Weird question probably but here goes :
I’m discovering the joy of having a Dock, it’s great!
But what’s even better is I can just get my PC to stream more powerful games to my Deck (that the Deck would otherwise struggle with)
It works flawlessly (zero input delay, or rather not noticeable), better than Steam Link / Remote Play (I get input delay on this), and I haven’t tried Moonlight
It’s also so much more convenient than moving my PC to the living room (where the TV is) and plugging it there!
So I’m like wow Order of the Sinking Star is awesome, but what if I played games that my Deck sometimes has trouble with? Like I could run Witcher 3 Remastered with some better settings!
So I guess I’m not asking for great Steam Deck games, it’s more like, what are games that my PC could run that feel great on controller, that I would stream to my Docked Deck?
Thanks!!
Well, the new version of WoW (forever) is coming out soon and it has native controller support. It’s got more horizontal progression so you can play at a slower pace without being left behind. I’m going back after many years away… I’ve been thinking about some way to play it on the TV (3 floors lower than the PC…). I see folks playing the beta on the Steam deck but with just the dock you wouldn’t get more than 1080p medium settings, so this is very interesting information. My house has separate WiFi access points linked by ethernet over coaxial.
If the PC is close enough, wouldn’t it be better to just plug the TV in as a second monitor?
That’s my main issue it’s in another room 10 meters away
Not answering your question, but related: I mostly use my Steam Deck with a dock, TV, and controller. The only issue I’ve really had is that it doesn’t always run the fan as needed, and then the CPU will throttle when it gets too hot - with more demanding games. It happened a lot with Diablo IV and more recently with Need for Speed Heat or Palworld, less so with games like Stardew Valley, Casette Beasts or Pizza Possum. I bought an external fan that forces it to cool (https://jsaux.com/products/fan-cooler-for-steam-deck-gp0200) and haven’t had any throttling issues since. The noise is a little annoying sometimes though.
Answering your question: the above listed games are fun, and easily played with a controller.
That’s very interesting, I have basically the opposite of you: my Deck will turn fans on at any chance so after a while it gets annoying sound wise, I never really looked at the fan curves but I should really do that
This is my exact setup at the moment. I’ve been playing a bunch of Rogue Driving, Elite Dangerous and Succubus Successor: Delilah’s Juicy Journey.
I completely forgot about Elite Dangerous, it sounds perfect for it
The answer is really just any game that is well suited to controller + TV. The aspect of streaming to the Deck is largely irrelevant since, as you mentioned, the experience feels so close to native.
I used this type of setup to pkay Harold Halibut, the Quantic Dream games (Detroit, Beyond Two Souls, Heavy Rain), Elden Ring (+ other soulsborne), and anything else that doesn’t run at its full potential directly on the Deck.
Harold Halibut takes up a shocking amount of hard drive space and uses an inordinate amount of resources for what it is.
Maybe it’s poor optimization, or maybe that’s just how it has to be if you’re going to do actual, real, stop motion for everything.
But goddamn
Youre right I realize I tend to try and give too much context sometimes lol, thanks for the list!!
Here’s a suggestion that doesn’t even begin to address your question, have you considered a long HDMI cable to connect your TV in your lounge to your PC directly? Best of both worlds, comfortable seat in front of the TV, no input delay, play anything your PC can handle without middlemaning through the deck.
No that’s a great idea, and I agree that would be ideal ; the only problem is that the layout of the place doesn’t really work, lemme do a quick floor plan on paint
idk if attaching an hdmi cable to the ceiling would work
Hello I do not have answers for you, I just want to say I find your illustrations delightful
Haha thank you! I love playing around with paint
If you measure it and it is less than 10m (the physical limit of hdmi without a repeater) then you might consider a floor cable canal. They usually come in a variety of colors, don’t require adheisive or screwing and are just simple things to keep people from tripping on cables
I have one of these on a doorway, to connect a pc to a tv and it works good enough
Didn’t think of a cable canal at all, and there’s a doorway along the wall perpendicular to the TV so it would fit nicely there, I’ll think about it thanks!
By the way just because the official limit for HDMI is 10m, that doesn’t mean that a longer cable can’t work. I’ve been running a projector for decades, which was connected with a15m cable for literal decades. It might work, it might not, you’ll know when you try.
Usually the link either works or it doesn’t. The picture doesn’t get bad. It’s a digital signal, it either gets decoded correctly or not. In rare edge cases you might get a signal to drop occasionally though if it’s too long.
I played borderlands 4 with exactly the setup in the post with a wifi 6 router and while the latency was noticable it wasn’t enough to make borderlands unplayable.
Fiber optic hdmi cable works well over long ranges. To secure cable I just got some cheap plastic clips with adhesive, since I didn’t feel like drilling holes.
Could you swap the tv and seating so the tv is on the same wall as computer?
The cat 5e / cat 6 hdmi adapters are incredibly cool! If you can run above, below, or around this would be a great solution too.
(Please don’t run wiring under carpet for everyone’s safety).*Yes, I know HDMI is low voltage, but I’d rather people takeaway the “don’t do this” vs. the nuanced risk.
Have you considered a projector? Just saying, I’ve got one recently, and your floor plan seems ideal for that. Also, as a bonus point, you may have a much bigger screen, for fully immersive experience.
Yeah I think a projector will be a long term goal, I’d love to have a clean wall instead of the black tv square
oof, 10m is the limit of what hdmi can do without degrading. you’d need a repeater.your current setup is probably better unless moving the pc to the tv is an option.
I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XVI like this and it’s been perfect. It just became Deck verified very recently but that’s a stretch.
This is the first time I’ve thought about this, but you’ve made me think I should try this games like Kao or Bubsy4D or even just R&C Rift Apart.
Currently using sunshine/moonlight to my Rog Ally for Dawnwalker. I also use my Xbox with moonlight to stream occasionally. Just about any Unreal engine game runs rough on handhelds due to stuttering, so I use my desktop and stream it. The vast majority of the games I play work great with a controller.
I use Moonlight on my Xbox, and have run a USB extension cable down to the TV from my PC for the Steam Controller puck, so I can have minimal input lag. 😁
The new star Wars racer would probably be dope, or one of the Redout games. You could see if Elden Ring will run with the full graphics instead of the fog version it usually plays at on the deck.
When I was injured civ 6 on a controller was a great time to just sit and play and enjoy.
Oooh I didn’t think the controls would translate well but I’ll try it out, thanks for the rec!!
Oh I just realized that was with the original steam controller with one touchpad acting as mouse!
The touch pads are important! But steam’s controller support is actually incredible and you can play with any controller given you fiddle with it enough.
All good thanks for the followup!
edit: These run natively, I misread your post. Apologies.
Vampire Survivors
Slay the Spire
Children of Morta
Dead Cells
Don’t those run natively on the Deck just fine? No need to stream from a PC. OP is asking about heavier games.
Yes, sorry, I completely misread.
Your TV might have the Steam Link app meaning you could stream directly without needing the deck in the loop. If the TV is connected via Ethernet then latency would be even better.
In my time I have found that as long as the game isn’t terrible controls, and isn’t extremely latency dependent (you could try enabling Pyrowave codec in steams streaming or try Sunshine to bypass steams streaming) then the real limitation is being able to see the menus from the couch! Lots of modern games get this right, especially if they already have console ports, but sometimes you just can’t read the stinking menus!
Never heard of it but i’m gonna look it up, thank you!
I was in your position. I have to say the ideal solution has been: I just put Bazzite on my PC and moved it to the lounge as a console PC. No streaming required.
If you’re a first person shooter pro then you might want the PC at the desk for KB+M control. Otherwise for other games (like strategy games) it is better to stream from lounge to PC for those few games and have the native PC experience with the TV.
I mostly use my desk PC for work, and any cheap old PC can do this. I got a basic mini PC workstation pretty cheap, and this OS actually good enough to play most indie and emulated games natively at 144 FPS anyway. Something even older and cheaper would be perfectly fine for my workstation needs.
