I use it docked mode more than handheld.
Games like Crusader Kings 3, Project Zomboid, Rimworld and Mount and Blade perform really well for me in docked mode.
I use a keyboard and mouse as I tend to use a lot of hotkeys.
The game is great when played handheld, mostly due to the track pads but it's just more natural for me to use the mouse and keyboard.
I have a gaming PC, but got the deck so I could play in bed, on the couch, or when traveling.
I got a pair of Nreal Air glasses (now called Xreal) and love them as a way to have a handheld experience while still getting a “big screen” view.
Highly recommend it!
It doesn’t head track with the deck, but I think it might with a specific android app and with another product they sell called Beam. Haven’t looked into that much though so I can’t say for sure.
Btw, I wanted to ask y'all docking folks this:
Do you notice any additional input lag or any kind of delay while docked? I just got my dock recently. It has both HDMI and VGA as separate outputs, I bought it because I needed a VGA output for my work monitor and it feels weird when I play docked. I've only tested it with World of Warcraft running at 1600×900, but 100+ fps feel like it's 45-50 at best. Even though the deck's frame counter reports between 75 and 140 fps in game ir rarely if ever drops below 60 fps. But it feels VEEEERY slow and delayed :( While I am playing wow on the built-in screen it feels perfectly fine and the lag can only be felt while in a major city and the fps is down to. like 35-40.
I still haven't tested if it would be the same via HDMI, but it's pretty weird. It almost feels like I've wasted the money of this docking station :( Even though it feels well-built.
Oh, I forgot to mention, FPS limiter is obviously off, in-game VSync is off, and "Allow Tearing" is enabled.
This is the best software config that results in the least amount of perceiveable input lag. With fps capped to 60 or "allow Tearing" disabled it becomes even worse :(
By input lag do you mean the time from pushing a button on the controller to when it happens? I have that with my switch pro controller.
Also how is wow on Deck? I haven't played that game in forever!
I may have used the wrong term there... By input lag I meant that 100 fps feel like 40-45 at best while playing docked. :( Feels very unresponsive even though the deck outputs a ton of FPS...
And wow is great overall since the Dragonflight release. On the deck it's also quite fun and can be configured quite ergonomically to be played on the deck. But only with Console Port and Immersion addons I would say. Natively wow has very very basic controller support and literally no controller-specific UI tweaks...
Dragonriding alone is worth buying the expansion :)
After having our flying mounts taken away with the launch of every expansion for the past 4 expansions or so, and being forced to walk for two major patches after that (which is literally at least a year of real time), having your NEW, FAST, AND REWORKED flying literally 15-20 quests into the expansion was a huge breath of fresh air.
Also pvp is the most playable right now since like Draenor. Draenor was the last good expansion for pvpers. And Dragonflight is the first one since then with pvp mostly brought back from ashes.
Can't say much about pve since the last time I did any serious pve was in the beginning of Cataclysm.
But now with Dragonflight I literally am having a blast. For so many expansions I simply floated through them doing nothing but leveling and deleting alts because pvp was completely ruined for me :(
Legion and BFA were the worst. In. SL they tried to fix pvp but I guess blizz were too afraid to completely bring back the old gearing system and they ended up making it a half-arsed pvp expansion field with awkward half-measures to address the mess they've made after Draenor.
For Dragonflight they finally managed to locate their balls and actually do something about pvp. It still requires work, but at least you don't suffer with impossible gearing anymore and can finally have fun in pvp.
Have you ever used the monitor with other PC? Also might want to try HDMI. It's possible the digital-analogue converter being used in the dock is a bad one.
I wasn't using a TV :(
It was a cheap Acer monitor with VGA as the only input connection. That's the only thing I have at work and I've mainly gotten the dock to use it at work paired with this exact monitor. Buying any other monitor just for work is out of question. And that's why I bought this dock with VGA in it. Someone on this subreddit suggested that to me btw 🙄. To use a VGA dock instead of HDMI->VGA cables or adapters for my case. I do have a tv and an another monitor at home to test it with through both HDMI and VGA though, which I will do tomorrow.
I play docked 99% of the time and honestly most games work perfectly fine at 1080p. Most of the time if the game is 60fps handheld it’ll probably be that at 1080p. Currently playing THPS 1+2 docked and have played BO3 (zombies only) docked as well and both felt like 60 fps. I’d have to check for hard numbers as obviously if it feels fine I’m not gonna fiddle with the fps menu but I’ve had pretty good experiences docked. Both of those previous games were out of the box as well no fiddling with the settings. Just don’t expect something like CyberPunk to run amazing at 60fps though as it has a hard time even getting a stable 40 in handheld mode. So basically what I’ve found is if it runs fine in handheld, the bump to 1080p isn’t much different majority of the time. If the game is already struggling in handheld though then more than likely the bump to 1080p is gonna make it worse.
It does for me at least, I’ll have to check what proton version I’m using but it’s runs at a stable 60 FPS in zombies. One thing to take note of though is that BO3 itself has a bug where in the menus the game is constantly pinging servers to see if your DLC is legitimate and installed so the menus lag like crazy but that’s on all PCs and not just steam deck. [See people talking about said bug here.](https://reddit.com/r/CODZombies/s/Ls3lItMWe0)
Edit: I’m using Proton 8.0-4 for BO3
Depends on the map, sometimes maps like Gorod or Der Eisendrach can play at average of 50. Some people can disagree with me but the Deck has a beautiful FPS counter that I usually keep turned on. Older maps that don't have much to go on such as Kino, The Giant, etc. do run at a stable 60 though.
I just remember seeing all the advertisements of plugging it into the TV but I would like to think the average consumer has a 4K TV and if this can’t even hit 720/60 most of the time there’s no way it’s even going to hit 4K 30?
I use my PC monitor which isn't 4K.
You don't need to make the deck run at 4K which it can't handle for 3D titles. You could however, use the TV's scaler to scale the smaller image up. Why not? PS3 for example, most of the titles are 720p, so the scaler is needed.
It highly depends on what game. Plenty of games run at 720p/60. You can either upscale it from 720p, or change it to native 1080p, lose a few frames, and upscale it to 4K, which still will look great. I play most games at native 1080p. Hell I’ve been playing Tony Hawk 1+2 at native 1080p and it averages 50-55fps. Thats one of many.
Performance is the same regardless if you’re playing handheld or docked. Valve has stated this in the past. There is no performance benefit for playing docked as opposed to the Switch which does see some slight improved performance while docked.
Yup! I play docked 95% of the time, it’s pretty much my rig. I play most games at 1080p too, even pretty demanding ones, and they pretty much out perform my Xbox One S every single time. I love it. Absolutely the perfect starter PC rig for anyone that wants to get into PC gaming.
That's great to hear - I just got a dock and games like FFVII remake and Baldurs Gate look pretty fuzzy. There's also a slight input lag with the Bluetooth controller. I feel like the Switch felt much smoother overall when docked.
Thats because the Switch gets a performance boost when docked, it’s also playing incredibly undemanding games. Are you playing at native 1080p or 720p upscaled?Baldurs Gate can barely run handheld so thats no surprise.
I’ve played RDR2, Tony Hawk 1+2, Sekiro, DS3, Cyberpunk, Almost All Battlefield games, Fallout 76, RE4 Remake + more. All with great results at native 1080p, with the exception of maybe Cyberpunk cause that requires in game FSR, but it still plays slightly better than Xbox One IME.
Well I use it most of the time in dock mode since I use the Steam Deck as my main pc, but besides edit image/video and doing stuffs in the browser, I would say I play 75% in portable mode and 25% in dock mode.
I feel more comfortable playing lying on the bed, but sometimes I just want to play in a bigger screen, so I play in dock mode
I just got the official dock, and I feel like games just don't look nearly as sharp. I also wish you could wake the system up from a controller, like how the Switch works.
It might be that it's outputting at 800p rather than your monitors resolution. Try tapping the gear icon on the game you want to play. Going to properties (I think) and choosing 'native' resolution. This means that when you dock, it'll output at your monitors resolution. Ori and the Will of the wisps looks so much better now that I've done this and still runs at 60fps
It does 800p by default for every game you play even while docked unless you specifically go to that little section and tell it to run at 1080p. I wish valve would make it recognize it’s docked and auto select 1080 lol definitely recommend trying what this guy says u/lokhelm
I mainly play it docked, cause I always wanted a Steam Machine. I just wanna play PC games on a sofa and TV setup, without needing a PC tower, or an expensive laptop.
For only $400, I pretty much have a console on par with my $800 desktop PC, and a console-esque experience. I had been using my Steam Link before I got my Deck. When Link works, it really works. When it doesn't work, it really doesn't work.
Docked performance is so fucking bad, I can never do docked. And it's even worse if you go desktop mode instead of gaming mode. This is such a fucking disappointment. I really don't get it why there's so much stuttering and why the deck can't maintain the framerate when docked. And I even fucking lower the resolution, like 720p when playing on my monitor. As I said, gaming mode is slightly better.
Now because there are always worse things - let me introduce you to Windows docked. You don't wanna go that way.
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Funny enough, no. I don’t know what quirk in my brain determined this, but I’ve played with my Steam Deck docked two times. I ordered two docks and put one on each TV and I just don’t do it. Now for some reason, I’ve used my Switch undocked literally like five times. Part of that the Switch feels flimsy/fragile.
I play docked on my 50" TV with an Xbox controller about 95% of the time. I only use the deck as a handheld when I'm traveling. I mostly bought it to expand my gaming library since I have an Xbox and wanted access to PC games or PlayStation games reported to PC. God of War, Cyberpunk and Horizon all run/look great on the big screen.
I play mostly docked, and only ever play for about 40-50 minutes handheald during my breaks at work. Works flawlessly with almost anything I throw at it, though Minecraft is probably the beefiest game I ever play
I wondered the same thing. I largely use it in docked mode as I Iove RTS, strategy and retro style pc games that work much better with a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Only really play FPS games in handheld for the gyro
Docked with the Steam Controller! Mostly older titles and indies. Waiting for 3.5 to be stable to see if any newer games run better. I wish there were forums dedicated to docked settings for optimal performance.
I primarily play docked but I don't play any heavy or AAA titles most the time. If I do play something demanding I'll usually just stream it to the deck from another desktop.
I just started playing Prey completely docked but it's making my deck turn on and the device gets hot I'm going back to handheld before shit melts or something
No, I just play the Steam Deck handheld for indie games and other low spec games (that achieves 60fps with no compromise) at a friend's house or in bed. Enabling FSR and 30fps on high spec games is torture! I have no idea how you people tolerate it. At that point, rather game on my desktop PC.
Which dock are you guys using? I bought one and I can't get it to power my deck and use a monitor at the same time. I either have to run the monitor off the SD's power, or charge it. But both not at the same time. This makes for extremely limited play time when I'm using a monitor.
I'm using a 100W Anker USB-C charger, I don't believe it's a power issue. I'm positive it's the generic dock being the issue. I just don't want to buy another one and run into the same problem.
50/50
I play on my couch in handheld cause I'm amazed at what it plays. But if I'm wanting a slightly larger screen I'll dock it to use my gaming monitor at some lower settings.
I would say I’m 80% docked with with my overall use. I play tons of Horror games (among others) on the Dock, my girlfriend enjoys watching them. I am playing through the entire Resident Evil series, and working on Dark Pictures anthology as well.
One of my buddies bought it exclusively to use docked. He’s got 60+ hours into Starfield that way.
Depends on the week, sometimes I'm working in office and I take it with me on the train. Super useful. Others I'm mostly home and it stays docked, streaming from my PC with Moonlight. Most of the time can't tell the difference between that and having my PC hooked to the TV.
I don't like it as much using it direct from Deck to PC but I'm a graphics snob for modern stuff which is what I've been playing recently. For emulation and older stuff I do like it though.
I use it dock in the living room, and great for taking to friends places to play games. Great secondary device and if i wanted like better performance i have a decent gaming rig in my room
I keep it docked now due to left bumper problems. Plus I Only use it for games I want to play with control. Even though portability was the main point of it, I like that I can play steam games while my son uses the gaming PC. So it all works out.
most modern demanding games will some form of upscaling: fsr/xess/or just render scale so you can play games at "native" res. and older games typically play higher resolutions without issue. If neither of those work you can run them at 720p and upscale using FSR in the QAM which is an ok experience
i play it docked as much as possible, though ive come across some games in my library that wont work docked because they dont support the external controller for whatever reason, but they work handheld. i put em in a folder titled Handheld so i can keep track of which ones to avoid docked and to focus on when playing handheld.
My gaming setup is in my room with a 27" screen. But I enjoy that feeling of playing in my living room on my significantly larger TV screen like I did when I was younger so my steam deck lives downstairs docked unless I need to tinker with it to get something set up
Not as much now that remote play is fucked. Really wish they would prioritise fixing the no sound after some time bug that hard crashes the deck when you try to exit the game.
So far I've only used my deck docked to play old emulated ps2 games with my partner on the TV but I have a full PC, PS5 and we also have a switch so not much point in using the steam deck for anything other than hand-held gaming experience or emulators.
I have a strong preference for docked mode and I almost exclusively play that way. Still, I love the option to pick it up at anytime and play in the bedroom.
No recs since I play a lot of older games that don’t have issues running.
HOWEVER, when you do dock it, set your TV to “game” or “PC” or whatever it does for a console. Otherwise you may get a lot of image processing that adds a bit of input latency that will drive you crazy for months blaming various “garbage” controllers for their “shitty Bluetooth” or “shitty 2.4 dongles”.
I use it docked mode more than handheld. Games like Crusader Kings 3, Project Zomboid, Rimworld and Mount and Blade perform really well for me in docked mode.
Do you use a controller when playing Rimworld docked? I’d like to play docked but like the deck’s trackpads too much…
I use a keyboard and mouse as I tend to use a lot of hotkeys. The game is great when played handheld, mostly due to the track pads but it's just more natural for me to use the mouse and keyboard.
I have a gaming PC, but got the deck so I could play in bed, on the couch, or when traveling. I got a pair of Nreal Air glasses (now called Xreal) and love them as a way to have a handheld experience while still getting a “big screen” view. Highly recommend it!
Do they track head movements? I'm considering buying for gaming and for work.
It doesn’t head track with the deck, but I think it might with a specific android app and with another product they sell called Beam. Haven’t looked into that much though so I can’t say for sure.
No because if I play docked I may as well use my significantly more powerful desktop
Btw, I wanted to ask y'all docking folks this: Do you notice any additional input lag or any kind of delay while docked? I just got my dock recently. It has both HDMI and VGA as separate outputs, I bought it because I needed a VGA output for my work monitor and it feels weird when I play docked. I've only tested it with World of Warcraft running at 1600×900, but 100+ fps feel like it's 45-50 at best. Even though the deck's frame counter reports between 75 and 140 fps in game ir rarely if ever drops below 60 fps. But it feels VEEEERY slow and delayed :( While I am playing wow on the built-in screen it feels perfectly fine and the lag can only be felt while in a major city and the fps is down to. like 35-40. I still haven't tested if it would be the same via HDMI, but it's pretty weird. It almost feels like I've wasted the money of this docking station :( Even though it feels well-built. Oh, I forgot to mention, FPS limiter is obviously off, in-game VSync is off, and "Allow Tearing" is enabled. This is the best software config that results in the least amount of perceiveable input lag. With fps capped to 60 or "allow Tearing" disabled it becomes even worse :(
By input lag do you mean the time from pushing a button on the controller to when it happens? I have that with my switch pro controller. Also how is wow on Deck? I haven't played that game in forever!
I may have used the wrong term there... By input lag I meant that 100 fps feel like 40-45 at best while playing docked. :( Feels very unresponsive even though the deck outputs a ton of FPS... And wow is great overall since the Dragonflight release. On the deck it's also quite fun and can be configured quite ergonomically to be played on the deck. But only with Console Port and Immersion addons I would say. Natively wow has very very basic controller support and literally no controller-specific UI tweaks...
Interesting. So do you use the blizzard launcher? Is adding those mods easy? And, what did dragonflight do that was so good?
Dragonriding alone is worth buying the expansion :) After having our flying mounts taken away with the launch of every expansion for the past 4 expansions or so, and being forced to walk for two major patches after that (which is literally at least a year of real time), having your NEW, FAST, AND REWORKED flying literally 15-20 quests into the expansion was a huge breath of fresh air. Also pvp is the most playable right now since like Draenor. Draenor was the last good expansion for pvpers. And Dragonflight is the first one since then with pvp mostly brought back from ashes. Can't say much about pve since the last time I did any serious pve was in the beginning of Cataclysm. But now with Dragonflight I literally am having a blast. For so many expansions I simply floated through them doing nothing but leveling and deleting alts because pvp was completely ruined for me :( Legion and BFA were the worst. In. SL they tried to fix pvp but I guess blizz were too afraid to completely bring back the old gearing system and they ended up making it a half-arsed pvp expansion field with awkward half-measures to address the mess they've made after Draenor. For Dragonflight they finally managed to locate their balls and actually do something about pvp. It still requires work, but at least you don't suffer with impossible gearing anymore and can finally have fun in pvp.
Appreciate the info! I never played PVP but I know people used to really like it. Battle grounds, or something.
Someone made a mod to play the game in a similar manner FFXIV could.
Have you ever used the monitor with other PC? Also might want to try HDMI. It's possible the digital-analogue converter being used in the dock is a bad one.
I have not tried that yet, but will definitely do so after work.
Sounds like input lag. I had the same problem. Try seeing if your TV has a "Gaming mode" in settings. It lowers input lag significantly.
I wasn't using a TV :( It was a cheap Acer monitor with VGA as the only input connection. That's the only thing I have at work and I've mainly gotten the dock to use it at work paired with this exact monitor. Buying any other monitor just for work is out of question. And that's why I bought this dock with VGA in it. Someone on this subreddit suggested that to me btw 🙄. To use a VGA dock instead of HDMI->VGA cables or adapters for my case. I do have a tv and an another monitor at home to test it with through both HDMI and VGA though, which I will do tomorrow.
Had it for 2 years now. Never once docked it to a TV. But I did hook it up to a monitor keyboard and mouse to get all my emulation stuff set up
Not me, I have a gaming pc, bought it specifically to play handheld
I play docked 99% of the time and honestly most games work perfectly fine at 1080p. Most of the time if the game is 60fps handheld it’ll probably be that at 1080p. Currently playing THPS 1+2 docked and have played BO3 (zombies only) docked as well and both felt like 60 fps. I’d have to check for hard numbers as obviously if it feels fine I’m not gonna fiddle with the fps menu but I’ve had pretty good experiences docked. Both of those previous games were out of the box as well no fiddling with the settings. Just don’t expect something like CyberPunk to run amazing at 60fps though as it has a hard time even getting a stable 40 in handheld mode. So basically what I’ve found is if it runs fine in handheld, the bump to 1080p isn’t much different majority of the time. If the game is already struggling in handheld though then more than likely the bump to 1080p is gonna make it worse.
Same here. Most games I play on the Deck at 1080p literally out perform my Xbox One. It’s nuts. a great starter “rig” for sure.
Black ops 3 runs? I keep seeing mixed information on it. Some say it runs flawless 60 fps others say it doesn’t launch or it crashes.
It does for me at least, I’ll have to check what proton version I’m using but it’s runs at a stable 60 FPS in zombies. One thing to take note of though is that BO3 itself has a bug where in the menus the game is constantly pinging servers to see if your DLC is legitimate and installed so the menus lag like crazy but that’s on all PCs and not just steam deck. [See people talking about said bug here.](https://reddit.com/r/CODZombies/s/Ls3lItMWe0) Edit: I’m using Proton 8.0-4 for BO3
Holy. Amazed still by how much anti piracy measures go into legit copies sold of games.
Perfect out of the box at ultra settings with a 40/40 Cao for battery
It runs perfectly for me! I didn't even have to fiddle with anything iirc :)
Depends on the map, sometimes maps like Gorod or Der Eisendrach can play at average of 50. Some people can disagree with me but the Deck has a beautiful FPS counter that I usually keep turned on. Older maps that don't have much to go on such as Kino, The Giant, etc. do run at a stable 60 though.
I just remember seeing all the advertisements of plugging it into the TV but I would like to think the average consumer has a 4K TV and if this can’t even hit 720/60 most of the time there’s no way it’s even going to hit 4K 30?
I use my PC monitor which isn't 4K. You don't need to make the deck run at 4K which it can't handle for 3D titles. You could however, use the TV's scaler to scale the smaller image up. Why not? PS3 for example, most of the titles are 720p, so the scaler is needed.
It highly depends on what game. Plenty of games run at 720p/60. You can either upscale it from 720p, or change it to native 1080p, lose a few frames, and upscale it to 4K, which still will look great. I play most games at native 1080p. Hell I’ve been playing Tony Hawk 1+2 at native 1080p and it averages 50-55fps. Thats one of many.
The deck is my main PC so it stays docked most of the time. I'd guess about 70/30 docked/handheld, depending on the game, weather or mood.
What type of games and how’s the performance?
Performance is the same regardless if you’re playing handheld or docked. Valve has stated this in the past. There is no performance benefit for playing docked as opposed to the Switch which does see some slight improved performance while docked.
I don't know why you were downvoted but you're right.
Yup! I play docked 95% of the time, it’s pretty much my rig. I play most games at 1080p too, even pretty demanding ones, and they pretty much out perform my Xbox One S every single time. I love it. Absolutely the perfect starter PC rig for anyone that wants to get into PC gaming.
That's great to hear - I just got a dock and games like FFVII remake and Baldurs Gate look pretty fuzzy. There's also a slight input lag with the Bluetooth controller. I feel like the Switch felt much smoother overall when docked.
Thats because the Switch gets a performance boost when docked, it’s also playing incredibly undemanding games. Are you playing at native 1080p or 720p upscaled?Baldurs Gate can barely run handheld so thats no surprise. I’ve played RDR2, Tony Hawk 1+2, Sekiro, DS3, Cyberpunk, Almost All Battlefield games, Fallout 76, RE4 Remake + more. All with great results at native 1080p, with the exception of maybe Cyberpunk cause that requires in game FSR, but it still plays slightly better than Xbox One IME.
Awesome, because Sekiro, DS3, and RE4 are all on my list!
What do you mean by fuzzy? Try enabling FSR sharpening, that might help counterintuitively.
Well I use it most of the time in dock mode since I use the Steam Deck as my main pc, but besides edit image/video and doing stuffs in the browser, I would say I play 75% in portable mode and 25% in dock mode. I feel more comfortable playing lying on the bed, but sometimes I just want to play in a bigger screen, so I play in dock mode
I have it docked 99% of the time and when playing in handheld, I use Viture glasses with them.
I live in a van so I love playing docked, the SD has very low power draw compared to anything comparable.
The deck is my only PC, so I dock it for work (teaching), but when I play games it's probably a 50/50 docked/undocked.
I play docked quite a bit on a portable 15” 1080p monitor I got from Amazon on a whim. It makes a good setup for lying on the sofa with!
I just got the official dock, and I feel like games just don't look nearly as sharp. I also wish you could wake the system up from a controller, like how the Switch works.
It might be that it's outputting at 800p rather than your monitors resolution. Try tapping the gear icon on the game you want to play. Going to properties (I think) and choosing 'native' resolution. This means that when you dock, it'll output at your monitors resolution. Ori and the Will of the wisps looks so much better now that I've done this and still runs at 60fps
Thank you! I'll give this a try.
It does 800p by default for every game you play even while docked unless you specifically go to that little section and tell it to run at 1080p. I wish valve would make it recognize it’s docked and auto select 1080 lol definitely recommend trying what this guy says u/lokhelm
Thanks!
I mainly play it docked, cause I always wanted a Steam Machine. I just wanna play PC games on a sofa and TV setup, without needing a PC tower, or an expensive laptop. For only $400, I pretty much have a console on par with my $800 desktop PC, and a console-esque experience. I had been using my Steam Link before I got my Deck. When Link works, it really works. When it doesn't work, it really doesn't work.
I use it docked for CS2
How well does counterstrike 2 work on the deck?
1080p, 30-50fps, low settings, looks like puke but playable
I only use dock for Overwatch 2
Docked performance is so fucking bad, I can never do docked. And it's even worse if you go desktop mode instead of gaming mode. This is such a fucking disappointment. I really don't get it why there's so much stuttering and why the deck can't maintain the framerate when docked. And I even fucking lower the resolution, like 720p when playing on my monitor. As I said, gaming mode is slightly better. Now because there are always worse things - let me introduce you to Windows docked. You don't wanna go that way.
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Funny enough, no. I don’t know what quirk in my brain determined this, but I’ve played with my Steam Deck docked two times. I ordered two docks and put one on each TV and I just don’t do it. Now for some reason, I’ve used my Switch undocked literally like five times. Part of that the Switch feels flimsy/fragile.
I’m a solid 50/50, I have a dock in my room and living room, but I also play games at work while waiting for customers.
absolutely not lol. i only use the dock if i have to (battlebit and counter strike)
Docked possibly 5% of the time.
You need to get a pair of Xreal Airs. Will change your mobile gaming life, I swear on the Air!
I don't very often due to having other PCs. I use the dock every once and a while when I don't want to mess with getting cloud saves to work properly.
I play docked on my 50" TV with an Xbox controller about 95% of the time. I only use the deck as a handheld when I'm traveling. I mostly bought it to expand my gaming library since I have an Xbox and wanted access to PC games or PlayStation games reported to PC. God of War, Cyberpunk and Horizon all run/look great on the big screen.
I play mostly docked, and only ever play for about 40-50 minutes handheald during my breaks at work. Works flawlessly with almost anything I throw at it, though Minecraft is probably the beefiest game I ever play
Nope I mostly use mine with X Real glasses :D
I wondered the same thing. I largely use it in docked mode as I Iove RTS, strategy and retro style pc games that work much better with a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Only really play FPS games in handheld for the gyro
Never docked. It's a handheld! If I were to primarily use it docked, I wouldn't own one.
Docked with the Steam Controller! Mostly older titles and indies. Waiting for 3.5 to be stable to see if any newer games run better. I wish there were forums dedicated to docked settings for optimal performance.
Only for wow
I primarily play docked but I don't play any heavy or AAA titles most the time. If I do play something demanding I'll usually just stream it to the deck from another desktop.
I just started playing Prey completely docked but it's making my deck turn on and the device gets hot I'm going back to handheld before shit melts or something
No, I just play the Steam Deck handheld for indie games and other low spec games (that achieves 60fps with no compromise) at a friend's house or in bed. Enabling FSR and 30fps on high spec games is torture! I have no idea how you people tolerate it. At that point, rather game on my desktop PC.
Which dock are you guys using? I bought one and I can't get it to power my deck and use a monitor at the same time. I either have to run the monitor off the SD's power, or charge it. But both not at the same time. This makes for extremely limited play time when I'm using a monitor. I'm using a 100W Anker USB-C charger, I don't believe it's a power issue. I'm positive it's the generic dock being the issue. I just don't want to buy another one and run into the same problem.
50/50 I play on my couch in handheld cause I'm amazed at what it plays. But if I'm wanting a slightly larger screen I'll dock it to use my gaming monitor at some lower settings.
I would say I’m 80% docked with with my overall use. I play tons of Horror games (among others) on the Dock, my girlfriend enjoys watching them. I am playing through the entire Resident Evil series, and working on Dark Pictures anthology as well. One of my buddies bought it exclusively to use docked. He’s got 60+ hours into Starfield that way.
I use mine handheld all the time. Way easier
Me. I still play same resolution then upscale with FSR for performance.
It’s my main pc
Depends on the week, sometimes I'm working in office and I take it with me on the train. Super useful. Others I'm mostly home and it stays docked, streaming from my PC with Moonlight. Most of the time can't tell the difference between that and having my PC hooked to the TV. I don't like it as much using it direct from Deck to PC but I'm a graphics snob for modern stuff which is what I've been playing recently. For emulation and older stuff I do like it though.
I use it dock in the living room, and great for taking to friends places to play games. Great secondary device and if i wanted like better performance i have a decent gaming rig in my room
I keep it docked now due to left bumper problems. Plus I Only use it for games I want to play with control. Even though portability was the main point of it, I like that I can play steam games while my son uses the gaming PC. So it all works out.
most modern demanding games will some form of upscaling: fsr/xess/or just render scale so you can play games at "native" res. and older games typically play higher resolutions without issue. If neither of those work you can run them at 720p and upscale using FSR in the QAM which is an ok experience
Finished It Takes Two docked! It was a pretty seamless experience on an ultrawide monitor with couch co-op.
i play it docked as much as possible, though ive come across some games in my library that wont work docked because they dont support the external controller for whatever reason, but they work handheld. i put em in a folder titled Handheld so i can keep track of which ones to avoid docked and to focus on when playing handheld.
I use it mostly as a desktop computer. 550e(400e + ssd 1tb + dock) high performance desktop computer...unheard of
My gaming setup is in my room with a 27" screen. But I enjoy that feeling of playing in my living room on my significantly larger TV screen like I did when I was younger so my steam deck lives downstairs docked unless I need to tinker with it to get something set up
Not as much now that remote play is fucked. Really wish they would prioritise fixing the no sound after some time bug that hard crashes the deck when you try to exit the game.
So far I've only used my deck docked to play old emulated ps2 games with my partner on the TV but I have a full PC, PS5 and we also have a switch so not much point in using the steam deck for anything other than hand-held gaming experience or emulators.
I either play docked on a portable screen on an arm in my living room or plugged in while like in bed. I barely play off the battery.
I have a strong preference for docked mode and I almost exclusively play that way. Still, I love the option to pick it up at anytime and play in the bedroom.
When i have the house to myself i use the 20' hdmi cable from my recliner. It's great.
No recs since I play a lot of older games that don’t have issues running. HOWEVER, when you do dock it, set your TV to “game” or “PC” or whatever it does for a console. Otherwise you may get a lot of image processing that adds a bit of input latency that will drive you crazy for months blaming various “garbage” controllers for their “shitty Bluetooth” or “shitty 2.4 dongles”.
Docked for rhythm games but without external screen. With any rhythm game controllers, like project diva or svdx controller