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Steam Deck tips

Steam games on Steam Deck

Installing Steam games on the Steam Deck is quite simple.  Many of them "just work".

If you are having a problem with a game, search for it on ProtonDB

Reports for  the Steam Deck are at the top and marked with the Steam Deck logo.
Image/photo

Many of the solutions mentioned on ProtonDB will require you to click on the gear icon for the game and go to "Properties...".

Sometimes you'll need to set a "Launch Option" which is under "General".

Sometimes you'll need to force a specific version of Proton / Steam Play which is under "Compatibility".

Sometimes the game might require more, like installing a GE or glorious eggroll community version of Proton.  This can be done easily in Desktop Mode.

Accessing Desktop mode

There are a few ways to access Desktop mode.

One method is via the Steam menu which can be accessed by pressing the "Steam" button on the left of the deck or by pressing the "Steam" menu button with the touch screen.

From here you can access the "Power" menu and choose "Switch to Desktop".

You can also access the "Power" menu by holding the power button.  From there you can choose "Switch to Desktop".

Using Desktop mode

Once you are in Desktop mode you should get familiar with the inputs and environment.  If you need a keyboard, Steam-X should bring up the on-screen keyboard.  If it doesn't for some reason, verify that steam is running by clicking or tapping the "Steam" icon in the top left.

The Discover app should be on the taskbar, it looks like a shopping bag.

One very useful tool for running Steam games is ProtonUp-Qt.  I recommend searching for that in the Discover app, installing it, launching it, and installing the latest version of Proton-GE for future use.

It is also useful to set a password for the deck user and to start sshd.

You set a password by launching the Konsole app and typing passwd.

You can configure sshd to start ( and start automatically on boot by) typing these two commands in Konsole:
sudo systemctl enable sshd.service
sudo systemctl start sshd.service


You can find the IP of the Steam Deck by typing:
ip addr list

The relevant line in the output will look like this:
inet 192.168.1.12/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global dynamic noprefixroute wlan0

More Desktop tips

If you've enabled sshd, you should be able to transfer files from your PC or another device using an scp or sftp client.

Another method would be to use "Warpinator" which can be found in the Discover app.

To use you PC's keyboard and mouse to control the Steam Deck in Desktop mode, you can use the "Barrier" app from Discover.

If a ProtonDB entry suggests using protontricks for a Steam game, that can be found in the Discover app.

Non-Steam games on Steam Deck

There are a few ways to do this.

Sometimes it might "just work" to download an installer and run it with Steam Play.  Sometimes this becomes quite complicated.

I recommend using something like Lutris or Heroic when possible.
Lutris and Heroic work best for PC games that were purchased from a storefront other than Steam.

Heroic works for GOG and Epic.

Lutris works for Humble, GOG, Epic, Origin, and Ubisoft.  It also has easy recipes to install storefronts like Battle.net and other apps like Magic the Gathering: Arena.

If you'd prefer to make a custom wineprefix and avoid storefront-style launchers like Lutris and Heroic, then Bottles might be the tool for you to use.

For console game emulation, EmuDeck seems to be the tool most people are choosing.

All of these apps can be found in Discover.  (although for best results with Lutris, see below)

Lutris

Instructions to install Lutris beta

Here are the instructions from that URL:

flatpak remote-add flathub-beta https://flathub.org/beta-repo/flathub-beta.flatpakrepo
flatpak update --appstream
flatpak install flathub org.gnome.Platform.Compat.i386 org.freedesktop.Platform.GL32.default org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default
flatpak install flathub-beta net.lutris.Lutris


Once installed you can click on the person icon next to a storefront and log in to each storefront.  Or you can search Lutris for games you want to install.  It has a very large selection of install recipes.

Heroic

Heroic is available in the Discover app or as an AppImage

Bottles

Bottles is available in the Discover app.  With this tool you can create a custom wineprefix for your Windows games and apps.

EmuDeck

EmuDeck is in the Discover app.
Read more about EmuDeck here

Discord / WebCord

Both Discord and WebCord are in the Discover app.  Discord has some issues, so I recommend WebCord.