I had a surface and it was rubbish for music production. Sold it and got an ipad which is amazing as the apps are made and optimised for the screen size.
The user experience of using a handheld compared to desktop or laptop for daws etc would take a massive dip
What would interest me is if they started created music software for the stream deck optimised for its size and controls
Anyone tried Bitwig or VCV Rack on a STEAM Deck yet?
Or Renoise?
A couple of photos and description by somebody trying vcvrack and bitwig
so… what’s peoples thoughts on the Deck?
I assume many more are now finally getting their hands on them?
what are you enjoying playing?
I’ve had mine now for a bit over 6 weeks, its been a lot of fun - better than expected.
(and valve is doing a sublime job, in weekly updates to keep improving experience!)
in recent years, Ive not done any gaming, so it’s been quite an experience getting back into it, with so many great new and old titles to play.
one thing, Ive been figuring out is what I like to play… and what I think fits well with the Deck experience.
I used to be mainly into Racing (Car) games, but that doesn’t really appeal much to me on the Deck… though I guess I should give it a go.
probably the one thing that I noticed you have to be very aware of with the Deck, is smaller text in games - its perhaps slightly more of an issue than I expected - and I think influences what works well on deck.
on the flip side, the compatibility of games with the Deck , is much better than I expected, so the choice is definitely there.
so what’s working well for me on the deck?
Eldern Ring, Hollow Knight, Rogue Legacy 2… all are great, though I think I need to improve my gaming chops a bit … esp. for the latter two!
Ive finished the main quest line on Star Wars Lego, quite easy - and was nice light relief after playing Eldern Ring!
moved on to No Mans Sky, which Ive enjoyed just for chilled exploring, and space battles … I seem to have forgotten the main quest, but might get back to it.
the fell into Dishonoured 2, is fantastic… Im really enjoying this, something about the stealth mechanics.
in fact so much so, led me to to pick up Metal Gear Solid 5, which is also proving to be fun… though Ive not quite worked out a strategy for this yet.
Overall, so many things to try… and lots of sales on Steam, so from virtually no games 6 weeks ago, Ive built up a nice little collection, with a lot of variety.
my order keeps getting pushed back. was Q1, then Q2, then Q3. q4 next? 🫠
I don’t mind tho, can’t really afford it atm.
there’s a pretty good ‘shipping estimator’ on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/) , on the ‘mega email thread’ - should give you a reasonable idea of delivery - its estimating where valve is on its pre-order queues based on deliveries.
EU queue is racing along at quite a pace, UK and US are a bit behind.
similarly, and perhaps surprisingly (price), last time I looked seems more orders were for more expensive decks , so 512 > 256 > 64… so are taking a little longer.
the good news, is it does appear the later batches seem to have resolved some of the (minor) issues people faced with early batches. so its not bad to have to wait a little longer.
anyway, I just now need to order some more high speed sd-cards 
somehow I have two on the way, a 512 gig I got for an OK deal when I realized I wanted that one, and then my 256 gig preorder came in.
Do I keep both for the event of disaster or put one on eBay?
What would you do with two? Sell the one you don’t want IMO, give someone else an opportunity for one.
First post in 6 years, I hope my post didn’t upset you that much 
In all seriousness, that’s likely the plan. I’ll sell the 256 slightly under what they are going for, but still enough that I make up some of what I paid extra to get a 512 now.
Not at all! I mostly lurk these days.
I ended up passing up my order even though I was a bit tempted because of the cool gadget-y nature of it. Figured I probably just prefer playing on a laptop with a ps controller.
anyone tried csgo with external monitor / keyboard / mouse?
the one game i really miss since moving to mac… somehow i feel that building a pc just for occasional csgo session is not worth it, the deck could solve this for me potentially but if it’s not smooth then i’ll pass…
steam says cs:go runs on mac?
not tried cs:go on the deck, but have been playing MGS V on the deck, and that runs without issue… and Id suspect is more ‘challenging’ for hardware.
steam has cs:go marked as ‘playable’ on deck, with the only issue being small text, not sure how much of an issue that is with cs:go.
honestly, I dont really use the steam deck with an external screen…it works fine, but just I love the immediacy of playing with it in my hands.
this might change then the official ‘steam dock’ is released, as then I can just drop the deck into it, and play on a bigger screen.
the only ‘issue’ I think with bigger screens is , as you start running at higher resolutions, you are of course, expecting more of the gpu/cpus. big difference between requirements for 720/800p vs 4k!
Im sure some titles will be fine, others you’ll need to trade off resolution/fps/quality - the good news is the deck has a lot of control over all this to find the ‘sweet spot’
also, Im sure, given cs:go age, thats not really gonna be a problem.
anyway another month on, and steam summer sales, has meant more changes for my usage
still loving no mans sky…
but recently be really enjoying Forza Horizon 5!
also look at some older titles, Sonic All-Star Racing is a real blast on the deck - great for dipping into… kind of satisfies my Mario Kart itch.
thing like Sonic Manic and Geometry Wars are similarly good for this quick pick up n’ play, which really seems to suit the deck so well.
I do want to install some older emulations too, but picking up cheap titles from steam is just so easy !
I’ve also really got into Kerbal Space Program (KSP), wow, what a great title that is…
it does play well on the deck, but in the end I found the text is just a little too small… its manageable but I think does distract a bit from gameplay - so switched to playing on my Mac on a big screen.
as I mentioned in last post this is probably the one thing, that makes/breaks playing on the steam deck, everything Ive tried plays well… so, usually, it comes down to , is there a lot of small text?
if there is, then that often detracts from gameplay.
(I’ve a suspicion, though, with things like KSP, once you’ve played for a while, the text becomes less important - so perhaps still a use-case there)
also, the steam dock may mean you can still use it to play games on a larger screen.
I’ll be interested to see how that pans out when its released (soon apparently)
note: you dont need a ‘steam dock’ to use an external setup, its just a bit tidier.
I tried with a usb-c dongle with hdmi/usb hub worked fine, as did my usb-c monitor.
what’s nice is keyboard/mouse plugged into their respective hub also work fine, so its a ‘desktop like’ experience.
one nice thing about using a usb-c monitor is it’ll also power the steam deck too
reason I’ll probably go for a steam dock is my main tv in living room is hdmi (not usb-c) and my usb-c dongle is not supplying power, which is handy for ‘docked’ use.
(also Ive not got a ps/xbox controller yet, so thats another reason Ive not really been trying this setup)
I played CS GO briefly on my Deck with a friend who plays constantly. The game played very smooth, 60 fps the whole time but I only played briefly cause someone was yelling at me asking why I was there and telling me that I should leave cause was “not doing ANYthing”- I was in fact trying to play the game and have fun doing so, but evidently that was nothing and it aggravated this person to no end. Those toxic environments are garbage and really deflate my funtank.
I’ve been playing a lot of games on my Deck and the vast majority of them run excellently. Examples include: Project Cars 2, Disco Elysium, Mass Effect Legendery, Skater XL, Mad Max, Prey and many others
Ah, that was your mistake. Only filthy casuals have fun. That person must ba a Real Gamer, and Real Gamers aren’t there for fun. 
I’m looking forward to getting mine, I think it will get me back into playing games again (for fun!) but those predictor tools say I won’t be getting it before next year.
Got my email from steam…Can’t wait to try Bitwig on it !
CS Go made me quit online gaming. I was playing with 3 russian kids who were shouting in their mics in russian. I had no idea what they were saying so I just did my thing. This apparently annoyed them since they played as a group. When we lost a round they started the next one by standing around me and knifing me, dealing a little bit of damage each so not to get banned but enough to lower my health to almost nothing. I got annoyed and shot one of them in the head, thus getting banned from the game.
I was so fucking annoyed and furious about it, that after calming down a bit I decided that I’m too old to get bullied by kids anymore 
