Steam Deck Tips & Tricks

I had faster internet than that former speed in Arkansas in 2006... By 08 I didn't use or intend megabits that was megabytes. That's 624 Mbps.

The deck doesn't have wifi 6, but all my other mobile things do except the e readers so that's why we have u6pro APs. Mind you we already had APs so changing them out is just a matter of porting the 8' ladder around for a few minutes.
 
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Bankie said:
I read that Valve has added game transfer from PC to SD to the Steam beta client. I haven't checked it out yet but it seems like it will be a lot less work than the warpinator angle.
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It should be a lot easier than warpinator at least for Steam Games. I have a feeling it won't necessarily work with non steam games added to your steam library. I haven't tried the beta either. I tend to stick to the release channel unless there is some major feature I want to try out. :)
 
Axman said:
In this thread we ask and answer questions about how to use the Steam Deck, as well as point out things we've discovered, like friends we met this entire time.

I would like to know how to delete controller layout templates from my Deck. I've saved the same config three times with the same name, and they're annoying me. I want to delete the redundant layouts. Got any tips?
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Here is a tip I found out last night. I was trying to transfer a new game to my deck via warpinator (GoG game), but needed to remove some older installed games first. So I moved some old GoG games I wasn't playing to the trash can and emptied it. I then started up the transfer after I saw how much space I freed show up in the file manager, well the transfer kept failing and dropped to like 1.1 MB/s. It looks like if you delete a bunch of old games, and are trying to put new ones on you should wait awhile before you transfer new stuff over and let the garbage collection stuff finish, or it will force it as the transfer is going on. That will either tank speeds as it waits for space to free up, or make the transfer fail when the transfer program thinks something went wrong.
 
Anyone know how to set button chords using the controller button presses instead of keyboard ones? I can't seem to get those to work. So for example in the game Bleak Faith using parry needs a combo Left Trigger + Left Bumper to do a parry, the equivalent Keyboard/mouse setting is Ctrl + Right Mouse button. So in edit controller I set L4 to be Left Trigger then in settings set it to button chord. Then in settings again, set the button chord button to L4 in settings (this is important and took me a while to figure I had to set it even though it should be automatic given I am modifying the L4 button), then select add sub command and set that to Left bumper. That should work but it doesn't. But changing the Left Trigger to keyboard CTRL and the sub command to be Right Mouse Button, using the same settings as I have set above does work. So technically the problem is solved, but I kind of want to make it work using the controller presses because I know in a few games (like older ones) that I might play eventually on deck, if you set controller as your input, it disables the keyboard input so this trick won't work in those games.
 
Here's a tip... I'm sure people know you can Stream games from your PC to your Steam Deck and vice versa via Steam Remote Play. But you can use the Steam Link app as a remote desktop app to stream your Steam Decks Desktop to your PC (you only need the application on your PC, not the Steam Deck). Did this over the weekend when I was modding games, it made the process very easy since I haven't purchased a dock yet.
 
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LittleBuddy said:
Here's a tip... I'm sure people know you can Stream games from your PC to your Steam Deck and vice versa via Steam Remote Play. But you can use the Steam Link app as a remote desktop app to stream your Steam Decks Desktop to your PC (you only need the application on your PC, not the Steam Deck). Did this over the weekend when I was modding games, it made the process very easy since I haven't purchased a dock yet.
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This never worked for me, for some reason. My PC doesn't see my Steam Deck over the app, which is odd to me because I can stream over Steam just fine and alt+tab for the same effect.

Now I just have Moonlight installed on my Deck, which works a bit better than the Steam Link app (e.g. resizable window, better performance).
 
t1337duder said:
This never worked for me, for some reason. My PC doesn't see my Steam Deck over the app, which is odd to me because I can stream over Steam just fine and alt+tab for the same effect.

Now I just have Moonlight installed on my Deck, which works a bit better than the Steam Link app (e.g. resizable window, better performance).
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Tested out moonlight it is very good.
 
zrikz said:
What's the benefit of tgat vs just steam streaming? Similar to parsec or the like but works on the deck?
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I find the performance to be better. Has more tweakable settings to fine tune to your bandwidth circumstances. When streaming from the Deck to the PC - you have a nice resizable window which is convenient for multitasking or getting things set up (e.g. Lutris). Steam's streaming is always full screen AFAIK.
 
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zrikz said:
What's the benefit of tgat vs just steam streaming? Similar to parsec or the like but works on the deck?
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it's an open source version of GeForce now. as other mentioned much more tweakable plus you can use it as a remote desktop client as well not just steam/gaming
 
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Turning off "Fast Boot" in the UEFI prevents the Steam Deck from draining the battery when unplugged and turned off. I read about this on reddit since I was looking into storing my deck for a few months and tested it out myself and it worked. When I powered it down it was 90% battery and a week later I powered it back on to see if it was dead but it was 89% (probably due to power used on bootup).
 
LittleBuddy said:
Turning off "Fast Boot" in the UEFI prevents the Steam Deck from draining the battery when unplugged and turned off. I read about this on reddit since I was looking into storing my deck for a few months and tested it out myself and it worked. When I powered it down it was 90% battery and a week later I powered it back on to see if it was dead but it was 89% (probably due to power used on bootup).
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It drains battery when completely shut down? I haven't ever noticed that being an issue. When sleeping, sure. I think there is also a "battery storage" mode you can put it in if you want to store it long-term, but then to start it up again you have to plug it into a charger first.
 
MavericK said:
It drains battery when completely shut down? I haven't ever noticed that being an issue. When sleeping, sure. I think there is also a "battery storage" mode you can put it in if you want to store it long-term, but then to start it up again you have to plug it into a charger first.
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No I was an early adopter and my battery got drained to about 80 percent full capacity with what I would say was limited, protected usage. I've had my phone for a couple of years longer and it's at 78.

It will drain your battery down to zero after just a day or two even shut off.

ETA: yes it drains your battery completely shut down.
 
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Axman said:
No I was an early adopter and my battery got drained to about 80 percent full capacity with what I would say was limited, protected usage. I've had my phone for a couple of years longer and it's at 78.

It will drain your battery down to zero after just a day or two even shut off.

ETA: yes it drains your battery completely shut down.
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Weird, this definitely is not the case with mine. I've left it for a week or more before and it still had battery when I turned it back on. Not 100%, but Lithium batteries do just lose charge over time if not used.

Reading the same (possibly) thread on Reddit, people seem to be split whether or not this happens to them.
 
LittleBuddy said:
Turning off "Fast Boot" in the UEFI prevents the Steam Deck from draining the battery when unplugged and turned off. I read about this on reddit since I was looking into storing my deck for a few months and tested it out myself and it worked. When I powered it down it was 90% battery and a week later I powered it back on to see if it was dead but it was 89% (probably due to power used on bootup).
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I believe there is an option for battery storage mode as well if you plan to store it for an extended time.
 
Anyone know if a cable like this works on the Steamdeck for wired headsets?

https://sabrent.com/collections/accessories/products/cb-uc35
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Latest preview build completely borked my Deck (wouldn't boot after update). Thankfully I had a recent backup to re-image from, but definitely not ideal.

This happened one time with my LCD model as well. Fixing this stuff is easy for me but I can't help but wonder about less techie consumers who bought the Deck.

It would take dozens of hours to set up my Deck back to where it was. Anyone who has spent time customizing their Deck should definitely create a backup every couple months.
 
t1337duder said:
Latest preview build completely borked my Deck (wouldn't boot after update). Thankfully I had a recent backup to re-image from, but definitely not ideal.

This happened one time with my LCD model as well. Fixing this stuff is easy for me but I can't help but wonder about less techie consumers who bought the Deck.

It would take dozens of hours to set up my Deck back to where it was. Anyone who has spent time customizing their Deck should definitely create a backup every couple months.
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I had an issue with the beta version & now I'm back to stable due to it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/...ding_library_data_by_a_recent_beta/?context=3
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
I had an issue with the beta version & now I'm back to stable due to it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/...ding_library_data_by_a_recent_beta/?context=3
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Yep.

It's nice for Valve to offer the Beta & Preview branches, but it's much more of a gamble than what you'd get from any other nightly or beta build.

I'm sure most people just have Steam verified and other already-working titles, so if they had to re-image their deck, it would be easy enough to reinstall and grab their save data from the cloud.

But if you're someone who plays on emulators, or has Lutris setup, or has put much work into the Deck setup at all - having a backup is invaluable. And I'm not a guy who's ever backed up anything in my life (not personally that is). In regards to the emulators - it's not that setting them up takes forever (though it can take awhile to tweak each emulator to you're liking), but losing the savegame data is extremely painful.

Crazy idea, but maybe Valve should include a "backup" button in the SteamOS? Just exports the drive into some image file so it can be stored onto a network or external drive. I know it's easy enough to do on your own (I've ddrescued thousands of drives), but if you're trying to make it consumer friendly, why not?
 
t1337duder said:
Yep.

It's nice for Valve to offer the Beta & Preview branches, but it's much more of a gamble than what you'd get from any other nightly or beta build.

I'm sure most people just have Steam verified and other already-working titles, so if they had to re-image their deck, it would be easy enough to reinstall and grab their save data from the cloud.

But if you're someone who plays on emulators, or has Lutris setup, or has put much work into the Deck setup at all - having a backup is invaluable. And I'm not a guy who's ever backed up anything in my life (not personally that is). In regards to the emulators - it's not that setting them up takes forever (though it can take awhile to tweak each emulator to you're liking), but losing the savegame data is extremely painful.

Crazy idea, but maybe Valve should include a "backup" button in the SteamOS? Just exports the drive into some image file so it can be stored onto a network or external drive. I know it's easy enough to do on your own (I've ddrescued thousands of drives), but if you're trying to make it consumer friendly, why not?
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A backup feature would be great. I need to figure out if I can link in the Veeam backup agent & do one nightly when its docked.
 
If you want to transfer a control layout you've made from one game to another, here is how you do it in Steam Input without issues:

Hit the cog sign next to "View Layout" and "Edit Layout", choose "Export Layout", then after naming your layout, under "Export Type" choose "New Template". Then after exporting you must restart Steam to be able to see and choose the layout in another game. Just scroll down to the bottom of the templates to see your user-created ones.

Steam Input was driving me a little insane so maybe this will help others out too who don't have much experience working with it. It is not very intuitive or user-friendly yet.
 
t1k said:
If you want to transfer a control layout you've made from one game to another, here is how you do it in Steam Input without issues:

Hit the cog sign next to "View Layout" and "Edit Layout", choose "Export Layout", then after naming your layout, under "Export Type" choose "New Template". Then after exporting you must restart Steam to be able to see and choose the layout in another game. Just scroll down to the bottom of the templates to see your user-created ones.

Steam Input was driving me a little insane so maybe this will help others out too who don't have much experience working with it. It is not very intuitive or user-friendly yet.
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It's very quirky, to say the least. But it's also fairly robust.
 
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I *cannot* get EmuDeck to import my games. It doesn't even see the SD card. What am I doing wrong? Is there a decent guide?
 
Axman said:
I *cannot* get EmuDeck to import my games. It doesn't even see the SD card. What am I doing wrong? Is there a decent guide?
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It gives you the option to install to an SD card when you first run the installer IIRC. There are a bunch of guides on Reddit but I didn't need it. The gist is that you run the installer, set the SD drive as the install location, place all of your ROMS and BIOS files in the correct folders, and then run the ROM Manager. In the ROM Manager, you select which emulators are active, and then it scans all of folders for the ROMS that you earlier placed. Then it automatically nabs the art and places the shortcuts in Steam for you categorically.
 
Axman said:
I *cannot* get EmuDeck to import my games. It doesn't even see the SD card. What am I doing wrong? Is there a decent guide?
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I tried to get EmuDeck installed several times but could never seem to get it setup properly. The installation is a little bit cryptic and had problems importing my library. Eventually, I got frustrated enough to ditch it and just use retroarchs library feature instead (especially since I didn't want to add said ROMs to my Steam Library anyway).

Good luck!
 
I had an issue where my SD would not charge. The charging light would come on but the battery would drain while just sitting there plugged in. I tried different charges, cables, rebooting, etc. The solution was to boot into the BIOS and toggle the 'Storage Mode' option. Was a complete PITA due to the BIOS entry being so finicky and the 1% charge I could attain.
 
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