Hi everyone!
As I’ve said in the past (see my older post https://sh.itjust.works/post/33787188), I’ll probably buy an used LCD Steam Deck alongside my Playstation 5 right after my wedding as a gift to myself in 2 months.
I’d be using the Deck mostly docked to a screen to play Strategy games like Frostpunk or other games not suited to consoles.
I’d also be using the Deck while travelling (which doesn’t happen often) to play some retro games I’ve missed like the Metro Trilogy.
Here are a few remaining questions:
- Am I right in thinking that I could play on the big screen games until the middle of the Playstation 4 era?
- Am I right in thinking that I could play on the Deck’s screen almost every game which could run on a Playstation 4?
- Since I’d be buying a used LCD deck, I fear that the battery would be in poor health. Is there a way to know its health? If I replace the battery, could I get a better one?
- My PC screen can charge devices through USB-C and has 4 usb ports. It delivers enough power to charge my Surface Go 1 while using it. In my mind, it could clearly replace a dock, but would I have any advantages in getting one? Could the official dock be used for another handheld like my kid’s Switch?
- If I end up using a Dual Schock 4 or a Dual Sense when my Steam Deck is docked, will I have to pair them again with my consoles every time after using them with the Deck?
- Since I’d be buying a used Steam Deck, is there anything I should be particularly careful about?
I’m looking forward to joining the communauty!
Two things to add regarding question 1:
The Steam Deck GPU is optimized for the built-in screen, which has 1280x800 pixels. FullHD is more than twice the number of pixels. The GPUs fragment fill rate will therefore not be sufficient to play many games at FullHD native. The Steam Deck has built-in FSR upscaling though, so if you are not sitting directly in front of the screen, it will look OK-ish…
The second thing is refresh rate. On the deck itself you can set the screen refresh rate to 40 Hz. For many, many games the built-in GPU will not manage 60 FPS even at 1280x800, but it quite often manages to do 40, which still feels OK-ish.
Most external screens don’t support 40Hz though, so you will be stuck with either limiting your framerate to 30 FPS, or you will have to live with either tearing or unsteady framerate.
FSR from 800p to 1080p will look like garbage.
I have to both agree and disagree here.
Disagree because it doesn’t look that bad.
Agree because there is a reason I haven’t used the Deck with a big screen in months.