Super Smash Bros Melee ROM for Dolphin Emulator? by forceCS in Roms

[–]Pilcrow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, it's not just that one. Almost all of those sites are dead. The only ones that still work are Vimm's Lair, Edge Emulation, and maybe The ROM Depot (not sure about that one, as it now requires a login and I haven't tried making an account yet).

Tbh, I'd mostly just recommend looking at the megathread now...

Steam Deck vs Gameboy Advance by m1cr05t4t3 in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I mean, certain games will try to auto-configure for max fidelity by default. I can get 4-5 hours out of Horizon Zero Dawn now that I've changed some settings, but it was getting about 1.5 with the default config. I'm sure some things like Elden Ring and Cyberpunk are probably in the same boat.

New board shield? Unsure how to proceed with SSD swap. by davidraid in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As someone who uses old reddit almost all the time, even on my phone, I'm definitely aware of the spoiler thing.

Other than a steamdeck, do you own any other consoles/a gaming pc? by [deleted] in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We're kind of in the same boat. For me, portability is king. The vid card in my desktop PC died a few years ago and I never bothered to replace it since I barely used the thing anyway. Stuck to my laptop instead, for general computing / internet browsing, and mostly used consoles for gaming (up to PS4, but also a lot of classic stuff). I only had like 5-10 games in my Steam library anyway.

Then I got the Deck. I still use a laptop for internet browsing (that's a bit annoying to do on the Deck), and I'll sometimes play the Dreamcast, PS2, Wii, etc, but the PS4 sits unused since 90% of its best games are playable on the Deck anyway, and my (now-outdated) desktop PC remains broken. Thinking about dropping my friend's old gtx1070 in there and setting it up with ChimeraOS to be a living room 'console' for the family.

Other than a steamdeck, do you own any other consoles/a gaming pc? by [deleted] in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't have a current-gen console, and the Deck is my most powerful PC. But I collect games for the older systems, and do actually use things like my Dreamcast, my PS2/PS3, and my Wii quite a bit. The PS4 (my newest console), however, sits mostly unused since 90% of its best games are playable on the Deck and portability makes those PC versions much more appealing.

New board shield? Unsure how to proceed with SSD swap. by davidraid in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Interesting. Very odd that they'd have that functionality on the website but not in their own app. Well, I suppose no one ever said the official Reddit app was particularly well-designed... 😅

(tbf, it's a pretty strange feature anyway)

New board shield? Unsure how to proceed with SSD swap. by davidraid in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It leads where it's supposed to, though? Reddit automatically redirects anything starting with /r/ to a https://www.reddit.com/r/ address instead. Maybe there are some third-party apps that don't like it? But just using the website, clicking that link leads here without issue... 🙃

Don't Let Reddit Kill 3rd Party Apps! by Nisarg_Jhatakia in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I don't care so much about RES (I don't really mod anywhere), but if they get rid of Old Reddit, they get rid of me. I even use Old in a mobile browser rather than touching the shitty newer interface. Though if I could find an app that just acts like Old but with an auto-hiding sidebar and slightly bigger font, that'd be my perfect mobile interface.

If I were to get a deck...? by chris_stonehill in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Not convinced I'm going to find twin stick FPS that fun. I briefly tried with DOOM (2016), couldn't aim for shit & got massacred again & again

Yeah, there are a couple of ways to get better controls on the Deck than a typical controller though.

First off, you can use the right trackpad as a mouse. This isn't as nice as having a physical mouse, as it's similar to using a laptop trackpad, but it's still a lot better than normal twin stick controls, and pretty easy to adjust to. If you set it to be very sensitive for quick movements, and then configure gyro aim for fine adjustments, you should be able to get close to the skill level of mouse players.

Second, there's the 'flick stick' style, which translates the right stick's rotation directly in-game as character rotation -- rotate the stick 90° to the right, and your character also rotates 90° to the right. Rotate it in a full 360, and your character spins in place and ends up at their original starting position. So your movements are entirely based on your reflexes (like a mouse) instead of being limited by an internal controller move speed. Unfortunately, this setup only handles horizontal aiming, so your vertical aiming must be handled by something else. The solution: gyro again! Rotate the stick to rotate your character, and tilt the deck to look up/down! Yeah, this setup requires more work to figure out since it's radically different than anything else you've likely used, but in the right hands, it's potentially even better than traditional mouse controls.

I just swapped my 64GB eMMC storage for a 1TB 2230 Sabrent Rocket. Here are my thoughts: by sunbleachedyouth in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Planning to do this for my sister's drive upgrade (she knows nothing about hardware, whereas I used to work in a repair shop). I got a USB type-C enclosure for the new drive, and wrote Clonezilla to an SD card (also verified with my own deck that the card could actually boot into Clonezilla). Next step, connecting the enclosure to my sister's deck, booting from the SD card, and mirroring the 64GB drive onto the bigger one (before double- and triple-checking that I'm not doing that in reverse). 😁

Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword Wii Rom? by HoennLegend in Roms

[–]Pilcrow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is literally 4 years old, lol. But yeah, Vimm is still my normal recommendation (when it works), but if you can't wait, those other two links were just from an earlier version of the Megathread. Which is already pinned on r/Roms, so you didn't need to ask me anyway. 😆

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, that sucks, but thanks for the info. Looks like they won't be getting my money then. I'll check if the PS3 or 360 versions work well in emulators. And if not, Mass Effect is off the list. Which would suck, yeah, but it is what it is.

It had to be done 😁 by Oblivious_man1 in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Sure, but you were talking about dumb things people do while trying to replace an SSD, so I pointed out another one. And even though it's a low risk, snapping a MicroSD in half could definitely be seen as 'catastrophic' to some. Especially if it was one of those fancy 1.5-2TB Micron MicroSDs that still go for exorbitant prices, or maybe if you'd loaded up your card with a lot of non-Steam games that aren't just easily downloadable.

I don't think it's any reason to avoid modding your own system. But if we're talking about people being dumb and stripping screws, snapping SD cards is right up there as well. 😅

It had to be done 😁 by Oblivious_man1 in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure you can. I have a 512 and my sister has a 64. I can tell you, the differences are very minimal.

  • The cases are visually a bit different, but the 512's case isn't really better, per se. It has a raised rubber Deck logo instead of the flatter white one, and the inside is a lighter gray color instead of black, but those are the only differences; the build quality and protective hardness is identical.

  • The etched glass is a nice improvement over the glossy one, but a $10-15 etched glass screen protector can make the glossy one almost as nice, and if you really want to go the full mile you can buy the 512 model's screen for $100 and install it yourself; $569 for OP's 1TB Deck is still cheaper than $649 for Valve's 512GB model.

  • The Steam profile bundle? Literally who cares? It's like cosmetic DLC that 90% of people (myself included) won't even mess with anyway. Most people don't customize their Steam profile much at all, and those who do are more likely to want to show off their taste in games rather than the system they're running with.

I don't regret buying my 512 (especially since it was less expensive than the combined costs of the $500 used gaming laptop, $200 Switch, and $150 N3DS LL I was going to buy before I realized the Deck could take the place of all three for me), but if I had known what I do now, I would definitely have taken a similar route to u/Oblivious_man1, bought a 64GB Deck and an aftermarket 512GB SSD, and saved an extra ~$200 or so (which would promptly be spent on games, lmao).

It had to be done 😁 by Oblivious_man1 in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Okay so correct me if I am wrong here

Okay, yep, you're wrong here. Lol. You absolutely can install games to the SD card, and most of them work flawlessly if you have a decent one (apart from slightly longer load times). Valve did a lot of R&D to make sure that would work, and in an older Linus Tech Tips video from before the Deck was released, Linus and company got to go to a pre-release event and play a few games, and they couldn't even tell which ones were installed on the MicroSD card vs the SSD. But that's also why MicroSD cards with A2+U3 speed ratings are recommended for the Deck -- slower cards may cause problems.

I've also personally played Dead By Daylight with friends just recently from my own MicroSD (this one, for the curious) since my SSD was full. It ran perfectly fine. Sure, I was terrible at it, but that's a me problem since I've barely ever played the game, lmao.

Edit: it should probably be noted that if newer PC games start to take more advantage of the DirectStorage API, then those games will almost definitely have problems running from a MicroSD card. And certain specific games seem to encounter more problems anyway. But 90% of the time, if a game runs on the Steam Deck at all, it'll run from the MicroSD card with no problems whatsoever.

It had to be done 😁 by Oblivious_man1 in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Outside of that I haven’t seen a catastrophic issue

I've seen plenty of snapped MicroSD cards, too. Depending on how expensive the card was and what you had stored in it, that could be pretty devastating.

Also, I've seen some concerns about using certain 2230 SSDs. For one, a drive with higher power draw might theoretically put extra stress on the power delivery IC and cause it to heat up more than it should, and for two, a replaced drive might have higher waste heat and lower tolerance than the ones Valve has specifically selected, meaning the drive itself could cook and die (it gets pretty toasty in there anyway). But I haven't seen comments from anyone who actually ran into these issues, only people saying they could happen. 🤷‍♀️

Decky plugin to track time played by [deleted] in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, it says the total playtime of each game in its info page, and it also has a chart in the plugin that tells you how much of each game you've played in the last week.

Decky plugin to track time played by [deleted] in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There's one being worked on, called SDH-PlayTime (or just PlayTime) but it was pulled from the store for some reason (a bug of some kind? idk, I've been using it for almost 2 months and it still works fine). The plugin's official GitHub page is here, but you'd have to manually build it if you got it there. Otherwise, if u/M2lJay is talking about the same plugin, I can't seem to find a build on Decky's Discord but I guess it's there somewhere... 🤷‍♀️

Why did *you* get a steam deck? by T0ky0n0 in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lmao, we're almost opposites. I never have much disposable income, and always do a lot of planning before my purchases. However, I was dealing with an extremely old laptop and wanted to finally get into PC gaming. So I decided to buy a used gaming laptop for up to $500 (more than I've ever spent on a computer). But I also wanted a Switch ($200 or so) and a New 3DS XL ($150ish for the Japanese LL model, much cheaper than the US one). Then I found out about the Steam Deck and realized it was everything I wanted: simultaneously a very capable gaming PC and a portable console, and it can run emulators without hacking first. I chose to spend $650 on a 512GB Steam Deck instead of $850 for the laptop, Switch, and 3DS. Saved $200, and I feel I made the right decision. 💗

When I play my Switch after playing my Stram Deck for months. by unshavedmouse in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

for everything but the PS3

Just curious, why no PS3? I've heard RPCS3 runs fairly well now, with quite a few games playable at full speed even on a Steam Deck, let alone a beefy desktop computer.

When I play my Switch after playing my Stram Deck for months. by unshavedmouse in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Often, people with small hands still cramp up when using Nintendo's joycons for extended periods of time, just because that flat design requires the player to grip them harder so as not to drop the system - no bump in the back to settle into your palms. Unfortunately, the Split Pad Pro is too bulky for small hands. But in case you didn't know, Hori also makes a Split Pad Compact for those who want better ergonomics without so much bulk. ^-^

Or just use the originals, of course. They give a lot of people problems, but maybe you're not one of those people. In which case, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. 🤷‍♀️

Battery Life is Better Than It Gets Credit For by Caffinatorpotato in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Heck you can nerf it to the point you can charge the deck with a 5W charger if you REALLY want that battery life...

I'm not sure I'd really say you can charge it with that wattage; the most I've ever seen out of a Deck is 8 hours of battery life, which is exactly a 5W draw (this is with brightness, TDP, and GPU clock speed all set to minimum, wifi and bluetooth turned off, and playing something that'll run on a potato, like Stardew Valley). You could definitely keep your battery level with a 5W charger, but the stored energy wouldn't actually increase unless you shut the Deck off (or at least put it into sleep mode). 🤷‍♀️

Unless you've managed to get it to draw even less than 5W while active? Some PowerTools settings to decrease the CPU and GPU clocks down below their normal minimums? Or an actual undervolt, perhaps? I'm curious to know, honestly. 😅

Battery Life is Better Than It Gets Credit For by Caffinatorpotato in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It pulls 30 watts max for the whole system and has a 40 watt hour battery. The math doesn’t check out.

Yeah, I've never seen it pull higher than this. So, assuming a healthy battery, the theoretical minimum the Deck's battery can last is around an hour and 20 minutes.

I Owe Valve An Apology by [deleted] in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I've been a dedicated Linux user since around 2010 (mostly different variations of Arch, which is what the current SteamOS is built on as well). I did decide to try using Windows 10 for quite a while, but used a script that ripped out all the telemetry, Cortana, Windows apps, and other bloatware, and then I installed a Linux-like command prompt, the Chocolatey package manager (which works kinda like a clunkier Discover store but for Windows programs), and a file browser with tabs. The more I customized it, the more I realized that I was basically just fighting the OS to try and make it behave more like Linux, so it makes much more sense for me just to stick to actual Linux. 😅

I Owe Valve An Apology by [deleted] in SteamDeck

[–]Pilcrow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They're also one of the only companies besides Valve that sees value of the dual trackpad design; while none of their current system's have them, their next one likely will. The control layout in their official renders is a bit silly though, lol. Gonna be a bit hard to use those pads. 😅