Sonic Frontiers - Updated Steam Deck Modding Guide
UPDATE (12/29/2022): this guide has been updated to make sure HMM runs! I also have a video.
I guess many of the people who have tried adding mods to Sonic Frontiers on Deck have had trouble. And up until this point I’ve had no idea how to help troubleshoot the various issues they’ve encountered. Fortunately SolarNyan came to the rescue with an updated guide. I’ll explain their steps here with pictures and videos.
Weekly News Recap (Ubuntu Dev Interview, 7,000 Verified/Playable Deck Titles, Manjaro’s Mask)
Steam Deck SteamOS 3.4 shipped to stable Tuesday’s beta Deck client update adds search tab to controller profile configuration, adds a few additional fixes JSAUX announces the ModCase – versatile utility for adding and removing accessories to your Deck. They’re also selling a transparent back plate we’ve hit 7k verified/playable titles seems like everyone and their brother sees the Deck as their hardware of the year. I guess you could also say the Deck has finally put the “Year of the Linux Desktop” joke to an end News Steam Winter sale is live from now until January 5th NVIDIA to shut down GameStream in February Epic Games to pay $520 million for “privacy violations and unwanted charges” Intel to work on a new Xe graphics driver AMD to improve “the Linux experience” when running new GPUs without proper driver support SerpentOS releases its first public ISO Guides you can play Sonic Adventure 2 in HD Interviews did an interview with an Ubuntu kernel developer.
Massive SteamTinkerLaunch v12 ‘Still Alive’ Update Adds Steam Deck Improvements, Initial Support for Hedge Mod Manager
It’s been well worth the three-month wait for today’s SteamTinkerLaunch update. We’ve got so many new features, improvements, and bug fixes with the “Still Alive” update that is v12.0. Those of you who use this Swiss army knife utility on Steam Deck, and those of you who use mods with Sonic Frontiers, should be particularly excited about this update, as there’s some goodies tossed in your way.
To start, frostworx, the original author of STL, has stepped down as maintainer.
ProtonUp-Qt 2.7.7 Adds NorthstarProton and Steam-Play-None Compatibility Tools, ProtonDB Ratings to Game List
We’ve got a sweet new release for the excellent ProtonUp-Qt app, for managing all of your compatibility tools for Steam, Lutris, and more.
When viewing your game list, you can now check the ProtonDB ranking with the simple click of a button. Super convenient!
NorthstarProton and Steam-Play-None have been added as compatibility tools. The former is “a Proton build based on TKG’s Proton-tkg build system to run the Northstar client on Linux and SteamDeck, along with some enhancements out-of-the-box.
The GameCube Controller, Powered by Open-Source Firmware
If you follow me on Mastodon, you’re probably aware that I’m a bit of a Super Smash Bros. Melee fan. Someone in my Discord went so far as to call me a “Melee head.” It makes sense; there’s rarely a day that goes by without me playing a few singles or doubles matches. Melee is one of those games where it’s not only played for fun; my mind feels sharper, more focused.
PhobGCC 2.0.2 Makes Firmware Updating Easier, Connection to C-Stick More Reliable
PhobGCC. Chances are you’ve probably never heard of it. Allow GitHub to explain what it is:
The PhobGCC is a replacement motherboard for Gamecube controllers that reads stick position using magnets and Hall effect sensors instead of potentiometers that can wear out. It offers an advanced digital snapback filter that doesn’t reduce responsiveness and actually improves responsiveness in Melee. It also features gate calibration, swappable buttons, and facilitates installation of discrete switches on the D-pad and face buttons.
Steam Winter Sale Now Live! Some Great Steam Deck Verified Titles on Sale
Steam’s winter sale just kicked off, and with it are several decent titles on sale. Here’s some recommended games, all of which are Steam Deck Verified:
Action Adventure/RPG
Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered – 25% off Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales – 25% off Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade – 43% off Horizon Zero Dawn – 67% off Tunic – 10% off Cuphead – 30% off Sackboy: A Big Adventure – 33% off Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time – 50% off Fighting
You Can (Apparently) Run Portal RTX on AMD
Looks like Reddit user Spacefish008 got Portal with RTX running on a 5700 XT. They note that they get “~45 FPS on 846x643” on High settings. All that’s needed is the RADV_PERFTEST=rt,emulate_rt %command% launch parameter. The OP explains how this works:
It uses DirectX and DXVK exposes the DXR APIs to the game if it detects raytracing support in the underlying Vulkan driver. The Vulkan driver is RADV, which can emulate raytracing via shaders on older-gen AMD GPUs like NAVI10 / RDNA1.
Proton 7.0-6 Now Available for Testing, Adds Compatibility with Gotham Knights and UNCHARTED Collection, Fixes 20 Bugs
Somehow I missed this. This has been around for a week now (thanks to GOL for noticing). At any rate, Proton 7.0-6 is now available as a release candidate. Playable titles include:
Gotham Knights UNCHARTED: Legacy of Thieves Collection Wargame: Red Dragon Heroes of the Dark Super Arcade Racing Crazy Machines 3 NinNinDays2 雀姬 (Mahjong ladies) 20 bugs have been fixed, ranging from the OSK on Deck for A Plague Tale: Requiem, Xbox Live login fail for As Dusk Falls, multiple monitor support for Project CARS 2, and the blank window when starting the EA app launcher.
SteamOS 3.4 Now Stable, Updates Arch Base, Allows Screen Tearing, Enables TRIM (And Much More!)
SteamOS 3.4 has now reached the stable branch. I’m not going to re-hash what I’ve already said about it, but as a quick refresh, here’s a few of the new features:
update to the Arch base; Plasma, Mesa, GLIBC, and more software have been updated KDE Connect is now included tons of bug fixes, ranging from graphics driver crashes to input to audio new firmware for docking station you can now force vsync off by enabling screen tearing level 2 MangoHUD now goes across the screen rather than going down; perfect for games that use 16:9 TRIM has been re-enabled eject option added for removable drives automatic mounting of ext4 external drives support for 8BitDo Ultimate wireless controller dongle Two hotfixes were added later on to “address a regression in how SD cards were handled” and to “fix an issue with HDMI/DisplayPort audio going to sleep after being idle on external displays.