Steam Hardware

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A place to discuss and support all Steam Hardware, including Steam Deck, Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and SteamOS in general.

As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title

The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Deck] - Steam Deck related.
[Machine] - Steam Machine related.
[Frame] - Steam Frame related.
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.

If your post is only relevant to one hardware device (Deck/Machine/Frame/etc) please specify which one as part of the title or by using a device flair.

These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.

Rules:

Link to our Matrix Space

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The Steam Machine and Steam Frame are probably delayed, but they still intend to release them in the first half of this year.

They said they planned to have a concrete launch window and pricing by now, but hardware pricing/shortages have made that hard to pin down.

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These are lists of some tools and software that are useful for Steam Deck and can enhance your experience with it, as well as all the websites and other such Steam Deck resources I know.

I made these lists for the wiki on Reddit's SteamDeck sub and I thought it was a pretty useful to keep around. I wanted to dump them here for everybody to preserve them and to maybe find a new home for this Steam Deck resource.

Let me know what you think.

List of tools and homebrew

Below is a list of tools and homebrew that can enhance your experience with the Steam Deck. Since the Steam Deck offers most things that a normal Linux desktop environment can, tools are included that can be found in the Discover store (including from non-default repositories) and have proven to be an especially good fit.

Emulation and non-steam games

  • BCML Installer for Steam Deck

    BCML (a modding tool voor Breath of the Wild for WiiU) can be difficult to get running on Steam Deck, because it uses an immutable filesystem and the version of Python installed by default is higher than what BCML supports. This script helps people install it.

  • BoilR

    Add non-steam games to your steam library.

  • Emudeck

    This script automates downloading, installing and setting up a large list of different emulators.

  • EmulationStation DE

    A graphical and themeable emulator front-end that allows you to access all your favorite games in one place, which is installed by Emudeck and Retrodeck, but can also be used by itself.

  • Mod Organizer 2 Linux Installer

    This project aims to make modding and playing Bethesda games on Linux as easy as possible. It does that by providing installers which automatically setup a working experience for the user.

  • Retrodeck

    A flatpak application containing a large list of different emulators.

  • SGDBoop

    A tool that automatically applies assets from SteamGridDB directly to your Steam library, removing the need to download and set them manually.

  • Steam ROM Manager

    Steam ROM Manager is a super flexible tool for adding non-Steam games to steam in bulk and managing their artwork assets. It can be installed with Emudeck, but can also be used by itself.

File management

  • Deck Drive Manager

    Copy Steam Games From Your PC to Your Steam Deck SD Card.

  • Disk Usage Analyzer

    A tool for managing your used and free space.

  • Firelight

    Filelight is an application to visualize the disk usage on your computer by showing folders using an easy-to-understand view of concentric rings. Filelight makes it simple to free up space!

  • gdu

    If you prefer the command-line, gdu is a fast disk usage analyzer with console interface, written in Go.

  • Shortix

    A script that creates human readable symlinks for Proton game prefixes. Reddit release post

  • Steam Deck Shader Cache Killer

    Script to Purge The Steam Decks Shader Cache/ Compat Data. Reddit release post

File transfer and synchronization

  • Deck Screenshot Sync

    A work-in-progress auto-uploader for screenshots made from the Deck onto your PC or phone. Reddit post by u/ Xinerki.

  • MEGASync

    Easy automated syncing between your computers and your MEGA Cloud Drive.

  • OpenCloudSaves

    Open Cloud Saves is an open source application for managing your saves games across Windows, MacOs, and Linux (including SteamOS).

  • Syncthing

    Syncthing is a file synchronization tool like Dropbox, except that it can work with your own machines and without a server. This can be very useful for keeping non-Steam and emulator save games in sync or backed up.

  • Warpinator

    Send and Receive Files across the Network

Launchers

  • Alfea

    Alfae is an experimental project to launch GOG/Local/ItchIo/Epic/Bottles Games in an organised fashion. Also can add games to deck UI.

  • Bottles

    Runs Windows software on Linux with Bottles.

  • Heroic Game Launcher

    Heroic is an Open Source Games Launcher. Right now it supports launching games from the Epic Games Store using Legendary and GOG Games using our custom implementation with gogdl.

  • Lutris

    Lutris is a video game preservation platform aiming to keep your video game collection up and running for the years to come.

  • NonSteamLaunchers

    Installs the latest GE-Proton and several non-Steam launchers under one Proton prefix folder and adds them to your Steam library. Reddit release post for v2.7

  • Steam Tinker Launch

    Steam Tinker Launch is a versatile Linux wrapper tool for use with the Steam client which allows for easy graphical configuration of game tools, such as GameScope, MangoHud, modding tools and a bunch more. It supports both games using Proton and native Linux games, and works on both X11 and Wayland.

Plugins and mods

Remote access and game streaming

  • AnyDesk

    AnyDesk allows you to connect to your Steam Deck desktop remotely, like TeamViewer.

  • Barrier

    Share mouse and keyboard over the local network.

  • Chiaki4deck

    Chiaki4deck is a fork of Chiaki, adding features for the Steam Deck. It is a free and Open Source Client for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 Remote Play. It can be used to play in real time on a PlayStation as long as there is a network connection.

  • Deskreen

    Turn any device into a secondary screen for your computer. Streams your Steam Deck screen to a browser on another machine.

  • KDE Connect

    Enables communication between all your devices.

  • Moonlight

    Moonlight allows you to play your PC games on almost any device, whether you're in another room or miles away from your gaming rig.

  • NoMachine

    Like AnyDesk, allows remote desktop connections to your Steam Deck. Disabling read-only on the filesystem is required to install, but otherwise works very well.

  • Remote Mouse

    Use your phone as a keyboard and mouse, and copy/paste between devices (apps for iOS and for Android available.) Gained improved support for Linux and Steam Deck in December 2022.

  • Rustdesk

    An open source TeamViewer alternative, remote desktop software. Works out of the box, no configuration required. Use the AppImage from the nightly build.

  • Steam Link

    Connect your Steam Deck or other Steam devices with each other for remote streaming.

  • Sunshine

    Sunshine is a self-hosted game stream host for Moonlight, offering low latency, cloud gaming server capabilities.

  • Unified Remote

    Remote control app for your Steam Deck. Turn your smartphone into a universal remote control, control mouse, keyboard and more.

Other tools

  • Boot Video Randomizer

    Replace the Deck startup video file with a file of the user's choice. Randomizer provides two features: individual random set and on-boot randomization. Reddit release post

  • CoreKeyboard

    CoreKeyboard is an X11-based virtual keyboard. It has the advantage over Valve's built-in keyboard to offer access to special keys such as Ctrl, Alt and function keys.

  • Great on Deck browser extension for Chrome or Firefox

    See what games are verified for the Steam Deck and which medal they have on ProtonDB in the Steam store.

  • Ludusavi

    Backup tool for PC game saves. Here is the Reddit release post.

  • ProtonUp-Qt

    Install and manage Wine- and Proton-based compatibility tools for Steam and Lutris with this graphical user interface.

  • Qbert

    Qbert generates a root overlay where you can install whatever software you need without messing your filesystem. NOTICE: something is broken atm, Qbert is not creating a correct overlay so basically the software is not working as intended.

  • SC Controller

    User-mode driver, mapper and GTK3 based GUI for Steam Controller, DS4 and similar controllers. Steam Deck support added in version 0.4.8.8.

  • Steam Deck SD Card Scanner

    An application to help you keep track of the different games you have on your SD Cards. If you ever found yourself wondering if you already have a game installed on a different SD Card then this is for you. Reddit post by u/ddotthomas.

  • Steam Deck Utilities by CryoByte33

    Scripts and utilities to enhance the Steam Deck experience, particularly performance.

  • Steam Shortcut Editor

    Allows you to modify the shortcuts file quickly and set game name to be the appid, so you have access to community controls. Link to Reddit post

  • Vibrant Deck CLI

    A simple command line utility to tweak the screen saturation of the Steam Deck.

List of Steam Deck-related websites

Here is a collection of websites that offer information, guides and news about the Steam Deck.

Official Valve sites

Linux and Steam Deck gaming sites

  • ProtonDB

    Crowdsourced Linux and Steam Deck game compatibility reports.

  • GamingOnLinux

    GamingOnLinux deals with games on Linux (which the Steam Deck runs) in general, but has consistently reported on Steam Deck-related news.

  • Linux Gaming Central

    Linux Gaming Central is dedicated to giving you news on the Linux gaming front. The link above points to the "Steam Deck" tag on the site.

  • Boiling Steam

    Boiling Steam is dedicated to covering the world of PC Linux Gaming since 2014. The site often reports on the Steam Deck, as the search results the link points to show.

  • Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?

    A comprehensive and crowd-sourced list of games using anti-cheats and their compatibility with GNU/Linux or Wine/Proton.

Steam Deck community sites

  • Steam Deck Community

    An independent Steam Deck Forum.

  • Steam Deck Life

    A Steam Deck blog for the latest news, tips and tricks and more.

  • Steam Deck HQ

    A web site with game reviews with optimal configuration, tips and guides, and news.

  • ShareDeck

    An unofficial site to find and share Steam Deck performance configurations.

  • overkill.wtf

    overkill.wtf primarily focuses on the Steam Deck, with a hint of Switch, PC gaming and whatever else we find interesting at that moment--but mostly Steam Deck.

  • Great on Deck

    Unofficial Steam Deck compatibility website. Verification, performance reviews and tweaks for Steam Deck. Emulation guides, Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect games and more.

  • CheckMyDeck

    Check Steam Deck compatibility of your Steam library.

  • sdeck.wiki

    A list of Steam Deck resources.

  • Steam Deck Guide

    A guide covering Steam Deck, including the applications and tools that will make you better and more efficient with your Steam Deck device.

  • Steam Deck Repo

    A website where you can upload and share community-made Steam Deck boot videos (plus in the future, other things like themes and an app to automatically apply them to the Steam Deck)!

  • Steam Deck Linux Wiki

    This wiki aims to be a useful resource for those that want to explore the desktop side of the Steam Deck.

  • Steam Deck Guide

    This guide contains all kinds of useful tips that were found online. Hopefully it will help you use your Steam Deck to the fullest.

List of Steam Deck-related subreddits and Lemmy communities

These other places covering the Steam Deck also exist on sites like Reddit and Lemmy:

  • r/SteamDeck
  • r/DeckSupport
  • r/steamdeck_linux
  • r/SteamDeckBootVids
  • r/SteamDeckEmulation
  • r/SteamDeckGames
  • r/SteamDeckModded
  • r/SteamDeckMods
  • r/SteamDeckTech
  • r/SteamDeckTinker
  • r/SteamDeckTricks
  • r/SteamDeckWins
  • r/SteamDeckYuzu
  • r/SteamOS
  • r/WindowsOnDeck
  • r/BestOfSteamDeck
  • r/linux_gaming

List of Steam Deck-related podcasts

If you enjoy listening to Steam Deck news in your car or elsewhere, these podcasts might be for you:

List of Steam Deck-related Discord servers

Get together and discuss the Steam Deck on these Discord servers:

  • Steam Deck Discord

    The main Steam Deck Discord, not affiliated with Valve, Valve employees are known to lurk on the Discord.

  • Steam Deck Homebrew

    Steam Deck Homebrew Discord server, with, among others, a channel for Decky support.

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This is for multiplying your fps by 3x or 4x, but the input lag, ghosting, stuttering, and other issues make everything worse. Overall I'd recommend sticking to lossless scaling at 2x or not using framegen at all.

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So when the news circulated recently that the Lutris developer was using Claude to help write the code (and the angry posts/articles appeared) I figured I'd reach out to Mathieu to hear his side of things.

I chatted to him a little, asking for his side of the story. He goes into some depth on how he uses it as part of his work-flow, the transparency in open-source projects in general, licensing and ownership of code that A.I. writes, safety and so on. Plenty of answers from Lutris, if you're curious on the topic. As ever, you can find the link here:

https://gardinerbryant.com/mathieu-comandon-explains-his-use-of-ai-in-lutris-development/

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Wine is the windows compatibility layer that Proton is based on, which is how the Deck plays windows games. So any significant update to wine will directly benefit windows games on Deck, as soon as Proton is updated.

NTsync is the headlining new addition to Wine11. It replaces Esync and Fsync as a much accurate synchronizer. This should:

  • Make games run smoother, removing microstutters and improving frame pacing

  • Significantly improve performance in some older games that could run into major performance bottlenecks from this. You can see some fps increases here, with many of the affected games getting over twice the fps.

NTsync requires kernel support, but Valve added that in steamOS 3.7.20. Wine11's NTsync hasn't made it into Proton experimental yet, but GE-Proton has added support for it already, so it's not hard to try it out.

Wine11 also improves support for older 32 and 16 bit windows applications.

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Ok so, not entirely sure if I'm breaking some format/post rules, but basically:

While FSR 4.1 has officially released, over the weekend, the OptiScaler team managed to release an INT 8 version of FSR4, that they are calling 4.0.2b.

I have spent the last ~48 hrs off and on reworking my Cyberpunk 2077 mod setup on my Steam Deck, and I can tell you that this version of FSR4 is working, on a Deck, on Cyberpunk.

I've got it paired with the FSR 3 FrameGen, in Cyberpunk... seems to be working?

Optiscaler PreRelease:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/114a5w6OF-ehfP_EX293wntguZJ3nfl7B/view

FSR 4.0.2b INT8:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hXhOiBkZS3Oud81-VfFuEiyixA-e-FG9/view


[Disclaimer!]

I am not this YouTuber, I just watched their video and learned about it from them.

I suggest you watch it as well if you would like more info and/or a walkthrough for how to set it all up.

Also... not sure how to 'flair' this properly, as... well, this should apply to the Deck, and also the Steam Machine, and is also arguably News or a PSA... ???

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I spent a few days chatting to the RetroDECK team (who are well and truly friends by now!), with the idea that it might be a good chance to focus on their real passion: retro gaming. Too often RetroDECK (which is all about emulation/retro gaming for the Steam Deck/Linux) just gets bottled up and mentioned as being less than it is.

Sure you get the typical emulation projects in there: PS2, PS3, Wii U, SNES and so on, but it really has so much more to offer to users. From odd little projects and engines to things like MUDs, pinball and more.

This was a nice chat with the team, it shows them all sharing what they're so passionate about. Retro gaming in all its forms.

From my friend Lazorne in the interview:

What I hope to do is simply provide people with an easy way to experience those memories again, provided they still have access to their old games. For one person retro might mean the PlayStation 3, while for others it could be systems like the TRS-80 or the BBC Micro.Both viewpoints are valid and that is how we approach the components included in RetroDECK as well.

You can find my article and the whole interview here:

https://gardinerbryant.com/retrodeck-is-more-than-emulation-an-interview-with-the-devs/

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/44314509

I have been in the process of writing some help guides, and one of my friends graciously lent me his Steam Deck so that I could verify that Fluxer would work on it as well. And I'm happy to say it does. Although I did not plan on just posting a Fluxer Help-Article on Lemmy, I figured while waiting on the Fluxer team to start accepting pull requests and me getting done with my guides, someone might be looking for step-by-step instructions for their Steam Deck. So here it is. Feedback and discussion is of course welcome.


In this Help Article we will guide you step-by-step through the process of installing and integrating Fluxer into your application menu on the Steam Deck. Although not required, access to an external physical keyboard is recommended.

The Steam Deck is running a custom version on Linux that is based on Arch, and the CPU architecture is x86-64. This means we could either use the AppImage(x64) option or the tar.gz(x64) option from the download drop-down on https://fluxer.app/downloads

Since integrating the AppImage into the application menu requires additional steps such as manually retrieving the icon .png file this guide will focus on the installation process for the tar.gz.

Before we explain how to install Fluxer from the tar.gz file, let's take a moment and go through what a tar.gz file is. tar.gz are actually two abbreviations put together. "tar" from Tape Archive (sometimes referred to as a tarball) which is an archive file format and the "gz" at the end is short for Gzip(which in of itself is short for Gnu Zip) and it is a compression format. When combined you get an archive that is neatly packed in one file that is now also take up less space.

- Okay, why was that important to start off with?

Well, since it is a compressed archive, that means we can't just double click it and hope it will do much more than perhaps open the preinstalled unarchiver on our system. The fact is, a tar.gz file does not necessarily even have to contain any executable, even if it is an application. In this case with the Fluxer - tar.gz it does contain a executable.

Note: The steps outlined in this help article will primarily be performed using the terminal. The keyboard shortcut to open the terminal is "Ctrl + Alt + T" or you can open it from the application menu under the "system" category and it is referred to as "console".

Installing Fluxer

Let's begin by entering desktop mode on the Steam Deck. Long press the power button on the top of the Steam Deck, this should make a menu appear, from that menu choose "switch to desktop".

Then open the web browser and download the tar.gz(x64) from https://fluxer.app/download.

Once downloaded navigate to your download folder through the terminal by typing the following command:

cd ~/Downloads

Where Downloads is either the default download location, or the folder you chose to save the tar.gz file.

Tip: You can press "tab" on your keyboard to complete the file/directory name. If there are multiple files/directories with the same beginning of the filename it won't auto complete. But if you press tab again, it will show you all possibilities with the same beginning. This is referred to as "Tab Complete".

Now it is time to extract our tar.gz we can do this by using the tar command. Type the following command into the terminal:

tar -xzf fluxer-stable-0.0.8-x64.tar.gz

Tip: The options x, z, f stand for extract, decompress gzip, and specify the file. "Specify the file" might seem a bit cryptic, but remember tar is as old as tape drives. In essence the "f" option just says, what comes next is the filename.

You could run Fluxer here and now, cd into the directory we just extracted and then type the following command in the terminal:

./fluxer

But lets install it properly. Because right now, Fluxer only works if you navigate to its folder and run it manually from the terminal. If we move it to a standard system location and create a desktop entry, we will integrate it with your system. This means Fluxer will appear in your application menu, and you can launch it like any other installed program.

Note: make sure you are located inside the fluxer-stable-0.0.8-x64 folder for the next step. Use the cd command followed by the folder name if needed.

Next we need to create two directories, copy the Fluxer files and make a symbolic link to the executable that can later be used by the application menu to launch Fluxer.

Type the following commands into the terminal:

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/fluxer cp -r * ~/.local/share/fluxer/ mkdir -p ~/.local/bin ln -s ~/.local/share/fluxer/fluxer ~/.local/bin/fluxer

Each line followed by return or enter.

Now that the Fluxer has been installed we want to have it appear in our application menu, to achieve this we need to let the system know where to find it. Lets begin by creating a .desktop file with the Nano editor in the terminal.

Type the following command into the terminal:

nano ~/.local/share/applications/fluxer.desktop

Write the following into the file.

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Fluxer
Exec=/home/USERNAME/.local/share/fluxer/fluxer
Icon=/home/USERNAME/.local/share/fluxer/resources/512x512.png
Type=Application
Categories=Network;Chat;

Note: Change "USERNAME" to your username

Once done; press Ctrl + O to write out (functionally the same as Save), then Ctrl + X to exit Nano.

And now lets validate the .desktop file, by typing the following command into the terminal:

desktop-file-validate ~/.local/share/applications/fluxer.desktop

If this returns no errors we can continue and make our .desktop file executable

Type the following command into the terminal:

chmod +x ~/.local/share/applications/fluxer.desktop

And lastly lets update the desktop database. Type the following command into the terminal:

update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications/

You will now be able to access Fluxer through your application menu and it will sit in the correct category.

Note: Fluxer will not run properly if added to your steam library as a non steam game on the Steam Deck and launched from within game mode. - This is no longer true

Edit: After some troubleshooting I realized that there seemed to be an issue with the sandboxing and steam wanting to run the app in 32-bit environment.

Solution: All that should be required to solve the situation is to add env -u LD_PRELOAD %command% to the launch option in properties for Fluxer in steam. I did how ever first try and fix the sandboxing issue so if for you the issue persists after adding the launch options. cd into ~/.local/share/fluxer and run the following two commands in the terminal:

sudo chown root:root chrome-sandbox
sudo chmod 4755 chrome-sandbox
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I have no problem installing games via their GoG installer with the Heroic Games Launcher on my main Fedora PC. However on the Steam Deck when I click "Add Game" and then fill in the name and click on "Run Installer First" the installer launches and then tells me that it could no find the other .bin files. I tried moving the directory to other places, but it seems like wine cannot find the files. I checked the directory permissions and all users have read access to those directories, yet they do not show up in the mounted filesystem in wine... (the GoG installer lets you choose another location of the files if it cannot find them)

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A lot of older PC games can run just fine on modern phone hardware. I'd buy a SteamOS version of a phone that has some modular or built-in set of buttons and analog sticks. I don't know how the app ecosystem would work for sensitive things like banking but it's mostly a minor issue for me.

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Something is brewing on the RetroDECK Blog!

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Jason, Liam, and Nick navigate all the bad news from Valve, explain the Discord drama, and reframe some game developer news with a positive spin. Plus, a mountain of evidence showing how awesome Linux gaming is already doing in 2026. Oh, and the obligatory rant from Liam, some spicy opinions about GeForce Now on Linux, and much more!

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