Well got all the parts delivered yesterday, but because of some time constrains it took a while longer to get everything setup. I can tell you this, storage space on a PC is key, so i had to extend it.
Anyway here's my experience on installing the 1tb 4.0 SSD into the deck.
So before i start, i found out the case they deliver the deck with is perfect to push the deck into so the other side doesn't damage with pressing etc.
Opening the deck was a pain, the 8 screws where easy, but the deck would not give lose at the handles, thanks for the tip about opening it at the fan area this gave me a good start
CrustyBritches
, however the controllers would still be stuck. So tried to get it to open there and wedge myself through it with the blue little ifixit kit thingy, didn't work. so decided to open the deck on the other side in the middle also, which gave me space at the controllers to force open it. Took me a good half hour, as i had the feeling i was going to crack that shell if i would rush it for sure. Ended up having no damage on it so that's good.
Once open, getting that metal cover off the SSD or whatever it was off it was easy, but god the two screws are TINY, at the top and the bottom of that metal cover, i even dropt one on the ground, took me a good 10 minutes to find, but anyway it was relevative easy.
After removing the metal cover the next problem started to pop up which i already though would be a issue the dam battery connector.
There is like no space at all to put your finger in there, i tried to wedge it a little with one of the plastic thingy's i got with the ifixit kit, but was afraid i would damage the little cables, after 15 minutes of messing around, i found out that the top at the battery side, u can pull a little lose and a little cloth u can pull the cable with comes free, after i had that, i used my nail which was the best solution on the connector itself to push the connector out of it, went relative easy then. Again thanks for the nail tip
CrustyBritches
After that its 1 screw, and the protective shield will fall of the SSD pretty much directly its really lose around the SSD itself. As the 64gb ssd is incredible thin and the 1tb is way thicker, u will have to peel the protective shielding open ( there is a opening u can pull it open and reattach it together again just to make it a bit more bigger. Once replaced close everything up which was relative easy to do, installed rufus on my PC, USB stick and flashed the steam OS on it.
Whiped the entire deck from data, put my SD card in there again, whiped this also. To start from scratch again.
Did some speed test, ( didn't do one before sadly) but hey wanted to see if the entire x4 bus would be consumed as the SSD is a 4.0 5gbps version but in reality its 4,7gb/s read and 4,5gb/s write if it would have gone in a x4 slot, but its a 3.0 slot so 3,5gb/s should be the cap then like my 9900k main PC has.
Results:
Pretty darn impressive that such a small chip, can have that amount of speed. I must say the OS / Chrome and even booting up games feel a bit more snappy. So that's good.
So total space after formatting my SD card is this:
About 1,4tb usable space now, that's more like it.
I freaking hate not having space on a PC as i see it as such. As i didn't had much time to play games still or even download / install them, i did test the deck out with the a SD card solution, so performance can only improve after my findings here. I can't wait to get some gaming going in the next few days on this thing tho.
Games time: ( all tests where done one a 512gb SD card with 150mb/s read and write, at native 800p resolution no FSR, so there is room for improvement in many games ), didn't had time to test the new SSD with 3,5gb/s in games yet.
So decided to download Witcher 3 Next Gen version, yea that un-optimized shit show they call a update.
Mind blowing beautiful on the screen really, i did some RT testing with my 3080 which was a complete shit show on its release ( maybe they fixed it now ), but just download the game, went to the DLC area and walked through the shipyard which is really demanding as lots of NPC's walk through it, and on medium settings it looks incredible even better then on ultra+ on my desktop lol. Honestly the screen is just so good, i went to the start area, it was dark outside withe the moon out and i just looked at the sky with the town in the distance incredible even on lower settings.
After slamming everything on low, to see how it looks like, i upped the textures to high and some other settings i moved forwards, but in general i sit now in the high 40's in city's and mid to high 50's outside of it, with lock at 40 hz and 40 framecap its smooth as butter. However after running a bit around i found out, that there is one place that absolute tanks the GPU even at 1600mhz, its a tavern in skel islands under the main castle ( huge bridge basically ) there is a tavern and yea fps dies there hard with the fire being there. Maybe its a bug or something i dunno, but u are there for like 5 seconds in the game so not much of a problem.
After testing settings out, i find out because of the small screen, the difference between ultra to high is basically not visible, even high to medium is hard to notice a change, and low in many games still looks like high on PC. It's great really.
So on to the next game ( didn't test much games, because my internet speed is crap atm i lowered it down to the lowest level 14mb/s ( 140mbps ) because i tended to barely download anything before anymore, so just gotta deal with the waits
Do you even metro bro. It's a demanding game even on PC. So booted up sams story, at the start there is a bridge u look over the area and that's the hardest to render part in the entire game. The FPS tanked hard, moved towards 35 fps at lowest settings. Still at low on the tiny screen the game looks just as good as at ultra on a bigger PC screen. So its doable just not locked 40 double, maybe some tweaks etc can fix this, but i still gotta mess around with that. But hey it runs lol.
After booting the start of the game in the normal base game ( for some reason my cloud saves from PC didn't work so couldnt'really test other area's out ), u get pushed into the tunnel system of metro, the FPS goes up to low 70's really smooth. But once u enter area's with enemy's the FPS moves straight down to 30's again. So is the game playable sure, u probably can get a locked 40 in many area's, but 30 fps lock is kinda needed for no fps fluxuations. Still mighty impressive to run this game tho in a handheld, and it looks great.
Next on the list path of exile:
Didn't play the game for a couple of years now, but i still have area's unlocked on my characters in standard, however no talents so couldn't really kill stuff or anything. So decided to visit a few city's, not much of a benchmark i know but hey its whatever it is. Game looks fantastic again on the little screen even at low settings
The FPS is mindblowing tho, i remember my i7 870 and 970 ( pc before my current one ) struggling hard to maintain 60 fps in those city's, 100 fps in the city's wasn't uncommon. These little cpu cores are fast as hell that's for sure.
But again no combat, as i have no clue what to pick anymore in the tree's so the FPS probably gets a massive hit once mobs are on the screen, still 100 fps gives you some wiggle room.
Next up Divinity 2: Definitive Edition:
One of my favorite games, really good game. Beat it in multiple impossible run type of ways on my PC spend 100's of hours on it if not 1k hours in total. Sadly saves didn't transfer over so i couldn't test other maps, but fort joy is easy to reach and the open area there is basically one of the most demanding area's in the game besides the fire pits in act two.
I played the game on my old and new PC, my old pc i7 870, struggled to get 45 fps in the main town, cpu was just to slow. Divinity to hits about 50-55 fps at ultra settings, and about 60+ at high settings, at low it goes up to 80+. Anyway any preset looks good with divinity 2 really, specially on the small screen, so high i think is a nice solution to have. It plays butter smooth and honestly even with the controller layout its really well playable. Absolute a must have if u like these type of games on the deck.
Control, no screenshot:
Booted the game up and FPS tanked completely to sub 20's / high 10's. Checked the settings, lowered everything to low and still below 30's. Didn't really understood what was going on, but because my OSD covered up the resolution in the settings, i saw it was rendering at 1080p, lowered it to the decks resolution and boom 60+ fps at the start area. Not much of a indication really, but was out of time and again saves didn't transfer over so i had to start a new game. Still incredible even at low how the game looks like on the small screen.
They are billions:
After messing around with a few games, it was time to get one of my most played games now on the deck which was simple not well ported ( these devs are properly lazy tho, they bricked the game with terrible performance with a update, only to take a year to do a small fix to fix it ) So i expected absolute no support for deck related solutions. And even while the game is simple, it absolutely murders a 9900k to sometimes single digits once things get hectic. So yea optimisation is complete shit.
Well the good news is, it boots. Put everything on low ( barely any settings in this game, again lazy devs ). and the FPS seems to stabilize on high 50's. Keep in mind this game will be fine even at 20's dips, most RTS games and city builders will dip below 30's at times and that's fine, but this is a survival city builder basically.
After connecting a keyboard + mouse now, as i had my docking station, all games recognized both straight away,i could properly play the game. but sadly it doesn't work for the deck. There is noticable microstutter which is annoying but i can deal with it, the work factory's text is butchered so u can't see how much resources they make. Now i play the game for about 3000+ hours at this point, i know kinda what it mines but even then its rough to deal with, so not advicable. Hope the devs will fix it at one point.
Final fantasy 15 ( no screenshot ) :
Absolute murdered my old 970 and i7 870 back in the day, my 9900k and 3080 don't have much issue's with it tho, but still can drop at max settings below the 60 stress hold.
Slammed it on native resolution, lowered everything to low and boom 50+ fps. Runs smooth, but looks rough as hell because of endless shimmering. This game struggled with this since day one even on PC, the only solution is to put tram in the settings to high which kills v-ram and performance. So decided to just yolo it and enable it. fps dropped to high 40's and a crystal clean image now. Walked a bit in the start area which is demanding, with a locked 40 fps smooth as hell. Incredible to see how fast this deck really is in even really demanding games. Not a game i like tho, but owned it and wanted to see if it would even run at all, and yea it does perfectly fine. In combat no clue, didn't had the time to really do anything, but from my experience that area was really demanding so it probably does fine.
Witcher 2:
First game i booted on the deck when it was still not altered, honestly pops incredible well on the small screen. This game absolute destroyed my 580gtx ( top end gpu ) back in the day, deck runs it at max settings at 60 fps, perfectly fine even in the most demanding area's, it does require u to lock the GPU to 1100mhz disable SMT to get max clocks on the CPU cores otherwise u will sit in middle to low 50's.
Again can't believe playing this game on a handheld really at that fidelity, men we came a long way.
Shadow of mordor:
This game butchered GPU's back in the day specially on the v-ram side.
Was mindblown with how good the game played however, went to a place with a bunch of npc's on the screen while 2 mordor bears where raiding the camp and the fps was just amazing, this is at higher settings by the way, low settings is straight up ~90 fps ( which the game is capped at ). I can't believe how good this game runs on this thing incredible. And again looks really good. I still remember being dissapointed after this game with the witcher 3 terrible combat. The combat is so good in this game.
Valheim ( shit screenshot, taken before optimization ), forgot to make a new one later on:
So for the people that played valheim ( if you didn't, play it. It's incredible ). The game is a mess performance wise on PC since day one. However because of brute forcing with propper hardware u can get things to run well. As the game got certified a month ago for the steam deck, i was hyped to test it out and optimize it myself if needed.
Well performance out of the box is a shit show, lots of microstutter unstable framerate and whenever a building is on the screen framerate just tanks and stutters, specially any build really.
As i got 1000 hours in the game, did hardcore runs, made guides for the game how to be maximum efficient, but also made loading mods to instant teleport through portals instead of waiting 10 seconds. I kinda know where performance tanks and what the game does on the background.
After messing around a bit with settings, and have grass on the ground instead of a flat ground which is just ugly, i got a stable 30fps out of it even at a fully build base for end game, lowering settings but still have grass on the ground u can get not a entirely stable but 99% 40 fps out of it, the microstutter and slowdowns are completely gone.
Now if u play with friends and really explode your base 30 fps is where u have to life with drops for sure. But for single runs with smaller contained base 40 fps 99% stable or 30fps entirely stable is doable. So yea good stuff.
Portable valheim so good.
So now back to the keyboard + mouse + docking station i ordered with it.
If you see the picture u will notice something haha, that keyboard is a pile of shit alright. check where the Z button is rofl. and the Y. Like wut mate. Hey just went with the cheapest option as microsoft keyboard was sold out.
Anyway i type blind so whatever ( my main keyboard has no numbers on it for my PC for example that old lol ), thing works fine. Mouse does the trick. And the docking station is tiny as hell, it fits in that small box where it came in ( white box on the right ) which is tiny. Honestly thought i ordered something wrong, but nope everything was in it. It works great, plug and play no issue's there.
I can tell you this tho, if u want to setup your deck u can do it with touchscreen/controls, but a keyboard + mouse makes life 1000% more better.
Deck Experience after a few days now with it so far:
Screen:
Amazing really, i am a high end gamer i like to push my games to the top, my screen is a nano-led IPS 160hz gsync 3440x1440 high end 1ms screen. So quality of that screen is great really, but for some reason steam deck looks better. I really want to push games to the max always as i see tiny flaws in games from a mile away and avoid games until i can play them at max settings with future hardware, i have no problems doing that, but because of the smaller screen everything just looks good in games even low settings really, so its not much of a problem.
One problem i do have with it tho, is that while the screen is great, some games require a lot of small information through text like billions etc, would be nice if somehow we could mod UI's ourself into games like control scenes or something valve could create. Main problem i have atm. A bigger screen in newer models could be a solution, but the screen is already big really so not sure if i want that.
Still the reason they probably went for this specific screen is because even tiny text when u put your face closer towards it, is still perfectly readable in many games. Impressive screen all around.
CPU:
Performance incredible nothing else to say really, right choice here what valve did, the SMT on and off and clock change on the fly in any game is something i want on my PC, god dam its good. More cores where useless as it would heat things up more and lower clocks etc, so a right trade off done here. Performance of the cores is great.
GPU:
Solid can always be better, but does the job in a really good way. Surprise how far we have gone in mobile tech really that we can play practically any game on the go.
SSD:
Stock one 64gb is a total joke, u have like 34gb left over, with shader cache builds and other shit, u really only have like 20-25gb at the end if you also install some programs still like emudeck etc. U can't install shit on it, straight up all my games are 50+gb. Honestly only get the 64gb model if you plan ot expand it or solely relay on SD cards. The speed of the 64gb model with the SSD is also questionable, i notice a more snappy desktop mode, with simple things like opening chrome etc with the new SSD for sure, i am sensitive for this shit.
Really wish steam starts to reduce the prices on the steam deck higher models or add a easy way to swap SSD's without u having to do what we have to do now. Also add a higher tier model 1tb.
Look some people are fine with smaller storage, but frankly in my view having no space on a portable PC is the worst. Specially when games on PC are BIG. I had the 512gb SSD full on day one.
Battery:
Well it does the job, but because u can crank the hardware up to the limit in more demanding games that thing is empty within 2 hours. Way to short, Obviously u can extent it by lowering the framerate / settings etc, but i wish it had atleast double the output. A power bank is kinda needed if u play demanding games on the go at this point.
But yea that's just technology limitations at this point, nothing we can blame valve for. I rather have higher performance and power bank option that crippled forever.
Comfort rate/controls:
The original switch was horrible, couldn't even reach half of the buttons ( big hands ) and cramped hands just made me move the games straight into emulation.
I hate controllers in general because it forces your hands to be together, its just shit in my view. The steam deck has a good solution, as there is a screen in between, the distance is hihg enough that it makes it comfortable and the joysticks feel really well. The only problem i have is that the trick pads are hard to reach specially when they use the right behind trigger as mouse button, if you do this for extended periods it will cramp my hand. But that's more OS related. In games i didn't find the trackpads useful, u just want to connect a mouse at that point.
Speakers,mic:
Great really, loud sound, good quality sound and the mic is also solid. nothing to complain about. Far better then i expected.
OS:
Well its linux alright. Still lots of child diseases, lots of small problems where things should work but don't really. This is why windows is good these days. I can have 10 programs run through eachother, multiple games, while writing documents and everything just works. With linux, oh wait u got discord no while gaming? yea u can do that, but if you don't leave the voice call before u close a game, it will be frozen. Stuff like this. While the basics are there, it just needs time to be optimized and worked out.
Lots of trouble with ubisoft connect for example or getting other clients on steam OS to run, u gotta dig through guides and even then its a pain in the ass to get it setup. This is something steam needs to adres first, they need to understand that PC gamers use more shops then just there own, they need to start getting native support for this shit in a easy way on there OS.
What i really like however is there OSD where u can see all the stats like rivatuner on every game with multiple presets, the swapping of cores / locking cores / pinning etc. Decky is great and how u can easily just get extra features enabled.
I like the support and community that works with the steam deck. Everybody seems to universally love the thing.
Some games are still a pain to get going, something they need to get on. Installing GE proton to get stuff to launch, or having to work around stuff because deck doesn't have this or that file that the game requires needs to all be adressed. For example metro 2033 original game, i couldn't get it to run for shit and it requires work arounds. Would be nice if steam would just start optimizing games themselves for the deck that are more populaire.
Size:
Small for a PC of that power that's for sure. It's actually incredible what they made.
Big for a handheld, no way around it.
I think the best user case for the steam deck is at home near a outlet, on the bank when u want to sit in a living room and not sit behind your PC or have to watch a kid or something or just want to be in a room with people, or when u travel or stay at a remote location and take it with you.
I bought it specifically so i can take it towards a remote location i will be at for a month or two and have no access towards a PC, so it works great for that.
Expectations vs Reality:
Honestly i bought handhelds already for a while now, from nintendo to the PSP, but even before that PDA's etc. It was always incredible to me that we could game on the go and always wanted PC games to run on it. Either way there where always huge trade offs to the point newer titles and only select older titles would work in some form or way, it was always janky and meh at the end.
This is the first time i can honestly say, everything just works. If they can iron there OS out a bit more and make it on Par with windows for multitasking but also for older games that they make solutions that are easy to get them to just run, windows PC's will become a hard sell.
Steam deck versus other handhelds, no competition really. I didn't do anything emulation wise just yet, but with PC emulation and even being able to emulate the current switch, this thing has a gigantic backlog of games its not even funny. No other company can even compete really, specially with sony / microsoft games all ending up on PC and all running on the deck, there is really nothing both sony/microsoft or even nintendo can do to compete. The biggest problem nintendo has, is that it can't even play there own entire library ( bc is absolute dog shit ), and there software is to expensive. Steam deck solves this all because its a PC and sales on PC games are all year around.
I honestly can't wait to see what the steam deck 2.0 is. I do hope they delay it somewhat so that the support for the deck stays big, to many versions with drastically changes will split the community severe. They should start making a new one, once new titles can't run at 30 fps anymore on lowest settings. Maybe a ~4 year gab in between would be a good solution.
Upgrades i like to see:
1x usb-c port is kinda shit not going to lie, would be nice to get more on the deck and something what nintendo has a stand on the back that's just included. It's nice to watch some youtube on it and be able to connect it towards a outlet + connect a mouse towards it and that it stands. A docking station is basically manditory to have, but the 100 euro price tag of steams dock is kinda expensive.
A slot on the back with a screw where u can swap the SSD out for a better one. Absolutely needed on the 64gb model.
Future of steam deck:
Honestly, i can see this replace PC entirely at some point. I have no doubt that people ( myself included ) aren't pushing the most demanding games anymore. These releases of high demanding games are far in between to the point it always feels pointless to invest in expensive hardware anymore. I think at this point the freedom of the steamdeck overrules me sitting behind a fully fletched out PC. So i can see the appeal of this and frankly if valve keeps pushing there updates and make the OS better and better, even gaming laptops are a hard sell at that point.
Absolute fantastic little thing.
