The first things you MUST do with your Steam Deck OLED

well whether you bought it for yourself or someone else got it for you the holidays have come and they've gone and you may have scored yourself a brand new steam deck I've been a steam deck user since day one and in that time I have learned a lot about this so here are seven things that I think you should do when you first get your steam deck olet just a heads up I recommend a few products in this video most of them are products that I've personally used and tested all of the links pinned below are going to be affiliate links I get a small Commission on any sales made by this I just wanted to give you guys a heads up on that number one is protect your investment see the steam deck is a great deal for what it is it's a handheld PC that can play pretty much any game in your library less the games that are made by Studios that actively fight against it it's a sweet deal but it's also not chump change $3.99 to start is fairly expensive for most folks after all so it would make sense to protect your investment and there's a myriad of ways that you can do that my first recommendation is a screen protector now there are some great options but my first choice here is a tempered glass offering from JX but you want to be careful there is a catch here if you've got a 1 tbte model then you're going to have the anti-glare screen if that's one of the reasons you paid extra for your steam deck you probably don't want to go with any old protector there are many options out there that will basically undo the anti-glare effect and that's quite undesirable for a lot of folks thankfully there are anti-glare options like this one but your screen is n the only consideration here for example you probably also want to protect the deck when you're on the go and the travel case that comes with it isn't really the best option especially if you've got a smaller backpack or have limited space that's why I really love the kill switch case and the travel cover it's convenient and it works with the OLED and LCD model there's also the mod case for steam deck this has a myriad of accessories and options if you're going to get a case like this I recommend the travel cover no matter what because it can simply snap on and protect the buttons triggers sticks and the screen and they're all protected in a much smaller form factor than the official case all right next up I recommend getting familiar with the performance menu we will start off easy here though now the steam deck oled's battery is much improved over its older brothers but there is some performance menu magic that you can do to stretch the extra battery life even further the first thing of note is the 40fps mode now for most games I found that setting the framel length slider to 40 FPS and just leaving it there is great most games won't have an issue with this cap at all and will actually run better on the deck limited to 40 FPS and thanks to the 90 HZ refresh rate on the OLED model screen we actually get better and more responsive gameplay in a lot of scenarios now if you encounter issues with this though you can tick this box here to use per game profiles and set it to 90 or 60 FPS s then that one game will be run at that setting while the rest should inherit the global settings now if you're planning on using a steam deck connected to a TV or an external display the next option is right up your alley scroll all the way down to the bottom of the performance menu and you should see an option called scaling filters now linear will do a quick scale that can result in uneven looking pixel sizes nearest uses the nearest neighbor algorithm but can end up looking a bit blurry FSR uses amd's Fidelity FX super resolution to scale and can result in some pretty great looking pictures depending on the source resolution and the game you're playing finally there's NIS which is the Nvidia image scaling option this is not to be confused with dlss now your Mage may vary here depending on how picky you are with upscaling artifacts and which game you're actually playing but depending on what resolution you're outputting to especially a 1080P or a 4K display your steam deck is not going to be able to render natively at that resolution for a lot of games so being familiar with these upscaling options is a huge benefit to you now if you want to connect your deck to an external display you're going to need something like the official docking station or another USB hub or a dock now I've got some product recommendations and they're all going to be pinned below next up let's talk about desktop mode now I know you probably bought a steam deck to play games but let me assure you that desktop mode is your friend here but just a quick note I found that when switching to desktop mode it is easier to use a mouse and keyboard via Bluetooth or a USB dongle but all of this is doable without these two accessories so first of all hit the steam button and go to the power icon then switch to desktop from here you'll be able to install multiple apps that will enhance your steam deck experience now in desktop mode the first thing I would do is install proton up QT now if you've got a game that doesn't quite seem to work right out of the box your best bet is to check out proton db.com and look at what other people are recommending to get the game working sometimes there's not much you're going to be able ble to do but other people might have solved some of the problems that you are experiencing if other people are able to get the game working using proton GE or another proton variant you're going to save yourself a lot of Heartache by installing proton up QT use this icon to launch the Discover store this is an app store of free software that comes from the community you can then use this to install any number of tools games or other apps completely for free in our case we're going to search for proton up QT here in the search bar and then install this guy now you can add a specific version of proton again reference the proton db.com entry for any game that you're having issues with and once we install it it'll be enabled in Steam then select the version you want and then once that's done downloading go back into game mode to get back to Game Mode click on for lack of a better word the start button here and then choose log out this will take you right back into game mode from here find the game in your library click the gear icon choose properties compatibility check the force specific compatibility toolbox and then choose the version of proton that you just installed problem solved now for my Retro Gaming friends mud is the all-in-one emulation tool that can save you a ton of time and configuration effort simply go to ud.com download the app and then run through the installer then copy over your ROMs now I've got an instructional video on how to do this up here once you've got your ROMs copied over run Steam ROM manager you can now click preview to scan your ROMs and then customize how your ROM look using these buttons and then once you're done you can add them to your non- steam game section by clicking this button then head back into steam and your ROMs should be launchable from your steam library but then did you know that you could actually perform software mods on the steam deck yeah there's actually an app called decky loader which allows you to install third party plugins in game mode it's really sick while in desktop mode go to Dei doxyz from there click downloads and run through the installation process now that is set up you can head back into game mode and hit the quick access button from here find the plug-in icon then choose the shop icon up here to launch the decky loader plugin store again these are free plugins that you can use to customize your deck and you can do a ton of neat things some of my favorites are including the proton DB ranking right in the game's library page being able to customize the art of the game in your library and so much more all right next up you're probably going to want to upgrade your storage in one way or another now if you're a digital hoarder like me copying over your ROM collection might mean you need more space that's why my next recommendation is to upgrade your storage now there are two ways to upgrade your steam deck the easy way and the hard way the easy way is to just use a Micro SD card there's a built-in slot here on the bottom and it's very straightforward so I've actually got two 1 TB SD cards here for my steam deck one of them is loaded to the brim with Steam games and the other is full of my ROMs and isos this is a great solution if you don't mind swapping out uh SD cards from time to time you'd probably want a way to manage SD cards if you don't already have one that's why the deck mate works great for this purpose it has two slots here that perfectly and securely fit your spare SD cards in and they're right there when you need to swap them out SD cards are also great because they're hot swappable just pop one out and then drop the other one into the steam deck and steam automatically detects and then reloads your library for you but but what if you want to upgrade your internal storage that's going to be a bit more involved you'll need to take your steam deck apart and swap out the M2 drive if you're going to do this do not forget to remove your SD card first if you forget to and you remove the back cover you'll rip the SD card right in half I've gone through this process of upgrading my internal storage a few months ago there's a link to the video here given that I have experienced servicing PCS and laptops this was a piece of cake for me honestly however I wouldn't recommend you do this yourself unless you're also comfortable with PC internals also valve says that you could die if you do it wrong so I guess here be dragons okay my next recommendation is leveling up your charging the steam deck comes with a charger a couple of years ago that might not have seemed like such a novelty uh but it is really nice to have especially because regular old charging bricks just won't do with the steam deck the deck needs a 45 W charger to juice up the battery while playing and this guy works really well however despite the OLED models charger coming with a longer cable it's built in it's physically attached and can't be separated and I just can't stand that I I it means that I can't swap out the cable for one that I own uh and that's why I bought this anchor charger and a 10t 100 W charging cable I've been extremely satisfied with this purchase because it reaches pretty much our entire sofa so no matter where Emily and I are sitting we can charge our decks with no issue all right lastly I recommend discovering your backlog I've made no bones about it the steam deck has fundamentally changed my relationship with gaming honestly it's been a transformative experience the deck has untethered my steam library from my desk where I spend all day every day working and that means that I can game in comfort in the living room with Emily and we can have a show or a YouTube video going on in the background but it also means that I have more time for games so I can go back into my library try different games that I've never gotten around to games that have come in a bundle or uh or titles that I bought and and never ended up playing which I'm ashamed to say has happened more than a few times we've all been there right so now we can clear out our growing backlog of games that we've never played and there's an easy way to do this go into your steam library and hit the Y button choose hours played scroll to the end of the list until you see the unplayed section these are games that you haven't even started playing yet you can also use the left and right triggers to navigate between the different sections take your pick and have fun and there you have it seven things that you can do with your brand new steam deck now if you've made it this far into the video make sure you like that smash button it's the best way to tell YouTube that you want to see more videos just like this you can also get subscribed to stay up to date with all the fun stuff that we're doing here on the channel thank you for watching don't forget to get subscribed and I'll see you next time

Channel: Gardiner Bryant

Views: 79,728

Keywords: linux, gaming, The Linux Gamer, steamos, gnu/linux, steam os, Gardiner Bryant, steam deck, jsaux, jsaux screen protector steam deck, dbrand killswitch, steam deck performance menu, steam deck max performance, steam deck max battery life, emudeck, protonup-qt, steam deck desktop mode, steam deck case, decky loader plugins, steam deck mods, steam deck charger, steam deck upgrade, steam deck storage upgrade, steam deck ssd, level up your steam deck, steam deck library filter

Id: fem_3f96BSQ

Length: 11min 27sec (687 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 26 2023