While Valve’s awesome $399 Steam Deck is a succesful sufficient gaming system out of the field, a few of its greatest options are straightforward to overlook.
If you already know the place to look, you’ll be able to customise the Steam Deck to your liking, decrease annoyances, and even develop your sport catalog effectively past the built-in Steam storefront.
Here, then, is a prolonged checklist of suggestions and tips for the Steam Deck, loosely organized from easy to extra superior:
Know your fast instructions
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Long-press the Steam button, and also you’ll see an inventory of fast instructions you’ll be able to invoke from anyplace. A full checklist seems within the above screenshot, however listed here are just a few that you need to attempt committing to reminiscence:
- Adjust brightness: Steam + Left Stick Up/Down
- Force sport shutdown: Steam + Long-press B
- Take a screenshot: Steam + R1
- On-screen keyboard: Steam + X.
- Temporary cursor: Steam + Right Stick or Trackpad. Use R2 to click on.
Get sport options
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Not certain what to play in your Steam Deck? A pair options:
- From the house display screen, scroll down, then over to the “Recommended” tab. Steam will helpfully counsel untouched video games out of your backlog.
- Hit the Steam button and choose “Library.” The first tab (“Great on Deck”) suggests video games which are fully-optimized for the moveable.
- Try taking part in a few of the smaller-scale, indie video games you’ve been neglecting. Chances are they’ll be simpler to choose up and put down than, say, Elden Ring, they usually could burn by means of much less battery life as effectively.
Check your battery life
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Tap the battery icon on the high of the display screen to rapidly deliver up the Performance tab. You’ll see a measure of projected battery life on the high.
Suspend and resume
With the Steam Deck, there’s no must stop your sport between play periods. Just press the facility button, and the Deck will enter sleep mode. Press it once more to rapidly decide up the place you left off, even a day or two later.
(It’s nonetheless a good suggestion to save lots of your sport between periods if potential, and naturally placing the Steam Deck to sleep throughout multiplayer will most likely get you booted.)
Don’t miss Night mode
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If you’re gaming on the Steam Deck earlier than mattress, contemplate turning on Night mode to chop down on blue gentle from the display screen:
- In Quick Settings: Head to the ⚙ settings part and toggle Night mode beneath the “Other” heading.
- In Settings: Look beneath the Display tab to schedule Night mode and regulate the tint degree.
Minimize distractions
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Getting notified about buddy exercise throughout a sport is annoying sufficient on the desktop, however it’s even worse on the Steam Deck, the place display screen actual property is proscribed. Turn off these alerts beneath Settings > Notifications.
Browse in-game guides
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Need assist with the sport you’re taking part in? Instead of reaching in your cellphone, hit the Steam button, then choose “Guides” to deliver up Steam’s player-contributed tutorials. Use the arrow buttons on the high to scroll by means of every web page. (Hey Valve, a search perform could be good.)
Tweak your efficiency profiles
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The Steam Deck’s Performance menu has numerous tweakable knobs to fine-tune efficiency, visible constancy, and battery life, separate from in-game settings. Access this menu by hitting the … button, then deciding on the 🔋battery icon.
A couple of choices to think about:
- Enable “Use per-game profile” earlier than making any adjustments right here. That method you’ll be able to regulate settings on a game-by-game foundation as a substitute of throughout the board.
- To maximize the Steam Deck’s battery life with out main visible compromises, drop the Refresh Rate slider right down to 40 Hz, which may also cap the framerate at 40 frames per second.
- If you favor smoother framerates over increased decision, set the Scaling Filter to “FSR” and set FSR Sharpness to 4 or 5. Then, use in-game settings to decide on a decision decrease than 1280×800, resembling 1152×720 or 960×600. The FSR upscaling will restore a few of the sharpness with out affecting framerates.
Choose a default storage location
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If you’re increasing Steam Deck storage with a MicroSD card, set your default storage location beneath. Settings > Storage. Highlight both the interior drive or the MicroSD card, then press X.
You can even simply transfer video games between storage gadgets from this similar menu. Just spotlight the sport, then press Y.
Learn to touchpad kind
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While utilizing the Steam Deck’s on-screen keyboard, put your thumbs on every trackpad and slide them round. You’ll see a round cursor for every thumb over the left- and right-hand sides of the keyboard, and you may both click on the trackpads or use the triggers to kind. There’s a studying curve, however finally it feels extra handy and correct than utilizing the touchscreen.
Change your keyboard
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Head to Settings > Keyboard to decide on between alternate kinds for the on-screen keyboard. You can even go to the Points Shop to amass extra kinds at 5,000 factors apiece.
Check Steam Deck compatibility
While Steam has an official “Deck Verified” program that checks for sport compatibility, don’t neglect ProtonDB both. This community-built website can present extra insights for video games that don’t have an official stamp of approval, together with tweaks that may get them right into a playable state.
Use the button remapper
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If you might have numerous previous PC video games that weren’t made with controllers in thoughts, the Steam Deck’s button remapper is a killer characteristic. To use it, press the Steam button whereas taking part in a sport, choose “Controller Settings,” then hit the “A” button.
The prospects are too in depth to cowl in a brief blurb—severely, you’ll be able to even create your personal radial weapon wheels—so we’ve created a separate guide using the remapper to its full potential.
Stream out of your PC
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Don’t scoff on the Steam Deck’s Remote Play characteristic, which helps you to stream video games out of your desktop laptop. It can come in useful for a number of causes:
- You’ve obtained restricted time or scarce space for storing to obtain extra video games.
- You need to preserve battery life whereas maximizing visible constancy.
- You need to play a sport that doesn’t natively help the Steam Deck but.
To stream out of your PC, hit down arrow subsequent to the “Install” or “Play” button for any sport, then choose your laptop from the checklist. Hit the “Stream” button to launch a distant play session.
Add a lock display screen
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To allow a PIN on the Steam Deck, head to Settings > Security. You can add lock display screen when waking up the console, or simply when switching to desktop mode. The latter’s particularly necessary in the event you’re logged into electronic mail or different delicate accounts whereas utilizing the Steam Deck desktop.
Enter Desktop mode
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The Steam Deck’s true potential comes from coming into Desktop mode, which offers a full Linux-based atmosphere for putting in extra software program—even from competing digital storefronts.
To enter the Steam Deck’s Desktop mode, hit the Steam button, scroll right down to Power, and choose ”Switch to Desktop.” Then, navigate with these controls:
- Right trackpad for cursor management.
- R2 and L2 for left and proper click on, respectively, or click on the appropriate trackpad for a left click on.
- Steam + X for the on-screen keyboard.
Note that in the event you shut down the Steam desktop app, the touchpad click on and on-screen keyboard will cease working.
Install extra software program
The best strategy to set up non-Steam software program in your Steam Deck is thru the Desktop mode’s Discover retailer. Click the icon that appears like a buying bag, and also you’ll see a variety of packages to put in, from Spotify and Discord to DOSBox and GZDoom.
Once put in, you’ll discover these packages within the software launcher by clicking the Steam Deck emblem on the bottom-left.
Add non-Steam apps to Gaming mode
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You don’t must be in Desktop mode to launch desktop apps. Instead, you’ll be able to add them to Game mode for straightforward entry.
To achieve this, launch the Steam app whereas in Desktop mode. Then, hit the “Games” tab within the high menu and choose Add a non-Steam Game to My Library. If the app or sport doesn’t seem within the checklist that pops up, use the “Browse…” button to search out it, then hit “Add Selected Programs.”
When you come to Game mode, you’ll discover these video games within the “Non-Steam” part of your library.
Install different sport sources
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After getting comfy with Desktop mode, the following step is to herald video games from storefronts aside from Steam. Some choices to think about:
- Heroic Games Launcher offers entry to your Epic Games Store and GOG libraries and is on the market by means of the Discover retailer. A separate utility referred to as HeroicBashLauncher can robotically add these video games to your Steam library, full with art work.
- Lutris offers entry to the above shops and extra, and can also be accessible by means of the Discover retailer.
- Emudeck makes it straightforward to play basic sport emulators by means of the Steam Deck’s Game mode, assuming you might have the required sport recordsdata.
- Check out this Reddit thread for one of the simplest ways to play Itch.io video games on the Steam Deck.
Transfer recordsdata with ease
Need to maneuver some recordsdata to your Steam Deck from one other laptop? Instead of swapping thumb drives backwards and forwards, try Payload. Install this free app on each your laptop and the Steam Deck (in desktop mode), and you may switch recordsdata over your Wi-Fi community simply by dragging and dropping.
Consider a USB hub
For critical Steam Deck desktop customers, a cheap USB hub with HDMI output may be a useful addition. Plug it into the Deck’s USB-C port, and you may add an exterior mouse and keyboard whereas outputting video to a monitor or TV. (A correct Steam Deck dock may be value contemplating, official or otherwise.)
Deck out your Steam Deck
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To take Steam Deck customization to the following degree, install Decky Loader, which extends the Deck with a variety of user-made plugins. Want to swap out the Deck’s menu sounds or add management your music by means of the sidebar menu? Decky Loader makes it straightforward to take action. It’s additionally one of the simplest ways so as to add cowl artwork for non-Steam video games, utilizing the SteamGridDB plugin.
To set up Decky Loader, visit the project’s GitHub page from Desktop mode and click on the Download button on the high, then run the installer out of your Downloads folder. After set up, return to Game mode, and also you’ll see a brand new 🔌 plug icon within the … sidebar menu. Hit the shop icon on the high of the menu to browse for plugins from there.