#STEAM GAMING PC#
#STEAM GAMING SERIES#
#STEAM GAMING DOWNLOAD#

Valve has a list of “Deck Verified” games available on its website. Many don’t, however, and instead run through a compatibility layer called Proton. The operating system installed on the Deck is a Linux variant and can run games that have a Linux version natively. The Steam Deck is (mostly) restricted to a selection of compatible games found on Steam. A gaming laptop will handle this entire library without issue. Odds are you already have a library of games that span multiple storefronts as well as older titles you acquired through a DRM-free digital platform.

#STEAM GAMING PC#

Gaming laptops run the same version of Windows as any other PC and maintain compatibility with a vast library of games available on Steam, the Epic Games Store, GOG, and Ubisoft Connect, among others. Performance Winner: Gaming Laptop Steam Deck vs.

#STEAM GAMING SERIES#

Most new games that target a cross-platform release (on PC, Xbox Series S|X, and PlayStation 5) will perform much worse on the Steam Deck than on a budget gaming laptop. This will only get you so far, however, as the quad-core processor is a major bottleneck that can tank performance in modern games. It’s possible to claw back some performance if you switch to a lower display resolution than the Steam Deck’s native 1,200 x 800, or with a frame reconstruction technique such as AMD’s FideltyFX Super Resolution (FSR). The Deck can handle older or better optimized titles, like Borderlands 3 and Hitman 3, but can choke on notorious system-killers, like Metro Exodus or Horizon: Zero Dawn. In short, the Steam Deck’s performance is miles off that of a budget gaming laptop, and it frequently struggles to play demanding games at acceptable frame rates. That’s slightly behind a laptop with Intel Iris Xe graphics, which scored 1,837, and way behind a budget gaming laptop with Nvidia GTX 1650 graphics, which scored 3,764. IGN's Steam Deck review tested its capabilities with the 3DMark Time Spy gaming benchmark, which hit a score of 1,715. Performance varies widely, of course, but even the least capable gaming laptops are roughly as powerful as the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck’s APU is restricted to a mere 15 watts of power-at stock settings, at least. The integrated Radeon GPU has eight RDNA 2 Compute Units, equivalent to those found in many Ryzen laptop APUs. It includes a four-core, eight-thread CPU based on AMD’s Zen 2 architecture, which also appears in numerous Ryzen 4000 and Ryzen 5000 mobile processors (and some Ryzen 7000 models, too). The Steam Deck always ships with the same, slightly customized AMD APU. Maximum power draw can be extremely high, with the most powerful gaming laptops exceeding 250 watts at load. Modern gaming laptops also ship with Intel Core and AMD Ryzen processors that, in most cases, have at least eight cores. And if you can't think of any specific titles, Steam has several ways to help you find games you'll love.Gaming laptops are available in numerous configurations and sizes that range from bottom-barrel budget devices with AMD or Intel integrated graphics to high-end models with powerful GPUs such as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30/40 series and AMD’s Radeon RX 6000M line. So, if you're looking to get games for your new PC, you'll most likely find games you like in one of the largest libraries online. That way, you can continue where you left off, so if you started playing on your school or work laptop (or on your Steam Deck), you can seamlessly continue on your desktop gaming PC. It also offers Steam Cloud-allowing you to synchronize your game progress across all your devices through Steam.

By 2021, Steam reported having over 400 million visits to its vast 44,000-strong gaming and app library.

#STEAM GAMING DOWNLOAD#

The service added games from third-party publishers two years after its launch, allowing users to download titles from other game developers. Valve, the publisher of many popular games like Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead, and Dota, released the Steam service in 2003 to help users keep their Valve games automatically updated online. Image Credit: DemonDays64 (modification of Valve Corporation file)/ Wikimedia Commons

Steam gaming