Last Thursday I received my nice, new, 64gb Steam Deck.
First off, since I'm much later to the game I know I'm getting a deck with better software onboard. That said, it was so easy to set up I don't even know how to talk about it. It was just easy.
The next thing I did was download Ni No Kuni II over the air. I wanted to see if that was easy enough to do, just keep it plugged in and let it do its thing.
Now on to the SD card. I got a 512gb from Sandisk, (SanDisk 512GB Ultra microSDXC UHS-I), and initially, it kept failing to format. However, since I have some experience with these cards, I know that sometimes you have to insert the card over and over, about 3 times is what I did. After that, it formatted and worked just fine.
Now, my main system is a Linux system. I know that if you have a windows system you can have trouble transferring files over to the deck because for some reason steam on windows is... not the same for some reason. All I had to do was put games on a USB C drive and copy them over to the deck via desktop mode.
So here are the games I've tried so far and the per-game profile settings I wound up using. Most of these games work fine in the in-game settings that are chosen by the game. I found that there's more to be gained using the steam deck performance settings. If a game was originally designed to run at 30fps, I generally limit the game to 30.
Portal Desk Job - Works perfectly, of course, because it's Valve's demo for the Deck
Final Fantasy X and X-2 - Other than you have to use the touch screen to use the game's launcher, this also works perfectly out of the box.
PGS: The game is already locked to 30 fps, Half rate shading on, TDP 10, GPU 1000, Linear Scaling
Ni No Kuni II - has some weird graphical glitches that are happening in the throne room, but that's the only place. Otherwise, it plays identically to the desktop version.
PGS: Framerate Limit 40, Refresh Rate 40, Half rate Shading on, TDP Limit 8, GPU limit off, Linear Scaling
BalisticNG - a Linux title, works just as expected.
PGS: Framerate limit 0, refresh 60, half rate shading on, TDP 5, GPU 800, Linear Scaling
Tomb Raider Anniversary - for some reason refuses to label the buttons correctly in-game. No controller labels, only keyboard labels.
PGS: Frame rate 30, refresh rate 60, half rate shading on, TDP limit 5, GPU 800, scaling linear
Tomb Raider (2013) Linux version - Works as I expect it to. I plan to download the windows version later on.
PGS: Framerate limit 30, refresh 60, half rate shading on, TDP off, GPU off, Linear scaling
Rise of the Tomb Raider - The Linux version refused to get past the game launch screen. But when I downloaded the Windows version it worked fine.
PGS: Framerate Limit 30, refresh 60, Half rate shading on, TDP Limit 9, GPU limit off, Linear Scaling
Shadow of the Tomb Raider - Linux version does some weird things with aiming. I'll have to DL the windows version and give that a try
PGS: N/A for now
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy - This one is indistinguishable from the other console versions.
PGS: I'm not using any limits on this one because it's not necessary unless you're trying to conserve battery,
Otherwise, It's Framerate 30, refresh 60, half rate shading on, TDP 12, GPU 1200, Linear Scaling
So do I like it? Yes. Was it worth the wait and the money? Oh yes. Will I be using it a lot? What do you think I'm doing in between writing this review?
Edit: Something I forgot to mention. When I DL and installed Ni No Kuni II, I didn't have the SD card in yet. It was installed on the main drive, and the Deck soon let me know there wasn't much room left. It has a super simple "move content" function that let me move it over to the SD card.
So I got to see if there was any difference in how it played from the 64gb drive over the SD card. There was no real difference.
First off, since I'm much later to the game I know I'm getting a deck with better software onboard. That said, it was so easy to set up I don't even know how to talk about it. It was just easy.
The next thing I did was download Ni No Kuni II over the air. I wanted to see if that was easy enough to do, just keep it plugged in and let it do its thing.
Now on to the SD card. I got a 512gb from Sandisk, (SanDisk 512GB Ultra microSDXC UHS-I), and initially, it kept failing to format. However, since I have some experience with these cards, I know that sometimes you have to insert the card over and over, about 3 times is what I did. After that, it formatted and worked just fine.
Now, my main system is a Linux system. I know that if you have a windows system you can have trouble transferring files over to the deck because for some reason steam on windows is... not the same for some reason. All I had to do was put games on a USB C drive and copy them over to the deck via desktop mode.
So here are the games I've tried so far and the per-game profile settings I wound up using. Most of these games work fine in the in-game settings that are chosen by the game. I found that there's more to be gained using the steam deck performance settings. If a game was originally designed to run at 30fps, I generally limit the game to 30.
Portal Desk Job - Works perfectly, of course, because it's Valve's demo for the Deck
Final Fantasy X and X-2 - Other than you have to use the touch screen to use the game's launcher, this also works perfectly out of the box.
PGS: The game is already locked to 30 fps, Half rate shading on, TDP 10, GPU 1000, Linear Scaling
Ni No Kuni II - has some weird graphical glitches that are happening in the throne room, but that's the only place. Otherwise, it plays identically to the desktop version.
PGS: Framerate Limit 40, Refresh Rate 40, Half rate Shading on, TDP Limit 8, GPU limit off, Linear Scaling
BalisticNG - a Linux title, works just as expected.
PGS: Framerate limit 0, refresh 60, half rate shading on, TDP 5, GPU 800, Linear Scaling
Tomb Raider Anniversary - for some reason refuses to label the buttons correctly in-game. No controller labels, only keyboard labels.
PGS: Frame rate 30, refresh rate 60, half rate shading on, TDP limit 5, GPU 800, scaling linear
Tomb Raider (2013) Linux version - Works as I expect it to. I plan to download the windows version later on.
PGS: Framerate limit 30, refresh 60, half rate shading on, TDP off, GPU off, Linear scaling
Rise of the Tomb Raider - The Linux version refused to get past the game launch screen. But when I downloaded the Windows version it worked fine.
PGS: Framerate Limit 30, refresh 60, Half rate shading on, TDP Limit 9, GPU limit off, Linear Scaling
Shadow of the Tomb Raider - Linux version does some weird things with aiming. I'll have to DL the windows version and give that a try
PGS: N/A for now
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy - This one is indistinguishable from the other console versions.
PGS: I'm not using any limits on this one because it's not necessary unless you're trying to conserve battery,
Otherwise, It's Framerate 30, refresh 60, half rate shading on, TDP 12, GPU 1200, Linear Scaling
So do I like it? Yes. Was it worth the wait and the money? Oh yes. Will I be using it a lot? What do you think I'm doing in between writing this review?
Edit: Something I forgot to mention. When I DL and installed Ni No Kuni II, I didn't have the SD card in yet. It was installed on the main drive, and the Deck soon let me know there wasn't much room left. It has a super simple "move content" function that let me move it over to the SD card.
So I got to see if there was any difference in how it played from the 64gb drive over the SD card. There was no real difference.
Last edited:
