One thing I hadn't really realised until last week was that the Steam Deck's Thumbsticks are touch sensitive. It knows of you have your finger on them or not.

Why would you need this? Valve updated Half-Life 2 specifically for the Steam Deck to showcase it's controls. Mad if you consider the game is now 18 years old, but runs beautifully on the Steam Deck and looks amazing. The graphics have dated very well.

Anyway, in HL2 you use the standard controller layout for FPS with the left stick moving you around, and the right stick moving your view to look directly at anything. But if you have you finger rested on the right thumbstick without moving it, it activates the gyroscopics so you can move the Steam Deck adding to move b your pov in the game. Let go of the stick and move thr Deck stops moving in game.

Bring able to physically move the Deck to control your view in game works really well for FPS. I played through the first part of HL2 yesterday until I get to the helicopter bit. Moving adding using the thumbsticks works really nicely, but when you are shooting, bring able to fine tune you aim by physically moving the Deck makes aiming and shooting very accurate. I get a lot of headsets. And it makes it far less frustrating and fun. And I was playing on Medium and no autoaim so it wasn't compensating.

Another nice feature of the Steam Deck.

Now Valve need to make a Steam Controller 2 using the controls and software from the Steam Deck. Combining the controls and all the features into a standalone controller would be brilliant for full PC gaming. The Steam Deck controls and configuration are a huge leap forward from the frankly odd original Steam controller. That has good ideas but was never intuitive. They leary from that and have got this spot on.
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Heroic Games Launcher

https://heroicgameslauncher.com/

This Linux based games launcher was independently developed because GOG.com refused to make a Linux based version of Galaxy so that Linux users could manage, install and play their GOG Linux games.

This has matured a lot and now even has a native Steam Deck version. This installs via Decktop mode and adds a launch shortcut into the Steam Library. I've not tested it yet so don't know more then that yet. I will be testing it this weekend.

In addition to adding your GOG library to Heroic it also supports adding your Epic library too so it's all in one place. You can even add new free games released and buy games directly from Heroic, so no need to visit the actual stores.

It also has a built in Wine manager, and supports Wine-GE, Wine-Lutris or even Proton-GE. These are abtraction layers that work within Linux to emulate the ability to make Windows games run. Heroic let's you install both Linux native games and Windows games that will run viax one of these layers. And can install multiple versions to allow selecting the most compatible one per game.

The Steam Deck natively uses Proton-GE, and so far I've found it brilliant. I've yet to find a game that doesn't run that was released in the last 20 years, but I've only tested about 30 games so far that I've wanted to play. The Steam Deck also lets you install multiple versions of Proton to increase compatibility for games that don't work prefecture with the default latest build.

The reason Heroic is also offering Wine and Lutris over the built in native Proton is because GOG has a lot of older such as Windows 9x and DOS games. Most setup to run in DOSBox or other methods to launch then on modern systems. These offer a wider chance you will get them running.

I'm going to see if I can get some of the earlier Star Trek and Star Wars games to work.

In addition to Heroic these is another games launcher called Lutris. In addition to the Epic Games Store and GOG, Lutris also supports Origin, Ubisoft Connect, and a variety of popular emulators like Dolphin and ScummVM. But unlike Heroic, that has an installer and does all the hard work for you, Lutris needs a lot more work to setup via the Linux Komandline, and it's user interface isn't nice compared to Heroic. Kutris has an advantage that you can add installed games into your Steam library so they appear alongside all your Steam games in exactly the same way. With Heroic you only get a link in Steam to Heroic, and need to launch games from there instead.

You can install both, and I might do this and just use Lutris for Origin and Ubisoft access. But I don't have that many games in either of those libraries so that will come later if needed.

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Something like Heroic is really pushing Steam Deck as the ultimate Handheld. In effect running old GOG games on it is another form of emulation. Valve's choice to develop their own Linux Steam OS with such freedom and scope was a genius move. The initial price of a Steam Deck might seem expensive when compared to a Switch, the Odin Pro/lite, or even one of thr cheaper emulation handhelds such as the Retroid Pocket 3, but it provides far more bang for your buck.

It can run your Windiws Steam Library, your GOG and Epic libraries. You can also manually install and get running Windows and Linux games and add them into the Steam library. And you have extensive emulation support via EmuDeck, offering easy to setup support for emulation from Atari 2600 to PS3 and Switch.

Other than the one negative of it's large size it is the best handheld on the market bar none. The Odin Pro comes a close second for portability but is limited to Android.
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The official Steam Deck docking station has finally been released for order, with an estimated 1-2 week delivery time. It costs £79 so not cheap.

I'm a bit disappointed in the design, as it doesn't really offer much over a more generic device dock (which do also work with the SD). But being official the system should sit better in the cradle. The biggest design flaw is the dock to deck connection. If they had located the USB C port on the bottom edge of the system it could have just slotted into the port on the dock. Instead the port is on the top edge of the SD, so you have to plug a cable from the dock into the top. A bit of a shortsighted solution. It's nice to just be able to pick a device out of its dock, not have to unplug it. My Amazon Fire tablet f.ex. just sits in its dock and you can just pick it up. No cables as wireless charging. Other then that seems ok.

Will pass final judgement when mine arrives.

The actual Steam Deck can now also just be ordered with no wait time. No need to preorder any longer and have to wait in a long production queue. Like the docking station, you can now buy it and expect delivery within 1-2 weeks.
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So other than nicely moulded plastic, what else is that dock doing? If you have to plug in a cable anyway, I struggle to see the point.
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It's a full dock, like a laptop dock. So you can have displays, keyboard, mouse, power etc all connected to the dock. Plug the deck in and it switches over to the monitor and you have a full PC running Steam OS. You can even switch to desktop mode and use it like a standard PC. Steam OS is full Arch Linux OS using the KDE Plazma 5 desktop. And the full Linux Konsole.

But Steam OS has being developed with the focus purely on gaming, so it doesn't have much installed that isn't needed for gaming. It's goal for PC gaming without the need for a keyboard and mouse. And heavilyvtied into the Steam library interface. Bit you can install what you like from the Desktop mode though the OSs own Discovery App store/repository, or using Github or from a flatpak.

The OS doesn't currently have any direct streaming support f.ex. So no built i access to services like Netflix or Spotify. But as with everything else Steam Deck related
an easy solution seem to be found to get them working. From Desktop mode you can just install Spotify from the Discovery store, then add it to Steam as a non game. Then you can play music as you game. And one cool Steam feature. You can control Steam from your phone, so you could queue up tracks without leacing your game. I will be setting this up tomorrow.

As for Netflix, I've not tried it yet, but it should run though a browser window. Not that I would want to watch Netflix on the Deck.
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This is quite a funny story. On the Steam Deck you can encode a file to be used by the system as the boot screen or animation. It can be an image, animation or video file.

One owner decided to encode the whole of the Shrek movie as their boot screen file. But Valve only ever considered a boot animation would be a few seconds at most, so never bothered adding the ability to skip it. So this user had to wait the whole length of the Shrek movie every time the system booted.

Due to this story Valve have now added the ability to skip the intro animation.
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Ahh that is funny. While it shows determination and initiative it also shows that if you play stupid games you win stupid prizes.

I wholeheartedly approve of such silly endeavours.
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Good he didn't put the Godfather trilogy.
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Or the Lord of the Rings Directors cut!

Imagine doing this though without realising you could skip it?

I'm considering making one from a clip from the film 2001. The bit showing HAL's eye as he says "Good Morning Dave".
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I have an important question for you Dave.

You know I'm selling my OneXPlayer, so a guy asked my if I would also consider to exchange it against a Steam deck. He has the 256GB version and says it's in very good condition, he only played for 10-15 hours with it. It comes with a docking station but not originally Valve.

I considered getting one but as I pre-ordered the Loki Max I ditched that thought, strangely enough I was watching Taki Udon's new video about it yesterday and was already looking at decals.

Guy has only positive feedback although only 31. Can I trust this exchange as it's not managed by eBay anymore.

Would you consider an exchange, like I mentioned, selling my OneXPlayer anyways.

Here's a picture he sent me:



- - - Updated - - -

I think I go crazy now here!!!!

I thought I would be fine with the exchange, went to eBay to remove the OneXPlayer, but didn't find it anymore. Checked my mails, nothing. Checked again on eBay and noticed that it was sold. Then the mail came, so I just missed it by seconds.

Yesterday I was putting the price down from 799€ to 649€ because it didn't sell and people always wanted it for 500€ or even less. Probably that's what sold it in the end.

On the other hand, I could now buy a complete new Steam deck, even the biggest model So in the end this was even better, although adding eBay fees the money received is only 578€.
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