A triple-A game I’ve been eyeing is finally down to a reasonable price on a third party website.
But after seeing how much better Diablo IV performs on my friend’s Xbox, I am really disappointed in myself for buying the PC version to play on my Steam Deck. I play mostly docked and connected to a TV, so the visual experience is something I value.
Diablo IV isn’t the first game I’ve regret purchasing on PC instead of Xbox. For older games, the Steam Deck is great; but it seems like modern games I really need to be wary of. You know what they say, fool me once, strike one, fool me twice… strike… three.
Has anyone else had a similar experience, wishing they’d spent the money on another platform? Is there a rule of thumb you follow on what to purchase, where?
Would it be okay to list the specific games I’m wondering about for input? I love my Steam Deck; but I’d rather not feel platform envy again.
Yeah, “AAA games on high / beautiful graphics settings” isn’t really the Deck’s forte. FSR upscaling covers up a lot of the worst of docked ugliness, but it has its limits.
If visual fidelity is a huge deal for someone, and they are going to play docked 90%+ of the time, then they’d probably have been better served by a gaming laptop instead of a Steam Deck. And if one picked up the Deck because it was the best overall value for what they could afford, then they should probably be happy with the capabilities it has, and adjust their expectations a bit.
I personally only play AAA/demanding games on PS5, everything else on the deck. If the fan spins up and the device gets hot in my hands it puts me off playing almost completely.
I’ve been tinkering with docked 1080p and it really struggles with AAA gaming.
best case scenario all-low settings Cyberpunk or Elden ring is playable but doesn’t look pretty.
as another commenter mentioned, forte is definitely older games and emulation. I never played Skyrim when it came out but plays just about flawlessly. Emulation is absolutely incredible; PS3, PS2 and Gamecube is a great experience docked or otherwise.
Great targeted hardware as a console should be. Older games or using it as a Linux PC make it worth it.
IMO the Steam Deck is one of those machines that takes the “sure, we don’t recommend it, but we’ll let you do it” approach. You can run AAA games, and some even run surprisingly well, but in general I find that I would really much rather play AAA games on my PC than on my Steam Deck. It’s really best for indies, AA, and emulation, where the convenience of the Deck over a PC significantly offsets the comparatively weaker performance
I’ve found that the Steam Deck is great for playing AAA remotely. I have a high spec PC and use Steam remote play, or Chiaki for PS5 remote play. It’s a bigger investment but it definitely keeps the Steam Deck more relevant even for titles that don’t run natively.
Diablo IV is amazing on the deck for me, but I only dock the Deck occasionally. I already have a mid-high end PC at the desk with an HDMI running to the TV. Only thing that bummed me out was lack of local co-op for PC. Would love to share the Diablo experience locally.
Personally the Deck docked isnt really for AAA titles, but more for all the lighter indie games and even better party games like Jackbox, PlateUp!, and all the emulated games I can bring to a LAN party and everyone pairs their controller to.
I bought got the Steam Deck for the handheld PC gaming experience. I did my research before pre-ordering and was aware that playing docked on a tv or 4K monitor would have its limitations. The key is to perform the necessary due diligence to understand the hardware and its limitations to set the correct expectations before buying. To be honest, my use case for docking the Steam Desk is for primarily its desktop mode. The most demanding AAA title I play regularly is Cyberpunk 2077, and I am thrilled that I can play it with good fidelity on the go.
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A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.
Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.
As Lemmy doesn’t have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
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[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
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Some more Steam Deck specific flairs:
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Yeah, “AAA games on high / beautiful graphics settings” isn’t really the Deck’s forte. FSR upscaling covers up a lot of the worst of docked ugliness, but it has its limits.
If visual fidelity is a huge deal for someone, and they are going to play docked 90%+ of the time, then they’d probably have been better served by a gaming laptop instead of a Steam Deck. And if one picked up the Deck because it was the best overall value for what they could afford, then they should probably be happy with the capabilities it has, and adjust their expectations a bit.
I personally only play AAA/demanding games on PS5, everything else on the deck. If the fan spins up and the device gets hot in my hands it puts me off playing almost completely.
I’ve been tinkering with docked 1080p and it really struggles with AAA gaming. best case scenario all-low settings Cyberpunk or Elden ring is playable but doesn’t look pretty.
as another commenter mentioned, forte is definitely older games and emulation. I never played Skyrim when it came out but plays just about flawlessly. Emulation is absolutely incredible; PS3, PS2 and Gamecube is a great experience docked or otherwise.
Great targeted hardware as a console should be. Older games or using it as a Linux PC make it worth it.
My deck is for indies, old games and mid-tier games. AAA games tend to suck anyway lol
IMO the Steam Deck is one of those machines that takes the “sure, we don’t recommend it, but we’ll let you do it” approach. You can run AAA games, and some even run surprisingly well, but in general I find that I would really much rather play AAA games on my PC than on my Steam Deck. It’s really best for indies, AA, and emulation, where the convenience of the Deck over a PC significantly offsets the comparatively weaker performance
I’ve found that the Steam Deck is great for playing AAA remotely. I have a high spec PC and use Steam remote play, or Chiaki for PS5 remote play. It’s a bigger investment but it definitely keeps the Steam Deck more relevant even for titles that don’t run natively.
Diablo IV is amazing on the deck for me, but I only dock the Deck occasionally. I already have a mid-high end PC at the desk with an HDMI running to the TV. Only thing that bummed me out was lack of local co-op for PC. Would love to share the Diablo experience locally.
Personally the Deck docked isnt really for AAA titles, but more for all the lighter indie games and even better party games like Jackbox, PlateUp!, and all the emulated games I can bring to a LAN party and everyone pairs their controller to.
I bought got the Steam Deck for the handheld PC gaming experience. I did my research before pre-ordering and was aware that playing docked on a tv or 4K monitor would have its limitations. The key is to perform the necessary due diligence to understand the hardware and its limitations to set the correct expectations before buying. To be honest, my use case for docking the Steam Desk is for primarily its desktop mode. The most demanding AAA title I play regularly is Cyberpunk 2077, and I am thrilled that I can play it with good fidelity on the go.