Hey folks! I have one of the original batches of LCD Steam Decks, with an upgraded SSD.

My battery is still at around 99% of it's original capacity, I love the device, finally found a protective case I enjoy after trying 4 different models, and I don't like the OLED panels used in the OLED model so I'm fine.

But I always thought it sounded horrendously bad, specially at bed, with a whiny sound that starts even before the fan ramps up and only gets worse. I heard about replacing the Delta with the Huaying fan, but I didn't think the difference would be that big... it will move the same amount of air, right?

Well... I just replaced mine and it's a gigantic difference, I like this upgrade even more so than the SSD one. At maximum speed it does sound like air moving, which is expected, but that's it: air. Not some terrible whining. And when it's running at around 3500 RPM? Almost silence.

So if anybody out there is still carrying their original models with Delta fans... Do your ears a favor, it's worth getting the better fan. Though I bought mine on Aliexpress for cheaper than iFixit sells it, original part.

If you have a revised unit with the new shielding and the Delta fan, there's a membrane that supposedly helps muffle the whine, I'm not sure how effective that is though, I suspect it still sounds worse than the Huaying.

Hi everyone!

So I've got my LCD Steam Deck for around a month and I've been only playing docked (no dock but with a USB-C cable) to my computer screen so far, but I plan on playing it on the go as soon as we go on vacation or as soon as I start playing another game than Frostpunk which requires a mouse.

For now I have a few questions:

-I have a Philips screen Model 273B9 and its resolution is 1920x1080@50HZ. Sometimes the resolution is all fucked up when I turn on the Steam Deck and sometimes it's fine. I've tried disabling the automatic adaptation in the Deck settings, but so far, I haven't found a perfect solution. I'm also a bit lost about the necessity of changing the in game resolution settings or the Steam per game properties settings for resolution.

-Is it possible to have a setup (TDP, Framerate, resolution, effects, controller settings) for when the Steam Deck is linked to my screen and charging through the USB-C cable coming out of it and another more economical setup for when I'm on the go. Ideally I'd want the Steam Deck to detect these situations automatically, but I don't mind having to just select a profile every time I'm going from one situation to another.

-As I'm often buying games from my Surface Go running Fedora or my iPhone (through Firefox, not the app), is there a way to see if a game is steam deck verified on the store from these devices? In a way, I'd want Steam to know that my only gaming device is a Steam Deck and that everything I'm ordering is for this device.

-I also plan on buying around half of my games on GOG. Can someone confirm that I'd get achievements through Heroic? I feel a bit ashamed to say that I've been addicted to trophies on Playstation for years..

-Can you use Steam input to modify controller settings for non-steam games?

-I also haven't found a way to get a swiss vitual keyboard in the UI (QWERTZ with é,è,à). Is it impossible because the Deck isn't officialy sold in Switzerland? I can do it in desktop mode, but the one from the Steam UI is still the one appearing no matter what I do.

Thanks a lot in advance for your help!

https://www.empiresmod.com/

https://forums.empiresmod.com/index.php?threads/empires-official-discord.20577/

(ughh yes most of the community is on discord what can you do but make fediverse posts....)

I want to recommend an oddball game here for a potential LAN steamdeck game or just a fun free multiplayer steam deck game in general (it has bots too).

I have mixed feelings about the Source engine, I mean obviously love it and all the games that came out on it, but it never did vehicles well partially from a handling perspective and also source engine level design always seemed to end up blocky and awkward for vehicles to manuever on.

Lots of games of course integrated vehicles successfully into their core gameplay, but the most successful mechanically and by far the most interesting in my opinion is the Empires Mod.

The really cool thing about this game is that the original release date was 2008, and yet it is still in development with a very small but loving fan base. The gunplay plays like a faster counter strike, very arcade-y and at the heart of it relatively simple but it works, it is fun and there is lots of skill to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCgoylOR1s0

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nNhQWZsIl_o

Here is some relatively recent gameplay showing how much depth and team strategy there is to Empires Mod. This game is like Natural Selection 2 or other games where each team has an RTS like commander and structures must be built to produce an engine that can take over the map from the enemy.

Check it out, the game looks janky in the way all lovable Source Engine games are but I think if you give it a chance you might find it really fun.

Also... there are a lot of mechanics to the game and they have really put a lottttt of effort into little tooltips that explain functions of the game everywhere to you. It is actually pretty slick even if the presentation is usually amateur, who cares the underlying game is cool as heck.

I found the default Steam Deck bindings worked great, I just recommend using gyroscope to help aim. I think source accepts gamepad input too, but I have just stuck with the default Steam Deck WASD & Mouse profile and it works already really well off the bat no tweaking for Empires Mod!

Needless to say, this game runs NO PROBLEM on the Steam Deck lol. I am not convinced the Source engine is obsolete, primarily because handhelds like the Steam Deck pose the question ok you can have better graphics but what are you trading it for? I think games like Empires Mod on the source engine deserve to be remembered and rediscovered on a new medium of devices!

Will skate. be available for Mac OS, Steam OS, Proton/Linux systems (handle held PCs like the Steam Deck) for Early Access?

• We want to bring skate. to as many platforms as possible and will continue to listen to feedback and look at the feasibility of adding new platforms in the future, but for Early Access launch, Mac OS, Steam OS, Proton/Linux will not be supported.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3354750/view/636812613495292422?l=english

Do you ever change proton version of games if they run for performance reasons, or do you just stick to the default config?

For example, let's say a game is about a year old, so it would run on an early proton 9. Might changing to GE 10-8 improve performance and battery runtime / FPS?

I started thinking about this when I gave a shot to Wuthering Waves. It runs out of the box, but GPU is a little bit less under pressure with GE 10-8.

What's your take?

In the current situation, choosing the Windows 11 version for the Legion Go S is a what only a fool would do.

Let’s sum it up:

• Worse performance across the board
• Worse power consumption
• More expensive

The Windows 11 version only makes sense if there are games with anti-cheat that you don’t want to miss on. There are some notable exceptions like GTA 5 Online and APEX Legends where SteamOS support was removed recently. And there’s Fortnite, outside of Steam, that remains unplayable on SteamOS. There’s probably a few more too, but those are the important ones that come to mind. If such titles don’t matter for your gaming patterns, the SteamOS of the Legion Go S version is the obvious choice.

After [seeing the benchmarks], you must be wondering if Lenovo actually bothers with the Windows version at all! Truth is, it’s worse than that. You can’t even find a mention of the SteamOS version of the Lenovo Legion Go S on Lenovo’s website. I am so NOT kidding. There is “View Models” button, but there are no other models apart from the Windows 11 Home version.

I checked a few country sites for Lenovo, and it’s inconsistent as hell for a Global company. France only has the Windows version, Japan doesn’t even list the Legion Go S model (still stuck at the previous Switch like model), and finally I could find the SteamOS version on Lenovo’s site in Indonesia!

So, guys, I don’t want to kill your enthusiasm, but this sounds very much like We are just pretending to release a SteamOS version but in fact we advertise the Windows model everywhere instead. Since I am familiar with large companies, I guess the story was like that. Someone in Business Development managed to secure a deal with Valve, the CEO must have said OK, does not cost much anyway. And then the BD guy went fishing in each territory, asking for the Marketing leaders who wanted to launch that SKU, and turns out most region heads were not interested in hearing about SteamOS. This is probably why you end up with said SKU only listed in some small regions and not the main ones. It’s probably a pilot, at most. I was not in the room, so I don’t really know, but it does sound and smell like this kind of situation.

Well, in the US, if you are actively looking for it, you can find it on Best Buy, at least…

In short, you have SteamOS delivering all the goods, but there’s no appetite on the manufacturer’s side to do anything about it. Sad. Note that Lenovo is the only manufacturer with an official support stated for SteamOS on the Legion Go S. Valve is offering support for additional handhelds (the original Legion Go, and the ROG Ally) but that’s considered experimental and not official at the moment (see their recovery image page).

This plugin allows two decks to connect directly to one another, allowing multiplayer lan games to work without any wifi network available.

According to the creator of lsfg-vk:

A couple of hours ago Deck Wizard has made a video on Lossless Scaling in which they present a new Decky plugin for lsfg-vk. On Reddit, the creator of that plugin claimed they had collaborated with me to create this, however this is incorrect and was likely the result of a language barrier.

I was asked to collaborate, but I instead requested them to wait with the plugin until the new configuration system was written, as otherwise a large portion of the plugin would have to be rewritten to account for it. They did not listen and pushed the plugin out without communicating with me beforehand.

As a result of this, the plugin already has many issues such as incorrect labeling of options and misleading descriptions of other options. Likely in collateral, the video created by Deck Wizard further spreads these wrong explanations. I want to clear up these things. First of all, the settings recommended by Deck Wizard are 30% flow scale and no performance mode. I can not state enough how terrible these options are. With 30% flow scale, internal calculations are happening in 96x54 images with some going down to 2x1, producing extremely inaccurate results. Instead, it is recommended to keep flow scale at 85-100% with performance mode enabled, as this gives a much larger performance boost while retaining immensely higher quality.

Clearly all of this is simply a result of poor communication and as such I will not support the Decky plugin. Do not ask about help with lsfg-vk when using the Decky plugin. Perhaps in the future an official lsfg-vk Decky plugin can be made in actual collaboration with me. Pancake - Developer of lsfg-vk

The plugin is still the easiest way to use Lossless framegen ATM, but it's definitely worth knowing about this.

Help me out here?

So sometimes I just wanna play chess on my steam deck. I'm in my 50s, I got a steam deck about a year ago, and I am absolutely loving what it offers me. Before this I hadn't done gaming since PS1. I recently finished bioshock, I'm currently about a third of the way into cyberpunk. I'm also playing prey. I pick games to suit my mood. And sometimes my mood is to just wanna play chess against a computer. Can anyone recommend a game?

The steam library has a whole lot of chess games, but they mostly seem to be chess plus scary monster, chess plus tits, chess plus nonsense. I just wanna play chess! Ideally on a 3d board, that's all I ask. No gimmicks, no boobs, just chess that runs locally on my steam deck.

I've googled this and seen people on reddit etc saying you've got to play online versions in the browser - FFS!

Can someone recommend me a decent chess game that is steam deck compatible? I've already bought a couple of chess games that weren't verified and haven't worked out.

Sorry for the rant, I'm just frustrated. Chess is such an ancient and fundamental game I'd have thought this would be easy, but here I am asking for your help.

I'll be grateful for any ideas.

Got gifted a copy of Elden Ring Nightreign, but found that when using the seamless coop mod (for 2 player games), the deck controls would no longer work.

Anyways it turns out the solution is to set this as the launch options for the seamless mod executable:

SteamAppId=2622380 SteamGameId=2622380 SteamOverlayGameId=2622380 %command%

This makes the coop launcher be identified as the game itself, preventing any steam input issues. Note: if you seemingly get stuck on a steam loading screen after launching the game like this, you may just need to press the steam button and swap windows to the game.

Trying it out in Shadows of Doubt right now, took performance from an unstable 25-31 fps to 61-71 fps with I set on performance mode and x2 fps. Don't really notice input lag.

It's not on the decky store yet, so you have to download the extension zip manually.

Here's the extension github with full instructions and details.

Basically you'll:

1. Install the plugin. Once it's on the decky store you can install it from there, but in the meantime do this:

   • Download the .zip from the release page
   • In Game Mode, go to the settings cog in the top right of the Decky Loader tab
   • Enable Developer Options
   • In the new Developer tab, select "Install from zip".
   • Choose the "Lossless Scaling.zip" file you downloaded (likely in the Downloads folder)
   • If it does not show up, you may need to restart your device

2. Purchase and install Lossless Scaling from Steam

3. Open the plugin from the Decky menu

4. Click "Install lsfg-vk" to automatically set up the compatibility layer

5. Configure settings using the plugin's UI controls:

   • Enable/disable LSFG
   • Set FPS multiplier (2-4) Note: The higher the multiplier, the greater the input lag
   • Enable performance mode - Reduces gpu load, which can sometimes majorly increase FPS gains
   • Adjust flow scale (0.25-1.0)
   • Toggle HDR mode
   • Toggle immediate mode (disable vsync)

6. Apply launch commands to the game you want to use frame generation with:

   • Option 1 (Recommended): ~/lsfg %COMMAND% - Uses your plugin configuration
   • Option 2: Manual environment variables like ENABLE_LSFG=1 LSFG_MULTIPLIER=2 %COMMAND%

I've been thinking about organising my growing library a bit, mostly to mark games I consider as completed.

But also to mark games I played but lost interest in, or games I've finished together with my kids instead of myself alone.

I started doing that in Steam but as I added games via GOG or Epic Games store, or emulators, Steam and would lose their tags (or rather their belonging to a collection) as soon as I uninstalled them.

Also if as a bonus the system could suggest new games based on what I finished or maybe based on ratings I give, that would be nice but not necessary.

Is there any straightforward solution to use? Either general something device-independent or specifically on the Steamdeck locally. Can also selfhost software if there is anything good.

How are you all doing that?

I have not found a setting within the Steam mode to change input speed. I did boot into the desktop and slow down the mouse cursor there. But it does not seem to carry over into game mode.

The game I am playing does not have a cursor speed setting either.

Hey all, proud owner of a Steam Deck here wondering if anyone has had a similar problem as I have when attempting to background record.

The issue is: more often than not when I go to clip one of those "unmissable moments" my Steam Deck is meant to record I find I've only the audio part of my recording working correctly, the video part is often just a frozen image of the games recording.

I've poked about and found loads of posts of a similar nature but no concrete "fix".

This could very well be an issue on Valve's behalf (in which I won't hold my breath lol)

Thanks all, glhf!

EDIT: I originally only tried switching between the last 2 proton versions and that didn't work. But then I realized that last weekend, when it last worked, the current one was actually ge-proton 10-6. Switched back to that and it seems to have fixed it. So, some ge-proton update in between apparently doesn't play nice with game mode. Should have thought about that from the start.

Thanks to all who replied.

Original post: On my steam deck OLED I have several GOG games installed via heroic and added to steam via heroic's built in function. Those games were working fine last weekend.

I was going to play tonight but starting from game mode, my non-steam games are now stuck in an infinite loading screen (spinning steam logo) but with their audio playing in the background. As far as I can tell I didn't change anything in between, but there might have been an update installed after my last gaming session, I'm not sure.

The main one I am trying to get to work again is Star Renegades. I also tested with The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak with the same outcome.

Steam games seem to work normally.

Affected games work just fine in desktop mode, from heroic as well as the desktop steam app. But as I mainly play in docked mode on my TV that's no real alternative (TV isn't recognized outside game mode).

Switching proton versions didn't seem to work, neither did changing from full screen to windowed, rebooting the steam deck multiple times and re-adding the game to steam.

Heroic, steam, the games, proton and just about anything else I can think of are updated to their current stable versions.

I found some posts on the internet suggesting it had to do with the startup animation settings, but those are all switched off and I never touched them.

Does anybody have any ideas what else to check?

See the linked article for a list of the supported games.

Blizzard games are of course included, but we also get:

• Avowed
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4
• DOOM: The Dark Ages
• Sea of Thieves
• Crash Bandicoot™ 4: It’s About Time

If you need help on installing Battle.net, gamingonlinux coincidentally just published an article on getting it installed.

You can also use Non-steam launchers

I have a Samsung Tab 6 with a very nice 8" oled screen. I want to use it in combo with my Bluetooth controller for my Steam Games (for a little more reading room). I've tried Steam Link and it works, but the lag of my wifi make it quite unplayable so, since i already have a dock and an hdmi cable, i was thinking of buying a second dock ( as the one in the photo). Anyone has done anything similar? Can you suggest any free android app to do the mirroring from the deck to my tablet??