The portable device from Valve is large, strong, and packed with functions. You can get the most out of your portable PC gaming with the aid of our tutorial.
The Steam Deck is a fantastic gaming machine with a ton of functions, but if you just take it out of the box and start playing PC games, you might not use half of them. Being a compact gaming PC with a fully functional Linux desktop environment, the Steam Deck's abundance of capabilities shouldn't come as a huge surprise. The Steam Deck is a portable gadget with a lot of potentials, to put it another way. You may realize that potential with the aid of these methods and ideas.
1. Disable Adaptive Brightness
This is the most basic advice for enjoying Steam Deck, but it's also one of the most helpful. By default, adaptive brightness is turned on, which causes the screen to automatically adjust its brightness in response to outside light. On most gadgets, adaptive brightness settings aren't ideal, and the Steam Deck is no exception. Here's how to disable it. Press the Steam button and choose Display > Settings. To manually adjust the screen brightness to your preferred level, uncheck Enable Adaptive Brightness.
2. Play "Unknown" PC Games as Experiments
The Steam Deck Compatibility program is helpful since it lists the titles that Valve has approved for Steam Deck compatibility. But it's not even close to finished. Many games feature a gray "Unknown" symbol, as you may have seen if you have a sizable Steam collection. That suggests that Valve hasn't officially endorsed the game's compatibility with the Steam Deck. The games will still function despite this! Many of the Unknown Steam titles I tried, like Monster Hunter Rise, played flawlessly right out of the box or required just minimal control tweaks.
3. A mouse and keyboard together (and Gamepad and Headset)
You're not restricted to using the onscreen keyboard, touchpads, and screen on the Steam Deck. Playing several genres, including shooters and strategy games, as intended is made possible by the Steam Deck's Bluetooth pairing with a mouse and keyboards. Simply choose Bluetooth from the Settings menu by pressing the Steam button. Any Bluetooth-enabled keyboard, mouse, wireless speaker, and gaming headset may all be paired.
4. Install the Rear Buttons on the Steam Deck
Like many high-end gamepads, the Steam Deck contains four back buttons in addition to the face buttons, bumpers, and triggers. However, they are not included in the typical dual-analog controller architecture, and the majority of games do not make use of them. However, you can map these buttons to any gamepad input (as well as keyboard/mouse input and a few system functions), which is helpful for games like Dark Souls III that need you to maintain your thumb on the left analog stick while navigating between objects.
Open your game and then hit Right twice while holding down the Steam button. Select Controller Settings > Edit Layout when the current controller shows on the screen. The back buttons-labeled L4, L5, R4, and R5-can then be customized any way you like.
5. Are Some Games Having Issues On Your Steam Deck? A remote playtests
The Steam Deck is a good gaming portable, but it falls short of a modern gaming PC in terms of capability. In order to maintain a steady frame rate, newer PC games may appear slow or need you to lower the graphical settings. You can stream practically any game installed on your gaming PC to your Steam Deck if you have a strong home Wi-Fi network.
On the Steam Deck page for a game, instead of clicking Install or Play, click the arrow next to that option and choose your gaming PC. Your PC will start the game, which will then broadcast to the Steam Deck. As long as both devices are logged into the same Steam account, this functionality is immediately activated.
6. Launching desktop mode (But Be Careful)
When you first turn on the Steam Deck, you wouldn't realize that it is a fully functional portable PC. Press and hold the power button until the power menu displays, then select Switch to Desktop to access the Steam Deck's desktop. The Steam Deck will exit the SteamOS interface and launch into the KDE Plasma desktop, allowing you to use the portable device just like any other Linux PC.
Any Linux package may be manually installed from here, but you don't have to! With just one click, you may download free, open-source software from a preset store by selecting the shopping bag icon in the lower-left desktop corner. A few dozen emulators are included in it. Additionally, you may copy game files to the onboard storage and mount external disks from the desktop. Create a folder in the Documents folder for that; if you are unfamiliar with the Linux file system, stay out of it.
7. Integrate Linux emulators and other software with Steam
Although SteamOS does not by default display software installed through Desktop mode in your Steam library, you may easily configure Steam to display such software. For the standard Steam client interface, launch Steam in Desktop mode. In the lower-left corner of the software, select Library > Add a Game. Select any installed Linux program from the list by clicking Add a Non-Steam Game. In SteamOS, the program will be listed under Non-Steam Games.
This does not guarantee that all Linux applications will function properly under SteamOS. Steam's Big Picture mode, unlike KDE, isn't made for good window management, which causes some emulators to operate erratically.
8. Purchase a USB-C Hub to Get More Connectivity
There is just one USB-C connector available on the Steam Deck for connectivity. And to make matters worse, Valve won't provide a formal dock for at least a few months. You need a USB-C hub or dock if you wish to utilize a wired Ethernet connection, connect USB-A devices, or use the Steam Deck on your TV or monitor.
The good news is that the Steam Deck typically functions nicely with USB-C hubs. The word "usually" is the bad news. With a cheap Iomega USB-C hub, I've had no issues with passthrough charging or attaching USB devices, however, HDMI output is a different matter. I can obtain an image that is the right size on my ultrawide monitor, but when I connected the Steam Deck to my TV, the signal was crazily zoomed in, and there was nothing I could do to repair it. Even worse, connecting a power source appears to reduce the HDMI signal. However, based on my testing, utilizing the Steam Deck on a large screen will require battery power. You could have success with a different hub.
9. Don't Install Windows
The Steam Deck should be able to run Windows and allow dual booting as it essentially functions as a portable gaming PC. How to install Windows and get every component of the Steam Deck to function with it is the question, not simply how to install Windows. There aren't any suitable Windows drivers for the several SteamOS-specific bespoke components that make up the Steam Deck. That makes it dangerous to install Windows on the machine. Wait until the modding community or Valve has developed a trustworthy method of doing it.
0 Comments