That review wouldn’t include the performance improvements from this brand new patch.
I played the game months ago, and found it very enjoyable. I did install an alternative ue-engine.ini file that reduced some of the particles and massively improved performance though. Without the engine tweaks it was perfectly playable but ugly.
Since that article was posted, the game got a major update with a bunch of steam deck improvements:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1903340/view/491585297311596633
There are tools like Answer Overflow that try to make information on discord more easily discoverable from web searches.
Looks pretty similar to this case, which was previously discussed in this community here.
Edit: here’s this case: https://github.com/unkyulee/steamdeck-enclosure
The source device (the steam machine in this case) will check with the display and see what the highest HDMI standard they both support is. It may also check if your splitter supports it, but I suspect the splitter is just a passthrough device.
While the steam machine might not be able to run super demanding titles at 4k 120hz+, there’s no reason it couldn’t do that for lower demand titles like indie games or older games. The physical hardware is HDMI 2.1 capable and can use those higher resolutions/fps if the device is running windows, so this is entirely the HDMI Forum limiting the capabilities of the device because it’s an open source device.
The HDMI version is what determines how much bandwidth you have available.
HDMI 2.0 has a max of 18GB/s bandwidth, which is why the Steam Machine has to do chroma subsampling to go above 4k@60Hz. HDMI 2.1 ups that bandwidth to 48GB/s, allowing higher resolution/refresh rate.
The physical hardware is HDMI 2.1 capable and can do that if the device is running windows, so this is entirely the HDMI Forum limiting the capabilities of the device because it’s an open source device.
An alternative some people do is to use a smart plug to turn power off/on to the deck’s dock (I’m assuming it’s docked if you’re using a controller).
There’s a bios setting to wake up the deck whenever it’s plugged in, so cycling power like that will wake up the deck.
Alright, so I probably can’t help you with this without having some personal hands on experience with it.
What’s probably happening is it’s trying to install a system level systemd service, but you can’t due to the steam deck being locked down. Your options would be to unlock the filesystem, find a way to install the Mullvad systemd service as a user instead, or figure out how to use systemd-sysext to install I as a system extension separate from the immutable filesystem.
Of those, I’m guessing the best solution would be the middle option, assuming you can get the right systemd mullvad-daemon.service file. Once you have it, it could be placed in ~/.config/systemd/user/ and enabled with systemctl --user enable mullvad-daemon.service. But as stated, the catch is you need the mullvad-daemon.service file, and I’m not sure the best way to do that. Maybe you could unlock the filesystem , let it install it as a system level service, and then convert it to a user level service? Either way it’s complicated and I’d have to mess around with it myself to figure out what would work.
If you didn’t see any major errors when running the previous command, then you maybe just need to restart your deck (or alternatively log out and log back in).
Especially when installing things through non-normal means, the path may not have updated for something newly installed.
Try to follow this guide to install nix: https://sadatdaniel.dev/2023/11/install-nix-package-manager-on-your-steam-deck/
A few options:
Installing in SteamOS directly - this should work, but will have to be redone every time steamOS updates. Some things like rwfus are meant to let you install things without them getting wiped, but that may or may not work. You can also create an installation script so you would just need to run a single file after a SteamOS update to restore everything.
Try installing through nix. The deck has nix support, and nix has both mullvad client and the mullvad cli client.
Just use the mullvad provided wireguard/openvpn files. In desktop they should be usable through the network manager, in game mode there’s a Decky plugin called TunnelDeck.
Maybe it only worked when clicking the power button to sleep, not when holding the button and then selecting sleep.
Serious Decky issues are rare. Usually when decky breaks, it just disappears from the deck until you manually reinstall/update it.
More rarely, a plugin will break steamOS. This gives a “Steam/Decky” has encountered a problem screen, with buttons to check for a decky update, disable Decky until next reboot, or uninstall the plugin that caused the crash. This is more serious, but is still extremely easy for users to deal with and get back to a working device.
I can’t remember if there was ever a point where Decky broke worse than that, but generally it’s pretty safe, especially if you’re on stable SteamOS.
For modding cyberpunk specifically, Nexus mods has a linux and Steam Deck compatible mod manager. It doesn’t support that many games, but Cyberpunk is supported.
I don’t have enough experience using Vortex to give much advice for other games, I usually just install mods manually instead of using a mod manager. That said, I know SteamTinkerLaunch is a tool that can be used to run both Vortex Mod Manger, ModOrganizer 2, and some other mod managers for games. Once installed you can select to run games with it from the game’s properties menu in Steam. Launching the game will then open a menu where you can select to run a mod manager for the game, launch it without mods, or several other options. There should be tutorial videos on youtube and other places for it.
Decky has a ton of plugins available, you can change how the Deck’s UI looks, change game art, change bootup animations, and do a lot more. You can browse plugins here. Occasionally decky or plugins will break when SteamOS updates, and the more plugins you have installed the more likely you are to encounter an issue like this. Some of the plugins are fantastic though so I consider it well worth the occasional trouble.
A weird bug with Monster Hunter Rise I ran into while playing docked, is that the game has issues when two controllers are connected (ie Deck built in controls and an external controller). It might also mess up if you have only one connected, but it’s designated as controller “2” or something like that. Iirc the game would play fine, but everytime a monster roared it would drop to 0 fps for several minutes, seemingly frozen (but Deck UI would work fine).
There might be multiple solutions for it, but I think what I did was used a decky plugin to disable the deck controls, and then made sure my wireless controller was set to be controller 1.
I’ve heard a lot of good things about Dispatch, I should probably check it out.
I’ve been playing Stellar Blade, it runs incredibly well on deck. I took the default deck preset, raised FSR to quality (which looks pretty good while maintaining stable 30fps in combat), and then used lsfg-vk to double the fps to 60. I get some minor ghosting but overall it looks pretty good and feels smooth.
I’ve been kinda hit or miss on Souls-like games in the past, but I’m really enjoying the combat in this one and finding the boss fights and exploration to be very enjoyable.
I also have been playing RV There Yet? with some friends, and just finished it yesterday. As far as “friendslop” games go, it’s excellent, way better than I expected. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for something to play with their friend group. It’s not on sale right now, but it’s only $8 so there’s not much to lose.
We’ve discussed ARM hardware for a future deck a few times here, ever since we learned that valve was working on an ARM compatibility layer.
It seems obvious for a handheld since ARM devices are usually much more battery friendly than x86 devices, but I’ve been told that we won’t see any actual hardware advantages from x86 games running through the compatibility layer. Games that have a native ARM version will perform better, but the FEX layer is just about ensuring backwards compatibility and won’t actually unlock any hardware improvements for pre-existing x86 games.
It’s a turn based RPG, but with a more mature focus. Kinda like the old Final Fantasy games (X, pre-remake 7, etc).
It also has a full Souls-like inspired dodge or parry mechanic, where a skilled player can avoid 100% of enemies attacks. Dodging is easier with a larger input window, parrying is harder but can trigger more skill effects and fully parrying an enemy’s combo lets you do a counter attack.
Finally the game has equitable items that give you passive skills, and using them enough lets the character learn the skill permanently. The end result is incredible build customization of the different characters. The builds get increasingly wild as things go on, with various end game builds that can 1 shot anything, become immortal, etc. Overall it’s a very fun and rewarding system to play with.