cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/3922769
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The original was posted on /r/linustechtips by /u/RevolutionaryAd8204 on 2024-09-14 15:50:43+00:00.
Can you actually use steamdeck as a desktop PC though? Can it drive dual external monitors? Is it a reasonable “minipc” type thing? How much power does it munch on in idle?
Can I maybe put some other linux distro on it? So many questions
In short yes. I use it as a mini pc, with dual monitor set-up.
Can you actually use steamdeck as a desktop PC though?
Depends on how many pixels you “need”. Running high resolution monitors, even for basic stuff can get costly performance wise pretty damn quick, but in my opinion that isn’t really asking the same question as whether the Steam Deck can be a good desktop.
You can absolutely use the Steam Deck as a desktop, I frequently use my Steam Deck in desktop mode… using the onboard controls. The only real limitation of the Steam Deck so long as you don’t expect it to be a top of the line gaming pc, is that most people who buy it are never truly going to be able to give anything else other than a mouse and keyboard an honest go, they are too impatient and won’t believe it can work but the sky is the limit for joystick+gyro input (our touchpad + gyro) for computers/gaming.
How good does it work on an external 4K monitor? Can you watch 4k video? I imagine youtube and browsing reddit or news online shouldn’t be a problem.
Basically I’d like an ultra low power PC for boring desktop stuff on 4k monitor.
If that’s all you need, a Raspberry Pi 5 will fit the bill nicely. It’s got two 4K HDMI outputs and it’s roughly on par compute-wise with a higher end Chromebook. You won’t be gaming on this thing – it can just about play a YouTube video at 4K60 – but it’ll gladly handle your desktop stuff. As a bonus it’s about an eighth the price of a Steam Deck.
That might be a reason to maybe consider some competitors of the Steam Deck that are a bit more powerful (but have their own tradeoffs, primarily that the wholistic experience just isnt going to be as good as the steam deck is right now), I don’t know the Steam Deck might run 4k fine but I’d be hesitant to recommend it, that is so many fucking pixels lol
I have a Steam deck, here’s the answers to my knowledge:
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Yes, you can connect a keyboard and mouse, and even in SteamOS they let you access KDE in a separate “Desktop mode”
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Not sure about multiple monitors but you can connect at least one. There are docks made for it to do just that (the USB C cable has display port support I think)
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It runs a 4 core/8 thread AMD laptop chip so assuming you get a mouse/keyboard it should work pretty well.
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It has a 5W mode in the power settings in SteamOS so I’m assuming around that much at idle.
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You can put other distros on it, it’s completely unlocked. You could even put Windows on it if you wanted. I’m not sure how easy the install process is though since I’ve just left SteamOS on mine.
Not sure about multiple monitors
Most usb-c ports with DP alt mode support up to 1 monitor at 4k@60Hz, or 2×1080p@60Hz, and I believe 2×1440p@30Hz. It comes down to bandwidth, so I think that as long as you’re fine with one monitor running at a slower refresh-rate or lower resolution, you can have your primary screen displaying in high-res.
Of course, you have to also take into consideration the GPU performance, running higher resolutions will usually degrade performance!
You can even put Windows on it if you feel like committing blasphemy
Now I want to get MacOS on one just to make gamers twitch
Not sure if this counts but (Reddit link warning) someone managed to do it in a VM
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I love the steamdeck. In almost always dock it and use it as my default computer.
If I did not NEED windows for a SINGLE work app, it would probably be my only computer.
PS5 Pro: PRObably not for you
Which do i choose? The $300 dollar deck and a $100 tb drive
The most expensive Steam Deck is still cheaper in my country. €680. While the PS5 Pro is €800.
And many will will just buy the cheaper version and replace the SSD by themselves. The 512GB OLED version plus a 2TB drive is only €50 more expensive than the 1TB version. So even with like for like storage it’s still cheaper than the PS5P
You know what the main difference between the Steam Deck OLED and the PS5 Pro is? Customers wanted and asked for the Steam Deck OLED.
I really like my PS5, but I see no value in a model costing 80% more and being only current for half a generation.
All that for an “up to” 40% performance increase.
I don’t care how much of a graphics nerd someone is, that just isn’t worth it.
And if you’re that much of a graphics nerd, you own a PC.
A laptop because I have no where to go.
I have never felt as much envy as seeing someone play BG3 on an 8 hr flight. That was what sold me.
To cap it off the SOB killed Scratch and the Owlbear Cub. That flight was actual torture for multiple reasons.
Wow 8hrs, I’ve never gotten more than 2 on a laptop
The plane had USB chargers in the arm rest, but not 120v unfortunately.
Was BG3 smooth? I’m getting jealous if it was. It’s a hot mess on my shitty PC.
It is. From my experience a couple months back its crisp. Not the highest graphics, and it took a little getting used to from a high-end PC, but it was really nice. In certain aspects even preferable xD
It might do now. They’ve done a lot of improvements.
Even on PS5 it was an absolute mess in co-op. 30fps (if you were lucky) all round, constant freezes (several seconds) when swapping characters, many many crashes. Whenever we told it to save, we’d have to both touch nothing to make sure it didn’t crash while saving. Oh, and there was a bug meaning only the player who chose to sleep for the day would get any companion progression.
I didn’t play much of it but it ran well when I tired it. I just decided it was the type of game I wanted to plat with all the settings maxed on my laptop.
It couldn’t play at max settings?
In general the Steam Deck is not the kind of device that is going to run things at max settings. You are gonna play at 720p30FPS low settings but be happy you can play at all on a train or airplane. It’s really meant to be a competitor to the Nintendo Switch than a replacement for a gaming PC.
You can stream from your PC to your couch or bed if you are at home.
Definitely not on Steam Deck.
I imagine certain scenes especially in the 3rd act would put alot of strain on the steam deck
I think they were playing at a low res. 720p or maybe 480p. That said they didn’t even have stuttering. It was really impressive.
Mine is still on order haven’t got it yet.
Steam Deck screen is only 800p so that’s the resolution for all games. And it’s perfect for the screen size.
Like I said it was clear and smooth. I don’t expect 4k in a handheld. Portable is it’s own metric.
I’d be happy if it played Owlcat RPGs at near full settings. Those games are allot more fun than BG3, imo.
I digress though. It’d be nice to be able to play recent games again. If the deck can do that on my TV, I’m down.
We hook our Steam Deck up to a 4k projector and it looks amazing. The built in upscaler from 800p to 4k is astonishingly good. Obviously not AS good as native but and many games are limited to 30fps but holy smokes it’s more than good enough.
Hell yeah another Kingmaker/WOTR fan.
WotR for the win. never played Kingmaker. And I just got Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader. I don’t understand how these games aren’t more popular.
I feel like BG3 is big just because the camera zooms in close to the characters.
Kingmaker is fantastic. I’m not that big a fan of Rogue Trader though. I kinda hate the Imperium of Man, in 40K I am Ork only.
If you enjoy Owlcat then the Pillars and Tyranny from Obsidian are fantastic.
I’m going to look up all of their games eventually. They go hard on the systems and that’s a severely lacking quality these days.
Rogue Trader is cool, I’m only a few hours into it though. But man, the camera kills me. It’s got a weird rubber band effect to it that I don’t like.
But it’s mostly a nice improvement, or at least some different takes, on the WotR systems. My main complaint about their games is even with auto end turn on it never automatically ends any turns.
And I can install games from other store fronts if I want.
Can you plug a steam deck to the tv and use a controller? Cause if not, I don’t want it
Plugging it into the TV & playing Jackbox games where everyone uses their phones as a controller is a great party trick.
Sure, but don’t expect incredible graphics on a 4k display. It’s a handheld after all.
Steam Deck + USB type C dock + HDMI cable + bluetooth controller. You’re done
The Steam Deck is a slightly funny shaped x86_64 laptop. It has an AMD APU in it. You can hook it up to a monitor, mouse and keyboard and do your taxes on it if you want.
Ah, my kind of fun.
Playing Accounting Tycoon on the Steam Deck.
What’s there not to like?!
That’s what I would do with it too. Good question.
Yeah, you can, haha (almost like the switch). You stick it in a dock with HDMI out and add a controller by USB, USB dongle, or Bluetooth.
Yep. Connect using Bluetooth or via a USB dongle/dock.
Yes? Durh?
Not everyone is terminally online, dude.
This is why people think PC gamers are assholes
No joke, I’m tempted to buy a Steam Deck (or true Linux phone) because… It can run a local HTML/CSS/JS app on a browser with filesystem access and audio support. This is the power of having an OS that is not locked down.
Speaking of which, what would you recommend for me to run a local HTML/CSS/JS app on a browser with filesystem access and audio support? (No, Android is too locked down to meet that spec) Other required specs:
- Portable: Can fit in a pocket
- 16GB or more usable storage
- Bluetooth support
- Ideally low-cost
I have an Orange PI Pro 5 16GB on a box that smoothly runs a full blown Ubuntu Desktop version and would fit in a pocket though it’s maybe a little too thick (from memory the box it’s about 3x5x2 cm).
Total cost was about $170.
The board itself would fit a thinner box, but you might have to 3D print one.
Mind you, a N100 Mini-PC that costs the same is even more capable as a Linux Desktop, but it’s significantly larger and will definitely not fit a pocket.
You can find cheaper SBCs capable of running a Desktop Ubuntu but in my experience (with a $35 Banana Pi P2-Zero) if you go too far down the price scale Desktop Linux performance stops being smooth, even if the board is a tiny thing.
It was actually quite surprising for me recently when I found out some of these things are perfectly capable Linux Desktops.
Subscription for Internet access is the one that’s always baffled me. What a stupid business model. I guess devices not belonging to their buyers is not a new thing.
is it for “internet” or access to ps servers?
It was MS that started that back on the OG Xbox.
I think all the F2P ones (and a handful of others like FFXIV) are exempt from it. At least on Playstation.
It makes sense because servers are expensive to operate. The real scam is nintendo where you pay for P2P multiplayer…
They’re stupidly cheap to operate per user when you have millions of them, which is how companies like Facebook manage to make a profit from merely showing adverts to users and with no subscription fees.
Remember that Sony gets a cut from games being distributed to their platform, so online fees are just them double dipping for extra profits.
Web servers are different from game servers. You need a lot of performance and fast low latency servers to keep up with realtime game play. Webservers however dont need that and can benefit of load balancing accross multiple servers. Scale of economy helps a lot, but with game servers the cost doesnt change much because a session has to be on a single machine.
As for distribution costs, most of the cost is manufacturing and physical distribution of discs. So yeah, they are making a killing by continuing to take a a huge cut from game sales when most of their distribution is online.
They’re expensive when you’re not already building a CDN for delivery of massive files all around the world. Economies of scale quickly matter there.
It is not “biggest game library on earth” I bet, that would still be a high-end desktop running windows…
While this is technically correct, it still doesn’t matter. I have built my own high end PCs in the past and it is a huge waste. I’m not even sold on the steam deck yet - I do all my non- critical stuff like lemmy on this 10 year old shit tablet running Android 7
At this point, it’ll be easier to count the games that wouldnt work on the steam deck.
Fair, still not biggest library on earth
So what would hold that title?
High end windows laptop
And I see that one can argue that try running it is good enough, but instant crashing file would I myself not call a member of the game library. If that would be the case, any device that is able to download files has the “biggest game library“
The deck can run windows, so if it didnt run in compatability mode in linux itll work in native windows. Now if you were to put a limitation that it must acheive 30fps in any game, you might have a point, but… thats really grasping for straws.
Steam deck has an emulator so it should
You could put Windows on the deck if you’re inclined to do so
I think they mean “console library”
But then you are running windows…
Yes, but it has still a bigger game library as steam deck has and thus calling steam deck having “bigges game library on earth” is just bullshit.
But maybe there is a joke in that, that woooshed over me…
Yeah but a Deck is a Pc, which can absolutely run Windows. Therefore, they are the same thing. A high end PC AND a steam deck feature the “Biggest game library on earth”.
Doesn’t even have to run well. The fact that you can attempt to play it in the first place let’s it win the medal.
Any version of Playstation can’t even attempt to play half the games on a deck ;).
steam deck can run windows afaik
Can run most windows games via proton atleast.
I would actually rather like a Steam Deck without a display but with at least one full USB4 port and the ability to split it similar to a switch.
Yeah I’d love a modern stream machine kinda Deck plugged into a TV.
For now PlayStation is nicer for TV where I can get better performance from the couch with quick resume and all. If I could get a static Deck without portable power consumption limits and decent output on a 4K display that would be ideal. But right now the Deck works docked but when blown up to TV size so many games are a low rez mess. If we could get a proper SteamOS that I could install into a media center PC I’d make it myself. All I’d hope for then is a second gen Steam Controller.
For my use, I would still want the battery/portability. Just without an internal display because I use a 1080p HMD and like playing on the Deck in bed, etc. Add a capability like the joycons but symmetrical and with all of the Deck’s inputs, and I’d be quite happy.
My thing is if Sony wants me to pay computer prices, it better act like a computer. If it doesn’t and the trend continues with PS6 then that’s the end of me buying PlayStations.
