highly recommend learning about the "Golden 40" that leverages the 40Hz capabilities of the Deck's display. Inevitably, you'll often end up worrying if a recent release can run at 60FPS on there. The Golden 40 would massively help here: Due to the fact you can lower the panel's refresh rate to 40Hz through the Quick Action Menu, you are able to go for 40FPS instead of 30. Why you may ask? Despite a 10FPS additional payload to the Deck's graphics APU, 40 FPS is right in the middle between 30 and 60 FPS in terms of frame pacing - meaning a nearly-60 FPS experience. Try it out! If you want to see this in action, feel free to give an older video of mine a shot, where I tried to explain this comprehensively.
Second: Sleep has been massively improved with SteamOS 3.4, so it's in fact more of a "per-game decision", but I'd definitely try it regularly out, because with games that CAN be put to sleep, it's such a blessing - especially as gamer dad. I guess many of you can relate.
Cheers!
Can you please explain how sleep works with the deck in general and also how it works with the update? Or maybe link to a video with the answer? I just got it for Christmas and have only begun diving little by little into it.
@@andydarling8951 It's really easy: Sleep works for all offline-games but may also result in audio issues after wakeup in rare occasions. Those can be easily fixed by a reboot of the device itself. You can't brick anything while trying this out on a per-game basis. Just make sure to save the game before you try it the first time. :) Online games put to sleep inevitably will end up disconnected, but that's self explanatory.
@@deckverse about the audio loss, totally! That happens with phone apps so I’m used to it. Guess I wasn’t sure if just tapping on the power button actually puts it to sleep or just turns off the display cuz the Steam logo appears for a few seconds. Thank you for the response 🙏🏻
I was pleasantly surprised how great 40fps looks when I got my deck. I started locking almost all games there and it looks "almost" indistinguishable from 60.
It's because of the good sleep feature that I ultimately chose it over the ROG ally. Thanks other dads :)
15:55 You're able to change controller priority in the input settings while in-game. No need to quit the game and relaunch with a different controller.
This!
Brought it for my nephew birthday as a gift to him he's only 12yr old been 6 months he loved it hell forget him i loved it soo much next month i brought it for myself and it is sooo soo soo much fun i come back home from work and i pick up the deck every single day and play and it works perfectly i am yet to have any issue whatsoever for 5 months its a godgiven tech honestly
I love the beatemups reference. Wulff's impression was just amazing. I love their friendship
One of the things that I've actually found that's SUPER helpful is the community controller layouts. You can make really detailed controller layouts fairly easily, and with the community layouts there's generally someone who's already made a pretty decent layout and done all the hard work and testing for you. Hell, when I went to try a fairly new early access game like Project Playtime, there was already several great controller layouts that have thousands of hours of playtime! The most helpful one for me has gotta be the community layouts for Minecraft, where having a good layout is night and day for playing it without ripping your hair out in frustration.
ProtonDB is still used all the time, very useful. Also, I use Warpinator to transfer files from my pc to my Deck, it's free and super easy to use.
I did watch this with anticipation of the arrive of mine steam deck
Now I have it
And I'm still watching this video 😊
Wulff den is one of the only creators who I actually watch the sponsors. I love the skits!
Creatures?
Perhaps Critters
@@LooganYT
Perhaps he meant ‘creators’
@@AdityaWaghmare nah. Critters
@@LooganYT
Well, ‘critters’ it is then
Decky plugins is also pretty essential in my opinion. Gives you tonnes of customisation options within a simple UI but also gives you access to the power tools which can help you emulate certain systems better. For example, setting the number of cores being used by the deck to 4 seems to boost fps on almost all switch emulation I've tried.
+1
Yeah, the Deck is pretty usable out of the box (after an update for good measure), but you can safely get some significant performance boosts out of the PowerTools plugin for Decky and CryoByte33's CryoUtilities script (don't forget to increase VRam in the BIOS settings).
Disabling SMT using PowerTools usually leads to massive improvements in emulators and older games that can't take advantage of more than 4 cores anyway.
Especially with all the plugins that just dropped in it. Including SteamDB support!
I'm sure many people have commented the same thing, but I feel like it's important: Switch has an ARM processor, which is the primary reason for downloading while asleep. ARM tends to have better power management, and can basically stop specific processes in the background, like a running game (at least that's how I think of it).
The steam deck has a amd64 processor, so when it's asleep, it's asleep. They could potentially make it so the screen can turn off while it's downloading, but it'll still be on.
Thank you for congratulating me for spending $700
If I could have spent that much, decided to go with the 512gb lcd on sale. Pretty excited to finally get my hands on one of these regardless though 😁
Just got one today for Christmas from my mom and girlfriend and I was so excited, I’m an Xbox gamer and I have like 30 days on Elden Ring at this point. So first thing I did was bought it again on the winter sale and now I’m halfway done with it all over again. 😂
The KDE linux desktop is fantastic. As a fulltime linux user anyway, it's handy to have what is basically a 100% gaming desktop, with a simple dongle, for well under $1000. However, you can minimize or even eliminate dongle use by getting a keyboard and mouse that connect via bluetooth. That said, I have a 2-year old cablecreation dongle I use to just hook up wired/USB input devices, and a portable external display.
You uploaded this the exact minute I got my steam deck from FedEx. Fucking king.
17:06 Bob got that Mario air for the couch holy shit
Okay okay okay. Bob, I have started watching your content a lot over the past few weeks. Binged almost every Nontendo episode and I've been loving all of your Wulff Den videos as well. Your ad spots are genuinely hilarious. It's basically unprecedented that I enjoy the sponsor spots as much as the rest of the video, but you nail it every time. Love what you're doing.
My steam deck arrives tomorrow and I'm so excited! I ordered it thinking it was literally just steam so to see everything else you can do is like bonus upon bonus
so this guy isn't penguinz0?
Moist Den
No. It's obviously a new Keanu Reeves character
I think this guy is moostkritial or something 🤷♂️
No it's jesus
It’s moistcr1tikal’s tech savvy twin!
Just ordered mine today because I'm now on a schedule at work where I work on low-volume Saturdays so I needed to have something to keep myself entertained.
I'm super psyched. Planning on loading a PS1 and PS2 emulator onto here so I can revisit some of my comfort RPGs like the Wild Arms series, Suikoden, and Xenogears.
Settings -> Family -> Authorize Library Sharing on this device.
If gifting a Steam Deck to family member it's worth sharing your library to help them get going. I also went a step further to hide mature games didn't want my kid playing. Also, if gifting to a child, you can set family mode up so they can't access the store.
17:07 Adorable doggo. Tackle hug 100% justified.
Yes you missed “Play Desk Job” Its a game that demonstrates all Steam Deck features. Its like Astro Boy for Steam Deck. Must play! Great game too.
you mean Astro's Playroom. Astro Boy would a much cooler mascot for the PS5 than what Sony came up with if I'm being honest
@@BronzeAgePepperthey’d have to pay Konami or who ever owns him lol
It's called Aperture Desk Job
Dude I gotta really thank you for all your videos in the past year. I ordered my Steam Deck in November of 21 and received it in August of 22. Watching your videos not only helped me decide to buy the Desk, but also prepared me for everything I would face. From navigating a linux desktop, to retro arch, and dipping my toes into other tech-y-game-y projects unrelated to the Deck. Thank you so much for all your content man. Informative, fun, incredibly well put together. Whether you see this or not, I wanna thank you for everything you've done for all of us little content consuming gremlins
When buying a SD card for your SteamDeck buy an A2 card. They tend to download games faster and play a bit more reliably.
The steam deck actually recognizes windows formatted flash drives. So place your files on a flash drive formatted fat32 or exfat for windows, and use the steam deck dock or a USB-C hub to connect a mouse and the flash drive. Then just go to file explorer in desktop mode and drag and drop. No need for external programs that cost money
I keep mine docked, have a Jausx Dock specifically, with the ethernet support. I picked up a few controls, including an XBox One controller as well as a USB Keyboard and Mouse. I had a steam link from before, which is compatible with the Steam Deck for transfering my game to my 40' TV, with surround sound.
I play it pretty constantly too, even though it sits next to my PC full time. It's that good to have and use!
You don't need the "Show Perf Overlay" option on, that's only so it shows up in the main Steam OS UI instead of only in game, you can just adjust the "Performance Overlay Level" slider in games to get the FPS counter to show up normally.
Wulff, there is also a third group of viewers who already own some of the hardware you review and we’re just enjoying your videos 🤣
And other group that has none of devices that he has (like me except the switch)
Signing in, had mine before he had his and the dock XD.
There's another
we here!
That knock in the intro skit was way too real. My heart almost jumped out of my chest cause I thought someone knocked on my wall.
fr
same lol made me turn my head
Pro tip: in lieu of plugging in to a dock or monitor, Steam Link is a serviceable way to more easily use desktop mode. It basically turns whatever device you link to (in my case, an iPad Pro with Steam Link app) into a VNC client. You can then use the iPad peripherals to interact with the Steam Deck desktop. Not perfect, mind you, but very handy in a pinch. And in a fast enough connection, streaming games to a larger screen can be fun as well.
Worst part the deck cant even stream directly with my gaming laptop,The next room over which is a shame since the vita and the ps4 pulled it off perfectly and with no active wifi i played so much bf4 on it
Thats a great tip, i have an ipad pro so i might do that too
@@TheL1arL1ar use parsec.
@@neoandroid8586 just figured it out yesterday, thought it might be worth sharing. I didn’t realize you could stream from the desktop, but sure enough, it works without a hitch! Add a Bluetooth keyboard (or a Magic Keyboard case) and it’s like your iPad is running Linux!
@@TheL1arL1ar that is literally impossible to happen unless your laptop can't reach wifi
You did do an add about cases but the first thing you do is put on a screen protector.
Did anyone else like the vid just for the add skit? Although its still not as good as some of the manscaped ones.
Yep, subscribed too cause of the skit.
I ordered mines Saturday it just came in the mail today so it took 5 days can't wait to play it haven't even turned it on yet
16:53 omg this is a game changer to play games in bed and stream them off my 4080S rig
For downloading, I set them all going in gaming mode, then switch to desktop mode where I have it turn the screen off (but not sleep!) after a minute in the Setting>Power options~. Then you can leave it overnight or whatever and BOOM, all downloaded.
Tip for downloads. Switch to desktop mode. You can reliably download with the screen off.
There's a power setting icon next to the clock, where you can adjust how fast the screen turns off and not to ever put the system to sleep when plugged.
Best ad yet. Complete with Bob getting hit in the face, plus fire, plus a Beatemups joke, and a flawless Aussie accent (complete with a hair flip)
I hope to get one next year.
Until then, I'll be retro gaming and toilet seat playing ✌️
Man… my daughter (3 months old) has been crying non stop… well I’ve been holding her and comforting her for a while now… fed her.. burped her.. did everything I could to make her better. Well nothing worked I wanted some background noise… and I watch your channel a lot… so I turned this video on.. would you know she’s smiling ear to ear! Send me your cash app I feel like I owe you man!
i wanna see Wii U emulation on the steam deck, by plugging it into an external monitor and using that as the top screen, and the steam deck as the game pad. its like its built for it, honestly. you could also do DS and 3DS emulation with it really well.
Oh my god you’re so right! A proper Wii U emulator that could do that would be AMAZING!
From what I've heard, it's overly complicated to do something like that bc the wii u gamepad used a very specific way to communicate with the console and mimicking that would be a pain
Bob the role model for all! Don’t forget to say “Please and Thank you” 😊
As a norwegian, I can't help but envy you having the Steam Deck available..
I got mine last summer, and am loving it. Definitely my most played gaming device next to PS5. I kinda wish I bought a 64 GB and upgraded the SSD…granted 2TB SSD’s were not available when I got my Steam Deck, and they started at like $400 when I started seeing them a few months later. But I was able to get a 2TB SSD+ 1TB micro SD (I broke the first one opening my steam deck).
What ssd brand and how much did it cost?
Just remember, you should only use an m.2 2230 NVMe SSD. If you use anything larger, even if it fits, it can cover the charger IC and cause it to overheat.
@@mostcoolkid78 I got a WD SN740 2230 from Aliexpress $249 free shipping. It took like 2 weeks to arrive and works perfectly after using Clonezilla to clone my 512 GB hdd. I was initially nervous but I figured that all 2 TB 2230 SSD’s at the time (I think till now too) came from China anyway.
@@MithosDagon thanks
Wulff den has slowly become the best alt gaming info and tips channel on this platform.
For the arcade box, rather than putting a Steam Deck in there I recommend putting a full mini-ITX system instead. It'll be a bit more work to get up and running, but in exchange you can put in a 5800X3D, a 6950XT, and multiple terabytes of high-speed storage.
I… think you went from “if you want a sensible compaxt mode of transportation, dont use a motorcycle, buy a smart, then put a v12! In it!”
@@mikearisbrocken8507 It's an arcade cabinet. While fun and exciting (much like a smart with a V12), there are very few that would consider it sensible and compact.
I will find out tomorrow!!
Really good video. Thank you. I liked the geeking out and I also really liked the comedy flourishes. 17:07 Couch time!
The Wood impression in the ad damn near killed me. So good.
I actually have Windows 11 dual boot installed on my Steam deck, and it's also a fantastic experience since I have access to other launchers like Game Pass. It's my usual daily driver. The folks at Valve have made the drivers available for us tinkerers out there, and it's great. There are several guides on how to get Windows 11 up and running with controller support. SteamOS is also pretty neat. Thanks for the review!
I'm very interested in doing these, but need to know if I can have both boot options on one SSD and if I can transfer my Win11 "digital license connected to my Microsoft account" from my laptop to the deck (I'm considering buying a Pro license key for the laptop to get remote desktop capabilities, and then I don't have to buy a key for the deck).
that case bit was freaking gold. hilarious
If you use a flash drive formatted for Windows then transfer your roms that way you don't run into issues with sd cards being formatted for Linux.
The Steam Deck also emulates Switch and Wii U VERY Well. It's not just up to Game Cube. I was playing Pokemon Violet yesterday. It was fantastic.
That's wild I'm not PC savvy too much but I just bought one of these I'm gonna have to figure out how to get violet on there
I bought the 64 GB and bought 512 GB SD Card, less expensive than the other versions and works well
For transferring files I've tried using both warpinator/winpinator and also KDE Connect, both apps that can be found in the discover store. They work really well and were pretty easy to setup. Winpinator was a bit easier to send multiple files but KDE connect has some cool things like also having a phone app which will let you input mouse controls, media controls, or send your clipboard between your phone, pc and steam deck which I thought was super neat!
i did not expect to hear eve in the middle of a steam deck video but here we are. you have good taste in music good sir
I literally just picked one up about a week ago because of one of your vids. Absolutely in love with it. I’ve watched a few of these vids, but yours as usual takes the cake.
Good job. High five. Thanks bob.
I think the biggest thing to get done before you can REALLY enjoy games on the steam deck is to set the gyro options just the way you want them. The options for it are varied and very specific, so you can spend hours tweaking. Do you prefer tilting or rotating for your left and right? You can set that all up in the settings menu.
I played around with those options for 3 hours on my friend's steam deck, had the time of my life.
Dude, your editing is superb. props to you or your editor! Whoever does it, is on point. :)
as a console player, i can say that the sales came as an amazing surprise! if a game is quite old, you can often get them for £1 or less, which is amazing!
If you get this comment, DON'T TRUST IT. It is a scam, for proof, check the username of the account. If it is wulffden, it might be real, though if it isn't, it's fake. This includes wulffden77, or any other combination of numbers.
Idk if anyone else feels the same, but even though I have tons of games on GOG and Epic, I'd be willing to rebuy most of them on Steam just for the ease and cleanliness, and one-stop cloud saves. Valve was brilliant to make this hardware to boost software sales, imo.
there is an app called heroic on the deck for logging into epic and gog to play those games
@@BRxRanger True, I'm well aware. But most of the smaller indie titles you can usually find pretty cheap and the alure of having them all so cleanly through steam instead is strong.
I finally bought one the other day. It's the older non oled version but was quite affordable so well worth it and wow! It really is that good. I'm mostly using it for emulation and you're right, it's so easy to get going and once you do, there's basically nothing it doesn't emulate.
Just a heads up the "unsupported" games most of the time will still work atleast from my experience, most of the games I have that are "unsupported" simply show the wrong controls (keyboard instead of controller) but otherwise are 100% playable.
best ad ever, I actually watched it
Fun fact, ChatGPT was trained with internet data before the release of the Steam deck. When the model is eventually updated it will probably spill out something that actually makes sense.
Jesus Christ loves you
First thing im going to do is download Hades and Hades 2, and a game that 2 of my friends play. Im going on vacation next week with my little brother so im definitely bringing it with me
Wish it was available in my country. Would be an instant buy
Got the 64GB version with a 512GB SD card. I'm very happy with my purchase and love this little handheld.
I'm only just getting bold enough to start tinkering and modding with it. (Afraid to break things.) Definitely gonna try some emulation in the next couple weeks though.
As of now I didn't try any mods yet myself. Would like to when I get GTA V, Fallout and the street fighter games 😅
@@Gerudo-King-Ganondorf street fighter mods? uh oh
You have the most entertaining and (often times) hilarious sponsored ads!
I have never seen a UA-camr create so much effort and comedy into an advertisement where most people would just give a monotonous script about why one should buy their sponsor's products.
I really appreciate these videos they really show off good features that you don’t often see in reviews. I’m currently deciding between Aya neo or the steam deck and the big factor for me is simple mod support since I often need to find accessibility mods. Currently a point in aya Neos favor seeing as they have windows support
@Vaphi this is promising I’ll need to to do more research to verify but that is helpful and makes me more optimistic
A tipp to transfer Files: Install an FTP or SSH Server on the Deck and connect to it using a PC
TIP for people doing an SSD upgrade: make sure your SD card is removed whenever opening or closing the backplate. After replacing my SSD, I removed and put the SD card back in. Then I realized I put a screw in the wrong place and opened it back up not thinking about the SD Card and it snapped in half. I lost a 1 TB lexar play sd card 😢
Thanks for the headsup and RIP SD
Project Killswitch's included kickstand includes little spots to put microSD cards, so if you like to play a few large games, you could always keep them on microSD cards as if you're playing an old cartridge game.
For those wondering Terraria does not auto upload your save file to the cloud. I know this because if you swap a power supply in a PC and you don't swap the cables then any components plugged in will get fried so all my hard drives got fried and I had to reinstall Windows from scratch.
Ouch that sounds very expensive. The only time it's safe to keep the cables attached and swapping the PSU is when you swap from one identical one to another identical one after an RMA. If you switch brands or anything you're likely to have a very bad day. Sorry that you lost all your data hopefully you had a backup.
@@Trekeyus surprisingly I did have a backup. Like I lost a few things but some of the things I thought I hadn't backed up I found in the rong place on my backup drive.
@@bland9876 oh yeah it's amazing how many times I find stuff that's backed up to a completely different folder than I'm expecting.
@@Trekeyus definitely a wonderful surprise.
God damnit im in a car and the knock on the door during the sponsored part still hot me 😂😂😂
It’s not that the Steam Deck doesn’t download games as fast while in sleep mode, it just doesn’t download them at all!
that knocking on the door , first thing i did was pause and looked who knocked xD
Just a heads up, don't get the base model with 64 gigs if you have a lot of games. Regardless of sd card the games you play save shader caching onto the console and that stuff adds up fast. You can have a 1tb SD card and if the shader files are too much at best you'll be able to install 8 games because of all the shaders taking up space.
Bro you can upgrade it to 1tb yourself and it will still cost less than the 512gb
@@nicekeyboardalan6972 that's what I'm gonna do but do you really think the average person is gonna wanna open up a $400 device without any knowledge on tech and next to nil experience? I think most people would rather fork over the extra cash to not deal with the stress.
@@CRAgamer it's literally 6 screws them 1 more screw and a USB if you can't that's not my problem
@@nicekeyboardalan6972 exactly, which is why your average person would rather shell out the extra dough.
@@nicekeyboardalan6972 an average person won't do that and risk of damaging something that expensive. What you just described is not average consumer but above average
The commitment to the ads is why I subscribed.
I could genuinely see me dropping my PC within 10 years time or so to have something like this as my main platform.
It's not quite powerful enough for my tastes yet but we're getting close.
Would u say its better to get this over a ps5?
@@Rodlene Can't really decide that for you I'm afraid - Ask yourself if you want a full fledged PC thats a bit weaker, or if all you want is a gaming device.
@@Rodlene Dont know if you got one yet but hell yeah it is better than the ps5
Yo that deadass looked like it actually hurt throwing his phone at his head...had me dying 🤣
To clarify, the 512 is the version to get because it has a different, superior, anti-glare screen that the other models don't have.
Not really, once you put a screen protector on (which you probably would want to), it negates the benefit of the anti-glare screen. I myself bought the 512GB and kinda wish I got a cheaper version since the only benefit I use is the Dex-85 virtual keyboard which I can live without.
It's not. Just upgrade the ssd yourself and save $100-200. I wish I knew this before I pre orded a year ago. 9/10 you're putting a screen protector on it too
dude youre glowing.. drop that skincare routine bro
0:47 Correction: I like spending my time watching videos about the product I just bought to help myself feel justified for my purchase 😂
Me too. Which one did you go for?
for research purposes, 17:00 was the time of the vídeo when i remebered to leave a like. just kidding, thanks again boby, I finally got my deck, so time to watch all steam deck videos again.
14:09
Eve - Dramaturgy
Your ad skits are great! I also love how you always poke fun at beatemups lmao. Idk why I always watch these beginner steamdeck guides since I have one, but I always enjoy hearing other peoples opinions on the steamdeck! Such a great device.
It's sad that when I heard Bob say "update it", my gut reaction was skepticism because I'm so used to wanting to not update consoles, since the ways you hack the console for homebrew usually rely on vulnerabilities in old versions
But then I remembered that it's the Steam Deck. You can already do whatever you want with it. Phew.
Ordered one this morning and been waiting for the shipping notification like a madman
First thing to do is praise Gabe, our lord and savior.
Agreed🙏
I’m part of the crew that got one for Christmas, it’s awesome!!!
9:00 There is a way to download your games, while the screen is off. Go to desktop mode, go to power management and set the "Dim screen" and "Screen Energy Saving" to 1 minute. After 1 minute the screen will turn off, but the download will continue.