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.
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.