New Steam Deck client update has rolled out to those on the Beta and Preview branches. Particularly noteworthy changes include the addition of a temperature checker that warns the user if the Deck is outside the safe operating range, favorite/popular guides have been added as an option to the Steam overlay, and sounds are no longer played when an achievement has been earned. Besides this there have been several bug fixes, including performance issues for those who have a lot of screenshots, and issues with the Steam overlay for games that don’t have achievements.

UPDATE: the SteamOS beta update is now official. As confirmed, Firefox is now Flatpak-based. There’s also a new theme for the Plasma desktop, network connections are shared between Desktop and Game Mode, a small update for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean keyboards, the controller firmware has been updated, and the Xbox login window should now render characters that were previously hidden. Looks like a new update has shipped to SteamOS on the “Main” OS update channel, but don’t get your hopes up – almost everything that I mentioned in my SteamOS piece, those packages have not been upgraded.

Pretty big release for GE-Proton today, and it seems like it mostly centers around getting some more issues with Halo Infinite fixed. First, dxvk, vkd3d-proton, and Wine have all been updated to the latest git. All three components have gotten the necessary patches for Halo Infinite merged. The campaign mode is playable now (even though it was technically working before, based on some reports I heard) and apparently there’s no need to rename or delete the video files anymore.

MultiVersus hasn’t even reached a stable state yet, but the modding community has already made it possible to add your favorite characters from other games. Want to add Link over Wonder Woman? Ganondorf over Superman? Waluigi over Shaggy? A darker-colored skin for Harley Quinn, based on her appearance in Injustice 2? It’s possible! Best part is, it’s dead simple. Just a matter of downloading the mod and putting it into the appropriate folder.

While I was lurking in the community Discord, I found out that ChimeraOS – essentially the fans’ version of SteamOS 2.0, featuring much more up-to-date packages and some other goodies, while still retaining the console-like experience – had its’ third anniversary last Friday. I’m more or less going to paste what I said in that Discord: “I had reviewed the distro over on Boiling Steam two years ago. I remember I installed it on a small, red cube-shaped PC I had at the time.

So just as I was about to splurge $100 on a capture card, just for the sake of recording Steam Deck footage, I discovered a plugin for Crankshaft: Recapture. This plugin allows you to record on the Deck – in much the same way as capture software like OBS – without the need for an external capture card. I tried it briefly with MultiVersus. At native 800p resolution and high settings, the framerate didn’t dip at all while recording.

Though being able to check ProtonDB ratings at a glance on Deck is a useful feature to have with Crankshaft, you can now get more detailed reports on various games, thanks to the Steam Deck HQ plugin. As you might have guessed by the name, the compatibility details are extracted from the reviews posted on Steam Deck HQ. Check out the guide from them on how to get Crankshaft installed on the Deck.

Steam Deck MultiVersus works on Deck Halo Infinite runs on Deck; here’s a how-to I did an interview with the owner of Steam Deck HQ new beta Deck client update adds an Achievements section for games on the Steam menu make sure you keep your Deck cool! (32-95 degrees F) Q3 Decks have some subtle differences than the OG units, though it seems they’re mostly for the better be careful when using Desktop Mode; SteamOS is highly outdated iFixit has fans available in the US hot-swapping SD cards is technically safe, but Valve is planning on improving this support Boiling Steam recently did a piece on the fact that the number of games getting the Verified/Playable status have been slowing down lately Linux Hardware I have a Launch Lite review unit with which I am typing this post; review coming soon.

If you thought I was critical enough of Valve in my Steam Deck review, well, you might want to strap on your seat belt, because I’m not done yet. (That being said, I did make a few clarifications earlier this week about some wrong assumptions that I had made, so please give that a read if you haven’t already.) The Steam Deck UI is tightly integrated into SteamOS, giving the Deck a console-like experience with gamepad navigation across different menus, not only giving PC gaming a breath of fresh air, but also – thanks to Valve’s efforts – getting Linux into the hands of more and more people.

I’ve noticed some folks over on r/SteamDeck can’t get Halo Infinite to run on their Deck. Well, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to get it to run. Thankfully, it’s not as complicated as it was in the past. The game has technically been playable on AMD and NVIDIA GPUs since the past three weeks, but on AMD it required Glorious Eggroll’s custom Mesa patch in order for the in-game textures to properly render.