Week 1 essentials with the deck!!

[djpannda]

Hello MY fellow Tempers.

I got my Deck this Saturday and I have been Playing with it a lot and with all that I wanted to let current/ future Deck owners
know what they should/ought to install/download on their decks to get the most out of it

MUST GET
1. Proton GE /ProtonUp-Qt
by KDE Discovery app
This is definitely needed as Proton Compatibility is still being worked on but a lot of codex/ video are not licensed by Valve. GE will allow you play games fully, you might not be able to otherwise (example Persona 4)

2.EMUDECK
By https://www.emudeck.com
Well this is a Retro Gaming Website. SO YES this is a MUST GET but with Emudeck, it is literally one install away. The program will auto download all the emulator, Folders, Settings for you. all you have to do is place your legally obtained roms/bios in the correct folder. You can also set it up to have the Roms appear on Steam library individually or just the Emulation-station only (otherwise there would be an listing for EACH AND EVERY ROM added) ALSO installs YUZU and Citra

SHOULD GET
1. HEROIC GAME LAUNCHER
by KDE Discovery app
Install this if you already have GOG/ EPIC games you want to play. All those Free Epic games are not going to waste. Warning you will have to play around with Proton / Experimental/ GE version on some games . ( some games with with GE but Ghost-runner only worked with Experimental )

2. Xbox Cloud (GAMEPASS)
by KDE Discovery app (Microsoft EDGE)
if you have ULTIMATE GAME PASS, you can stream Xbox goodness on the Deck. ( beware still being worked on, Playing Streets of rage 4 on xcloud in 2 hours froze twice on me)

MAYBE THINK TWICE:
1. Repacked Games.
BY GOOGLE IT,
I would stay away from them. As most Warez, you always Run the Risk of them containing "bad stuff" but just to ease your curious Mind.. Yes some do work fine...

OK. Thats my Current Week 1 essentials for any DECk owner.


Please let me know if you have any essentials you need to have on your own deck.

 

[Xzi]

1. Repacked Games.
BY GOOGLE IT,
I would stay away from them. As most Warez, you always Run the Risk of them containing "bad stuff" but just to ease your curious Mind.. Yes some do work fine...

I was surprised to hear how easy it is to install these, just add the installer as a non-Steam game or install to your mSD via Windows, right? Then add the game executable itself as a non-Steam game? Curious mostly because I wanna install Need For Speed Underground/Underground 2. Maybe some pirated EGS exclusives too.

 

[djpannda]

I was surprised to hear how easy it is to install these, just add the installer as a non-Steam game or install to your mSD via Windows, right? Then add the game executable itself as a non-Steam game? Curious mostly because I wanna install Need For Speed Underground/Underground 2. Maybe some pirated EGS exclusives too.

Pretty much… I *would* install them on my ssd (1tb).. but yea some need more tinkering then others…I have “seen” Elden Ring work perfectly fine.

 

[Taleweaver]

Nice list. Mine's still probably a month away, but in terms of non games, i was thinking these, yes. And yuzu and/or ryujinx, i presume.

Lutris is currently working on a flatpak release. Not sure when/if I'll dabble in it(depends on how well heroic game launcher works).

Not to discourage piracy, but... I don't really see the point of trying to get some fishy executable to work and fiddle with configuring it on the deck when my backlog is so large i can't even play all the games i legally have.

 

[Xzi]

Not to discourage piracy, but... I don't really see the point of trying to get some fishy executable to work and fiddle with configuring it on the deck when my backlog is so large i can't even play all the games i legally have.

Well it's not like we're still stuck in the days of Limewire/KaZaa lol. The crackwatch subreddit plus a trusted torrent search site is all you need. 99% of the time the malicious stuff comes in the form of an EXE rather than files in the format you were actually searching for, so it's really easy to spot.

 

[djpannda]

Nice list. Mine's still probably a month away, but in terms of non games, i was thinking these, yes. And yuzu and/or ryujinx, i presume.

Lutris is currently working on a flatpak release. Not sure when/if I'll dabble in it(depends on how well heroic game launcher works).

Not to discourage piracy, but... I don't really see the point of trying to get some fishy executable to work and fiddle with configuring it on the deck when my backlog is so large i can't even play all the games i legally have.

Oh by the way Emudeck already installs yuzu and citra with the latest update

 

[subcon959]

Oh by the way Emudeck already installs yuzu and citra with the latest update

How does it handle Yuzu updates? Does it grab the early access nightly or stable release only?

 

[djpannda]

How does it handle Yuzu updates? Does it grab the early access nightly or stable release only?

I have not set it up or paid attention to it, As I am a avid Switch collector, (plus several v1 atmos and a lone SX ) have a good physical collection .
but it appears to use the Yuzu stable that is posted on the Discovery app. ( seems to be updated Regularly as the last 2 days it has had back to back updates.

 

[rantex92]

Well it's not like we're still stuck in the days of Limewire/KaZaa lol. The crackwatch subreddit plus a trusted torrent search site is all you need. 99% of the time the malicious stuff comes in the form of an EXE rather than files in the format you were actually searching for, so it's really easy to spot.

thats not 100% true anymore.... i know for sure that was the case for the good old limewiredays but today is so much more possible for instance you could hide a rat(remote acces trojaner) in a.jpg most of antiviruses wouldnt detect it

 

[djpannda]

thats not 100% true anymore.... i know for sure that was the case for the good old limewiredays but today is so much more possible for instance you could hide a rat(remote acces trojaner) in a.jpg most of antiviruses wouldnt detect it

gotcha!

 

[Chary]

Flatpaks are the best.

I would recommend grabbing the Lutris flatpak beta--I'm having trouble with it, but it might be helpful if you have uh..."drm free" games.

Emudeck is great, I just wish it wasn't so attached to using RetroArch.

 

[djpannda]

Flatpaks are the best.

I would recommend grabbing the Lutris flatpak beta--I'm having trouble with it, but it might be helpful if you have uh..."drm free" games.

Emudeck is great, I just wish it wasn't so attached to using RetroArch.

I got my "DRM Free" games working fine on straight Steamwith add non stream game and playing with Compatibility with either Experimental or GE.

Retro Arch does not bother me, infact Im completely use to it as I have build a lot of Raspberry pi system with Retropie. the only thing that suck is the scrappers are always soo slow.

 

[subcon959]

I haven't tried this myself but apparently in some games you can get better performance by limiting how many CPU cores are used...

https://github.com/NGnius/PowerTools

 

[djpannda]

I haven't tried this myself but apparently in some games you can get better performance by limiting how many CPU cores are used...

https://github.com/NGnius/PowerTools

didnt Phawx show this with HADES?....but come on who needs Hades at 120fps ......

 

[Taleweaver]

.. I guess this is the best place to mention that media player kodi has steam deck controller support.

Source:

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2022/...nt-hub-kodi-adds-steam-deck-controls-support/

 

[subcon959]

I've found it quite handy to have a USB C flash stick for moving stuff around. It avoids having a cumbersome USB HUB hanging off the back of the Deck. I know you can do SSH and stuff but I prefer the old fashioned way, especially for bigger files.

Similarly, I have a USB C to Ethernet adapter. But oddly for me it's not any faster than just using WiFi so I don't bother with it.