EnsignWashout

I mean, I'll agree 100% that docking a SteamDeck has been hit and miss, depending on the game. I have about the same annoyances docking a SteamDeck as docking a laptop. I'm not angry at Valve or Windows about that, but I am very impressed with Nintendo.

I haven't had more wifi issues with SteamDeck than with my Switch or Switch Lite, or with a typical laptop.

I don't use SteamDeck desktop mode, except to install my free copy of Luanti, so I cannot comment.

Now, when we dive into specific games - mutiplayer code varies wildly between games on PC, and SteamDeck is still much closer to a PC expeirence, in that regard. If that's your point, I'm with you 100%.

A "Steam Remote Play Verified" badge would go a long way!

Edit: Decky is a mod right? I haven't had anything on my SteamDeck break every few weeks.

Oh! We did have a long running bug where various network stuff never worked quite right after waking from hybernation, which I fixed by rebooting after any time I let the deck sit for awhile.

That was patched pretty recently. It never bothered me much (once I understood the solution was a reboot) because the boot time is like 20 seconds.

I admit, I am pretty technical, but guessing that it might need a reboot after hybernation is something I think I learned from gaming on a Windows laptop.

Still, to your point, a better experience for folks coming from PC gaming than coming directly from console gaming.

I rarely even try what I suspect to be the final boss battle.

Game devs without difficulty settings can fuck off and not take my money for the next chapter.

They figure I must have figured out all the mechanics by now, surely?

No motherfucker, I did not. I played this game in 7 minute bursts between real life kicking my ass.

I don't know shit about what game techniques I was supposed to have learned back in chapter 2. Haha.

So when I get to the hard bit, I just turn the game off and never return to it. If I get there during the Steam refund window, I'll ask for my money back, too.

Edit: Now a cozy game with a final cozy cinematic, I am fully down for.

Thank you for your wisdom, Comrade Shark Fucker.

I would have gotten here sooner, but I had to take time to write a scathing review for that asshole Ea-nāṣir selling me bad copper.

They are worried the cost of bottles of vodka and oily rags will cut into their free spending money.

Aegis works fine, as long as your organization allows standards compliant authenticators.

Yes. I also switched to Aegis.

I guess we’d be stuck using old machines. Given how powerful current systems are, that may be enough for indie studios.

The Evercade is proactively selling cartridge first game systems and games.

The available hardware is more retro focused, in power level, but everything in the line runs on every available device (outside of some license bullshit by Capcom and Namco, which I think they cleared up).

It's still a mess. Only ready for technical users. Not even in the same ballpark for Xbox.

Tell me don't have a SteamDeck without telling me you don't have a SteamDeck.

Unless you just mean building a PC, in general. Sure. Building a gaming PC isn't for everyone.

But generally speaking, Linux isn’t user-friendly (though I’m not saying it isn’t at all) in the sense that everything is guaranteed to be compatible with it and work immediately, whether it be certain peripherals that require extra setup to work correctly or software that was never specifically made to work on Linux.

On the hardware side, you're really just describing custom PC builds. Pre-built Linux gaming machines exist and do solve the hardware issues.

On the software side, outside of the big asshole publishers, it's a solved problem. Five years ago I shopped super carefully for SteamDeck compatibility. Today, OS compatibility is rarely even a consideration for me. Games just work on the SteamDeck. SteamOS has replaced Windows as the gaming default OS.

Indie devs now use game development frameworks that work perfectly on Linux, in order to get SteamDeck verified.

Even most of my "Windows Only" games just pull the correct emulators and run perfectly, automatically, when launched from Steam.

Gaming on Linux is a very different world, today.

As much as I like Linux, it’s generally not a good alternative for console folks who just want to relax and play video games.

That's why I buy Valve hardware.

True. But anyone installing on a bare metal build should seriously consider installing Linux, today. The set of games that actually run simpler on Windows is getting thinner every year.

There's mostly fear driving the decision, and most people fear Linux more than they need to, and don't fear Microsoft's apathy toward their custom PC build outcomes as much as they should.

With all the license unlock bullshit, my last bare metal Windows install was a bigger pain in the ass than any of my recent bare metal Linux installs.