cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/starcitizen/p/1533992/getting-star-citizen-running-on-a-steamdeck-complete-guide
Getting Star Citizen working on the SteamDeck was actually a bit easier than I thought it would be. A lot of the heavy lifting has already been accomplished thanks to the Linux Users Group. The game usually runs around 15-20 fps which is somewhat playable. You’ll see better FPS when you’re out away from Cities/Stations. Total RAM used seems to be a little over 21GB (in SC v4.4).
Some pre-setup:
You’ll need to increase the swapfile on the Steam deck to use a small portion of the built-in SSD as some slower RAM. I set it to 16GB and it seems to be working fine, although LUG recommends a 32GB swapfile. So, if the game starts crashing and the game.log points to an issue with RAM, be sure to increase your swapfile.
Switch the SteamDeck to Desktop mode
- Go to “Power” -> Switch to Desktop
Open up a console and enter the following commands, one at a time:
passwd # Create a root password, for example “deck”
sudo steamos-readonly disable # Disable the read only FS
cd /home # There is a “swapfile” located here we’ll reuse it
sudo swapoff -a # Stop swap process
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=1G count=16 # Increase swap to 16GB, change to 32 if desired.
sudo mkswap swapfile # swap ready file again
sudo swapon swapfile # Activate swap
sudo steamos-readonly enable # re-enable the read only FSDownload Star Citizen
Download the flatpak made available by the Linux Users Group and run the script for installing the Launcher.
Add the repo
flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists RSILauncher https://mactan-sc.github.io/rsilauncher/RSILauncher.flatpakrepoinstall the rsi launcher flatpak
flatpak install -y --user --noninteractive RSILauncher io.github.mactan_sc.RSILauncher
run the rsi launcher flatpak
flatpak run io.github.mactan_sc.RSILauncher
Add the Launcher to Steam
While in Desktop mode, open up the desktop version of Steam.
Go to “Games” -> “Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library…” And select the RSI LauncherNote: The launcher works better in Gaming Mode. Just make sure to maximize the window while in gaming mode by dragging it to the top of the screen. I’ve found that the touchscreen keyboard doesn’t work well when using desktop mode for the launcher.
Add icons for the RSI Launcher in Steam (Optional)
Right click on the RSI Launcher
Go to “Customization”
“Change” the “background”, “Logo”, and “Wide Cover” to the splash screen. Browse to this folder for the icon:
/home/deck/.var/app/io.github.mactan_sc.RSILauncher/data/prefix/drive_c/Program Files/Roberts Space Industries/StarCitizen/LIVE/EasyAntiCheat/
Note: Delete the *.jpg filter at the bottom to reveal the icons and select SplashScreen.pngFor the “Cover”, I found a logo from the StarCitizen Subreddit that works very well:
https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/EmKaZzz1TqvrqdV2qbpqbXEHD9hRMrxK13aALdIb3IE.pngFix Mouse Warping Issues
Sometimes entering interaction mode will make your view warp quickly to another direction which can be annoying when trying to use kiosks/ASOPs/shops. To fix this, go to the following folder location:
/home/deck/.var/app/io.github.mactan_sc.RSILauncher/data/prefix/drive_c/Program Files/Roberts Space Industries/StarCitizen/LIVE/Then create a file called
user.cfg
Edit the file and enter the following:#use software cursor
pl_pit.forceSoftwareCursor = 1Disable animations on launcher (optional)
Click the gear icon -> Game Settings -> Accessibility:
Then disable background video, disable non-essential animations, and disable transition effects.Setup Useful Keybinds
After launching the game, press the “Steam” button, then go to “Controller Settings”.
The default controller keybinds usually have issues with the normal mouse button clicks, but using the L4-L5 or R4-R5 buttons for the mouse works very well.
My configuration:
L4 - Left Mouse Click
L5 - Right mouse Click
R4 - ‘[’ key (for accepting shared missions/invites)
R5 - ‘B’ key (for some reason I haven’t figured out how to switch between NAV/SCM mode yet).Switch this up however you want, but I found that these 4 keybinds were essential to being able to play the game without any mouse/keyboard hooked up to it.
After starting up Star Citizen, I would recommend changing the Game Renderer to Vulkan (for 4.4 only. With 4.5 you’ll want to use DirectX until a fix/workaround has been found for Vulkan issues).
*Note: If the game starts crashing while loading up, switch the renderer back by modifying the user.cfg file we created/edited before. Add a new line and enter:
r.graphicsRenderer = 0
Enter a 0 value for DirectX or enter 1 for Vulkan.
Graphics Optimizations:
I used the Performance Tuning guide from the LUG wiki for the following settings, which seems to work fine. If anyone finds some better settings
Game Settings
The following game settings can help improve framerates:Set Quality to High. Lower settings are not recommended as it will tax your CPU more. Set to Very High to offload more work from your CPU to your GPU.
Set Planet Volumetric Clouds to Medium
Set Scattered Object Distance to Low
Set Motion Blur to Off
Set Sharpening to 100
https://wiki.starcitizen-lug.org/Performance-TuningSome troubleshooting:
Usually the first time you run the launcher, the window size will be off. Just drag the top of the window up to the top of the screen and it should resize correctly (works in Gaming Mode as well).This should also solve the issue where the “acknowledge” button is cut off at the bottom.
Occasionally, the launcher will think that it has no internet connection. A temporary workaround is to log out and then log in again to the launcher. A more permanent fix is to clear the launcher’s cache.
Sources:
I wonder if there is upscaling used and at what resolutions this is played on.
You’ll need to increase the swapfile on the Steam deck to use a small portion of the built-in SSD as some slower RAM.
Usually the swapfile is only used when no RAM is left, so the PC does not crash and can continue working. Using this as the base for the game to run is impressive! Shows how fast SSDs have become.
The game would definitely run a lot better if it didn’t use up all of the RAM. In the current version of SC, I usually see it using about 5-6GB of the swapfile. I’m curious to know what the results would be if someone ran this on a modded SteamDeck with 32GB of RAM.
I haven’t messed around with the upscaling a whole lot. Star Citizen offers DLSS, FSR, and their own personal upscaling technique. I’ve usually left it on the “CIG TSR” technique that’s available.
I’m still fairly new to the SteamDeck, so I’ll need to play around with this a bit more to see what works best. Let me know if you have any tips!
I don’t have any tips, because I do not play the game. I assume its heavily CPU limited. So settings that affect CPU should be lowered and for the graphics side, lowering resolution with FSR would help too. DLSS is not available on the Steam Deck and I wonder which FSR is supported. I’m just curious, more than anything else.
I… no. No fucking way this works.
And by that I mean… I believe that this works, at 15 to 20 FPS, and I can’t believe the amount of effort that must have gone into figuring out how to make it work.
Insanely impressive that it runs at all, that its even possible.
Don’t think I’ll be partaking, myself, but god damn, very good work!
No disrespect on the guide, but given how it runs on my 9800X3D and 4090 PC I don’t think I’ll be trying this.
That’s fair. I mostly use it with an alt account for things like firing the torpedoes in a Polaris, activating the EMP on the Scorpius Antares, or to have a standby getaway pilot that can occasionally revive me if things aren’t too hot. I wouldn’t recommend this method as a main way to play the game.
For how much they’ve spent making the game so far I’d expect to have a concierge install it all for me.
