One of my favorite small ROM hacks is one that lets you press L/R to cycle through items in Link to the Past without opening the pause menu. SNES had those buttons, but they weren’t used in the game and it feels like such a natural feature.
I use my ROG Ally as both an everyday PC and as a handheld. I bought 2 cheap docking stations. One connected to my PC monitor and second connected to my TV. Small games I play in handheld mode, strategy games on my PC monitor and AAA games on my 65" OLED TV
I sold my Lenovo yoga pro 7 laptop and now run Ally X as a desktop setup docked to UWQHD / kB+m and as a handheld / docked gaming device. Been a fantastic experience.
bro i enjoy these videos. although I have to break the hour+ videos into 3-4 watchings, i still make it a point to watch the entire thing. it brightens my day and somehow reminds me why i enjoy gaming so much as an extremely busy adult like you guys. congrats on the grandbaby bill. love your channel too russ. former Marine myself brother. and just discovered rich's channel too on youtube. he will definitely reach 100k in the blink of an eye. thx guys. bill... stay rad! 😁
I just upgraded to an Ally X from og Ally and was a former steamdeck user before that . The difference between the former devices and the Ally X is incredible. It’s pricey sure but it has replaced everything I own . The series X Switch Oled and Ps5 I own are now going to market and I couldn’t be happier.
I've been daily driving Ally X as my main pc the psst week. Sold a 7735hs yoga 7 pro. Couldn't be happier. Dock to a UWQHD for daily tasks, can game there with a controller or undock to play handheld. Plan to buy a TV in the future and dock to that as well, possibly with a cheaper GPU in a eGPU. Ally X is amazing and the Ally 2 will probably be incredible.
I'm gonna speak as someone who only has the steam deck to game and nothing more: the windows drivers for the steam deck oled were a godsend! Windows is not as intuitive but as someone who's been PC gaming my entire life i don't mind, and using windows i can do a more more than gaming with it now. The thing people tend to forget is: once you fire up a game you won't (usually) remember if it's windows or steam OS. Also dual boot existing means you can have the best of both worlds. For anyone interested i didn't find any performance or battery regression after jumping to windows on my oled deck.
other comments state no hardware acceleration on windows with steamdeck, which sounds terrible? I just ordered my steamdeck and first time i heard about this. kind of wierd no reviewer mentioned this
Problem with Windows on Deck since day one: No Hardware acceleration. I Love to Stream my Games from my PC to the Deck. Without Hardware decode the Performance is so Bad. Deal breaker for me
My Steam library consists of more graphically demanding, and my library of games on GOG is older, less demanding, which is perfect for handheld hardware. So, Ally X is for me.
FFXVI has indeed some issues actually on Linux, but the Mesa team already fixed it and the fix will probably be deployed before the full release of the game.
I wonder how many people JUST have a Steam Deck. No Switch, no Xbox, PS4/PS5, no gaming PC, no other Handheld PC… if I only had my LCD Deck, then I might strongly consider compromising the heck out of it by putting Windows on it.
Asus lost me as a customer so i have no interest in the Ally, but If Lenovo releases a smaller, much smaller, Legion GO i'd buy it and put Linux on it in an instant. Otherwise the deck is fine for me.
Russ hit the nail on the head with not bothering putting Windows on Deck because he has access to other devices. Most of my frustration, and that of many others I've seen in posts and comments, is that we don't. These devices are not cheap, and many don't have the disposable income to have multiple variants to fill various niches. I bought my Deck like a year after launch with posts from Steam and elsewhere making it sound like dual boot and more complete Windows support was 'imminent'. It was not, obviously. It's been 2 1/2 years and we still barely have Windows drivers, which themselves are barely if ever updated. 3rd party dual boot is janky at best, and alternatives are equally janky and/or poorly supported (Moonlight no longer works natively with the new Nvidia drivers on the host PC, you have to install yet more 3rd party software). I understand that me having access to my Game Pass games does not help Steams business model, but I'm not the one that promised Windows/Dual Boot support. Picked up my Ally X last week. Unless it catches on fire or tries to eat one of my kids, the Deck will be going up for sale once the return window is closed on the Ally. Only one of them can play literally all my games, not just 'some' games from one service with having to resort to hackjobs to make any other service or games run (which often get broken regularly and require fixing). I love my deck for non-AAA Steam games and retro emulation, but that's not enough.
The only reason for me could be LOSSLESS SCALING & FRAME GEN X2, X4. Its game changer. Its basically like buying a new GPU for $6. It extends the lifespan of the Steam deck
Overjump Rally or DDI Rally Championship are the two current Sega Rally remakes I know about on Steam, DDi is available on early access however Overjump looks further in development but is not available yet.
I have no desire to install Windows internally on the Deck, but I’d like to do so with a Genki SavePoint so I have access Century: Age of Ashes, but also so I can use iTunes to manage my iDevices, since the Deck will be the most powerful computer I own real soon.
Also, dying light was quite a fun split screen zombie game, I'll be interested to see what the new one is, as far as split screen campaign with a friend
As someone who plays Divinity Original Sin2 all the time, there is no dice rolling aspect in that game at all. Baulders Gate 3 is probably what he meant
Regarding wanting a console experience and settings from desktop getting synced to handheld... I actually had the same happen on Xbox in a way. I think it was Forza horizon 4, I played it on my pc on an ultrawide monitor and the game lets you move the ui inward a bit so it's not displayed all the way on the edge of this really wide monitor... Switched to Xbox and I at first couldn't figure out why I had so much trouble driving until I realized those ui elements were moved inward the same percentage. I couldn't properly see into corners. And that setting is not even available on Xbox... Had to quit, go to pc and start the game there, change settings back, quit, wait for sync again to fix it. So, yeah, it really IS a console experience 😂
Daytona on Dreamcast was ported by a 3rd party. It’s well known that you have to tweak the control settings to fix it. Still isn’t perfect. You’re much better off playing Daytona on the model 2 emulator or Xbox 360 version
What Windows needs to compete with SteamOS in terms of handheld usability is an an entirely separate front end equivalent game mode and not just an added layer, where 80% of Windows shuts the F up and only the essentials are operational. Windows is a mess behind the UI and is a constant busybody doing so many things in the background calling services and features that are irrelevant to the user's session, a trimmed windows is an amazing and snappy experience. But we all know Microsoft will never do that what with their new direction of telemetry and pestering to try their products with frequent reminders with no way to opt out on some. This coming from a person who drove pre-windows (dos) as their main machine since childhood to the monstrosity that is W11
Something I think is so often overlooked WRT windows gaming on deck is how easy using something like Moonlight/Sunshine is. For me at least, I'm playing the deck at home 99% of the time, so in home streaming from my PC is easy and also means I can run games at higher settings. Sure, moonlight can be finicky from time to time, but backing out of the stream and reconnecting on occasion is orders of magnitude less difficult than installing and running a windows partition / windows 100% of the time.
I was having the same graphical issues on my Ally X running Bazzite. I have a dual boot setup so I'll try on windows next to see if the same thing happens.
This also happens on Steam Deck hardware too. Sometimes it works just fine. But the other times, the Wifi signal can be really wonky even the hardware is right next to the router. There are few times that it cannot detect Wifi at all. There is even once that I encountered very low internet speed even the Wifi signal maxes out and I have to reboot to fix that. But even I perform the reboot, it doesn't always work with every reboot and it's basically RNG heavy. I have once encountered three reboot attempts in a row just to make the Wifi signal normal which took me around 5 minutes. But as far as using the internet on Steam Deck under normal situation, no problem for me and I didn't encounter any Wifi signal drop once. Only waking up the Deck from sleep or turning it on can trigger the wonky Wifi signal lol
Michael have you tried SteamFork on the AYANEO Air? I've found that it works better with AYANEO devices, probably because the devs are really focusing on those handhelds.
windows just sucks on a tiny screen. that's why i have a gaming pc with an amazing monitor. which i rarely use over the steam deck. i'm not messing with perfection as a handheld steam os is as perfect as can be . if i wanna play a game on windows or something i can only do on windows i use my pc which was built for it
I use ROG Ally as my everyday PC and handheld. I bought 2 cheap docking stations: one connected to my PC monitor and second connected to my OLED TV. I can disconnect it from one screen and connect it to the other in less than a second. It's a great experience because some games look good on a 7", some on a 24", and some on a 65" OLED. Best PC I've ever had
@@MajesticBowler Ignore the Deck fanboys-they'll find every excuse to justify their purchase. They say they’d rather play games on their PC for those that don’t work on the Deck, but they overlook that you can dock your Ally to a TV or monitor, turning it into a personal desktop, console, and handheld all in one. The Ally can play all games. They complain about the Ally X being too expensive, even though having both a desktop and a Deck is more expensive than having just one device.
Games that cloud sync settings totally break the concept of jumping between the PC and handled. Steam should AT LEAST make it a requirement for being "verified" that it don't sync settings.
I picked up my steam deck OLED because this group of RU-vid reviewers. Love your reviews. I tried the MSI claw ultra 7 on sale for $600 and sent it back after playing around with all of the current handholds except for the Ally x I really think the OLED steam deck and the legion go are the best two options at least for size form factors and use case of mine. The other's screens are just too small and the performance cane from the others are not all that great. Considering the price jump, I would end up with a legion go 2tb if I had caught it on sale for $650 from micro center
Thanx for the show! Well more and more my steam deck becomes my main gaming plattform. But for a sony boy/man/dude. Do you guys now if there is more games that have settings for what input device you use? Booted up Dave the diver, and found that I could change it to playstation, kontroller. So I could se the right Buttons in the game. I do love steam input. But if I can have my square triangel circle or X like I have on my ps kontroller. It whould feel better for me. And yeah I am hyped for borderlands 4! Playing through all the games right now. Pandora box purchased on steam.
@@waynewonder27 agreed. I use my steamdeck docked all the time. If I had an actual good other computer I probably wouldn't have the need but the docked steamdeck experience is phenomenal and for games that can run on it work great competitively docked.
They were talking about how they use their handhelds, they were saying you shouldn't or couldn't. It's the same as how they talked about using windows on Steam Deck.
Playing competitive is fine on any device. But to compete with the top, that runs these resolution and graphics settings on 300fps or higher is unrealistic. Even on 4k those same people play 160fps or higher.
Audio works. You just have to use Device manager to install the drivers.. Ive got it partitionedto duel boot. i kinda like having the option but steam is by far the better of the two.
I use my Steam Deck old to play outside, in cafe etc. the screen is bright enough. All right, problems in the beginning, not used to them, being a console guy. Company of Heroes series play wonderfully, in sun, GT5 is really bright. With Company of heroes 3 I can play for 5 hrs with full brightness. Wifi works automatically , only gripe is I can not connect my AirPods pro2 The screen is great, internet and RU-vid are easy to use. in the sun.
It’s would be nice to have windows on it in a duel boot because I still can’t for the life of me figure out how to add mods to my games mostly for farming simulator 22 and the up coming farming simulator 25 I know how to do it on windows so that’s why I’m interested in it
Why don't they put something like xbox os on these windows handhelds? Okay, it's not like having a full computer in your hand, but maybe what you gain is more than what you lost.
I can’t believe we have Xbox (which is owned by Microsoft) not offer a version of an Xbox where just like the steam deck, I can switch to desktop and get a full Windows 11 experience. Fully building Xbox into windows will be the best experience ever and I would never want to own PlayStation again
The only reason why I wanted to install Windows on my deck, which I did successfully way back when the LCD first launched, was so that I could play Destiny 2 since it's incompatible with Linux due to Battle Eye, and that has still not been resolved to this day. But since then, watching this slow decline of Destiny 2, I've kind of lost interest in even that, so I kind of have no reason to install Windows at this point.
Custom roms can be great but you need to read the features of the rom you're installing. They usually tell you if something doesn't work in advance. It's ok to prefer iPhone. It's not OK to prefer iPhone because it doesn't let you break it as easily when your intent is to install something which clearly states it breaks it... Just saying. I don't like non-self driving cars because I once drove onto a wall doing 80... See how silly that sounds?
Final Fantasy 16 demo bothered me a lot. Going between smooth 120 fps gameplay to 30 fps cutscenes is jarring. And that sucks because there are so many scripted cutscenes. Bad design choice.
So, if I install windows on my steam deck..... Run Lossless Scaling.... I can get awesome performance in gaming, be able to play anti-cheat games, while being able to have a full fledged PC on the go Sounds like a Win, Win, Win scenario to me???
cryoutilities does help with when hitting that ram limit I had problem other games with ram limits, and yes next steam deck need 32gigs of rams or more how games are going this days, on the setting part if I remember valve asked devs not to do that don't use cloud save with the setting
I used to work as a service provider installer a while back and when I brought out my android phone to do stuff, people would say "hey, that phone looks really cool. I'm thinking about getting a smart phone." my question to them was "Are you a tinkerer?". If the response was "No". My response to them was...."Get an iPhone."
I tried Windows (10 and 11) on my Steam Deck LCD and it was NOT a good time. Some games wouldn’t even launch for me, and everything was very sluggish. Windows 11 on my ROG Ally X is much better, but I still installed a Bazzite partition because I prefer SteamOS. Overall - I don’t think Windows on Steam Deck is worth it. Maybe with the next gen - but currently - hard pass.
I would buy an Xbox if they let you dual boot Windows or Linux on it. Just having the Windows game store on there though? Nah that’s not enough to get me to drop $500. Ill just stick to PC and Switch.
41:55 | MH Rise is absolutely awesome. Really enjoyed my time with it on Deck. But if you try to get into MH without help Rise overwhelmes you with tutorial text in the beginning. Had a friend who was super confused at start and thought the game would be incredibly difficult. MH has an onboarding problem.
Even with the updated Nvidia drivers on my reasonably new PC the FFXVI demo runs like a turd. It's just a badly optimised game. Seemed like it was running out of vram occasionally on steamdeck on top of just not having enough gpu grunt to run it.
The average person already has a steam deck and want to play certain games and can’t afford a 2nd window device you guy’s acting like it’s blasphemy and the video is so negative
Wtf are you talking about? They straight up said that if they didn't have so many Windows handhelds they would think about putting Windows on the Deck. This is the second episode I've seen someone in the comments getting offended at the idea of these guys having multiple handhelds for the purpose of review. Grow up.
Average Steam Deck owner* I'm an average guy and only own an Ally and Ally X. Don't be hating on people who can afford or do have multiple devices. Some of us work hard for our toys.
Just set everything up on a monitor so that your Deck boots straight to Big Picture Mode when Windows loads. Install all your non Steam games to your Steam library. Then you basically have SteamOS handheld mode with all the extra games you want.
The average person is not a tinkerer that wants to futz around with stuff. You and all of us that are passionate about these things are the vocal minority. Average person buying a Steam Deck just wants to play their games out of the box that are Deck compatible. They aren’t going to install Windows and try to fix drivers. They aren’t even going to want to use Windows out of the box, even if it comes pre installed and everything works properly, because Windows on handheld sucks, and they bought a handheld so they intend to use it as a handheld at least some percentage of the time. That is why most all of the Windows handhelds have special extra software packages that help you use Windows in handheld mode. Normal people just want to sit down and play their games. They don’t want to configure anything. Yall acting like folks on a Linux forum. Someone new comes in and says “Hi I am new to this whole Linux thing and not a tech person but I have to use it for work, how can I create a new folder on the desktop?”. And your like “Oh, you need to open the terminal and type in the directory of the location you would like the folder and type in these commands. But I prefer the free and open source “Folder Creator Pro”, which you can install first by typing sudo apt get folder creator pro, but that will only work if you are on the right distro… please tell me you are on the right distro, which also happens to be my favorite and every other distro sucks” Nah dude. Thats not how average people operate. You living in a tech bubble. They should be told to click on the desktop and choose create new folder from the GUI. Thats all they want to deal with. Average people buying handhelds just want to boot into launcher and open a game. Average person is not buying a handheld game machine to have their server running on Docker in Windows run off of a mess of cables off their hand me down desk from grandma, going out to a 2011 Dell monitor. Which they can shut down and boot over to SteamOS which has their alternate online identity, games, and dark web content, with custom Steam keyboard layout running off a KVM switch. I know I called out at least one person, personally there 😂
