We love seeing all the imaginative ways people get their Steam Deck running on various displays. One way that really caught our interest is a Redditor hooking Valve’s portable up to an old CRT TV. Not only does it work, but the result is oddly nostalgic.
The Steam Deck is easily one of the best handheld gaming PCs and there’s no end to the ways that creative users are altering their play experience. Once upon a time, gaming on a CRT display was the norm, but any of the best gaming monitors are now lightyears ahead, so why would someone do this?
The answer? It’s simple. Because they can! Reddit user andremamola810, in a short and sweet post to the Steam Deck community, mentioned that they have been playing a lot of games on a CRT display lately, so why wouldn’t they downscale the Steam Deck and see how it handles a CRT display?
In response to interested commentators, they stated that the process included purchasing an HDMI to AV converter for less than $10 on Amazon, then scaling down the Steam Deck resolution to 640 x 480, and adjusting the icon scaling.
This led to the Steam Deck working “surprisingly well” on the CRT TV, and despite having to make adjustments to the aspect ratio when playing Fallout New Vegas, it seems like what started as a “what if” actually became quite an interesting experiment.
Obviously, this wouldn’t be anyone’s preferred way to play most games via a Steam Deck, but it’s all about the ingenuity behind the idea. It’s only a matter of time before someone figures out how to get their Steam Deck playing on a fridge display next.
If you’d rather stick to more traditional playtime on your handheld, check out our list of the best Steam Deck games, where we run you through every title that has been fully optimized for the portable.