Steam Hardware

My initial thought is definitely yes for the Steam Machine, and maybe yes for the Steam Frame.

All devices are Valve made hardware running steamOS, so I would think a lot of the discussions/content would apply to Steam Deck. This also isn't a super busy community, so I wouldn't be that worried about Steam Deck specific content getting buried.

The Steam Frame is a bit more iffy than the Steam Machine though, there's a lot of experience differences between the Deck/Machine and a VR device, so there will be larger differences. Also the Frame has ARM hardware and has to use an additional x86 to ARM compatibility layer for games running on it, so we'll probably see some unique compatibility bugs for it.

Overall though I just want to hear everyone else's opinions on it.

Announcing new Steam Hardware from Valve: Steam Controller, Steam Machine, and Steam Frame are coming in 2026. Just like Steam Deck, all three devices are optimized for Steam and designed for players to get even more out of their Steam library.

Taken from the page for the Steam Frame

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steamframe

https://clan.fastly.steamstatic.com/images/clan/45479024/2a974e5918143381548424b0353aee08.webm

So far I've gotten it to work in desktop mode, but booting to the regular gaming mode kills it.

It didn't work by simply installing via git as it does on my desktop computer. I've followed this video guide so far: https://youtu.be/YVPtVB0DWUg

But either my reading comprehension is failing me or I'm missing something because per the description and comments, the method still works as of last month.

But I noticed in the video that he mentions running a second command in the terminal and potentially having to change the Neptune number (the video was made for 65, but the deck is on 611 now) on that second command to reflect the current version number.

But he doesn't have the second command listed on that page he links to (https://monroeworld.com/steamdeck/xbox.html), and it's only partially visible for a moment on the video, so I don't know what that 2nd command does.

I was able to get the controller to pair just fine, navigate big picture mode with it, started a game, and was able to control the game using the big picture interface, however.

The first command does make the icons for the script he mentions (in the video he says to use the debug version, and that is shown) appear, and I do get the work he shows initially (xone module not loaded or something like that) that he says is normal for the process before you paste the second command in the terminal. But I don't know what the second command is to finish the process, and I'm assuming that part is the one that gets it working in gaming mode.

I have no issues with the controller or the dongle on my desktop machine, and it works in desktop mode, so I'm sure they're fine. I'm just missing a step to get it working in gaming mode specifically.

I felt the itch to play Diablo 2 again so I went and installed Battle.net in Heroic. It failed with Heroic's "Proton GE (latest) " (whatever that means) but it worked with Proton GE 10.25.

Anyways, it opened the game list already with a filter for "Handheld" applied to only offer me games that work well on a handheld.

The funny thing is that I'm not even running SteamOS but OpenSUSE. But still Wine apparently gave the launcher enough info that it knew I'm on a handheld.

Would anyone care to test this out on a desktop PC? Maybe they equate Wine or Proton with the Deck. But I doubt it, I guess it went by processor or GPU.

Anyways, looks like Blizzard's unofficial but working Linux support seems to still be a thing.

Valve put out another small Beta to fix up an issue with the new Steam Deck screen-off downloads, and some other Desktop Linux fixes that came recently.

I'm seriously happy to see this feature land, and it has been working really nicely in my testing when loading up both my Steam Decks with some more games.

I noticed my OLED's fan was running a lot more than it used to, even at lower wattage amounts (~18w). At first I just assumed it was dirty fan/thermal paste, but I cleaned my fan and repasted my APU and it didn't reallt change anything.

Since then I saw someone mention increased fan use since a recent update, so I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this as well?

The October blog is out!

I have to get on a very long flight here soon for work with a layover in the middle, and I want to make sure my Deck is up to the task. Does anyone have a battery pack they love?

Also I hear you're not supposed to use a battery pack while playing. Does that hold up, even in one-off events? (Usually I'm very protective of my battery)

Edit: Running through Steam fixed it. I guess it pulled in some library that I had missed.

cross-posted from: https://swg-empire.de/post/4959667

I've got a strange problem that nobody else seems to have.

All the small ability and item icons are missing. They don't show up at all.

Now, I have an unusual software combination running so it's probably because of that, but it's still a strange symptom. I'm running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on a Steam Deck. I have BG3 from GOG and got the Linux binaries from a friend.

Apart from this bug the Linux version runs superbly. The bug shows up whether I have mods on or not, I have tried complete reinstalls and running with completely empty config directory. I can see the bug already in character creation. Icons from mods that would add new icons like Mystra's Spells don't show up either.

Anyone ever seen something like this?

First update includes fixes for using Discord in game mode:

Patching Proton for Discord: created a patch to allow for Discord to be used in Game Mode. All you need to do is hit the "Update Proton GE" button and NonSteamLaunchers will apply the patch for the current proton GE. This will allow Discord (Native Linux) to be able to be used in Game Mode, so you can finally stream the video and audio and capture your game to your friends. This will automatically work for all of your NSL Games.

SteamDeckHQ has an article on that here.

Second update added playtime trackers for non-steam games in game mode.

Playtime: Playtime has been implimented into NSL for all non-steam apps in your library. This will only show in game mode for now, even for Desktop Version peeps that use NonSteamLaunchers. All you have to is run the NonSteamLaunchers.desktop and it will apply. Then go into game mode and play!

Overall pretty nice. I haven't used NonSteamLaunchers much since I don't normally need other launchers besides heroic, but the dev continuously adds a lot of nice stuff it seems.

The biggest steam deck compatibility issue is that the multiplayer mode wasn't supported. From what I understand that hasn't changed, but they moved it to a separate free DLC so it won't affect the steam deck rating.

Other related improvements made are UI changes for steam deck, a deck graphics preset, updated FSR support, and other performance improvements.

Edit: The video of that's the original source of the test results had flawed testing for some of the games and seemingly didn't set the same tdp limits when switching between the OSs. I'm guessing we'll see other people test this out later, but for the time being it's best to assume these results are exaggerated or wrong.

:P