Have you ever wanted to play Steam games without having to purchase a dedicated, space-consuming PC? No, we aren’t simply talking about getting a gaming laptop or a Steam Deck. Instead, you can use a Raspberry Pi 5 (and a few other components) to enjoy your ever-growing Steam backlog. However, you will inevitably be limited to playing a few less graphically demanding games because the Pi 5 isn’t exactly meant to be a gaming PC alternative.
According to tech YouTuber leepspvideo’s, well, video, some of the parts you’ll need, aside from the Raspberry Pi 5, include a hefty SD card (preferably a 256GB one), an M.2 NVMe SSD peripheral board for the Pi 5, and a metal case with a dedicated cooler. Luckily, you won’t have to waste time searching for these parts because leepspvideo lists all the places you can buy them below their reel. Less lucky, though, is you may need a bit of technical know-how to accomplish it quickly since it requires quite a bit of coding.
Steam on Raspberry Pi 5 can seamlessly run Brotato, but not much else
The initial portion of the video saw leepspvideo demo several different games, including Brotato and Portal. Unfortunately, it was only when running the former that the tech YouTuber didn’t run into any glaring performance issues. These same problems became even more evident in Terraria, which saw each in-game character moving extremely slowly despite the game’s graphics being set to the lowest possible options. With this in mind, you may only be able to run uber-minimalistic games like Super Crate Box and Moto Racer Collection, if you eventually decide to recreate this device.
Of course, if you want to play games without being severely limited by your device, we suggest building a PC instead. You can start off by checking out the best GPUs in 2024 so you can build around the ideal centerpiece for your rig. Alternatively, you can take a look at the best CPU for gaming in 2024 for an equally robust complementary piece.
