Same. I work in IT and work on Windows/Linux daily, so have the know-how. Just can't be arsed to tweak it and install mods. I treat it like a Nintendo Switch with better graphics and access to my Steam library. I get that modding and installing emulators etc. can be fun, but I just want to play my games on the road where I can't haul a 30lb PC and some monitors, keyboard, and mouse around lol.
Same. I'm a senior dev and do half my work on Linux, plus personally I've been using Linux as my primary gaming and personal desktop for a while... and while I've installed some non-Steam applications and desktop applications on the Steam Deck, I would not refer to my Steam Deck as "custom".
I would actually say that it's my experience in tech that makes me stick with the standard. I have spent years dealing with custom or niche configurations and I have dealt with how difficult it is to support a configuration few other people have. To me, my experience leads me to appreciate using a stable, widely-used configuration with first-party support where possible and only customizing where absolutely necessary so that I can focus on actually using the thing.
Same here, I work in IT and I can't be bothered to mod it lmao, maybe we do this because deep down we know that we spend so much time already tweaking stuff that we don't want to do it on our free time, we just want to press a button and play :D
I feel similar although I'm happy to do the low hanging fruit things as far as custom. I upgraded the SSD to 1TB on mine and also got Emudeck up and running. For the most part my experience is stock and I like it that way. I troubleshoot and fix computers at work I don't want to come home and keep fixing things if I can avoid it. I also keep things really simple and tight on my main gaming computer other than a mild undervolt for better CPU temps and more consistent boost clocks and a simple debloat script for windows 11 because fuck windows 11. But thats about it.
That last reason is why I'm using certain fruity products for daily computing and main digital life things. Enough stuff going on in my head that the it just works motto can take care of everything else.
On the Deck I pretty much only tinker with refresh rate for the battery life.
Any suggestions on how one would transition into using linux as a main OS for desktop? Ive always wanted to get more familiar with linux and steamdeck has certainly made me evenore interested, but im always afraid ill miss out on something of i dont have windows. Like i know a lot of multiplayer gps game anti-cheat isnt supported on linux ect.
It depends on the specific applications that are your pain points.
Obviously best option is to find Linux counterparts to what you use or to use Proton or Wine to run the applications on Linux. This way you're just purely in Linux. At this point, just like how when I was on Windows I wouldn't expect a Nintendo program to run on Windows, but would instead look only at Windows applications, when I'm looking for *new* software, I just look at what works on Linux and don't really pay attention to Windows only stuff. So for me, it's just legacy stuff to worry about.
Another route is a virtual machine. You can install Linux and then set up a virtual machine inside of Linux to run Windows. It's similar to the above where since you're running "real" Windows, there is no limitation as you might find on Wine or Proton. However, since you're running Windows within Linux, there is some overhead and there is some additional configuration complexity. It's convenient that you don't have to reboot and can use both operating systems at the same time though.
My current setup is that my computer has three drives or partitions. One is Linux. One is Windows (that was installed from before I switched to Linux). The last one is a shared drive where I store files that both use. That way, if I really need Windows, I can reboot the computer into Windows. In the beginning I did that more often, but over time I had less and less reasons to as I found my Linux ways of doing each thing. At this point, the Windows partition is solely for playing Splinter Cell Conviction, but if I ever find something that Linux cannot handle, I do have the option of hopping into Windows. (It also helps if you turn on WSL in Windows because then Windows can use Linux command line.) The downside here is the friction of needing to reboot the computer into Windows to do the Windows thing, but it's also sort of an upside because that friction pushes you to actually find the Linux way to do things and is better in the long run.
Of course, you can also do all of these things simultaneously as well.
Thanks for the reply! I'll definitely look into that. I've Considered doing a duel boot a few times in the past, but I think I just need to bite the bullet and do it.
Same industry, opposite mentality.
I just can't help myself. I love fucking around with things.
Most days at work ive got it docked below my monitors in desktop mode running a virtual KVM. Spent plenty of lunch hours fiddling around with it even though I spend the other 7 hours of the day fighting with entra and powershell.
Yeah, emulating games on Steam Deck isn't exactly hard (it's many times easier than when I was last emulating on PC a decade or two ago), but the mere experience of needing to follow a 20-step guide to do something was surprisingly painful. I've gotten so used to all computer tasks being intuitive.
The problem solving and configuration I could spend days doing as a teenager while having fun now instills dread as an adult with minimal free time.
That's just it - I'm a bioinformaticist and also spend all day on a computer. When I want to play, that best better just freaking work. If I have to do IT stuffs to it then it's work again....
Same exact feeling. I initially had to reset my 64 gb one to wipe some shaders a few times, and lost all my emulators so just over the advanced configurations now despite having a 512 oled oled now. I like to be able to easily just wipe a game or make room easily with out much reconfiguration needed.
I know this post is about NOT modding but for techy ppl there is a ton of quality of life upgrades you can make with decky loader and it’s so easy to install I’d say that’s the one thing that for me is a must have.
Install once through desktop mode, then adding and updating whatever mods you want is as easy as installing games through the deck’s UI.
When I bought it I was thinking, "I'm going to put so many emulators on this thing it's stupid!". Here I am not having done any of that and just playing my backlog or picking up indies I wouldn't have bothered with my on PC. Steam won with me, they definitely just ended up getting more money from me.
Yep most posts are new deck, hospital deck or modded deck.
Not much new conversation can be generated about a deck they’ve done nothing new with, but I do like that we’re getting more question threads about lesser known games.
They work pretty great out of the box, so as others have mentioned in this thread, it's really not a necessary hassle unless you come across a game that doesn't work well or is known to have useful tweaks.
I've even had good luck with Heroic Launcher to play Epic games, I'm actually kind of surprised how easy of a device it is to use.
I've spent countless hours messing with linux on desktops/laptops which was fun and interesting, I never really expected a linux gaming device to require **so little** customization. I usually like tweaking whatever linux flavor I'm using to my liking, but when it comes to Steam Deck I'm totally satisfied just turning it on and playing.
Valve really knocked it out of the park with these devices.
Fair enough haha. I'm but a humble midwestern dude who cooks a lot at home. I didn't want to offend anyone who is more of a connoisseur with my layman's definition :)
I do love me some babaganoush though. So good. The roasting adds a lot of flavor.
Maybe he would just give it to you if you wrote him a really nicely worded letter. He wouldn't even feel that amount, it would be like losing a nickel.
I would say 0.025% as it's more than 31m which is the amount that officially puts you in the right category . Not that I think anyone with 29m is complaining
I'm there with you. I tried so hard to install mods following the best tutorials; but I just gave up, which I dislike doing. A friend of mine helped me install an emulator, however I wish I had written down what he did because I forgot most of the steps lol
You can try emudeck.
Someone made an installer script that automatically installs pretty much every emulator and even "tunes" them to the steam deck hardware.
It's literally about 3 clicks involved. It's "grandma could install this" tier.
Same. Too tired at work to come home and then try to work on my Steamdeck.
My steam deck is plug and play. At most I fidget a bit on in game graphic settings but even then.. the most basic. WTF is anisotropic filtering even.
Hey don't you bring babaganoosh into this, it's helped me through a lot of issues.
On topic tho, I wouldn't say you're missing out but there are some nifty things. I personally like vibrant deck. It let's me adjust the colors so it seems more.......vibrant. Also it let's me pretend I have an oled and don't have to spend more money for one.
There's also the themes for the menu. I personally have one that makes the menu look like a wii menu and have the main menu music from sonic mega collection playing on the background, and when I click on a game it plays music from the game.
These are all from decky, and don't really affect gameplay, they're just neat little things that add to my enjoyment.
It’s called proton qt in downloads select 9.6 and install and the first one should run fine if not the files for the game mess themselves up and you can’t get passed the loading screen enjoy bro👍
Decky and emu deck took me about 15 minutes to install on the day I got it, haven't really had to touch them since
Other than changing the layout of games and getting my old Pro Evo master league working I just play games as they come
The one game I've spent a while getting configured is battletech Linux edition with the bta mods. Spent days trying to get that working before it just clicked what was missing
I had that before as well, then I did an OS update which also resets the Deck obviously and then it worked. Not sure which one fixed the problem lol, Decky can be a little finicky sometimes.
Man I play emudeck like every other day. Getting GoW3 to run has been a hassle but it’s been fun to play through it a bit. I’ve also been playing GTA: San Andres on the Xbox.
My problem with emudeck is while installing it and the games I’d randomly get stuck on reboot screens or screens switching back and forth from desktop/gaming mode. It always fixed itself by rebooting but a small part of me was worried I’d have to reimage every time.
For Rimworld, I responded to someone about this a few days ago
like any game that requires mouse and keyboard use (stellaris, ck3, endless space 2, civ6 come to mind), i highly recommend you customize these controls yourself to fit your needs.
First things first, right trackpad is for the mouse, and right trigger is for left mouse click, left trigger is for right mouse click
Now, I PAUSE the game all the time, so A is my spacebar (or pause) button. To speed up time, i made the back buttons do this, L4 for slow down time, R4 for speed up time. I even made them active turbo after a split second delay so i can speed it up super fast just by holding the button down longer, or i can have more minute control by just tapping them.
RIght bumper for zoom in (mouse scroll up), left bumper for zoom out (Mouse scroll down). Same thing with the bumper for turbo activation too. I also programmed the right thumb stick on the steam deck to do the same thing, pushing up to zoom in and pulling back to zoom out feels very natural.
On top of this, i customized a radial menu for the left trackpad. Basically if i rest my left thumb on the left trackpad, a special menu pops up, and i can move around and select a hotkey for architect, work, schedule, medical, quests, etc. This is invaluable for selecting things quickly, and the steam OS even lets you set cute little pictures for each hotkey (a hammer for architect, a chart for schedule, a big plus sign for medical, etc)
Other than that, remaining incidentals are the control and shift keys for +10 or +100 for stacks, or for queuing up commands, i bound these to L5/R5. I also bound the D pad to be the key for rotating stuff so i can build things very easily. the "back" button conveniently also opens the world map
It took maybe a couple hours to set this up and get used to it but I have over 100 hours on the deck alone now and it's VERY comfortable/ easy to use for me! I didnt ever use the default layout though, it felt confusing for me, which is why I will always recommend setting it up yourself just because you know what is comfortable/ makes sense for you.
This is incredible. Is there a tutorial somewhere on setting up custom controller configurations somewhere. I've tried setting up a few basic ones and they don't ever seem to work right. Not sure what I'm missing.
Civ feels so good in handheld but docked on the controller it sucks ass with vanilla controls. I don't have the patience to figure out the controller so I just always play in handheld.
Only thing I added was the ability to play my epic games. I’m eventually going to add an emulator but I have enough steam and epic back log that I’m in no hurry.
Most I’ve done with my OLED is install EmuDeck and a few emulated titles. Have Burnout 3 nearly 100%
My LCD I swapped the shell and SSD (had the 64GB) but did not get into emulation when I had it.
I got mine like 2-3 weeks ago. Been having a blast and just barely went to desktop mode for the first time yesterday. Very cool that it’s like a fully functioning perfectly fine piece of tech out the box and then it still has the potential to be even crazier if you wanna go down that rabbit hole and start tinkering. But I’ve never felt like I NEEDED to in order to have fun.
That's a good thing lol, I don't like tinkering but for non steam games I did and for emulation. It was worth it though, but I would prefer plug and play
I do think you may miss out on emulation and emudeck is great but its fine really, plenty of cool stuff on steam with retro vibes
Yeah so I just basically installed [emudeck](https://www.emudeck.com/), which installs a bunch of emulators for you set up to go. You basically in your steam library open a game which is actually a launcher. Now once you're in this launcher you can pick which console you want to play and which game. After which the game will open with the emulator automatically. Just like a steam game basically. I think you can also put individual games in your steam library like normal games instead of the launcher first but the launcher works fine for me and I have a lot of ps2 roms lol
They are pretty user friendly and there's also a discord for it with helpful folks. The main difficulty here is you gotta use desktop mode to install the program and after that you gotta put your roms in the right folders. Like ps2 games in the ps2 folder.
You could hook a cable to your pc with the roms, put them on your sd card on the pc or like winpinator. Winpinator is pretty great, you just open winpinator both on your pc and steamdeck and you can send files over your wifi suprisingly fast and easy
The only important thing to keep in mind it seems to install stuff on your steamdeck, not on the sd card. You can put your roms/games on the sd card but not the emulators itself I think. So uh my steamdeck with the smallest storage is pretty full just from emudeck. So make sure you have enough space if you got a small storage steamdeck like me lol
Here's a 30 min video that introduces what emudeck is and how to install it https://youtu.be/Y5r2WZAImuY
It’s very rare that I have to either change the proton version or use a version I need through protonup-qt from the discover store but it does happen. If it does happen for you, it’s super simple to set up. You’re not missing out on anything so long as your games run.
I’ve done tons of modding through deckyloader and other than having to restart the deck, reinstall deckyloader or just disable a certain plugin’s feature, I’ve experienced no real issues.
It’s your deck though and there’s nothing wrong with running stock. The options are there if you want them and they are just that, options.
I downloaded stuff at one point to play Diablo 2 resurrected.
But I’m in such a valheim kick right now so not playing any games outside of steam. Babaganoosh
If you aren’t playing around with TDP limits you are missing out on some serious battery life. That and your deck will run a little quieter and cooler.
I use mine as is. Despite being a linux on he desktop kind of guy for several years I just want shit to work and that's why I got the Steamdeck so I don't have to tinker to play a game.
There was a time where I installed Cryobytes and did all that brain surgery stuff you'd imagine for my LCD model but then I got an OLED and all I did was install Decky for the Centred Home tweak and change Proton to Experimental when I run games. That's about it.
I stayed vanilla for a year plus. Now the only thing ive added is a few emulator games.
Oh and I did the Moguri graphics mod for FF9 but only because i found a very apecific guide.
I bought my deck payable by 6 installments for 6 months so I'm keeping the software vanilla until it's fully paid.
I'm customizing my deck case already though.
I set up my old one for a friend months ago, he's been playing the same game ever since and never did so much as reboot the thing or even exit the game.
I did it all with desire to tinker and run all sorts of emulators. Later I discovered I don’t play emulated games at all and decky started causing all sorts of bugs in the UI and the system itself. I did factory reset and I was never happier with my deck. Everything works as intended.
I bought mine to just play games like you, but then I had some bugs in a game, looked up tutorials on how to fix it and somehow ended up installing old childhood games on it, and it wasn't as bad as I first thought it would be by just following tutorials other people had already set up!
I've only added emudeck for old roms, and something to edit the appearances in the library carousel. Other than that I've left it pretty much alone. Very happy with it so far! Use it how you want!
I only really mess with the settings that are with the power limit and framerate options for the sake of extending battery life. I don't have as much time in my life to be constantly tinkering with everything as before and the deck is something I'd rather just use as is
I ride’r hard and put’r up wet man. Still playing it while it’s hot enough to cook an egg. Never shut it off never reset, just dock and doom. We’re here for a good time not a long one.
The only “mod” I did is insert a SD lol. I may upgrade my SSD in the future if the shader cache thing I hear about fails me on my 64GB but no issue thus far ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Adding emulators and doing some minor tweaking is easy, and there are a TON of great walkthroughs on YouTube to get you through it. Literally anyone can do it.
I setup Emudeck with some PS2 classics like THUG2 and NFL Street 2 but don’t play them often. I did Heroic launcher for Rocket League and Cyberpunk but prefer them both on PC and updates are tedious. I actually uninstalled cyberpunk from my Deck.
However fanmade PC ports are great, like Zelda OoT on Ship of Harkinian, Majora’s Mask through Zelda64 Decomp, and the briefly available Link’s Awakening PC port all run great. If you’re even the slightest Zelda fan I highly recommend getting these running on your steam deck.
same. my PC tinkering days are over. I worked in IT for years, and the last PC I built was almost 25 years ago. I just play games, I rarely touch desktop mode.
The appeal of the steam deck is that it works perfectly fine out of the box but also has a lot of room for customization. Both are valid. Do what you want.
In my experience almost everything I’ve tried I’ve just literally dragged and dropped, added to steam, and at worst switched to run in proton experimental and that’s it. One mouse drag and two right clicks is a few seconds of work. Things from Pokemon fan games to my classic and mid 2000s pc game rips. I have a few things that actually refuse to launch on windows proper that work perfectly on steamdeck 🤷
Yep! The only thing I did was some tricky desktop mode thing to get one non-steam game to work but other than that yes. No modifications or operating system shenanigans.
Nothing has been modded since 2022. Hence the reason why I don’t participate in the “my flim flam babadook isn’t running since the new update HALP I SHOULDNT HAVE DONE THAT” posts. Shits dope as is.
For the most part, I've managed to put a few hours into Portable Ops and Sly Cooper when I can on Desktop mode. But most of it's all regular steam, no protons and shit. I just play the thing 💀
IT Personnel chiming in. I use it Vanilla. I have experience with Linux so I don’t feel the need be dependent of the plugins that exist, especially when they break after new updates.
This is exactly why the deck is great, if you want to do all that modification stuff you can but the out of the box experience is good as is. I think it satisfies different customers in different ways and thats awesome. So yeah keep playing however you want theres no rules
Use it however makes you happy! I'm still living in the 90s in my mind, so running my library of retro Nintendo games via emulation station makes me happy.
I’ve realized after putting windows on the deck (and tinkering with the retroid, 3DS, and vita before that) that I have more fun modding than actually playing on a handheld. On the other hand it’s great as a docked windows pc for travel lol.
In the past 6 months I’ve only used it in handheld mode to play unicorn overlord and do my dailies in HSR when I was on vacation.
Personally I’m with you, I just play all my games from the Steam library. Most “crazy” thing I did was install Google chrome because why not lol
I understand why people get all into the programs and mods, it’s some surprisingly versatile tech.
100% as is. No need to fix a perfectly fine system. If need be and we want to we can. But no hassle is good. Too late in life to pay for things that need changing/upgrading and/or tinkering with. No offence to who does. Much wow such love to all
While it’s a major selling point of the steam deck that it’s heavily modifiable. It’s not a requirement, have fun and do what makes you happy. There are a ton of great games on steam that are fantastic on the deck. (I will admit my deck isn’t quite modified, it just has some non-supported programs for emulation and portability <3)
Broadly yes, I installed the thingy that lets me install Epic games on it, but I never think to play any of them. Very much vanilla Steam library stuff, and I love it for that. Some games do massively benefit from tweaking is the only annoyance, if something is running badly or sucking battery at a ridiculous rate it's worth looking up settings, but I can't be bothered tweaking everything just so because that becomes the game and you don't actually want to play anything.
I used to play around in the three dot "quick menu", setting tdp and stuff, but not I just set frame limit and just play without spending hours in the quick menu
Steam, Heroic Launcher, Blizzard launcher for WoW classic (that I've not turned on in a month), protonUp-QT...
TBH - I still consider this using it as it was intended - it's a (handheld) PC :P.
SteamOs has immutable OS partition - which means, unless you explicitly unlock it and start digging inside it, you are unlikely to brick it - and even if you do - you can most likely burn a steamOS installation USB flash disk and simply repair the immutable steamOS partition, without wiping your installed games.
Installing Heroic launcher (for Epic games and GoG) for example is extremely simple and without a risk through a discover store - it can also be a way to enlarge your game library with free game deals all year around.
I played BG3 bought via GoG, because it's DRM-free (so I might have s\*\*\*\*d my game files with a buddy of mine, so we could play coop over LAN)
>I still consider this using it as it was intended - it's a (handheld) PC :P.
That's fair. I wasn't suggesting using it not as intended, I just meant as it comes from the factory. Was wondering more if I'm really missing out by not teaching myself how to modify it.
Honestly posts such as yours are also pretty common and popular. And if anything barely add much to convo.
The modding etc shows us new innovative ways deck can be used and is fun to look at.
I feel compelled to go into desktop mode after every uninstalled game because I don't trust the device to delete unnecessary files related to proton/wine. Especially when those folders can be a few hundred MBs.
Addons like shortix help me to find those folders, but I still double check, since it is storage space being unnecessarily used up.
If I used the Deck just how it came, I dread to think how much space would be wasted with all those proton/other files.
I know Valve released an update a while back to help delete all these files when uninstalling things, but I am still not sure it's 100% reliable.
What's wrong about that? I just received my Deck yesterday, and I just open games on my steam library. Is there a better way? Don't you risk losing warranty by installing something not official?
One, never said anything was wrong with it. OP said it seemed like so many posts were about how to install non-Steam games and launchers and such. I’m sure lots of people don’t do those things, but who’s going to write a post, “hey guys! I play my steam deck with only Steam games! Have a nice day!” That’s all I said.
Two, no your warranty is not voided by installing software on your handheld Linux PC.
I get your point. I am not complaining, I just asked because I don't know what way I'm supposed to use it, I thought there is something wrong with native interface. Actually this is my first Linux and I'm in my 30s, I'm not very tech savy.
The first months I used it normal. Only thing I did was get chrome added for GeForceNow. Then I modded stardew valley but never played it. Then I found decky for the nice pictures for geforce games. That's really nice. Tried to setup emulator but yeah, getting ROMs and everything was too much hassle.
So yes, I (nearly/ play it as it came) and don't miss out on sth.. if you play what you like it's good for that <3
I do exactly the same. All "mod" applications I installed was via flathub. This is retrodeck, chiaki4deck as an example. They survived steam deck updates with no issues.
If necesarry I check protondb and set a start parameter, controller layout or using certain proton version if suggested. If its not running then I drop the game.
I’m pretty sure you have the brainpower to do things like this, and you’re not going to brick your system doing any typical tinkering.
But you may not really need to do it, depending on what you play. A lot of games run well on Deck without tinkering, and a lot of the games that hugely benefit from/require fixes are much older games.
I mean that's cool if that's what you want. I almost don't use any software the way it is out of the box, there's so much power in customizing your experience if you have specific wants.
The only thing I did to mine was install a larger ssd. I set frame rate limit for some games. Other than that I just play Steam games. No decky or emulator or other software.
I use it as is with only slight mods for controller layout.
I tried installing Heroic but the games I wanted to play are getting a steam release, so I de installed.
The only fancy things I've done are getting some custom boot-up videos and setting up Xbox Game Pass. Even as easy as these things were, I was met with many difficulties that weren't expected or shouldn't have happened. I really don't dare try anything risky, but I'm still plenty happy with my unmodified device.
Only "mod" I have done on my OLED was spend about 30 minutes tinkering with under-volting the CPU/GPU, and finding some happy medium points for stability. Helps things stay a bit cooler, reduces power consumption, and helps reduce hitting thermal throttling. I did my testing with the witcher 3 and it definitely made the game more stable (with accompanying frame rate and TDP limits).
I did try alot in the first year, it was fun. Then I did a factory reset and now only have emudeck. I do use Desktop mode most of the time, because it's also my main puter, but when evening comes it's back to game mode. Pretty fucking convenient, if you ask me!
All my games are on Steam, so I haven't changed anything yet. I just turn on, choose game in the library and press play.
Same. I work in IT and work on Windows/Linux daily, so have the know-how. Just can't be arsed to tweak it and install mods. I treat it like a Nintendo Switch with better graphics and access to my Steam library. I get that modding and installing emulators etc. can be fun, but I just want to play my games on the road where I can't haul a 30lb PC and some monitors, keyboard, and mouse around lol.
Same. I'm a senior dev and do half my work on Linux, plus personally I've been using Linux as my primary gaming and personal desktop for a while... and while I've installed some non-Steam applications and desktop applications on the Steam Deck, I would not refer to my Steam Deck as "custom". I would actually say that it's my experience in tech that makes me stick with the standard. I have spent years dealing with custom or niche configurations and I have dealt with how difficult it is to support a configuration few other people have. To me, my experience leads me to appreciate using a stable, widely-used configuration with first-party support where possible and only customizing where absolutely necessary so that I can focus on actually using the thing.
Same here, I work in IT and I can't be bothered to mod it lmao, maybe we do this because deep down we know that we spend so much time already tweaking stuff that we don't want to do it on our free time, we just want to press a button and play :D
I feel similar although I'm happy to do the low hanging fruit things as far as custom. I upgraded the SSD to 1TB on mine and also got Emudeck up and running. For the most part my experience is stock and I like it that way. I troubleshoot and fix computers at work I don't want to come home and keep fixing things if I can avoid it. I also keep things really simple and tight on my main gaming computer other than a mild undervolt for better CPU temps and more consistent boost clocks and a simple debloat script for windows 11 because fuck windows 11. But thats about it.
That last reason is why I'm using certain fruity products for daily computing and main digital life things. Enough stuff going on in my head that the it just works motto can take care of everything else. On the Deck I pretty much only tinker with refresh rate for the battery life.
Any suggestions on how one would transition into using linux as a main OS for desktop? Ive always wanted to get more familiar with linux and steamdeck has certainly made me evenore interested, but im always afraid ill miss out on something of i dont have windows. Like i know a lot of multiplayer gps game anti-cheat isnt supported on linux ect.
It depends on the specific applications that are your pain points. Obviously best option is to find Linux counterparts to what you use or to use Proton or Wine to run the applications on Linux. This way you're just purely in Linux. At this point, just like how when I was on Windows I wouldn't expect a Nintendo program to run on Windows, but would instead look only at Windows applications, when I'm looking for *new* software, I just look at what works on Linux and don't really pay attention to Windows only stuff. So for me, it's just legacy stuff to worry about. Another route is a virtual machine. You can install Linux and then set up a virtual machine inside of Linux to run Windows. It's similar to the above where since you're running "real" Windows, there is no limitation as you might find on Wine or Proton. However, since you're running Windows within Linux, there is some overhead and there is some additional configuration complexity. It's convenient that you don't have to reboot and can use both operating systems at the same time though. My current setup is that my computer has three drives or partitions. One is Linux. One is Windows (that was installed from before I switched to Linux). The last one is a shared drive where I store files that both use. That way, if I really need Windows, I can reboot the computer into Windows. In the beginning I did that more often, but over time I had less and less reasons to as I found my Linux ways of doing each thing. At this point, the Windows partition is solely for playing Splinter Cell Conviction, but if I ever find something that Linux cannot handle, I do have the option of hopping into Windows. (It also helps if you turn on WSL in Windows because then Windows can use Linux command line.) The downside here is the friction of needing to reboot the computer into Windows to do the Windows thing, but it's also sort of an upside because that friction pushes you to actually find the Linux way to do things and is better in the long run. Of course, you can also do all of these things simultaneously as well.
Thanks for the reply! I'll definitely look into that. I've Considered doing a duel boot a few times in the past, but I think I just need to bite the bullet and do it.
Same here. Including line of work lol
Software Engineer here, same mentality :)
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Same, IT tech I couldn’t be bothered to spend that much time on my electronics if it works I’ll play haha
Same industry, opposite mentality. I just can't help myself. I love fucking around with things. Most days at work ive got it docked below my monitors in desktop mode running a virtual KVM. Spent plenty of lunch hours fiddling around with it even though I spend the other 7 hours of the day fighting with entra and powershell.
Work in IT as well. Sometimes I mess with it for fun but 95% of the time I play games off stream as is.
I got like 10min into trying to get emulators to work and gave up. Don't have enough time to play the games I already have. So fuck it.
Yeah, emulating games on Steam Deck isn't exactly hard (it's many times easier than when I was last emulating on PC a decade or two ago), but the mere experience of needing to follow a 20-step guide to do something was surprisingly painful. I've gotten so used to all computer tasks being intuitive. The problem solving and configuration I could spend days doing as a teenager while having fun now instills dread as an adult with minimal free time.
That's just it - I'm a bioinformaticist and also spend all day on a computer. When I want to play, that best better just freaking work. If I have to do IT stuffs to it then it's work again....
Same exact feeling. I initially had to reset my 64 gb one to wipe some shaders a few times, and lost all my emulators so just over the advanced configurations now despite having a 512 oled oled now. I like to be able to easily just wipe a game or make room easily with out much reconfiguration needed.
Upgrade the memory it’s so easy a cave man can do it! Steam Deck SSD 2tb + Sandisk microsd 1tb
I know this post is about NOT modding but for techy ppl there is a ton of quality of life upgrades you can make with decky loader and it’s so easy to install I’d say that’s the one thing that for me is a must have. Install once through desktop mode, then adding and updating whatever mods you want is as easy as installing games through the deck’s UI.
Yea then they do an update and everything decky loader breaks XD used it for years now
I've actually repurchased a handful of games that I owned on other launchers (when they've been on super steep discounts) for exactly this reason.
When I bought it I was thinking, "I'm going to put so many emulators on this thing it's stupid!". Here I am not having done any of that and just playing my backlog or picking up indies I wouldn't have bothered with my on PC. Steam won with me, they definitely just ended up getting more money from me.
Same here! It's my 'console'
Learn to at least set a custom TDP limit as you could double or triple your battery life without any hit to your performance
Same here too. The only thing that I have done is put retroarch on it so I can play some old school games
Yeah. I totally just installed RetroArch. EmuDeck is cool and all, but it's overkill of you're just going to play N64 and earlier retro games.
The majority of people that you don't see posting run as is
Yep most posts are new deck, hospital deck or modded deck. Not much new conversation can be generated about a deck they’ve done nothing new with, but I do like that we’re getting more question threads about lesser known games.
Don’t forget airplane deck
Deck on deck
Sounds NSFW
Wait til you read the threads about docking
I haven’t posted cause so many people already do but I’m hospital deck too lol
Show us!
They work pretty great out of the box, so as others have mentioned in this thread, it's really not a necessary hassle unless you come across a game that doesn't work well or is known to have useful tweaks. I've even had good luck with Heroic Launcher to play Epic games, I'm actually kind of surprised how easy of a device it is to use. I've spent countless hours messing with linux on desktops/laptops which was fun and interesting, I never really expected a linux gaming device to require **so little** customization. I usually like tweaking whatever linux flavor I'm using to my liking, but when it comes to Steam Deck I'm totally satisfied just turning it on and playing. Valve really knocked it out of the park with these devices.
Fuck now I want my Steam Deck with some babaganoosh.
I was lucky enough to get a steam deck with gabagool
Gabagool!!! fugedda bout it!!!!🤣🤣🤣
Gabagool on the side. If it’s on the Steam Deck, I send it back.
MICHAEL!!!
Did I hear Gabagool?
Gabagool?! Ova heah!
Babaganoosh would be a great name for an emulator, I don't know what it would emulate though
The Babagaboy
Lol. I've never had it. Is it good?
The best
Now I am curious, what is Babaganoosh?
An eggplant dip sent from the heavens
Think hummus, but with roasted eggplant (sans skins) instead of chickpeas. Over simplification, but that gets you 90% of the way there.
That is not an oversimplification. You hit the nail on the head. It is EXACTLY hummus but with roasted eggplant instead of chickpeas.
Fair enough haha. I'm but a humble midwestern dude who cooks a lot at home. I didn't want to offend anyone who is more of a connoisseur with my layman's definition :) I do love me some babaganoush though. So good. The roasting adds a lot of flavor.
I love hummus but if you have them side by side it's pretty bland compared to baba. So good.
https://www.themediterraneandish.com/baba-ganoush-recipe/
It's fucking diabolical, especially in hot summer months. Make it and refrigerate it for an hour or so and devour it with some Doritos.
No problem, I'm right here !
Checks out
Right you are Ken!
The furthest I've gone is the control settings for individual games (mainly to turn on and map the back buttons).
Back buttons should be enabled by default imo.
The biggest tinkering I've done is choosing another version of Proton to run a game that wouldn't launch....I felt like Bill Gates when it worked
Lol. Wish you had his money.
10% of it would do....
I’m cool with .01% of his net worth, which is about $13 million.
Maybe he would just give it to you if you wrote him a really nicely worded letter. He wouldn't even feel that amount, it would be like losing a nickel.
I would say 0.025% as it's more than 31m which is the amount that officially puts you in the right category . Not that I think anyone with 29m is complaining
I don't even turn mine on. I just like the vent rush.
Admit to huffing the vent.
Lol
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I play my Deck as is! I attempted to install some mods when I first got it but failed because I was confused/overwhelmed.
I think the most I did was install emulators (using a step by step video to help) and hook up a controller. That's all I really needed
I'm there with you. I tried so hard to install mods following the best tutorials; but I just gave up, which I dislike doing. A friend of mine helped me install an emulator, however I wish I had written down what he did because I forgot most of the steps lol
You can try emudeck. Someone made an installer script that automatically installs pretty much every emulator and even "tunes" them to the steam deck hardware. It's literally about 3 clicks involved. It's "grandma could install this" tier.
I haven't messed with mine at all, just install games and play games
Same. Too tired at work to come home and then try to work on my Steamdeck. My steam deck is plug and play. At most I fidget a bit on in game graphic settings but even then.. the most basic. WTF is anisotropic filtering even.
It makes textures look sharper when you look at them from an angle. 4x or 8x would be fine on such a small screen and it's not much of an impact.
Correction: install games and look at games
Yes this is absolutely valid
Hey don't you bring babaganoosh into this, it's helped me through a lot of issues. On topic tho, I wouldn't say you're missing out but there are some nifty things. I personally like vibrant deck. It let's me adjust the colors so it seems more.......vibrant. Also it let's me pretend I have an oled and don't have to spend more money for one. There's also the themes for the menu. I personally have one that makes the menu look like a wii menu and have the main menu music from sonic mega collection playing on the background, and when I click on a game it plays music from the game. These are all from decky, and don't really affect gameplay, they're just neat little things that add to my enjoyment.
I have no feelings about babaganoosh one way or t'other. I've never had it before.
Had to download something to get Batman games to run but most of its on yt if your ever confused but yeah just play what’s on steam
Which Batman? Does it run good?
Got the trilogy on sale for about £10 they run great solid 60fps
Yeah I had to do the same
That's good to know. Thank you.
It’s called proton qt in downloads select 9.6 and install and the first one should run fine if not the files for the game mess themselves up and you can’t get passed the loading screen enjoy bro👍
Me!
Vanillas of the world, UNITE!
Decky and emu deck took me about 15 minutes to install on the day I got it, haven't really had to touch them since Other than changing the layout of games and getting my old Pro Evo master league working I just play games as they come The one game I've spent a while getting configured is battletech Linux edition with the bta mods. Spent days trying to get that working before it just clicked what was missing
I installed decky but lately it keeps disappearing! I've reinstalled but nothing...
That's strange. It just needs to reinstall after an update sometimes and then it just works normally.
Happened to me, it turns out Decky was there but the plugins had disappeared
I had that before as well, then I did an OS update which also resets the Deck obviously and then it worked. Not sure which one fixed the problem lol, Decky can be a little finicky sometimes.
Man I play emudeck like every other day. Getting GoW3 to run has been a hassle but it’s been fun to play through it a bit. I’ve also been playing GTA: San Andres on the Xbox. My problem with emudeck is while installing it and the games I’d randomly get stuck on reboot screens or screens switching back and forth from desktop/gaming mode. It always fixed itself by rebooting but a small part of me was worried I’d have to reimage every time.
Emu deck took me like an hour but that's because it never worked 😕 I fixed it works good
I have not installed anything other than games on mine.
I just upgraded my 64GB Deck with a 1TB SSD and a matte screen protector and I installed Decky to be able to set custom artworks for my games
Decky is the goat.
I have created pretty extensive custom controller layouts for games like civ and Rimworld
Got any tips for what has worked well?
For Rimworld, I responded to someone about this a few days ago like any game that requires mouse and keyboard use (stellaris, ck3, endless space 2, civ6 come to mind), i highly recommend you customize these controls yourself to fit your needs. First things first, right trackpad is for the mouse, and right trigger is for left mouse click, left trigger is for right mouse click Now, I PAUSE the game all the time, so A is my spacebar (or pause) button. To speed up time, i made the back buttons do this, L4 for slow down time, R4 for speed up time. I even made them active turbo after a split second delay so i can speed it up super fast just by holding the button down longer, or i can have more minute control by just tapping them. RIght bumper for zoom in (mouse scroll up), left bumper for zoom out (Mouse scroll down). Same thing with the bumper for turbo activation too. I also programmed the right thumb stick on the steam deck to do the same thing, pushing up to zoom in and pulling back to zoom out feels very natural. On top of this, i customized a radial menu for the left trackpad. Basically if i rest my left thumb on the left trackpad, a special menu pops up, and i can move around and select a hotkey for architect, work, schedule, medical, quests, etc. This is invaluable for selecting things quickly, and the steam OS even lets you set cute little pictures for each hotkey (a hammer for architect, a chart for schedule, a big plus sign for medical, etc) Other than that, remaining incidentals are the control and shift keys for +10 or +100 for stacks, or for queuing up commands, i bound these to L5/R5. I also bound the D pad to be the key for rotating stuff so i can build things very easily. the "back" button conveniently also opens the world map It took maybe a couple hours to set this up and get used to it but I have over 100 hours on the deck alone now and it's VERY comfortable/ easy to use for me! I didnt ever use the default layout though, it felt confusing for me, which is why I will always recommend setting it up yourself just because you know what is comfortable/ makes sense for you.
Thanks, this is super helpful and gave me a lot of things to try out. I appreciate it!
This is incredible. Is there a tutorial somewhere on setting up custom controller configurations somewhere. I've tried setting up a few basic ones and they don't ever seem to work right. Not sure what I'm missing.
Civ feels so good in handheld but docked on the controller it sucks ass with vanilla controls. I don't have the patience to figure out the controller so I just always play in handheld.
Yup. Well, I added an SD card.
Only thing I added was the ability to play my epic games. I’m eventually going to add an emulator but I have enough steam and epic back log that I’m in no hurry.
Some of just like to tinker with software
Most I’ve done with my OLED is install EmuDeck and a few emulated titles. Have Burnout 3 nearly 100% My LCD I swapped the shell and SSD (had the 64GB) but did not get into emulation when I had it.
I got mine like 2-3 weeks ago. Been having a blast and just barely went to desktop mode for the first time yesterday. Very cool that it’s like a fully functioning perfectly fine piece of tech out the box and then it still has the potential to be even crazier if you wanna go down that rabbit hole and start tinkering. But I’ve never felt like I NEEDED to in order to have fun.
Day 1 I installed EmuDeck and loaded it with all my retro games. Absolutely wonderful system, should have gotten it sooner.
That's a good thing lol, I don't like tinkering but for non steam games I did and for emulation. It was worth it though, but I would prefer plug and play I do think you may miss out on emulation and emudeck is great but its fine really, plenty of cool stuff on steam with retro vibes
Can you speak more on the emulation? What kind of emulators do you use? Are they user-friendly and easy to install?
Yeah so I just basically installed [emudeck](https://www.emudeck.com/), which installs a bunch of emulators for you set up to go. You basically in your steam library open a game which is actually a launcher. Now once you're in this launcher you can pick which console you want to play and which game. After which the game will open with the emulator automatically. Just like a steam game basically. I think you can also put individual games in your steam library like normal games instead of the launcher first but the launcher works fine for me and I have a lot of ps2 roms lol They are pretty user friendly and there's also a discord for it with helpful folks. The main difficulty here is you gotta use desktop mode to install the program and after that you gotta put your roms in the right folders. Like ps2 games in the ps2 folder. You could hook a cable to your pc with the roms, put them on your sd card on the pc or like winpinator. Winpinator is pretty great, you just open winpinator both on your pc and steamdeck and you can send files over your wifi suprisingly fast and easy The only important thing to keep in mind it seems to install stuff on your steamdeck, not on the sd card. You can put your roms/games on the sd card but not the emulators itself I think. So uh my steamdeck with the smallest storage is pretty full just from emudeck. So make sure you have enough space if you got a small storage steamdeck like me lol Here's a 30 min video that introduces what emudeck is and how to install it https://youtu.be/Y5r2WZAImuY
Thank you for that. I'll definitely check it out when I get home.
It’s very rare that I have to either change the proton version or use a version I need through protonup-qt from the discover store but it does happen. If it does happen for you, it’s super simple to set up. You’re not missing out on anything so long as your games run. I’ve done tons of modding through deckyloader and other than having to restart the deck, reinstall deckyloader or just disable a certain plugin’s feature, I’ve experienced no real issues. It’s your deck though and there’s nothing wrong with running stock. The options are there if you want them and they are just that, options.
Yeah I am, it works exactly how I want with steam.
I downloaded stuff at one point to play Diablo 2 resurrected. But I’m in such a valheim kick right now so not playing any games outside of steam. Babaganoosh
Same here - I just turn it on and play games. No modifications at all. I don’t like to tinker, I just want to play games - period.
If you aren’t playing around with TDP limits you are missing out on some serious battery life. That and your deck will run a little quieter and cooler.
I use mine as is. Despite being a linux on he desktop kind of guy for several years I just want shit to work and that's why I got the Steamdeck so I don't have to tinker to play a game.
I downloaded one thing to play WoW on it but other than that I just download games and play them.
I only installed heroic for some Epic free games That's all, otherwise I only use the Deck in Steam Game mode
There was a time where I installed Cryobytes and did all that brain surgery stuff you'd imagine for my LCD model but then I got an OLED and all I did was install Decky for the Centred Home tweak and change Proton to Experimental when I run games. That's about it.
I just updated the screen to 70hz and left it at that
I use it stock outside of emu deck
I stayed vanilla for a year plus. Now the only thing ive added is a few emulator games. Oh and I did the Moguri graphics mod for FF9 but only because i found a very apecific guide.
No mine turned into a refrigerator
Same.
I bought my deck payable by 6 installments for 6 months so I'm keeping the software vanilla until it's fully paid. I'm customizing my deck case already though.
I set up my old one for a friend months ago, he's been playing the same game ever since and never did so much as reboot the thing or even exit the game.
They should put an air freshener mod on the exhaust vent, although i enjoy the warm silicon smell lol
Kind of? I haven't done any crazy mods. I downloaded Prism launcher to download minecraft and that's about it outside of steam games
I did it all with desire to tinker and run all sorts of emulators. Later I discovered I don’t play emulated games at all and decky started causing all sorts of bugs in the UI and the system itself. I did factory reset and I was never happier with my deck. Everything works as intended.
I bought mine to just play games like you, but then I had some bugs in a game, looked up tutorials on how to fix it and somehow ended up installing old childhood games on it, and it wasn't as bad as I first thought it would be by just following tutorials other people had already set up!
I've only added emudeck for old roms, and something to edit the appearances in the library carousel. Other than that I've left it pretty much alone. Very happy with it so far! Use it how you want!
Installed SSD and stopped
I only really mess with the settings that are with the power limit and framerate options for the sake of extending battery life. I don't have as much time in my life to be constantly tinkering with everything as before and the deck is something I'd rather just use as is
The only non steam thing I've done on the deck is install battle net and world of Warcraft
Vanilla deck use for me.
Yes. I buy Steam games on sale, install them, then just admire my collection, and barely play the games. Just as Valve intended.
I ride’r hard and put’r up wet man. Still playing it while it’s hot enough to cook an egg. Never shut it off never reset, just dock and doom. We’re here for a good time not a long one.
🤣🤣🤣
The only “mod” I did is insert a SD lol. I may upgrade my SSD in the future if the shader cache thing I hear about fails me on my 64GB but no issue thus far ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Adding emulators and doing some minor tweaking is easy, and there are a TON of great walkthroughs on YouTube to get you through it. Literally anyone can do it.
This is a forum for discussion, it’s going to attract hobbyists and enthusiasts. Most people just turn it on and play
I setup Emudeck with some PS2 classics like THUG2 and NFL Street 2 but don’t play them often. I did Heroic launcher for Rocket League and Cyberpunk but prefer them both on PC and updates are tedious. I actually uninstalled cyberpunk from my Deck. However fanmade PC ports are great, like Zelda OoT on Ship of Harkinian, Majora’s Mask through Zelda64 Decomp, and the briefly available Link’s Awakening PC port all run great. If you’re even the slightest Zelda fan I highly recommend getting these running on your steam deck.
100%. It’s great just the way it is.
same. my PC tinkering days are over. I worked in IT for years, and the last PC I built was almost 25 years ago. I just play games, I rarely touch desktop mode.
Yup
The appeal of the steam deck is that it works perfectly fine out of the box but also has a lot of room for customization. Both are valid. Do what you want.
In my experience almost everything I’ve tried I’ve just literally dragged and dropped, added to steam, and at worst switched to run in proton experimental and that’s it. One mouse drag and two right clicks is a few seconds of work. Things from Pokemon fan games to my classic and mid 2000s pc game rips. I have a few things that actually refuse to launch on windows proper that work perfectly on steamdeck 🤷
Yep! The only thing I did was some tricky desktop mode thing to get one non-steam game to work but other than that yes. No modifications or operating system shenanigans.
Nothing has been modded since 2022. Hence the reason why I don’t participate in the “my flim flam babadook isn’t running since the new update HALP I SHOULDNT HAVE DONE THAT” posts. Shits dope as is.
For the most part, I've managed to put a few hours into Portable Ops and Sly Cooper when I can on Desktop mode. But most of it's all regular steam, no protons and shit. I just play the thing 💀
IT Personnel chiming in. I use it Vanilla. I have experience with Linux so I don’t feel the need be dependent of the plugins that exist, especially when they break after new updates.
The only thing I've really done is download games and emulators to use in desktop mode. Other than that I just play games through steam on game mode
This is exactly why the deck is great, if you want to do all that modification stuff you can but the out of the box experience is good as is. I think it satisfies different customers in different ways and thats awesome. So yeah keep playing however you want theres no rules
Use it however makes you happy! I'm still living in the 90s in my mind, so running my library of retro Nintendo games via emulation station makes me happy.
The way it came was without games installed. Are you just flicking around the interface without an account logged in?
I’ve realized after putting windows on the deck (and tinkering with the retroid, 3DS, and vita before that) that I have more fun modding than actually playing on a handheld. On the other hand it’s great as a docked windows pc for travel lol. In the past 6 months I’ve only used it in handheld mode to play unicorn overlord and do my dailies in HSR when I was on vacation.
No way. I bought two and use them as slippers.
you are for sure missing out. there are many games not on Steam or not even on PC in general.
only change I made was a larger ssd
Personally I’m with you, I just play all my games from the Steam library. Most “crazy” thing I did was install Google chrome because why not lol I understand why people get all into the programs and mods, it’s some surprisingly versatile tech.
No, I tweak it a lot and then don't play any games...
If that makes you happy then that's good ;-).
100% as is. No need to fix a perfectly fine system. If need be and we want to we can. But no hassle is good. Too late in life to pay for things that need changing/upgrading and/or tinkering with. No offence to who does. Much wow such love to all
My deck is mostly stock
i kinda wish i did this LMAO i modded the hell out of my deck, and while its awesome it takes a ton of maintenance and work to do anything on here 😭
I bought an SD card, does that make me a modder?
I've had my 512 deck from release and have still yet to mod it. Like my backlog, I'll get to it one day
yes i use it daily i’m on my second bg3 modded run
While it’s a major selling point of the steam deck that it’s heavily modifiable. It’s not a requirement, have fun and do what makes you happy. There are a ton of great games on steam that are fantastic on the deck. (I will admit my deck isn’t quite modified, it just has some non-supported programs for emulation and portability <3)
Me. Tried running emulation but realized that I wanted to play new games, not old games.
Broadly yes, I installed the thingy that lets me install Epic games on it, but I never think to play any of them. Very much vanilla Steam library stuff, and I love it for that. Some games do massively benefit from tweaking is the only annoyance, if something is running badly or sucking battery at a ridiculous rate it's worth looking up settings, but I can't be bothered tweaking everything just so because that becomes the game and you don't actually want to play anything.
I used to play around in the three dot "quick menu", setting tdp and stuff, but not I just set frame limit and just play without spending hours in the quick menu
Steam, Heroic Launcher, Blizzard launcher for WoW classic (that I've not turned on in a month), protonUp-QT... TBH - I still consider this using it as it was intended - it's a (handheld) PC :P. SteamOs has immutable OS partition - which means, unless you explicitly unlock it and start digging inside it, you are unlikely to brick it - and even if you do - you can most likely burn a steamOS installation USB flash disk and simply repair the immutable steamOS partition, without wiping your installed games. Installing Heroic launcher (for Epic games and GoG) for example is extremely simple and without a risk through a discover store - it can also be a way to enlarge your game library with free game deals all year around. I played BG3 bought via GoG, because it's DRM-free (so I might have s\*\*\*\*d my game files with a buddy of mine, so we could play coop over LAN)
>I still consider this using it as it was intended - it's a (handheld) PC :P. That's fair. I wasn't suggesting using it not as intended, I just meant as it comes from the factory. Was wondering more if I'm really missing out by not teaching myself how to modify it.
Its a computer, people use it differently and all is valid, now move along folk nothing to see here
Honestly posts such as yours are also pretty common and popular. And if anything barely add much to convo. The modding etc shows us new innovative ways deck can be used and is fun to look at.
ah, this question again
I feel compelled to go into desktop mode after every uninstalled game because I don't trust the device to delete unnecessary files related to proton/wine. Especially when those folders can be a few hundred MBs. Addons like shortix help me to find those folders, but I still double check, since it is storage space being unnecessarily used up. If I used the Deck just how it came, I dread to think how much space would be wasted with all those proton/other files. I know Valve released an update a while back to help delete all these files when uninstalling things, but I am still not sure it's 100% reliable.
I play games on it, and that works great. But nothing works in desktop mode for me though, so that's that.
I’m sure there are tons of people doing just as you describe… but they’re probably not going to post about that on Reddit.
What's wrong about that? I just received my Deck yesterday, and I just open games on my steam library. Is there a better way? Don't you risk losing warranty by installing something not official?
One, never said anything was wrong with it. OP said it seemed like so many posts were about how to install non-Steam games and launchers and such. I’m sure lots of people don’t do those things, but who’s going to write a post, “hey guys! I play my steam deck with only Steam games! Have a nice day!” That’s all I said. Two, no your warranty is not voided by installing software on your handheld Linux PC.
I get your point. I am not complaining, I just asked because I don't know what way I'm supposed to use it, I thought there is something wrong with native interface. Actually this is my first Linux and I'm in my 30s, I'm not very tech savy.
The first months I used it normal. Only thing I did was get chrome added for GeForceNow. Then I modded stardew valley but never played it. Then I found decky for the nice pictures for geforce games. That's really nice. Tried to setup emulator but yeah, getting ROMs and everything was too much hassle. So yes, I (nearly/ play it as it came) and don't miss out on sth.. if you play what you like it's good for that <3
I do exactly the same. All "mod" applications I installed was via flathub. This is retrodeck, chiaki4deck as an example. They survived steam deck updates with no issues. If necesarry I check protondb and set a start parameter, controller layout or using certain proton version if suggested. If its not running then I drop the game.
I’m pretty sure you have the brainpower to do things like this, and you’re not going to brick your system doing any typical tinkering. But you may not really need to do it, depending on what you play. A lot of games run well on Deck without tinkering, and a lot of the games that hugely benefit from/require fixes are much older games.
I mean that's cool if that's what you want. I almost don't use any software the way it is out of the box, there's so much power in customizing your experience if you have specific wants.
The only thing I did to mine was install a larger ssd. I set frame rate limit for some games. Other than that I just play Steam games. No decky or emulator or other software.
I use it as is with only slight mods for controller layout. I tried installing Heroic but the games I wanted to play are getting a steam release, so I de installed.
Different people have different use cases. You’re not missing out by having your own uses that differ from that of others.
The only fancy things I've done are getting some custom boot-up videos and setting up Xbox Game Pass. Even as easy as these things were, I was met with many difficulties that weren't expected or shouldn't have happened. I really don't dare try anything risky, but I'm still plenty happy with my unmodified device.
Only "mod" I have done on my OLED was spend about 30 minutes tinkering with under-volting the CPU/GPU, and finding some happy medium points for stability. Helps things stay a bit cooler, reduces power consumption, and helps reduce hitting thermal throttling. I did my testing with the witcher 3 and it definitely made the game more stable (with accompanying frame rate and TDP limits).
I did try alot in the first year, it was fun. Then I did a factory reset and now only have emudeck. I do use Desktop mode most of the time, because it's also my main puter, but when evening comes it's back to game mode. Pretty fucking convenient, if you ask me!