TheSteam Deckhas remained one of thebest handheld video game consolesever since it launched towards the beginning of 2022, and with the OLED version now released, it doesn’t look like that’s changing any time soon.
How to add non-Steam games to your Steam library
These days, with every other company having its own launcher, you can quickly find that your PC game library is spread out across multiple apps.
Apart from making PC gaming accessible and portable, one of the things that makes the Steam Deck great is how customisable it is. There’s so much you may do with the Steam Deck - so many things that keep us coming back to it. Here are some of the best Steam Deck tips and tricks we’ve discovered through our time gaming on it.
Use Steam Deck shortcuts
To see a list of useful Steam Deck shortcuts, hold down theSteam buttonfor a couple of seconds. Some of the most useful shortcuts include the following:
Give your Steam Deck a lock screen PIN
If you don’t want family members or friends getting into your Steam Deck and messing with your library, there’s good news: you can add a PIN.
To turn the PIN settings on, go toMenu -> Settings -> Security. Set a PIN you won’t forget, and choose whether to require one when waking or turning the Steam Deck on, when logging in, when switching to Desktop Mode, or any combination of these three.
Send the Steam Deck to sleep
Between gaming sessions, you don’t need to turn your Steam Deck console off completely, or even quit the game you’re playing.
Instead, you can suspend and resume your gameplay with ease by putting your Steam Deck into sleep mode while you’re in-game, then switching it back on for your next session and resuming from the same spot.
To put the Steam Deck to sleep, simply tap thePower button,and then tap it again to wake it.
Stream games to your Steam Deck
There’s another way to counter the storage space issue on the Steam Deck and that’s making use of Steam’s Remote Play functionality (i.e.Steam Link).
If you have adecent gaming PCwith the Steam client and Steam games installed on it, you can stream the games over your home Wi-Fi from the PC to your Steam Deck.
Related:How to stream games to your Steam Deck
This has two benefits: First, you don’t need to install the games locally on your Steam Deck, and second, you can make the most of the extra processing power on your gaming PC to get higher frame rates and a smoother gameplay experience.
It’s easy to do: The long story short is that you just need both devices running and connected to the same network, then click the Stream button on the relevant game in your Steam Deck library.
Turn on Night Mode to help prevent eye strain
Steam Deck’s Night Mode can help prevent eye strain, and can help your eyes and brain relax a little more if it’s getting close to bedtime.
It works by cutting down on blue light frequencies emanating from the Steam Deck’s display. It might look a little orange when you first enable it, but your eyes should quickly adjust, and will probably thank you for it (or they would, if they had the ability).
To turn on Night Mode on the Steam Deck, go toMenu -> Settings -> Display. From there, you can schedule thetime to auto-enable Night Mode, orenable it right away, andadjust Night Mode’s tint.
Tweak Steam Deck performance settings
To tweak the Steam Deck’s performance, click thethree-dot menu buttonand navigate down to thebatterysection.
Try tweaking both theFPSandrefresh rateunder the performance settings to either smooth out your experience or increase your battery life. Lower framerates and refresh rates should improve battery life, but go too low and gameplay might become too choppy. you’re able to also try outFSRas aScaling Filterand lower your resolution to increase game performance - try out some different combinations until you find something that works well for you.
If you want to make adjustments just for the specific game you’re playing, you should tickUse per-game profilebefore changing anything.
Remap your controls and use your back paddles
To remap your controls while in-game:
On this screen, you’ll see a map of the current controls there, but you also have the option to add more by clicking controller settings.
You can now re-map various controls, but the other bonus here is that you can map the back paddles to whatever you want.
The back paddles are rarely used for anything. There are four paddles marked L4, L5, R4 and R5. You can assign these to in-game controls and use them to play more comfortably.
Adjust screen brightness
To reduce the Steam Deck’s brightness, press thethree-dot buttonon the right-hand side of the Steam Deck to open the options menu and tweak thebrightness sliderthere.
Although it’s tempting to crank the brightness all the way up, we’d actually suggest turning it down.
Related:Steam Deck OLED: What’s new and should you upgrade?
One of the complaints people have about the Steam Deck is its battery life. Without some tweaks, it’s easy to chew through the handheld’s battery in two or three hours on the LCD version, and not much longer than this on the OLED version.
Reducing the brightness is one step towards making your fun last longer.
Get yourself a microSD card
SanDisk 512GB Ultra microSDXC
The SanDisk Ultra microSDXC is an excellent option to upgrade your Steam Deck’s storage easily.
We’d highly recommend purchasing a microSD card (or several) to give you access to more games with ease. Games won’t load as fast that way compared toNVMe SSDs, but it’s still great to have extra space without massive extra expense.
The Steam Deck is available in various different storage format sizes: 256GB for the original LCD version, and 512GB or 1TB for the new OLED version.
Related:Best microSD cards: A small device to expand your storage in a big way
Though it’s theoretically possible toreplace the internal storage(and upgrade it), this isn’t going to be an option for many.
We bought a 256GB model to save money but found that we managed to fill the console up with just four games. Naturally, this varies depending on what you’re installing, butForza Horizon 5, for example, takes up well over 100GB of storage space.
Installing a microSD card is a great way to fix this storage problem.
Check out some in-game guides
To browse guides for the game you’re currently playing, press theSteam buttonand selectGuides.
The Steam Deck really streamlines most of your handheld gaming tasks, such as changing performance settings and changing in-game controls.
It does this for game guides, too. By browsing these player-submitted in-game guides, you can get the help you might need to beat that boss or that level, or find that hidden area.
Sure, there are plenty of guides to be found online, but it does make things easier being able to just hit a couple of buttons and find the perfect guide right there in front of you.
