In games that don’t have good auto-save (like Skyrim), I’ll map one of the back buttons to quick save.

Mine has integrated graphics plus a dedicated card that it will switch to for higher demand applications. I was not aware of USB to HDMI, I’ll check that out. I don’t game when docked, so I only need the integrated graphics for that purpose. If that resolves my issue for now, I can put off a new purchase until I feel spendy enough to buy one of those Framework laptops!

I have one and it would probably work for my needs when docked, but I mainly use my laptop as a laptop. Its frustrating that such an inconsequential part (the HDMI port) is making me consider replacing an otherwise functioning laptop. Trying to get it repaired is probably the smarter option, its a shame laptops aren’t more user repairable. It definitely makes the Framework laptop that people are recommending appealing if I decide I’m willing to spend some money.

That Framework seems like overkill, but I really like the idea. Maybe I’ll hold out a little while until I see what my job situation is and if things go well I can reward myself! 😀

I actually have one, but I use my laptop as a laptop the majority of the time and the steam deck would not work well for that. I suppose an alternative to buying something new would be to properly setup cloud storage so I could more easily switch between laptop and desktop PCs rather than “docking” (aka KVM) my laptop when I want to use a proper setup at my desk. My poor desktop is essentially unused at this point other than occasionally streaming games to my laptop.

Wow, looking at some of the system specs I was thinking, “who even needs 64GB of RAM?” I don’t think I’ve ever had a system with more than 16GB. But I suppose there was a time when people thought the same about 512KB. I probably wouldn’t shop used, but maybe refurb. I never buy extended warranties, but I do like having the initial guarantee when I buy a new device.

Everything else you mentioned is way outside my knowledge; I could probably learn, but I would rather just have something that works. I used to love getting into the technical stuff, but now I just want to turn on my device and use it.

Lol, it’s a small thing, but I definitely wouldn’t mind having a different key for a non-Windows machine.

I’m okay with blank hardware, I’ve done all my desktop builds for more than 25 years (and recently did the SSD upgrade on a SteamDeck). I just never new there was anything similar available on the laptop market. My concern was more with paying for a Windows license or having hardware that was a subpar choice for linux drivers. I will definitely be learning more!

The only AMD model I’m seeing is the Pangolin with a AMD Radeon 680M. That wouldn’t be bad since it is roughly equivalent to the GTX 1650 I have now and probably way more efficient. Or do they have something newer that hasn’t released yet?

That’s great to hear, from what little I have picked up from this community, I was leaning towards POP for my first attempt.

A DIY laptop???!!! I had no idea such a thing existed, I will definitely be looking into this.

I’ve never cared about running high quality graphics, medium is fine for me. I’m more concerned with fan noise than graphics. My current system is fine for things like Skyrim and Sims 4, but for something like BG3 I’m streaming from my desktop.

Thanks! I notice that all of their gaming laptops have an NVIDIA GPU, but I see people complaining about NVIDIA drivers here regularly, is that an issue I should be concerned with? I would hope a system prebuilt for linux would have taken that into account, but I don’t know that much about the complaints.

I haven’t tried it yet, but A Little to the Left looks like a fun organizing game. It was just added to Game Pass if you have that. I also see my daughter playing Power Washer Simulator sometimes, which I haven’t tried, but it looks like it could be satisfying to play.

I’m a big fan of Don’t Nod games (Life is Strange, Tell Me Why) for atmospheric storytelling. Life is Strange: True Colors is from Deck Nine games, but falls in the same category. Detroit: Become Human is also kind of similar, but it occasionally throws in sections where you have to quickly react with button pushing that I don’t enjoy. One thing I find interesting about all of these is that you can play them more than once with different choices to get different paths, but so far I haven’t replayed any of them because I felt like the path I took was meaningful and I don’t want to change my story yet.

An MMO could be a good way to go. My wife isn’t really into gaming, but we played WoW together on and off for years. I haven’t played them much, but if I were to recommend one to start with now I’d probably check out Final Fantasy 14 or Elder Scrolls Online.

I run a heavily modded Skyrim on my deck and it plays fine offline, but the launcher won’t work offline for some reason. So, I can play it as much as I want, so long as I don’t completely exit the game. Its probably a solvable problem, but I’m rarely without a connection or at least the ability to use my phone as a hotspot just to run the launcher.

I’ve thought about it, but right now everything works exactly the way I need it and the only complaint I have is the occasional pop-ups from MS trying to get me to upgrade to win11 or switch my browser. My main uses for my devices are games and I just started back to school, so MS Office is nice to have. So, it’s hard to justify putting in the effort to change things now, especially when I know how to use MS products very well, particularly modding games.

My desktop and laptop are both eligible to upgrade, but I keep declining and will likely switch to linux when win10 support ends.

I’ve been playing Starfield almost daily since release on Game Pass. I would much rather play on PC with mods, but its a super mediocre game and I’m not ready to pay anything close to full price for it when I can play on Game Pass. I really hope they release some better content for it over the next year or two and then sell me a complete edition on PC and I’ll start again with mods to get rid of the BS if they haven’t already done so in future patches.

I got stuck a few hours into it and quit trying. I really want to love this game and play it through multiple times, but it just doesn’t make sense to me and I don’t want to read any guides or spoilers. I want whatever path I take through the game to be my path, but it isn’t working for me.

When I got my Steam Deck a few months ago, I spent the first week or so just modding Skyrim so I could play it on yet another device. Then I played it a ton until I finally took a break for some other games.