Right, let’s get started as I have confirmation my steam deck is packed and about to leave the USA to me I am getting myself ready for this end as I am hoping to get it before i travel to holiday home.
so first up I going to print the steam deck life saver as recommended from a video I watched on YouTube free to download here by LWC on printables.
Time for a quick 3+ hr print.
All printed still waiting for a tracking number from steam but on with the preparation. next up sorting out my roms for a steam deck build.
I am also going to do a separate build that’s bootable on the steam deck this will be housed on 256 sd card this will have 25 games on each system going to the best of the best. that will be worked on in the back ground. More about this at a later date..
Next i am going print a stand so over to thingiverse. and found a nice stand for just propping my machine up so this is a 13 hr print wish me luck. can be found here by ShaunDarkLord
Sliced and ready to print away it goes will check back in a few hrs. works on flat surfaces I don’t have to Meany as working on my deck on the couch. so don’t know how much use I will get out of this print.
The pre Packing my bag to go away
This is the down side to ordering a steam deck. GLS has my deck its meant to be coming parcel force yay at least i have some control of delivery by the Wednesday my order now got a GB multi courier this means Evri is delivering my deck argh no control no warning no way to change delivery dates…
any how let take my mind of thing and pre pack my bag.
Thursday get notification of parcel has been received by Evri. Friday morning get they got the package.Â
11:20 your parcel is out for delivery. Now on a normal Friday this would not be a problem. But this is not a normal Friday as we are going to our holiday home. at 3pm the parcel due time is between 4 and 6 pm eek.
 Wife is on call delaying us till 4 i have my son and have come home waiting for tumble dryer to finish now 5 packed the car time for a comfort brake before 3 hr 30 min drive just about to leave the house when the door bell rings its my package so straight in the boot with my bundle of joy,
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4hrs later time to play or Update and download.
I have arrived in wales and put my son to bed time to play. as I opened the brown box I am greeted with a happy message to plug the deck in and power on and so I did I then chose my language time zone and log in all going well sort of 60meg line Vs 600 Meg line in london. lots of updates and time to down load some games that take around a hour each when 40+ GB So not played a lot but all updated. have noticed a few silly things with the system. there is no way to sleep and download. there is a work around using screen dimming and leaving system on download page. as wont sleep. Note to self Elden rings probably wasn’t the best bet to down load first.
I also changed the sleep setting from 1 hr to 20 mins no way to change it back again this will probably change soon in a update.
So time to que all my games from the library leave it over night to download and install everything .Â
The next afternoon.
We had stuff to do at the house also dug out a i7 pc to upgrade in a future post as want a power house down in the work shop for streaming. more on that in a future blog and how to run ethernet out doors.
its working spent a fun few hours playing games i had downloaded off steam servers to my deck. so far blown away by the steam os and handling. of the games system. will post a video of game play soon just building something capable of streaming
but wait there’s more i can do that just play new games on time for some old school retro gaming as this will play pretty much anything.
added my life saver to the case works well and stops the deck falling out of the case. defiantly a must if you have a 3d printer. well until i invest in a tough case for it.
Adding Emu Deck
As for some one who loves retro gaming this is a must for me so over to desktop mode. the first thing your going to need to add in firefox as its not pre installed so open discovery and serch for it and install it.
I also looked for ProtonUP as this is proton GT a better version installed proton.
now Firefox installed go to emu deck website and download drag the emudeck.desktop file to the desktop now go to start menu search for konsole open it type passwd set a password now can close the console.Â
now double click on emudeck.desktop this will take some time on a slow connection. i have a 1TB sd card installed and thats were my games are going to be installed so when prompted click sd and ok
then i selected expert mode and ok then next screen the ok for the next few screen as all installed you will then prompted for password so i enter my freshly set password and then the install will start. away it goes go make a cup of tea or coffee as this is going to take a wile. at the end. once its its done will ask for a retro achievements password free register will record all achievements so worth doing. and then your done go to your sd card and you will need to add roms to roms each system has a game folder. will need to install bios files in the bios folder now this is a gray area and i am only using backed up roms of games i own. but if your intent on getting games google is your friend.
A few days later
I have been busy coping generating artwork set for games i have added i have approx. 30 working emulators i can add more but have gone with console and handheld gaming systems and joystick compatible systems. the reason for this is then don’t need a keyboard out to play them. still working on getting some of the emulators to work but again its just a bit of light reading should be able to solve all issue as such a great community surrounding steam deck. The updates are also coming out every few day as well so if its not working yet it will be soon.
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Loving steam games loving how well this play most emulated systems there area few a that are a little glitchy but the updates are coming think and fast.
This thing is very customisable with plugins as well and have also installed ducky loader and several plugins to theme the deck and show compatibility with non native games and vibrancy of the screen as well as a CSS theme builder will also be adding new start up videos.Â
If your a lover of gaming this is the device for you. if you want perfection out of the box this is nearly there but with some tinkering it come close to being perfect.
Docking your deck
I have one of the 2 docks I have ordered the first dock is the jsaux as recommended by a few youtubers and I have also ordered the official dock from steam this is on its way to me. So why 2 dock well one will be permently fitted in the man cave so i can get screen shots and film mods in the future the other one will be my traveling dock.Â
well all plugged in and it works great. in game mode screen turns off and my 4k tv was the interface with external 8bitdo works perfectly. i then switched to desktop mode this was a little different had 2 screens I decided i only wanted one so over to settings and display enabled the big screen as main screen and deactivated the deck screen. i have also plugged in my Logitech wireless k400 keyboard and it all works like a dream. much easier than my travel one. but that’s for home life and not life on the go.Â
Protector case
I have been looking at serval different cases and this seemed the most feasible for me as will fit in standard case that the deck shipped with so at £23 was a mid ranged price its very good nice textured grps and kick stand works well.
Will be adding more
happy so far will report more on this shorty with some videos and screen shots and things I have learn over the next month.
