Steam Deck and Linux Gaming

I don't think the official dock would be any different than any other decent HDMI 2.0 USB-C hub/dock/adapter.

This DF video covers a lot of details and is worth watching for an overview:

Even when I hook it up to my 1440p monitor there's compromises that have to be made compared to playing portable. Which all makes sense when you're upping the resolution, I think.

Robear wrote:

Try Dorfromantik, DSGamer.

Thanks for the recommendation. I did already pick that up for the Switch. I'm looking forward to playing it, but haven't yet.

Currently playing Persona 5 Royal through Game Pass Cloud Gaming on my Steam Deck. It's working pretty great. It's pretty fluid.

astralplaydoh wrote:

Currently playing Persona 5 Royal through Game Pass Cloud Gaming on my Steam Deck. It's working pretty great. It's pretty fluid.

What happens if you put the deck to sleep while you're playing...say, if you need to pause? It craps out of the game.

I'm going to start running Parsec on my gaming PC and just stream locally.

I think it just craps out. So make sure you follow your ABCS.

Always Be Clicking Save.

You could do this quite a while ago but it involved more steps and wasn’t as far along. Now it seems the GamePadUI is getting a lot closer to ready for all devices. Depending on your controller it may or may not work well.

Announcement from Valve: https://store.steampowered.com/news/...

I like the new UI. I'm used to it because of the Deck. I have not figured out how to add custom artwork to non-Steam games. Any suggestions?

Steam posted a list of the top 10 games by hours played on the Deck and I love seeing Vampire Survivors at the top.

chooka1 wrote:

I like the new UI. I'm used to it because of the Deck. I have not figured out how to add custom artwork to non-Steam games. Any suggestions?

Just did this tonight for Xbox streaming. It seems you can only do it in desktop mode using right click with an add artwork option. Also in desktop mode if you go to library > Game in question > properties you can click on the artwork image and change it there.

I used this for the gamepass covers:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...

Thank you. I know how to switch to desktop mode on the Deck. How do you do that on then PC new UI?

chooka1 wrote:

Thank you. I know how to switch to desktop mode on the Deck. How do you do that on then PC new UI?

For now, create a new Steam shortcut , open the properties, and add -gamepadui at the end of the target.

Thank you! That worked. Is there a way within the new UI to switch to the traditional desktop UI? I don't see that option.

Thank you,
Chad

Nimcosi wrote:
chooka1 wrote:

Thank you. I know how to switch to desktop mode on the Deck. How do you do that on then PC new UI?

For now, create a new Steam shortcut , open the properties, and add -gamepadui at the end of the target.

Don't you need to be using Steam beta though? I thought this was not available in the regular Steam release yet...

bobbywatson wrote:
Nimcosi wrote:
chooka1 wrote:

Thank you. I know how to switch to desktop mode on the Deck. How do you do that on then PC new UI?

For now, create a new Steam shortcut , open the properties, and add -gamepadui at the end of the target.

Don't you need to be using Steam beta though? I thought this was not available in the regular Steam release yet...

Believe you are correct, I do not think it is part of the main branch yet.

chooka1 wrote:

Thank you! That worked. Is there a way within the new UI to switch to the traditional desktop UI? I don't see that option.

Not that I found. Exit and launch normal Steam I guess?

Yeah I think a limitation of the new UI is that it doesn't yet seamlessly switch between that and the desktop UI. You have to quit and restart. I'm sure they'll fix that in the future

Very cute, but wayyyy too long. The only time I might want that to play is if I was in the middle of a crowded room and intentionally showing off the Deck to folks, for a quick chuckle.

Something I only recently noticed is that games where I play with a very high FOV for better visibility are borderline unplayable that way on the Deck’s small screen. High FOV is frustrating on such a compact display. Lowering FOV helps massively but then takes away an advantage I’ve got used to having. This really only impacts me in esports.

I’ve been playing the Resident Evil 2&3 remakes on Deck lately. Never played them before. They both play very well despite Valve claiming 3 is unsupported. I find myself playing more and more campaign games on the Deck. Anything I can fit into my day in small increments or put to sleep easily.

That is good news about RE3. I own it but haven't played it yet. I have been Xbox Cloud streaming Signalis which is a cool new RE/Silent Hill Sci-Fi game.

Now that I see the AyaNeo 2 supports external GPUs I’m annoyed again that the Deck doesn’t. They could have had amazing docked support with a desktop grade GPU. I’m really hoping the next Deck model supports an external GPU. I’m sure there’s a bunch of driver stuff to figure out that AyaNeo gets for free on Windows but I’d happily run Windows on the Deck while docked if that was the only way to plug in a serious GPU when I want full on desktop level gaming.

Yeah I know someone has hacked an eGPU into the Deck using an M.2 port but it’s a messy hack.

It would be a pretty cool upgrade path for Deck owners who want to play AAA if they could dock it with eGPU support. Lately I’ve been trying to use mine for more things other than gaming but it’s a little annoying when not docked. A laptop this is not. Still fun to just experiment.

All that being said I still use the Deck primarily for handheld gaming and love it for that. The primary use case is sufficient, I just keep thinking this device could do so much more.

I guess nothing about the Aya Neo 2 would make me annoyed about the Steam Deck because it's a pretty stark difference in price and value.

I'm running Windows on my Deck and you say you'd be willing to but... Valve obviously had a specific focus in terms of market, cost, and function. It'd be pretty surprising if they put resources into offering a significant Windows only feature like that (in this hypothetical scenario) when they put so much work into Steam OS. And while it can be docked, docked use or performance obviously wasn't the priority.

If you think the Neo 2 looks like a cool device and you want to get one because it has external GPU support, that makes sense. But being annoyed that a device made for a different market and price range has a feature the Deck doesn't seems misguided.

Can you drive 3 monitors from a steam deck with one being the steam deck monitor? How is it as desktop with one or more monitors?

I noticed steam has their supply issues worked out.

Using an off-brand USB C hub w/HDMI, I plugged it in and everything worked magically, including power pass-through. I could totally see using this as a linux desktop. Haven't tried multiple monitors though.

Steam sale is upon us. Lots of Deck friendly games on the list. Are we at a point where there are any Should be played on Deck instead of Could be played on Deck titles?

Probably any game that defaults to controller instead of keyboard would be a natural.

I was playing art of rally on my flight the other day and the turbulence bump felt like sitting on a motion sim rig. 10/10 would recommend.

Although the Deck is significantly chunkier than the Switch, other than needing more backpack space for it, I'm pretty happy with the portability of the device. And adding an anti-glare screen protector definitely helped.

Void destroyer 2 just started workong with the latest proton! Score for tycho!

M.2 2230 drives still seem a bit uncommon. Has anyone seen any on sale from a reputable seller?