This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/steamdeck by /u/objectionmate on 2025-02-05 23:34:48+00:00.

I used to think gaming was about fun. Silky smooth 60 FPS, high resolutions, ultra settings— I was an idiot. I was trapped in the performance matrix, convinced that games should run well. Then I got a Steam Deck and some of you opened my third eye.

Gaming isn’t about smoothness. It’s not about stability. It’s about fighting for your goddamn life. It’s about overcoming adversity. It’s about denying reality itself and convincing yourself that for example Spider-Man 2 at 14 FPS is just the way Insomniac intended.

Spider-Man 2? Runs flawlessly. People with PS5s are out here enjoying fluid web-swinging at a consistent 60 FPS? Pathetic. I get a true Spider-Man experience—one where every single swing is a gamble. Will I gracefully soar across New York, or will my frame rate nosedive so hard Peter teleports into a building and clips into the shadow realm? It’s realistic. Do you think web-swinging at high speeds would be smooth in real life? No. My game is immersion-maxxed. Also, sometimes the game just forgets to render the city. And honestly? That’s art.

FF7 Rebirth? A cinematic masterpiece. Cloud moves at half-speed, the audio desyncs so hard it sounds like Sephiroth is taunting me from another timeline, and my inputs register somewhere between now and when the sun burns out. And yet, I stand firm and declare: this is how gaming should be. Every attack is a test of faith. Will the animation finish? Will Cloud land the hit? Will my Deck catch fire before the fight ends? I don’t know. And that uncertainty? That’s real RPG tension. That’s fluid gameplay.

Black Myth: Wukong? Runs like a myth. People out here talking about “next-gen visuals” and “unreal engine 5 magic.” Meanwhile, I’m playing at a true cinematic 10-20 FPS on my Deck, watching Wukong move like he’s stuck in a mid-2000s Flash animation. Every dodge feels like a spiritual test—not just against enemies, but against the entire concept of frame pacing. The game looks stunning in still images, which is great, because it runs like a PowerPoint presentation. But that’s what makes every fight legendary. Some people say Souls-likes are about “overcoming adversity.” Yeah? Try fighting a boss while your game drops to single-digit FPS mid-parry. That’s a real and fair challenge.

Silent Hill Remake? Perfect. Some people play Silent Hill for the atmosphere. For the storytelling. For the psychological horror. But those people are fools. On my Steam Deck, the horror is real. The fog doesn’t just hide monsters—it hides the fact that my Deck is begging for mercy. The game is struggling to exist, and so am I. Every step is a performance gamble. Will the next frame ever load? Will my character get stuck in the void? Is that actually an enemy, or is my GPU actively having a stroke? I don’t know. And that’s what makes it terrifying. Pure horror.

But wait! FSR and Frame Gen fix everything… NOT. Ah yes, the magical FSR and Frame Generation—the ultimate solution to performance issues.

FSR: “Don’t worry, we’ll upscale your game and make it look just as good.” Reality: Everything now looks like a melted oil painting.

Frame Generation: “It’ll make the game feel smoother!” Reality: My character moves, but my inputs register 3 business days later.

Spider-Man 2 at 14 FPS is bad, but Spider-Man 2 at 35 fake, interpolated, hallucinated frames per second? That’s a war crime. My screen is lying to me, my Deck is lying to me, and worst of all? I’m lying to myself. And you know what? I love it.

The dream: GTA 6 at 3 FPS. I don’t just want to play GTA 6 on my Steam Deck—I want to suffer. I want my car chases to feel like stop-motion animation. I want every gunfight to have the tension of a slideshow. I want NPCs to T-pose because my Deck simply cannot handle their existence. When GTA 6 drops, I’m going day one on my Steam Deck, settings on minimum, resolution below native, FSR set to potato mode, and I will convince myself I’m having fun.

The GOAT feeling: Pretending everything is fine. Acting like these games run flawlessly is the true gamer experience. Gaming isn’t about smooth performance. It’s about denying reality and making bad decisions.

“Oh yeah, Spider-Man 2 on Steam Deck. Perfectly playable.”

“FF7 Rebirth? Runs great if you tweak a few settings.”

“Black Myth: Wukong? Unbelievable performance, truly next-gen.”

Meanwhile, my Deck is actively cooking itself and I’m watching Wukong phase through the floor at 8 FPS. But you know what? I refuse to acknowledge reality.

Because when a game drops to 5 FPS and my Deck sounds like a dying lawnmower, that’s when I know I’m experiencing gaming in its purest form.

Thank you all.

gaming = suffering

/////Edit: Right now, as you read this, there’s a heated debate happening in the comments. Some people are seething, typing out 10-paragraph essays about how I “just need to optimize my settings.” Others are doubling down, saying that some of these games actually run fine on Steam Deck “if you tweak a few things” (they don‘t). A few enlightened ones understand the true essence of gaming— that suffering is the point.

And that’s the beauty of it.

This isn’t just a post. This is the game. The moment you engage, the moment you start crafting your counterarguments or sarcastic agreements, you’ve already lost. You’ve entered the discourse, the eternal Steam Deck cycle:

1. ⁠Someone posts an insane take about how a completely unplayable game “runs fine if you tweak it.”
2. ⁠Someone else violently disagrees and starts a war in the comments.
3. ⁠Another person calls them both morons and suggests something even worse.
4. ⁠A fourth person posts screenshots of totally fake performance metrics as “proof.”
5. ⁠The thread becomes a chaotic wasteland of tech jargon, gaslighting, and people pretending that playing at 12 FPS is a valid experience.

This is what gaming is all about. Not the games themselves, but the battle over how bad we can convince ourselves they aren’t.