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The Steam Deck now has over 5,000 Verified games
According to SteamDB, at the time of this posting:
- There are 5,006 Verified games.
- There are 10,240 Playable games.
I thought this was a noteworthy milestone worth sharing -- The Little Linux Handheld That Could now has a definitive library of >15,000 games!
(The actual library size is significantly larger when you consider how many games run on it that don't yet have a rating, and even that's saying nothing of non-Steam games and things like ROMs as well).
Love my steam deck and got the LCD very cheap once they released the OLED model. Guy online sold it to me for $270.
I really hope it continues being highly successful to encourage more of the same.
I love my Steam Deck. I have a pretty high-spec’d PC and I find myself playing on the Deck so much more often. The Steam Dock is a horrible piece of hardware, though, and as awesome as it is to be able to just pop it in something to play on my TV, I would never buy it again and am trying to find a third-party dock that works better. The Deck itself, though, is an immediate recommend from me and I plan on buying any v2 Deck immediately on release.
I've heard that stated more often, but the Dock is totally fine for me. What's your issue with it?
In my opinion it's not about a particular dock (1st or 3rd party) but overall experience of using Steam Deck docked on eg. 4k TV which understandably isn't the best due to few factors like not so big computing power of the actual device or 16:10 aspect ratio. Let's not kid ourselves - 1280x800 will never look good at 4k screen and native resolution is not possible for most games except for older titles or emulators.
That is also my issue with it but that, as you rightfully point out, has more to do with the Deck itself than the Dock. The Dock is functioning as expected for me, that the result is underwhelming is true but not what the others are experiencing where it sounds like they have straight up faulty hardware.
I've had the most luck (and fun) by emulating Super Smash and Mario Kart and projecting those on the big screen, which is about in line with its maximum capability for smooth gameplay. Something I won't try with any decently modern game.
For what it's worth, it's possible to force the deck to use different resolutions/aspect ratios on external displays through the game's launch options (e.g, 1280×720, which should perform better than native resolution), but you might need to relaunch the game each time you dock.
I usually aim for 1080p/50 Hz when in docked mode, then scale down the resolution/graphical options until I can satisfy 50 Hz.
For me, it never works when plugged in the first time. I have to unplug the cable and the power and turn the Deck off and on in this crazy dance before it actually shows up on any display it’s plugged into. Steam support keeps passing it down to the next rep and they make me do all these ridiculous things over and over again like going into Battery Storage mode and resetting the PD controller. No matter what they make me do, I always have to plug and unplug cables and plugs multiple times until, at some random point, it decides to work.
I wish they would just replace it but they insist on following the same troubleshooting steps every time I ask about it again.
I would guess that you're seeing some HDCP incompatibility bullshit - your TV and the dock don't like each other. If you get the same behavior with the dock on a different display that would rule this out. You could try replacing the HDMI cable, but I doubt that will help.
I have tried multiple displays, multiple versions of HDMI cable (1.x, 2.x), and it’s all the same. I’ve even tried a computer monitor rather than a TV. Same issue. The only thing I haven’t tried is another Deck because I don’t have one.
Anecdotal, I've never had any of these issues with my first party dock, but I'd have numerous issues (mostly power related) with my third party dock. It sounds like their support is awful though, my condolences.
Do you have an OG Steam Deck or an OLED? I just wonder what the difference could possibly be in the setup that would cause such a chasm of experience.
I have an OG 512GB Steam Deck if that helps. I preordered mine the day the pre-ordered opened, but it was still a good 9-12 months until I received it. I also got the official dock immediately on release a good while later, but I had used a few third party options up until that point.
Interesting. I have the 1TB OG ordered the day the pre-order opened too and the Dock was pre-ordered too so I had it within the first week of release. I wonder why our experiences are so different.
You must mean the 512GB like me as that was the highest available at launch, but otherwise I have no idea. If it helps further, I can share what TV and peripherals I use when docked (which is about half of my usage). LG 4K LCD TV, 2018-ish model. Anker USB3 unpowered hub, Sony DS4 gamepad (wired), and just a decent HDMI cable that I already had.
What do you dislike about the official Dock? I have a JSAUX, which I found recommended online, and it seems solid, especially for its price. It’s no frills, but works well!
It just doesn’t work. I’ve tried multiple HDMI cables and multiple displays and it just never works consistently. It always takes me multiple rounds of powering on and off, removing power cables, and unplugging the dock and plugging it back in. I’d demand a refund but it’s been almost a year (if not over a year) that I’ve had it with multiple requests to Steam support. I can’t recommend it to anyone.
It basically doesn’t work with my TV (a TCL) at all. I get it to show up on HDMI 1/10 times maybe, and I know the wire is fine (e.g., works for a laptop). I found a forum post with someone with my exact issue at one point, but no solution.
I just use it handheld and the dock for charging 🤷
HDMI is remarkably finicky. There is a chance that the problem you are dealing with isn’t the fault of the dock. If you haven’t done so already, consider removing any other HDMI connection to the TV and using different cables until you find one that works.
Thirding the complaints about the official dock. For @CptBluebear & @Inanimate, here's my not-uncommon experience using the dock:
After repeating this process enough times, rest assured that your dock will now be working properly. Now we can begin playing games! Except...
And just to throw some extra salt on the wound, I've never gotten the variable refresh rate to work, despite this being my main motivation for buying the official dock.
I love my Steam Deck. But the official dock feels like a total ripoff by comparison. It doesn't work particularly well despite being the most expensive option.
Totally reasonable to dislike the device if this is your experience with it.
It sounds like they have mixed results with the hardware within the Dock and you either get lucky or you don't.
Unfortunate really!
JSAUX was mentioned by @kfwyre as an alternative and I think they were the biggest third party creators when the Deck was launched before the official dock launched.
I had all of these problems with the dock as well... Just completely unable to get it to reliably connect to the TV, restarting everything in different orders and just being miserable.
I recently had so much trouble and restarted the Steam Deck like 5 times and then decided "whatever, I'm restarting anyway, might as well try to undervolt the Steam Deck while I'm rebooting"... And ever since I haven't had any issues (knock on wood). It seems like that shouldn't fix it, but maybe going into the bios actually reset some state or maaaaybe the deck draws slightly less power and the dock couldn't handle it before. I really have no idea, but I'm happy it's finally working because it was VERY frustrating.
Honestly, docks are the worst. If they don't work it's so hard to know if it's 1) the dock itself, 2) the dock firmware, 3) the docked device's firmware, 4) the TV itself (TVs suck at being monitors), 5) the HDMI cable, 6) the USB-C / Thunderbolt cable. I have never had an experience with a dock that was just good, and it's such a nightmare to debug.
I agree, with the exception of the absolutley flawless Nintendo Switch dock. I have never had a single issue with years of use. It's such an outlier in this technology that I almost want to somehow put it in a different category, but no, it's just an actually good dock/system combo.
The Switch dock is an oddity. It is very reliable, but from everything I've read Nintendo didn't stick with the standards as closely as they should, which is why third party docks and chargers are a total crap shoot and can sometimes damage your Switch. It took me three tries to find a suitable third party dock for the Switch that worked, and it still was inferior to the official dock. I just had no desire to pay the obscene price they demand for it ($100). In case anyone is wondering, the acceptable third party dock was from Best Buy's in-house brand, Insignia and was like $30.
You know, I hadn't thought about it but... That kind of makes sense! The dock was a huge selling point of the Switch, and it would be incredibly frustrating if it didn't work... And I don't think I've ever heard anybody complain about it, which is kind of shocking in retrospect.
It's been unclear to me if the problem was that it's just integration hell with different TVs being super picky about something... But surely it has to be possible to handle this otherwise like... Any console with an HDMI port should be in connection hell too. I guess the Steam Deck is a little different in that it's probably less limited in output resolution and stuff than other consoles (which I assume still have like... 4 options for resolutions that will tend to be standard and accepted by TVs), so maybe that's part of the problem. Also part of me can't help but feel like this would be less of an issue if everything just used DisplayPort instead of HDMI (my understanding is that the HDMI licensing can be a bit of a problem for open-source drivers on Linux :|).
Coincidentally the Nintendo Switch dock is one of the devices I tend to have the most problems with.
I would believe this, and I think it's related to why I have unplugging the power supply as a troubleshooting step. I read somewhere that if the power supply draws too much power, it can interfere with the dock's ability to negotiate an HDMI connection. No idea whether that's true, but someone suggested unplugging the power supply as a potential remedy to that hypothetical failure mode, and lo and behold it worked. So that's been added to my troubleshooting procedure ever since.
Yeah, I had read that too, but I wasn't having any luck with unplugging the power supply either! I really hope they figure out what the issues are, because it's super frustrating when you can't get it to work.
This is my experience too except that Steam support told me that VRR is not supported on it. Odd that you’re saying it’s a feature.
It's listed under the product specs, at least.
I've read accounts of people managing to get it to work, so maybe we're just unlucky.
Interesting. I wonder why Support is saying it's unsupported.
I'm not sure why they'd say that, but then again maybe support doesn't know either. Honestly VRR compatibility is a bit of a mess, but it seems like the situation is improving.
That thread seems to have clarified by situation, at least. It seems that Stream only implements VRR via freesync, but as my TV only implements HDMI Forum VRR, VRR won't work in my team until Steam decides to license the HDMI standard.
I think you’re exactly right because the site specifically says FreeSync and Steam support specifically said VRR via HDMI.
I also had awful experiences with the official dock.
I can also recommend the JSAUX one as a replacement. It has worked perfectly for me.
The official verification process can be worthless though, as it's basically a checklist about (e.g.) being 100% controller compatible and having the correct screen resolution. A few months ago, Fallout 4 became verified by removing the popup settings screen you get at startup, which wasn't usable without a mouse. But in the process, it removed the settings screen altogether.
https://www.protondb.com/ is a much better resource to know if a game will work fine on your Deck.
I second this, as far as I'm concerned the Steam verified system is a joke. Several "Verified" games just straight up don't work. God Of War is "Verified" and has a memory leak that crashes the game after an extended play time that never got patched. A game called "Who's's Lila" requires you install a DLC (which is a separate program) to progress the story, and the DLC doesn't work on Linux. I got it on a "Great on Deck" sale, and couldn't progress past the hour mark. Horizon Zero Dawn is verified and runs fine for the first few levels but in the latter half of the game the FPS just tanks.
It's ridiculous that games like Dark Souls get "Playable" tags despite running at 60fps flawlessly, just because you have to bring up the on screen keyboard to enter your name at the very start of the game, but a bunch of games that actually don't work get "Verified" status.
It wouldn't be so bad if you could report Verified games that don't work, but the only way to do this is to get randomly selected after playing the game and it asks you if the game should be classed as verified with a yes or no button prompt. You're not guaranteed to get this option and I've seen no evidence that valve even respond to this feedback, I don't think I've ever seen a game get downgraded from Verified to Unsupported.
It's against Valve's interest to mark these games as "Unplayable" because they want to sell more copies of AAA games even if they don't work on the Deck, it's a conflict of interest and the system needs fixing.
It's possible to provide feedback on games that don't match the Verified/Playable experience via the SteamDeck's game page (and I think from Steam on desktop as well).
Open the Horizon Zero Dawn game to get to the page where you can press "Play." On the right side of that page are the Controller and Settings icons. Select Settings and a drop-down appears. Choose "Properties" and then at the bottom "Feedback." From there you have a binary option as to the game's experience. Then get anyone else you know to also report the game. I hope that helps!
Also, you're correct that a lot of the verification is not entirely reliable. I think, like with game reviews, a lot of the verifications are based on early gameplay experiences.
Fwiw, the DLC can be made to work on Linux (with some finagling to make it run within the same wine prefix as the main game -- iirc I got it to work following instructions from someone's review on protondb). The problem is that you can't run both at the same time (which is necessary to get the additional content from the separate program) unless you run the game in desktop mode in addition to finagling with wine to get the DLC program to run, which is just not sensible on the Deck. Who's Lila is a game with ARG elements, so you also need to visit particular websites to progress in the game and some content even requires editing your save files using a text editor. So it's a bit of a weird case when it comes to stuff like Steam verification, but 100% agree it should not have "Verified" status and if there were a method to report it, I would. I definitely recommend you try it out on your desktop sometime, though -- it's a great game.
I did actually finish the game and get 100% in the end, I had an old windows laptop and it ran fine on that. I admit the game is an edge case due to all the ARG elements, but the fact there's no way to report the game, yet it's still marked as "Verified" to this day really annoys me.
It's my textbook example of why I don't like the Steam Verified system, because I don't feel I can trust it. I actually politely reached out to the dev of the game regarding steam deck verification by email. He apologised about the verified tag and said Steam added it without asking him, and as far as he had could tell he had no way to remove it. He suggested I reach out to Steam customer support to ask for it removed, but I never bothered as I wouldn't know who to even contact.
Oh wow, I didn't know Steam added the verification tags without input from the devs! That explains a lot in this case. I'm not surprised the dev replied to your email tbh, he's super responsive in general. I may try to email Steam customer support myself sometime in the future if I have a slow day at work, because it really annoys me that it's verified as well.
Worth noting that there's a Decky plugin to add badges from and links to ProtonDB to games on the Steam deck! Highly recommend it.
FYI, you can get the settings screen back by changing the launch command to STEAMDECK=0 %command%. Although I would recommend changing it back once you set the settings you like. It seems to cause me crashes whenever the keyboard closes.
There are some games (Geometry Wars) where "playable" is doing a lot of heavy lifting
I haven’t tried geometry wars, but you are absolutely right. But there are also games where playable is absolutely perfect. I even have a few that are “unplayable” (not unverified, actually unplayable) that are perfectly fine and should probably be verified.
For sure, there's other's that have surprised me though like civ 6 that are better than they have any right to me when made for primarily mouse input.
I'm not sure if you're thinking of 1 or 3 but in the case of 3 I specifically had to not use the native Linux client and instead instruct steam to download the Windows version, which worked great.
I didn't really fight with the linux version for too long before discovering this solution. Can't remember offhand how it was done. Might've been uninstall, go into settings, select a Proton version, and then install?
But that solved whatever wasn't working about the Linux version for me. I also tried GW1 out of a bit of nostalgia and don't remember it having any problems launching and running on deck.
It's GW1. It runs in 640x480 and ignores changes to the resolution setting for me.
It launched in 640x480 for me but I was able to change resolution. Very strange, and sorry to hear about it happening to you. I have no idea what could've been the difference as I didn't do any extra advanced tinkering, just installed and launched basically.
I'm at 2 years with my Deck and I still love it. I go through periods where I don't use it for a couple of weeks because I'm either not playing games or would rather play on my laptop, but just this weekend it came with me on a vacation. Didn't see much use in vacation, but playing it on the plane rides was very nice. I do need to get a replacement battery sometime soon, as mine apparently is only about 81% of it's original life.
I don't actually pay any attention to Verified status when I'm buying a game; I may take a cursory glance, but ultimately, I feel like I can kind of tell if something is going to work or not. The last two games I've spent a combined 50 hours with were both Playble and Unknown respectively.
How can you check battery condition?
Realized I can just google that lol. Seems like a feature in desktop mode to check battery health. Interesting, I'll have to check mine soon. It stays docked almost exclusively.
Yeah, that's how I've done it. Just click the battery icon in desktop and it should show. You can also check your Windows PC battery health, but that requires a command through CMD.
If you leave yours docked most the time, I imagine it's fine. Mine sees a load of charge cycles, as I'm constantly moving about the house with it, then charging it and disconnecting it after it's full so I can move about with it.
Valve sent me a free steam deck for my work in Arch Linux (which is the OS running on it). I didn’t get around to setting it up until a couple of weeks ago because of how busy I’ve been lately.
Anyway my productivity the last two weeks has gone way down haha. I played a bunch of vampire survivors, hades and finally bought hades 2 and played it a bunch.
Hades is actually a game I have on Epic, and got my save on there. I set up an external game manager on the deck, was easy as hell, and it works super well.
I think I got lucky though. Supraland on Epic expects a keyboard and mouse and doesn’t recognise the deck controls out of the box. I didn’t look into it further. I’m sure the steam version works just fine.
This Verified system is good as a kinda pointer. It is not bulletproof though. I tried games that were Verified and ie. controls din't work in them (since I immediately uninstalled, I don't have examples). I have played many Playable (second tier in the system) ones without any real problems. And I have played some unsupported ones and also some unknown state ones - also without problems. But I have for example Assetto Corza which is unsupported and requires heavy tinkering to get running. But after that, it runs fine.
Honestly I've not had a very good experience with the Steam deck. I ultimately returned it and bought one of the competitors. The main two issues with it is: compatibility and size. About 1/3rd of my steam library isn't compatible, and the main issue is that many of those 1/3rd are exactly the kind of games I would want to play on a steam deck - many of them are JRPGs or visual novels. Now, that isn't the steamdeck's fault per se, as much as it is japanese developers having shoddy code that overly depends on windows, but it's still a thing none-the-less.
Secondly, the steamdeck is gigantic and feels like you're holding a brick. It's true that the joysticks are very nice for a handheld, but it's literally tiring to hold up and play. It's also very hard to fit in my backpack, which seems to be part of the point of a handheld.
I ended up with a gpdwin 4 which is satisfying my needs; if I get an upgrade, it'll probably something like the pseudo-DS form factor (again, I don't like my hands being a mile apart from each other). Of course they can't compete with the steamdeck on price, but native windows support and being much smaller make the extra $200-$300 worth it.
To be fair most "not compatible" games are actually compatible without deep tinkering (look up Proton-GE). I am yet to find a game that is impossible to run (except for games with proprietary anti-cheat features). Hell, I even had better luck with running retro games under Proton than in Windows 10/11 (eg. NFS Porsche Unleashed).
Anyone using it with a dock hooked up as a home thetre PC? I usually use a small windows rig hooked up to the TV, but the video card finally shit the bed after over a decade of use!
I've thought about replacing it with the steam deck. Basically it just needs to stream video from a web browser and be able to torrent.
Out of curiosity, does your processor not have onboard video?
It does but I can't ever get it to work.
You may need to enable it in the BIOS.
Thanks, that could very well be it, I'll give that a crack.
That was exactly it, hidden way in the options lol. Thanks so much for the tip. I'll get more life out of this thing yet!
No sweat, glad I could help.
I don’t use it for a home theater, but I don’t see any reason it wouldn’t work. I have used torrents (I think I used transmission, but others should work too) and I have never seen issues with Firefox on the deck.
Thanks, definitely going to look into it more.