An NVMe solid-state drive is a must-have for expanding the storage space of your PC gaming handheld, whether you own a Steam Deck or the ASUS ROG Ally.
The Steam Deck can play more than steam games. I usually keep about 30-40 Steam games installed, but most are really light little games for casual play with just a couple of large AAA games at any given time.
But outside of Steam, the Deck can emulate up to PS3 and Switch games. And theres not really a good cloud-based solution without having to switch into Desktop mode. So I have my usually about a dozen PS2 games, one or two PS3 games, and my whole PS1 library on the Deck. Then every couple months I’ll go into Desktop mode and delete what I’ve beat and copy over new games from my gaming PC.
I’m also not a dock user. Maybe I would be if I didn’t have a gaming PC, but for me the point of using the Deck is to not be attached to anything. Otherwise an external HDD might help. I’m thinking about eventually building a NAS: I’m not sure if I could have games live there and still playable on the deck though?
While I definitely allegedly have more roms and isos on my deck than I am likely to play in any reasonable time frame:
There are a LOT of really bad guides for the deck out there that encourage people to install ninety bazillian pieces of software to transfer a file. Look in to just learning how ssh and scp/rsync work. Lets you manage all the files and the like from your primary PC while your deck is just turned on and charging. And WSL for Windows 10/11 means you don’t even need any “new” software on windows (let alone an OS with a native *nix component).
I use nextcloud to sync game saves because that is a rare enough occurrence and I use a local nextcloud for other stuff on my network. But for games and even a lot of updates? Just turn the deck on and then go to my main PC. And if my nextcloud ever borks itself for the umpteenth time? I could whip up an rsync script that checks if the deck is on and on my network and synchronize saves if so (and then just set it to run once an hour).
Ah I’ve looked into such things before and everything I found started with installing tons of extra software to customize the “gaming mode” UI first. So I landed on just using SMB. I tried adding Dolphin (the file browser, not the emulator) as a non-Steam game but it didn’t work on gaming mode. When I was younger and broker such software solutions were more attractive. A larger internal SSD is the more expensive, but also much simpler and more elegant solution for me. I DO wish there were more basic utilities like a file browser built into the gaming mode OS. And for all I know maybe Valve is looking into that.
Also I use SyncThing to sync my saves: I like how it’s all just stored locally and works on Windows, Linux, and Android. And it works pretty well as a non-Steam game in gaming mode on the Deck.
Yeah. ssh and rsync are built into linux (effectively). The difference is that you use those commands from a different computer. Default to the terminal in Mac and basically all flavors of Linux. Requires WSL for Windows (although I think powershell has equivalent commands).
So rather than switch to desktop mode on the deck and possibly installing ninety other things, you just leave it on and then type a few commands on your primary PC.
The Steam Deck can play more than steam games. I usually keep about 30-40 Steam games installed, but most are really light little games for casual play with just a couple of large AAA games at any given time.
But outside of Steam, the Deck can emulate up to PS3 and Switch games. And theres not really a good cloud-based solution without having to switch into Desktop mode. So I have my usually about a dozen PS2 games, one or two PS3 games, and my whole PS1 library on the Deck. Then every couple months I’ll go into Desktop mode and delete what I’ve beat and copy over new games from my gaming PC.
I’m also not a dock user. Maybe I would be if I didn’t have a gaming PC, but for me the point of using the Deck is to not be attached to anything. Otherwise an external HDD might help. I’m thinking about eventually building a NAS: I’m not sure if I could have games live there and still playable on the deck though?
While I definitely allegedly have more roms and isos on my deck than I am likely to play in any reasonable time frame:
There are a LOT of really bad guides for the deck out there that encourage people to install ninety bazillian pieces of software to transfer a file. Look in to just learning how
sshandscp/rsyncwork. Lets you manage all the files and the like from your primary PC while your deck is just turned on and charging. And WSL for Windows 10/11 means you don’t even need any “new” software on windows (let alone an OS with a native *nix component).I use nextcloud to sync game saves because that is a rare enough occurrence and I use a local nextcloud for other stuff on my network. But for games and even a lot of updates? Just turn the deck on and then go to my main PC. And if my nextcloud ever borks itself for the umpteenth time? I could whip up an
rsyncscript that checks if the deck is on and on my network and synchronize saves if so (and then just set it to run once an hour).Ah I’ve looked into such things before and everything I found started with installing tons of extra software to customize the “gaming mode” UI first. So I landed on just using SMB. I tried adding Dolphin (the file browser, not the emulator) as a non-Steam game but it didn’t work on gaming mode. When I was younger and broker such software solutions were more attractive. A larger internal SSD is the more expensive, but also much simpler and more elegant solution for me. I DO wish there were more basic utilities like a file browser built into the gaming mode OS. And for all I know maybe Valve is looking into that.
Also I use SyncThing to sync my saves: I like how it’s all just stored locally and works on Windows, Linux, and Android. And it works pretty well as a non-Steam game in gaming mode on the Deck.
Yeah.
sshandrsyncare built into linux (effectively). The difference is that you use those commands from a different computer. Default to the terminal in Mac and basically all flavors of Linux. Requires WSL for Windows (although I think powershell has equivalent commands).So rather than switch to desktop mode on the deck and possibly installing ninety other things, you just leave it on and then type a few commands on your primary PC.