Hero of Hyrule
Frieren the Slayer
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Steam Deck being on sale right now, I am thinking about biting the bullet and getting one for myself (I've wanted one forever, and this is as good a chance as any to do it), but I have some hesitations, mostly coming down to me fucking hating PC gaming and the entire experience it entails.
Put simply, I hate PC gaming. I want things to be seamless. I want to turn the machine on and play my game. I don't want to have to fiddle with settings or drivers or troubleshoot why my game is suffering from stuttering. I don't want to have to manage multiple drivers, switch between integrated and discrete GPUs, turn off background programs before starting the game, none of that bullshit.
"PC gaming is almost as seamless as console gaming now" goes the counterbuttal every time I bring up this point. I have fallen for it multiple times, and I have never walked away agreeing. Not even once. If you feel that way, that is absolutely fine, but for whatever my own messed up standards are, this has never held true. At its best, PC gaming was still worse than the worst console UI and experience (which would be Xbox at the moment), and right now, with PS5/Switch providing instant, blistering, seamless plug and play and PC gaming running into shader compilation issues and multiple poor ports, there is no comparison between the two for me.
But the Deck - I am told the Deck sidesteps or minimizes a lot of these issues to a very large degree. I am told it brings things reasonably close to the console experience (with the caveat that it's not a console so it will never be perfectly equivalent). And, like, that's really what I want to ask Deck owners - in your experience, and based on my rant above, how likely am I to be able to deal with the Steam Deck? How good is the UI? How much babysitting and micromanaging is necessary before I can get into my game? Can I just turn a game on and play? Is there any prepwork necessary?
I really want to get one, but I don't want to waste money on a device I would fundamentally hate using, so I would appreciate your insights and impressions using it!
Put simply, I hate PC gaming. I want things to be seamless. I want to turn the machine on and play my game. I don't want to have to fiddle with settings or drivers or troubleshoot why my game is suffering from stuttering. I don't want to have to manage multiple drivers, switch between integrated and discrete GPUs, turn off background programs before starting the game, none of that bullshit.
"PC gaming is almost as seamless as console gaming now" goes the counterbuttal every time I bring up this point. I have fallen for it multiple times, and I have never walked away agreeing. Not even once. If you feel that way, that is absolutely fine, but for whatever my own messed up standards are, this has never held true. At its best, PC gaming was still worse than the worst console UI and experience (which would be Xbox at the moment), and right now, with PS5/Switch providing instant, blistering, seamless plug and play and PC gaming running into shader compilation issues and multiple poor ports, there is no comparison between the two for me.
But the Deck - I am told the Deck sidesteps or minimizes a lot of these issues to a very large degree. I am told it brings things reasonably close to the console experience (with the caveat that it's not a console so it will never be perfectly equivalent). And, like, that's really what I want to ask Deck owners - in your experience, and based on my rant above, how likely am I to be able to deal with the Steam Deck? How good is the UI? How much babysitting and micromanaging is necessary before I can get into my game? Can I just turn a game on and play? Is there any prepwork necessary?
I really want to get one, but I don't want to waste money on a device I would fundamentally hate using, so I would appreciate your insights and impressions using it!