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?
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.
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?
Removed by mod
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.
Removed by mod