Should You Buy The Steam Deck OLED For Emulation?

so recently I was spending quite a lot of time longingly looking at the steam Deck Store page hoping that one might magically pop into existence unfortunately that didn't happen so I had to commit to buying one instead fast forward a little while and I've now been the proud owner of a steam deck OLED for a couple of months and honestly it's deserving of the hype the fact that a handheld is capable of running a lot of modern high-end games this level of quality is absolutely crazy but something I wasn't really expecting was how much I was going to be using this as an emulation device so if you're like I was and you kind of on the fence about getting a steam deck let me talk you through what you can achieve when it comes to Retro Game emulation with this and what the advantages of using this are over the many many smaller more pocketable devices on the market if you're a fan of the steam deck in its awesome portability then check out our book at handheld history which not only covers retr portable systems but even brings you up to the present day with the rise of handheld PCS it's available on Amazon and in retail stores so check it out if you're looking for a new gaming book to add to your shelf now when you first get your deck it obviously isn't capable of running any games from any systems other than the PC luckily it's a super easy process to set up emulators and get started though thanks to a piece of software called muud this allows you to very easily install basically every emulator you need to play any retro systems on your steam deck and even autoc configures them to their optimal settings based on the deck's Hardware it also guides you through the process of transferring your ROM files and gives you access to several extras like whether you want the autosave feature bezel artwork and what your preferred aspect ratio is I would highly recommend that you get a Micro SD card to put all of your ROMs onto because it keeps keeps everything organized with your steam files being completely separate from your emulation files and that way you won't be taking up any space on your deck SSD now if you did want to go into the individual emulators and adjust advanced settings yourself you can still do that by launching the emulator through desktop mode or by accessing the quick menu during gaml but for the most part you probably aren't going to need to do this because UDC does such a good job setting everything up I think the only system I dramatic altered in any way was with the PS2 emulator where the default resolution was set to Native so I increased this to a two times upscale just to get things looking a little bit nicer the other thing to bear in mind is that in order to actually transfer ROM's tier steam deck you're going to need an additional storage device like a USB drive with both a USB C and A output or have access to a steam deck dock to plug in any standard USB storage this is because the micro SD card inside the deck will be formatted and become unreadable by a Windows PC meaning that you'll need a separate device to act as a middleman between your PC where your rums are stored and the steam deck itself of course this only applies if you are actually transferring files between a PC and the steam deck but I'm assuming that that's what most people will be doing even with this slight hurdle though this is still by far the most streamlined and user friendly experience that I've ever had with emulation and the fact that mu deck just downloads and configures everything for you makes it feel like this is something that the steam deck is actually supposed to be able to do officially this is going to make it so much easier for newcomers to be able to get into the emulation scene and I just think that that's awesome the last thing the muud will customize for you is the appearance of something called emulation station this is the other main piece of software you're going to want to familiarize yourself with because this is probably what you'll be launching through Steam to actually boot up your games I picked the modern theme for this because it was the most Sleek looking and kind of replicates the switch's minimal UI which gives it a more console like Vibe if you don't want to use emulation station to access your games you can actually create shortcuts for emulators or even individual games by launching muck and accessing the steam ROM manager personally though I like to keep things really minimal in my actual steam Library so I just have emulation station here and I my games through that the final annoyance with this process is that you'll probably find that with certain systems you're encountering some kind of error or limited functionality for example when you're play in a 3DS game sometimes it'll ask if you have a mi character available and of course you probably don't because by default you can't access the Mi maker on the emulator so you'll need to download the Mi maker as its own app and launch it as if it was a ROM however you'll probably then encounter a second issue where the M's face textures are missing and this is seemingly because the 3DS emulator doesn't automatically have all of the system files used for the 3DS default system apps so you'll need to Source these yourself transfer them over to the emulator folder manually and then finally you'll be able to make meis as much as you want there's a lot of little things like this which you'll probably need to work around to get the most out of the emulation for example PS3 emulation straight up won't work without a system up update file and certain DS PS1 and PS2 games will require a bios file to function it's unfortunate that some of these emulators aren't quite as simple as clicking on a game and having them work straight away but a lot of the time the reason for this is because of it technically being illegal to distribute certain system files online so for now there's very little that can actually be done to rectify this but now that we've finally got everything set up let's take a closer up look at how the steam deck is better than a lot of other emulation devices it would be a crime if we went any further in this video without talking about the quality of this screen because of the OLED display any games you're playing on here are really going to pop and this is easily the best looking display I've ever personally seen on a handheld device that's High Praise I know but it's just that impressive you've also got the added advantage of it being a massive 7.4 in which means it's easier to get immersed first and because the resolution is 1280x 800 which is an aspect ratio of 16x 10 you don't actually have as much of a black space on the sides of the screen when you playing 4x3 games as you would have with a 16x9 display you wouldn't think that this would make that much of a difference but playing non-widescreen games on the deck just looks phenomenal due to how well the space is being utilized another huge Advantage the steam deck has over literally every other handheld I've used is the fact it's so godamn comfortable it's got some weight to it so that it feels premium but not so much that it ever feels awkward to hold the grips on the back make it fit nicely in the hands and it has more inputs than you're ever realistically going to need you've got all of the standard buttons that a normal controller has but then on top of that you've got two track pads and four back paddles Which are extremely useful for emulator shortcuts allowing you to do stuff like quickly access save states swap displays on any dual screen systems fast forward or anything else you want to assign to them the trigger and shoulder buttons are stacked just like they would be on a full-sized controller and the triggers are even analog which makes them perfect for any games that use pressure sensitive inputs like Super Mario Sunshine and a lot of other GameCube games because you can also dock the steam deck to connect it to a bigger display and attach controllers to it it can basically act as a full-on Home console and it allows you to EAS easily dive into any multiplayer games too on the software side of things the deck has some functionality that I've never encountered on an emulation device before it's got specific controller profiles which you can view and modify for each of the main emulators and the performance overlays which you can bring up in standard PC games are also perfectly functional when emulating this gives you a much more seamless way of viewing your frame rate CPU usage and other statistics without having to go into the settings of each individual emulator little quality of life elements like this all add up and it makes the steam deck easily the single best emulation device I've ever used in terms of practicality it's just so much more streamlined and consistent than anything else I've ever encountered but now let's crack on with some game testing and see what the steam deck is capable of in terms of performance and what systems it's actually able to play as you're probably well aware any any systems up to in including the Dreamcast are going to not only run flawlessly but run upscaled Way Beyond their normal resolutions the steamex display is only 800p so upscaling beyond that is a little bit unnecessary but even going as high as that makes some of these older games look amazing and you really don't need to take them beyond that especially on a handheld Atari 2600 NES SNES N64 PS1 game boy Game Boy Advanced Dreamcast and any similarly powered consoles are going to run with no problems the more demanding systems from the sixth generation such as the PS2 and GameCube will also run perfectly even upscale to 720p PS2 games like Metal Gear Solid 3 Ratchet and Clank and Grand Theft Auto 3 performed exactly as they would on real Hardware on the GameCube side of things Super Mario Sunshine Mario Kart Double Dash and FZ GX all well performed with little to no hiccups everything was running like butter on a hot Summer's Day Wii games also ran great although because of the variety of controller types offered by this system it can require a bit more tinkering with different input profiles to get everything running as intended but with enough perseverance it once again Works incredibly well thanks to the steam deck's massive display and its touchscreen functionality DS and 3DS games play great here too 3DS could even be upscaled to a three times resolution and even demanding games like Super Mario 3D Land which normally struggles on other devices ran with only tiny occasional stutters but let's move beyond what we would normally test on handheld devices because the steam deck is even capable of playing PS3 and Wii U games PS3 emulation isn't quite at a stage where it's easy to get games function into the full potential but even so some games like demon souls and Ratchet and Clank tools of Destruction ran extremely well you can even apply patches to certain games which make them run at a higher frame rate than they did on the original hardware and doing that rarely brings these games up to a Modern Standard I was particularly impressed with the performance I was getting from Wii U games literally everything I tested ran almost flawlessly from Mario Kart 8 Wind Waker HD Super Mario 3D World and even breath of the wild although this particular game does require you to apply a frame rate hack from the main emulator menu to get the most out of it but the fact that the deck can play games from such a recently released system this well is absolutely crazy it really goes to show just how versatile the system is an area of the steam deck I was actually expecting to be disappointed by was the battery life I know a lot of other reviewers have complained about this quite a lot in the past and it seemed to be one of the only majorly negative things people were talking about however despite this bad reputation when it comes to battery life I was extremely happy with the results I was getting when emulating do bear in mind though that the battery life is better with the OLED model of the steam deck as opposed to the LCD models so this will vary depending on which version of the deck you have with a full charge of battery you can get between 9 to 10 hours out of games up to the PS1 and N64 for the PS2 and GameCube Cube era you can expect to get between 6 and 7 hours and for PS3 and Wii U you're looking at around 3 to 4 hours now personally I think that's some impressive battery life that's easily on par with if not better than a lot of the other handhelds that I've reviewed so would I recommend a steam deck for its emulation potential well if you've got this far in the video then you probably know that the answer is a resounding yes it's the single best handheld I've ever used for emulation and it blows practically every other device out of the water there's only really three reasons I can ever see myself using another device for emulation the first reason is if there's a handheld that's specifically suited to a particular system like with the PO Kitty rgb3 and it's Square screen which makes it great for Game Boy the second reason is if I needed something significantly smaller and more pocket friendly for if I'm traveling light and the third and final reason is if I wanted something that could play original cartridge like the analog pocket outside of those very specific situations though the steam deck is practically unbeatable the process of transferring the ROMs and doing the initial setup with additional files required for certain emulators is a bit cumbersome but this isn't the fault of the deck itself but the way that the emulators themselves function and even with those minor hurdles to overcome muud deck does an amazing job at automatically configuring things to suit the steam deck's hardware and this means that the amount of tinkering you need to do is always kept to as much of a minimum as it can be despite the overall focus of the steam deck clearly being on playing PC games it's hard to deny that it's easily one of the single best handhelds for emulation the display is huge and the colors are stunning thanks to the OLED screen it fits in your hands perfectly and is just as comfortable as using a proper controller all of the extra inputs with the touch panels and the back bumpers give the device so much additional functionality and the power on offer here allows the steam deck to go up to consoles Way Beyond most other handhelds the obvious barrier to entry is the price with the 1 tbte OLED model going for £569 or $649 which is an extremely expensive purchase but you can also go for the $349 or $399 256 gig LCD model which Knocks a massive chunk off of the price but obviously this does lack some of the fancier features of the OLED models whichever of these you're interested in I honestly think it's more than worth the price not only for the absolutely insane emulation capabilities but the fact it's also a full-on handheld PC which is capable of running games through Steam the amount of Versatility the steam deck offers is crazy and after 2 months of owning one I think this could be my favorite handheld device ever made but what do you think have you tried out emulation on the steam deck and if so were you as Blown Away by the results as me or has this video tempted you to try it out for the first time let me know as always give the video a like if you enjoyed it subscribe for more retro content coming very very soon check out a handheld history now available on Amazon and I've been robbed from retro dodo and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Retro Dodo

Views: 57,365

Keywords: steam deck, steam deck oled, emulator, emulation, steam deck emulation, steam deck emulation showcase, steam deck emulation gameplay, steam deck emulator, steam deck emulator setup, steam deck emulation guide, steam deck emulation review, steam deck emulation tutorial, steam deck snes, steam deck ps1, steam deck ps2, steam deck ps3, steam deck wii u, steam deck wii, steam deck gamecube, gameplay, steam deck review, steam deck emulation setup, steam deck emulator gameplay

Id: uQdIPhZV6hg

Length: 15min 54sec (954 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 10 2024