Is building a PC to stream to a handheld a bad idea?
I've always wanted to build a little PC, but I don't have space or time to play games other than on a handheld on the sofa. I've been playing Xbox Game Pass on my Retroid Pocket 3 Plus and it's been really good, but I'm wondering if a gaming pc streamed locally would be cheaper in the long run. It'd live under the TV and very rarely get used with a controller on the telly, almost always streamed to a little handheld.
Alternative is Steam Deck, which looks good, but tbh, it seems quite unweildly. Though I know it's possibly the right route.
Which option is better depends on what games you want to play and your local network.
I think it's a fine idea, but as others have stated it depends on your network. If you have a PC already with steam, it might be worth trying the steam link app and see how it works.
The steamdeck is going to give you more flexibility, and work around any network issues you might have. Again, depends on the games, but in general it's a great device and you can take it with you. That said, it's struggling to play some of the newest AAA games on launch, though patches do eventually seem to come to help it out.
Yeah the Steam Deck is such good value it's tough to turn down. It's just a little too big for my taste and I'd rather have bought it at launch to get the longer value out of the hardware.
fwiw, valve seems to believe it's got another few years in it. They've said they might do a battery/screen refresh, but the processor and such sound like they're hear for another year at a minimum.
Well, I guess they put their money on upscaling, FSR in particular. And yes, it has worked so far but is not really on par with DLSS in my experience but maybe it will improve.