this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2024
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Yeah, there are a bunch of alternatives. I don't even think it's as much of a problem on Desktop Linux, where having Steam and Heroic/Lutris going at the same time isn't a big deal.
But all the hoops to integrate other launchers inside Steam Game Mode and the friction in trying to use them reliably in that environment are just not mainstream viable or functional. As long as that works the way it currently does I'll default my handleds to autobooting into Windows Big Picture instead.
Which, by the way, is totally a thing you can do. People always act like there's a much bigger gap than there actually is between those two options. You mostly only lose the well integrated display and power controls, which may be a bigger or smaller deal depending on what your Windows handheld uses instead.
I 100% agree with you on your first 2 paragraphs. I really love my Deck, but God damn is it annoying getting things like Battle.net, GOG, and/or Epic games working inside of it in Game Mode sometimes.
Apps like NonSteamLaunchers or Heroic help a lot, but they don't always work smoothly. Like I had the itch to try out WoW again this week after not playing for numerous years (I'd heard War Within was really good). Getting battle.net installed and working within Game Mode was a major pain in the ass. I'd done it a few months ago for Diablo 4 without much headache, but somehow when I tried launching BNet last night, it wouldn't. NonSteamLauncher's BNet integrator also wasn't working for whatever reason. So I had to do a few workarounds before I got one that worked.
It's scenarios like that where I truly wish Valve would try harder to work with companies like Epic or Blizzard to get better native integration. I know Epic is a competitor, but really it'd be beneficial for both companies to have good integration between each other. I'm much more inclined to buy games on Epic if I can easily play them on my Deck, and I'm more lore inclined to stay within Steam's ecosystem if I'm not constantly encountering these annoying obstacles. It will likely never happen, but I can dream
As for your last paragraph, are you referring to wiping your Deck and just installing Windows? I've been hesitant to do that due to how often I use the sleep mode function in games. I've tried using sleep mode on my desktop PC like that when I can't save a game and I need to stop to do other stuff, and it's really hit or miss if a game will resume without issue after waking. Have you had any problems? Also, how is your battery life impacted? The Deck has crazy good battery life, and I attribute a lot of that to how efficient the underlying OS is with power management, but maybe I'm wrong. Also, do you have issues with drivers? The APU on the Deck is a custom AMD chipset, but have people ported the drivers for it over to Windows now?
Oh, no, I'm talking about Windows native handhelds, which may be getting SteamOS support in the future, as per the original post.
I think a lot of people (reviewers included, weirdly) assume that you need to navigate those with a mouse replacement every time, so you get a lot of complaints about how bad using Windows without a mouse is compared to Steam OS on Game Mode. But you can absolutely set up Steam to a) autolaunch on boot, and b) launch straight into Big Picture mode. At that point once you unlock your Windows handheld you're straight in the Steam fullscreen mode interface and can do everything (within Steam) with a controller.
Not that I think tapping the Steam icon to manually open it up is that much of a hassle, anyway.
I do have a Deck, but they never made good on their early promises to make it easy to use with Windows. Which they did make, I remember. But nope, if you have a Deck you should probably stick to Steam OS. Valve should just find a better way to integrate third party launchers.
Ahhh, I misunderstood your earlier comment, my bad. Yeah, if I had a windows handheld, setting it up to boot straight into Steam Big Picture would be a no-brainer for me, just as a minor QOL thing.
As for your other point, I don't remember them saying that, but that's pretty crappy they fell through on delivering on that promise. I'm just hoping as SteamOS/Linux gaming continues growing in popularity that developers just start putting more effort into native support.
I have tried it but Big Picture mode in Windows is extremely limited because
The current way to play Epic/GoG/Amazon games on the Steam Deck is
While the number of steps seems like a lot, if you compare against the Windows equivalent, it's not a lot simply because Windows has no Big Picture/console mode. I personally hate the desktop mode in Windows because I'm forced to use the touchscreen constantly.
What would you like to be changed in this process?
I am aware of the set of steps, but a) I've had issues getting it to work in the past, particularly getting new games to install under Steam as opposed to adding them in Desktop mode every time and b) what I want is an official way to install and launch third party games, or at least third party launchers from within Steam, the way GOG Galaxy or even Heroic itself supports.
Right now, I play those on Windows handhelds instead, where the steps are:
Which is similar to doing this on Linux desktop, where the steps are:
Oh, and for the record, as I said above, Windows absolutely does have a Big Picture mode. You can set up Steam to launch on boot straight into Big Picture. If all you want is to play Steam games you never have to use the Desktop on Windows either. Because I do play a ton of GOG games and emulation over Retroarch I prefer to boot into Desktop where my launchers are pinned to the taskbar, so it's literally one tap to open whichever launcher I want. But Steam absolutely goes into Big Picture after that. Like I said earlier the only functional difference is that the settings button brings up the proprietary screen and power manager instead of the SteamOS Game Mode alternative, but otherwise the Steam interface is much the same.
Why do people not realize this is the case? Big Picture was available on Windows (at boot, even) long before the Deck happened. I've been a longtime Steam-on-TV user, this isn't new.
While I think this would be great for everybody, but I think the money-oriented guys inside Valve would think it's a bad idea. If you present an easy way to install other launcher to the masses, people will be swayed away from buying from the Steam store. Valve wants publishers to stay on their store; that is their trump card. I remember someone tried putting an alternate store on Steam Store and it was quickly removed to avoid legal troubles.
BigPicture in Windows is extremely nerfed compared to Bazzite/SteamOS which I have detailed in this comment and further elaborated in this post. The tl;dr version is "yes you can use BigPicture but you still have to deal with a lot of Windows shenanigans"
Source: I'm a user of both Steam Deck OLED and ROG Ally.
Yeah, man, I have a bunch of Windows handhelds and both Deck models. I... may have a problem, but I know how it works.
And yeah, I do realize that the Deck and SteamOS game mode doubles as an attempt to complete Valve's dominance over the PC market. I just think that sucks. If GOG can allow you to integrate Epic and Steam then so can Steam. And until they do that, the Deck is less useful to me than a Windows handheld because I keep as much of my gaming library as possible within GOG.
For the record, your posts kinda misrepresent how Big Picture works in practice. Like I said, yeah, you can't change power and screen settings (and bluetooth) directly on Steam, but most Windows handhelds have a shortcut button with those options in it that is, let's be honest, just copying the Steam version. Depending on your brand it is more or less useful, but it's not like you have to whip out a mouse to do those things. I still think most of those implementations are worse than SteamOS's fully integrated version, and Big Picture over Windows is overall a bit laggier and less responsive... but I mean, it's close enough and it absolutely beats being cut off from several thousand games.
While I don't agree with you on the usability of Big Picture on Windows, I certainly agree with you on one point; it would be great if other game launchers could be seamlessly installed on the Steam Deck.
However I'm happy that other launchers are available for those who go through the slightly lengthy process.
PS: I don't agree there are 1000s of games not able to run on the Steam Deck, it's mostly these games on the list. (https://areweanticheatyet.com/)
No, I'm not saying I'm cut off from running thousands of games. I'm cut off from thousands of games that I own already in other libraries and I can't play on a Steam Deck out of the box.
Most of them would gladly run just fine if I bought them off of Valve. But since I already bought them I'm not buying them again. So I'm cut off. So I'll default to Windows until that changes.