Steam Deck: Optimisation Setup Guide v0.1 

(You’ll probably hate that there are so many steps… but I promise it’s worth it.)

**Please bare in mind that this guide is based on opinion & is preference biased. Time and care has been taken to make sure this guide is as accurate and factually correct as possible, but anyone can make mistakes. - L

Top Tip before you begin: 

The Steam Deck is a computer. Plug it into a display, keyboard and mouse if you can, to make following this guide even easier. 

This guide may look intimidating, but I promise it’s super simple^ish.
** Prices listed in GBP - Check your country's Steam Store for accurate pricing.

Lossless Scaling

For the best experience you’ll need to make an additional purchase

It’s Cheap…

Lossless Scaling - ~£5.89: https://store.steampowered.com/app/993090/Lossless_Scaling/
While this isn’t an application you’ll “actually” have to use directly, there’s a plugin that utilises it to make your Steam Deck play games stably that otherwise would suffer from low FPS, you’ll need it downloaded on your deck for later steps.

Set an Admin Password

To do this go into “Desktop Mode” by either holding the power button then selecting Desktop Mode, or press the Steam Button and then select Power > Desktop Mode.

 

While in desktop mode you can use:

• Right trackpad - Mouse control
• Left trackpad - Mouse scroll (move your thumb in a circular motion, not up and down)
• Right Trigger - Left Click
• Left Trigger - Right Click
• Press X after selecting any text box and the keyboard should pop up.

*There should also be a button on the desktop that you can use to go back to gamemode.

To set a password go to the taskbar at the bottom click the icon on the far left to open the application menu and look for “Konsole”, once console is open type in: passwd

Enter a password (you’ll be asked to enter it twice).

 

PICK SOMETHING SHORT AND SIMPLE! 
(This goes against everything people tell you about passwords, but I doubt you want to be entering a 15 character password on a touchscreen or connecting a keyboard and mouse  every time you need to install something… Thank me later.)

You will need to remember this password.

Installing Decky Loader

• Click the following link to download the Decky Loader Install Script: https://decky.xyz/download
• This script will install a Plugin Loader^{_{(Clue was in the title)}}for the Steam Deck in Game Mode.
• To open/execute the file you may need to rename it as sometimes the file will save as “decky_installer.desktop.download” If it has downloaded with the wrong name… change it to “decky_installer.desktop”.
• Move the file to the desktop.
• Double click “decky_installer.desktop” and you should be asked you if you want to execute the file.
• Hit yes, a “Konsole” window should open and you’ll be prompted to enter the password you just set.
• Pick the standard installation “Release” and wait a few seconds for it to install.

 

**Disclaimer & Fair warning - Plugins can sometimes break.
When this happens the Steam Deck may present a crash screen with some details.

1. It will usually also present a button to uninstall the plugin that caused the crash.
2. Sometimes reinstalling the plugin that has caused the crash will fix it, other times you’ll have to uninstall the app permanently.

This "usually" only happens after major updates to SteamOS but rest assured, it’s pretty rare and easy to fix if you follow the above guidance..

Installing CryoUtilities

This is absolutely GOATED if nothing else, do this bit.

• Download the following link to your Steam Deck, Right click the link and pick "Save-As".
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CryoByte33/steam-deck-utilities/main/InstallCryoUtilities.desktop
   
• Move the downloaded file to your desktop. Make sure its called "InstallCryoUtilities.desktop"

• Open the file and follow the steps to install the app.

• Open CryoUtilities and when prompted, enter your admin password.

• Pick the “Recommended” option and wait for it to complete its setup.

 

**Disclaimer: 

This will allocate 16gb of your SSD to “SWAP” which allows the Steam Deck to use part of the SSD as temporary, slower RAM.

WARNING THESE NEXT STEPS CAN BE A LITTLE COMPLEX.

 

To make sure your Steam Deck is giving your games the best chance of running well we’ll be altering the amount of VRAM your Steam Deck Pre-Allocates from the 16GB of Unified RAM.

This will involve entering the bios and making one change, if you’re not comfortable doing this then skip this part but be aware that doing so could lead to suboptimal performance.^{Don’t be a wuss}

 

A helpful video will be linked below.

 

 

Please note: This is not my video and take no credit for it. All credit goes to Deck Wizard & their channel.

(It's a great channel)

• Shutdown your Steam Deck completely.

• Once it has shutdown, hold the Volume Up (+) button.

• While continuing to hold the Volume Up button, press the power button (just press and release but continue to hold Vol Up).

• Keep holding the Vol Up Button until you hear a beep and the Steam Logo appears.

• While in the BIOS you can use the D-Pad to navigate and the (A) button to select. You can also use the Track Pad and R2 button.

• From the four choices available on the BIOS screen, pick “Setup Utility”.

• Within “Setup Utility”, pick "Advanced" on the left.

• From the list of options pick “UMA Frame Buffer Size”, It will be set to 1G by default.

• Change The UMA Frame Buffer Size from 1G to 4G.

• Press the Select Button (top left beside the D-Pad) and save and exit the BIOS.

 

**Mild Disclaimer & Fair Warning

Sometimes after “Major” SteamOS updates the Steam Decks Firmware/BIOS is also updated, when this happens the default settings will be reapplied by SteamOS, you’ll have to repeat these steps to make sure your optimisations remain.

Download LSFG (Lossless scaling with Frame Generation)

Click this link and the latest version should download:

https://github.com/xXJSONDeruloXx/decky-lsfg-vk/releases/download/v0.12.1/Decky.LSFG-VK.zip
 

DO NOT UNZIP - Just leave it in your downloads folder.

 

Installing LSFG

At the bottom of the page you’ll find 2 buttons

“Copy launch options” - This is the one we like.
“LSFG + DeckyFG” - This one is a bit fucky.

The standard and recommended choice is “Copy launch options” which will use the lossless scaling application in step one to generate frames and upscale the chosen game.

“LSFG + DeckyFG” uses an additional “Hack/Mod” to activate DLSS within games that would usually not allow it, DLSS is a proprietary nvidia software, but in SOME cases can work very well on deck to improve gameplay. Only pick this option when you’re REALLY desperate it is NOT recommended and will cause a lot of latency.

• From the menu that opens, find your Downloads folder and pick the “decky-lsfg-vk.zip”.

• WARNING - If you do not get the app in step one, this is basically useless. 

 

How to Use LSFG

Before we proceed I'd like to first say the following:
Just because LSFG is installed, that doesn't mean you should use it on every game you install. 
LSFG - Like many of the other "things" you've installed so far, is a tool. One that can/should be used to "optimise" your play experience, not become your default play experience.
I'd advise you to use LSFG when you notice that your framerate in games "could" be higher E.g. triple-a titles that would otherwise be a slideshow.

Downloading Additional Proton Packages

Proton is a translation layer that enables Linux to execute windows code. The included versions are “okay” but we can do better.

//If you try to download apps from the discover store and you get the following error, head to the bottom of the page and find the section "Accounting For Weird Discover Bugs" for instructions that may resolve the issue for you.
Example of error: "Error pulling from repo: GPG verification enabled, but no signatures found (use gpg-verify=false in remote config to disable)"

 

These “runtimes” are useful to have as there are occasions where “Proton-GE” or even the native Proton packages are unable to run games. This can be due to anti-cheat restrictions or sometimes a rare dependency that the game might have.
 

Proton Experimental in particular should be a default second option to test if you’re having trouble getting a game to run.

Using Proton

If the game you want to play does not have a “Native” Linux version, your Steam Deck will automatically use Proton to execute and play the game. 

To make sure it's using the best version we’ll set it to use “Proton-GE” before it uses the default version.

**Optional: Setting Proton-GE “globally” as your Steam Deck’s default compatibility tool.

To set Proton-GE as your global default (applied to all games without having to manually set it), you’ll need to turn on developer mode on your Steam Deck:

• Press the “Steam” Button.
• Pick “Settings”.

• Scroll to the bottom press “Enable Developer Mode”.
  ** Your Steam Deck may need to reboot after doing this.

• Once Developer mode is turned on, within Settings scroll to the bottom of settings list.
• Within the developer menu scroll down until you see a section called “Steam Play”.
• Change “Default compatibility tool” to "Proton-GE Latest".
  ** Your Steam Client will need to restart.

Accounting For Weird Discover Bugs

While this shouldn't be needed I have seen people encounter a strange Discover bug:
"Error pulling from repo: GPG verification enabled, but no signatures found (use gpg-verify=false in remote config to disable)"

To fix this issue try the following commands one by one in Konsole - You may get an error on the 3rd command, ignore it and proceed to the 4th.
 

1. flatpak remote-delete --system --force flathub 
2. flatpak remote-add --system flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo 
3. flatpak remote-delete --user --force flathub 
4. flatpak remote-add --user flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

 

Additional Resources

This section will include some helpful links to Steam Deck related content and Is intended to provide direction to useful and informative content.

1. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/
   A good source for Linux gaming news that is not isolated to the Steam Deck, but the Steam Deck is heavily featured.
   
    
2. https://www.youtube.com/@SteamDeckGaming
   A Steam Deck focused YouTube Channel which often posts optimised setting guides, plugin guides, news and more.
   This creator also provides a Steam Deck Gaming Companion app, that at a glance can tell you if a game is compatible with the Steam Deck: Apple App Store Link
   
    
3. https://www.youtube.com/@DeckWizard
   Similar to “Steam Deck Gaming”, but more of a focus on gaming, mods and plugins.

Additional Plugins

(Decky Loader)

Special mentions: 

Shout out to my younger sister Biff, who was the first to follow this guide... You taught me a valuable lesson - I can write, format and tweak a guide as much as I want... but I can't account for anyones ability to read.