I assume, like many who work in tech or are adjacent to it, I finally got my hands on a Steam Deck after waiting several months in que for a chance at trying out the mobile handheld.
I live with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome - a broad category of connective tissues disorders that cause things like constant pain, hypermobile joints that move beyond normal range and a whole host of other issues.
So, needless to say when I push myself to do activism stuff 4 - 12 hours in the day. The following days I’m doing a A LOT of literal couch surfing.
This has meant I’m spending a lot of time with my Steam Deck. The Nintendo Switch has a lot of advantages a traditional PC lacks - the ability to quickly pull up a friends list (outside of various launchers), the ability to suspend games and the click of a button and of course the ubiquity of just pickup the device and playing your games - no settings or peripherals required.
Currently the Steam Deck occupies a sort of middle ground. Once everything is installed, as long as you understand it’s limits and are willing to fidget to get games running properly you can have, for the most part a similar experience.
Games I’ve played:
FFXIV - Runs @ 30fps solid, medium setting, suspend works perfectly.
Destiny 2 - Runs @ 30FPS, medium settings, suspend doesn’t work and you have to relaunch the game.
Harvestella - Variable the game seems to hover at about 25 or so, still playable. This is the one game that would really benefit from suspend since naturally I’d like to take my crop growing adventures on the go. Currently on Windows, suspending the game forces it to crash and the only way to save is to advance time by one day going to bed.
So far the Deck has been a great way to enjoy some of my favourites while dealing with chronic pain days and has me interacting with games - I otherwise would need to make sure I can sit up, have a controller plugged in, do I have my headset etc - would only play a limited amount of time per week.
I’m sure I’ll post more later.
