Dear Steam deck pirates, what's your current setup?

I bought a refurbished steam deck finally and am thinking about what my ahem acquisition workflow will be. This is what I'm thinking from my past experience daily driving Linux (arch btw):

For Linux native games, easy - just torrent it and/or install it and play.

For Windows:

For game file dumps, add the .exe in Steam as a non-steam game and run it with proton.
For setup installations (repacks etc.), run the setup.exe with wine, install to a location, then do the same as above.

For any issues with the above, try installation scripts from Lutris and review protonDB and wineHQ to troubleshoot.

Is there an easier way I'm missing?

Edit: Will also check Bottles. Apparently you can use Heroic launcher to install setup.exes? If true I'll try that also.

17 comments

I usually run repacks on Desktop PC with Windows and copy over resulting files and point Steam at the resulting exe. It makes the process a lot faster since my Desktop has a 5800X3D. Other than that though pretty much the exact same process on my end.

8
literally just run the setup/game exe through lutris or bottles, then add the shortcut to steam

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Honestly, because troubleshooting gets annoying for me when I want to play a game, I have made a brain-dead algorithm for how to play games on the deck, and it looks like this:

Do I want to buy it on Steam? If not,

Does it run in Windows? If yes, just download and install in Windows PC, and then (Warpinator) it into the deck. Add shortcut to steam, use latest stable proton. That's it. You're done.

W-wait... It doesn't run natively on Windows? (Old af games like Touhou 6). Just Bottles it, and finagle with the setup a bit, that's gonna take some effort.

As a general rule, proton is a beast, and I have stopped bothering with Linux native piracy entirely.
4
bullet point #2 fails more than half of the time for me.

What I found works for me is... well I'll just repost my previous advice:

if anyone is struggling with installing 3rd party mods and such in Proton, try starting your installation process from ConEmu (ConEmu64.exe) (It's a simple, open-source, portable terminal emulator for Windows) instead of pointing the Non-steam Games wizard at each installation and gaming exe individually.

I originally tried to do this with the explorer.exe built into Wine, but getting that thing to launch is a pain.

for example a lot of Windows programs will have you download an .exe that installs the program, then you need to run a different .exe to actually run the program. Steam's non-steam game wizard in combination with Proton gets confused by this and runs the two .exe's in separate environments, screwing with any attempts to install a mod or install the app itself.

4
No need get window. You need somes tools though.

From the stock app market (called discover) :

Transmission

Lutris

ProtonUp-QT to install ProtonGE

From GitHub:

Decky (and the addon SteamGridDB)

On desktop mode.

I download my games as torrent from dodirepack or fitgirl with the software transmission(from stock appshop).

Once I have a game I use Lutris(from stock appshop) to execute the installer. Install games on :Z Wich is the steals file system.

Then I add the game to steam on desktop mode.

I set the compatibility in the game options mode on proton or protonGE.

And I rename the game to their steamid to be able to search for contrôler config. (Find steam game I'd on the site SteamDB)

In game mode

I then setup images for the games with the addon SteamGridDB installed from Decky (and addon loader for steamdeck)

If I have trouble running game I use protonGE which I installed with ProtonUp-QT (from stock appshop)
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I install games with the heroic launcher. And add the game to steam

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- Not much aaargh about playing bought games tho!
  
  3
  
  No need to be buying games on Epic
  
  3
  
  With heroic, its super easy to install the setup.exe
  
  1
- When you install games using this method, what do you do to install updates/patches?
  
  1
I like using third party launchers like Bottles since you can add a steam shortcut, and easily pass --unshare=network in the launch parameters when launching to disable Internet access to the cracked games.

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Only roms and syncthing to sync saves. I love syncthing.

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Bottles is nice. Granted, I've only had to use it for one game with a setup.exe so far, but it was more straightforward than trying to do it through steam

2
PCGamingWiki for any older or less popular games.

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A GPD win4

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Rutrackr

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Go onto 1337x.to using a vpn or tor and look for jc141 torrents which include a wine script and a compression system built in which i really love, sometimes you gotta keep it unmounted and use proton to fix problems though

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