To be clear, while the article says this is “official support”, this is only drivers provided by valve.
Per valve:
We are providing these resources as is and are unfortunately unable to offer ‘Windows on Deck’ support.
Cool but also meh, I really like steams and have had 0 issues getting games to play.
It’s a great option for people who wants to play those games where the anti cheat system doesn’t support Linux
We should just stop supporting those games.
Fair
The assholes with that anticheat need to be pressured to do Linux support properly, not people that run after them!
True
Ikr
A part of me wishes hackers do a Crowdstrike on Vanguard to stop this trend.
Nah, i hope they steal the code and build viruses on it that use the kernel level permissions so these asshole are liable for everything.
Also great for people who want to take advantage of gamepass.
Eww…
Blech! Why would somebody sully such a wonderful device with a piss patty OS?
Personally, I think this is great because I can now use my game pass subscription on the steam deck, I know I could use the cloud functionality on steamos, but it is not the same.
This limitation made be realize the vendor lock-in that game pass is, sure it provides awesome value, but forces you to have windows or buy an Xbox.
Why did you subscribe to services you couldn’t use?
I only bought a steam deck recently, when I subscribed for 3 years, I mostly gamed on Windows or on my Xbox.
True, still a little salty I had to cancel the subscription, I genuinely liked it. But I’m not installing Windows.
Getting Game Pass on steamos is pretty easy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U22q9mKfW3Y
Did you actually watch the video and/or read what I said? I want to be able to play the games locally, not from the cloud.
I guess I skimmed over ur comment. I definitely watched the video tho lol
I could imagine that games with invasive anti cheats are a reason.
As someone who played a couple, i just stopped playing them.
I’m a little sad they did this, i hoped that the pressure on the game devs would rise so they support Linux, oh well.
ew
I’d rather have SteamOS officially support more devices including desktop. Good on Valve for giving people options though.
@Fubarberry Why thou?
Some games have security software that requires Windows. Destiny 2 for example.
@jordanlund Too true. Does this new arc version of SteamOS allow for dual booting?
As far as I’m aware, all Steam Decks can dual boot. On my machine you hold volume down on power on to access the boot manager.
I didn’t partition the internal drive because I wanted to preserve the original install, so I boot from the external SSD for Win 11.
@jordanlund Yep, just looked into it. Only the original SteamOS (Debian) couldn’t dual-boot.
Sweet, so that’s a bonus.
I guess it’s nice of them to release the drivers but that still won’t make it a good experience. They should have designed the deck to use full length nvme so you could get bigger drive sizes and not feel like a dual boot leaves no room for games. Not that I would do this or recomend it, yuck.
I use a 2TB Kingston SSD through the USB-C port. All the Steam Deck stuff stays on the internal drive, Windows 11 on the Kingston.
https://www.kingston.com/en/ssd/xs2000-portable-usb-c-solid-state-drive
There are also docks that support NVMe:
https://jsaux.com/products/m-2-docking-station-for-steam-deck-hb0604
Is that faster than loading it on a microsd card? That’s how I currently boot windows on my steamdeck, but it’s a little slow to load and initial loads for some games can be painful.
Yeah, the MicroSD slot is around 100mb/s:
https://www.polygon.com/deals/22938610/steam-deck-best-sd-card-micro-storage-price-speed
USB-C is anywhere from 5 Gbps to 20 Gbps. Not sure what standard the Deck supports, but even the slowest is 625 to 2500 mb/s.
Thanks, I’ll have to take a look into that, I can definitely tell the microsd struggles (and it would free up my microsd slot for extra steamos storage).
That kinda makes it not very portable. However, it’s true that you can get short high capacity drives. They’re just a bit harder to find.
It’s a bit late. The original Steam Deck had drivers for Windows too. But is this really “official support”? I mean Valve gives no guarantees that Windows will work fine. Valve gives the drivers away, so people can do whatever they want, but makes no promise and do not support it officially on their website. So I’m a bit confused by the terminology. Maybe its still too early in the morning…
Yeah calling this official support isn’t quite what is actually happening. “Windows works now on the SteamDeck OLED” on the other hand doesn’t generate as many clicks…
Wow! This is worthless!
Uhhh…well. that’s…um. sure. Someone could do that.
I would rather trust GamingOnLinux here:
While it is not in any way officially supported by Valve, they have now released Windows drivers for the newer Steam Deck OLED model.
(emphasis mine)
Yeah, that is a good point to make.
Main reason I linked the steamdeckhq coverage is because they covered it last night, where gamingonlinux didn’t have any coverage of it until a few hours ago.
So. Many. Ads. Omg
“I see youre trying to shutdown your computer. Would you like to buy more OneDrive storage?”
Good to have the option, but probably only worth it if you play anti cheat infested games or subscribe to game pass. I’ll stick with the OS optimised for the hardware
This is definitely meant to make it less painful for the players of those games.
So now you can play fortnite on the steam deck. I like to think valve did this just to mess with epic.
Also… Photoshop I guess?
Anecdotally: I worked from home today, my primary laptop is Linux mint. Helldivers 2 wouldn’t start, seems an update broke the settings I had. I tried a couple generic fixes through terminal and started getting huffy because everything would be easier if I just used windows. Non of this would be happening if I just took the blue pill…about 30 minutes in I turned off steam sync for saved games and suddenly it all worked again.
Moral of the story: sometimes Linux isn’t this complicated beast, and it’s as simple as something that even windows would have a problem with. It’s only difficult until you figure out the problem. Windows is a necessary evil some of the time but never all of the time.
Just keep swimming. You’ll figure it out. Not trying is being lazy and complacent.
Also though, you have to consider not all gamers are tech savvy, and your “generic fixes” through terminal would immediately make some of them have a quit moment.
I think Linux users forget the amount of base knowledge that they had to learn in order to simply use their software proficiently sometimes.
I’m a systems engineer, I do sometimes forget common knowledge isn’t everyone’s knowledge with IT stuff.
