I’ve hooked it up to my TV to play some games with a PS4 controller. But I’ve encountered some really annoying issues. Audio not outputting through my TV speakers unless I go into desktop mode, then reset the console. When I go into desktop mode, the controller no longer registers so I can’t play. So I have to go back to gaming mode, where I can’t get sound from TV speakers. I’ve tried adjusting settings on both my steam deck and TV to no avail. That is, display options on desktop mode, and steam input settings.
The performance is also horrendous, with a very unstable ~20fps. This is even at 720p resolution and lower. When I reset the console docked, I have to unplug it then plug it back in or the screen just stays black.
It’s all incredibly frustrating. Is it just human error, or is SteamOS still really buggy when it comes to docking? I feel like it should just be plug and play, but I’m tired of having to set so many things up just to play on my TV. And then it being subpar visually compared with just using the deck’s own display.
I use a dell dock from work and various controllers and have had no problems at all, in fact we use it almost exclusively as a console.
Nah it isn’t ideal, I wanted to make a post about it eventually but I wanted to try some third party docks and/or see if updates fixed it.
What I have figured out is that the best way to use the dock is to boot the steam deck up not connected to the dock, get it to the home screen and then connect it to the dock. I find this has the best chance of inititating everything right.
Make sure to check the controller order under the control settings for a particular game, use change who is the number 1 control input easily once you learn where it is, and that can help some of the problems that arise.
I don’t have any performance issues, but not that if you try to run a really high resolution tv at anywhere near a native resolution the steam deck just is going to quickly be outclassed by the performance demands. So idk, 720p sounds suspiciously low though, try checking the settings (under the lefthand bar) and examining how the display settings are set. Change it to native or some other setting and see if that helps, it might be that the settings are keeping your steam deck from jumping up to a higher resolution. Same thing with framerate lock, which you can check under the righthand bar, I recommend setting framelock settings (maximum framerate) on a pergame basis.
My experience has been the polar opposite of yours. Of course, depends on the dock and TV as much as it depends on the deck, so our mileage will vary.
Jsaux one works fine. I just miss not having a steam controller when docked.
The official dock has been fine for me on both an LCD 1st batch model and a late 2024 OLED model, plugged in 100% of the time. What dock are you using? There’s a lot of bad docks out there, from a compatibility standpoint.
Another thing to try is a full factory reset. Make sure your game saves are backed up in steam cloud and move as many games to the SD card or temporary drive as you can to make it easier to get back up and running.
Using the official dock? Most of my problems were solved by updating the firmware. That does NOT happen automatically via the regular Steam Decker updates btw, need to trigger it yourself.
Sounds to me like your dock is garbage.
Which dock are you using ? We can’t help much without information.
I definitely sometimes have the audio issue and it’s annoying as hell. I don’t have a solution though I’m sorry
I have none of those issues, but a couple of extra weird ones… this is the official dock btw. First, maybe it’s something I plugged in, but the Deck’s battery will be drained (slowly, over many days) if it’s plugged in and not turned on. Suspended or off is the same, I must unplug. Then the one that really pisses me off because I can’t wrap my head around it, I can’t unplug it unless I fully turn it off first. Doing otherwise tends to make my home network comatose! Basically nothing can see anything. Computers lose connection to the NAS, to the router… nothing works until I plug it back and turn it on, then I can turn it off and unplug. ffs.
I have two docks. With one of the docks I experience sound coming through the stream deck and no signal. With the other that doesnt happen. So far ive had zero issues with the 2nd dock.
From what I understand the official dock is the only one that doesn’t have issues. Don’t ask me why, but I have seen this issue multiple times online. The only solution seems to be the official dock.
No problems with my Anker hub.
I’ve heard the opposite, people having lots of issues with official dock while 3rd party docks will work fine.
I’ve got a $20 3rd party dock, and it’s been doing fantastic for me.
The funny part is that the official dock was what gave me a ton of issues. Steam Deck’s screen would go blank like it was outputting to a screen, but the TV would refuse to accept the video signal. So it just looked dead until I unplugged it. The JSAUX dock has been hassle free.
I only have a JSAUX dock and its been flawless. I even had a game running, put it on the dock and it switched over to the TV without issue - I was really impressed
After using a Switch for nearly a decade, the docking experience with Deck is pretty awful in comparison. Make sure the firmware is up to date on the dock you have or buy a better one if that doesn’t work and you can certainly get it in a useable state without serious issues… but I sure do wish it was a simple as slotting it in and having everything seamlessly work like it is with Switch.
Yeah. I’m sympathetic to the whole “technology is hard” thing, and the idea that the SteamDeck is primarily meant to be for mobile gaming.
But switching from Nintendo Switch to SteamDeck really highlighted to me how good the Nintendo engineering team is, that I never had any of these display issues with a docked Switch.
sorry to not be helpful but I have not had this problem
I’ve got quite a few complaints about the deck, but this hasn’t been one. I play liftoff docked with fpv goggles and my radio via usb and its great.
I also played armored core on my bros tv, and had no issues.
