Been going back and forth between a steam deck and a rog ally. I really want to support Valve due to their commitment to the SD among other reasons.
One consideration is that I have several PC games across different platforms, GOG, Epic, Ubi-soft, EA etc, which may be harder to play on a SD. I understand Heroic? might be a solution to that issue but I’m not entirely convinced. I have some experience with Linux so that’s not much of a deterring factor.
The main thing I want is a handheld device that will allow me to play older AAA and AA games that I have backlogged such as The Witcher 3, evil within 1 and 2, Batman Arkham, GTA V, and many others. I also want to be able to buy and play Cyberpunk 2077 and its expansion, Hogwarts Legacy, Jedi survivor, and Starfield. I did recently buy BG3 through GOG and would want to play that on a handheld device. I would also like to use gamepass.
I know it seems that rog ally is the device I should choose since it’s a windows device and allows for access to all PC gaming platforms with minimal barriers. But I don’t believe I desire high quality graphics for recently released games. I’ve been playing on a Xbox one for the last nine years so not sure I would notice 60-90 fps on a game. Also the oled SD may be on par with the rog ally given all the issues that device has for some.
Really just want to play to enjoy the story/gameplay of said games. I have a gaming laptop with a 6850m xt. I want a handheld device to play while my significant other plays on the laptop.
Know SD is great for emulation and I would love to emulate old console games but I don’t have older roms which makes that option less likely.
Would really appreciate advice and guidance from this community on which to move forward with. Thank you in advance!
With respect to playing other storefront games, Proton is generally pretty good at handling them within Steam OS and worst case is you can dual boot Windows on the Steam Deck if you really need it. But if you’re really set on wanting to play the 2023 games on your handheld, the Ally Z1 Extreme is probably the way to go. The extra horsepower on the Ally really helps with poorly optimized PC games like Jedi Survivor and Starfield. The Steam Deck still does really well on new games so long as they are optimized well on the PC platform (like Cyberpunk), but unfortunately 2023 has had so many games with terrible PC ports, its difficult to really gauge how playable games will be on the Steam Deck in the coming years. The battery life is significantly worse but assuming that’s not a factor for you, the Ally may be the better choice.