About a week ago during the Nintendo Direct Mini, Nintendo announced Portal: Companion Collection for the Nintendo Switch, and it came to the eShop the same day. Curious George (that is, me) wanted to do a comparison between running the games on the Steam Deck and on Nintendo’s current-gen console, and see how each platform fares. I couldn’t help but find it ironic that Valve would partner with Nintendo right around the time the Steam Deck embargoes were lifted earlier this year, and I had concocted some theories as to why they were doing this.

Last week I had been working on a script for Gardiner Bryant on how to get DOSBox games running on Steam Deck. I had gotten a start on it…but I struggled with getting the sound to work, as well as getting the games to run in fullscreen. Gardiner figured it out better than me, and just yesterday he posted a video on his YouTube channel (he also has the video on Odysee, if you prefer that video platform instead).

Exactly a year ago I had conducted an overview of how Xbox Game Pass fares on Linux, over on Boiling Steam. One of the critical remarks I had about it was the streaming quality being terrible. Even if you had Gigabit Ethernet, you were forced to use Microsoft Edge to get that so-called “Clarity Boost,” and while it helped a little, the overall image quality was a disappointment. Well, perhaps to no one’s surprise, it appears Microsoft deliberately throttles the video quality on Linux.

The Plugin Loader for the Steam Deck is now known as Decky Loader, and along with the new name change come a few updates. Primarily we’re looking at a React-based plugin store now, which, per the pull request, “replaces the web-based plugin store with a native-feeling one.” It’s also now possible to uninstall Decky Loader. Full patch notes are as follows: Uninstall script addition by @ggppjj in #48 Use unique ids in call_server_method by @patkub in #55 react: Add Router hook & fix typescript issues by @AAGaming00 in #68 Add contributor install script by @TrainDoctor in #69 Implement React-based plugin store by @AAGaming00 in #81 remove body property in args by @hulkrelax in #91 Uninstall functionality by @botatooo in #97 Use deckyState in uninstall menu (fixes #98) by @botatooo in #100 Fixed plugin installation ssl verification issue by @WerWolv in #101 Keep in mind this is a pre-release.

Steam Deck production is ramping up for Q3, and based off of some recent stats it looks like it indeed is new Deck client update adds several bug fixes a new SteamOS 3.3 update released simultaneously with a new Deck client update. Both are beta releases heads up if you’re in Q3 and ordered the 256 GB or 512 GB model: you might end up getting a x2 NVMe rather than 4x 73% of the top 100 games on Steam are playable or verified Linux market share is currently 1.

Wine 7.12 released earlier today. Here’s the changelog: Theming support for Qt5 applications. Bundled vkd3d upgraded to version 1.4. Improved effect support in Direct2D. QWORD support in registry tools. Various bug fixes. A total of 13 bugs were fixed, including: Star Citizen: No mic input audio (used for voip) StarCitizen launcher crashes on start with a winmm error Shogun Total War 2 crashes on start up. (Main Application.) Approach (Smart Suite) crashes when trying to print to cups-pdf Argentum 20 RPG Launcher has graphical glitches Incorrect display of selected buttons in Light theme.

Man, it’s been hard to keep up with all the updates Valve has aggressively been pushing out for the Steam Deck. So, I hope nobody minds if I just do a quick copy & paste of the patch notes for today’s update, as both the underlying SteamOS has been updated to 3.3 (as a beta), as well as the Steam Deck client itself (also in beta). The SteamOS update adds keyboard support for additional languages, brings the adaptive brightness toggle back, updates both the graphics and wireless network drivers, adds a built-in controller driver when Steam isn’t running in Desktop Mode, and plenty of bug fixes.

The same day the first batch of Q3 emails for the Steam Deck go out also happens to be the day we get an update to Proton Experimental, just a little over a week after the previous one. This update mostly focuses on bug fixes, ranging from the following: the launcher for Final Fantasy XIV should no longer close if there isn’t enough space to download an update Elite Dangerous and other launchers should no longer exert strange behavior when using cloned displays Call of Duty: Black Ops II Zombies and Multiplayer should remain playable after connecting online Azur Lane: Crosswave should no longer hang on a black screen Chrono Trigger should no longer suffer from random crashing during cutscenes In addition to these bug fixes, we also have improved video playback for Persona 4 Golden.

Someone had emailed me this morning regarding an upcoming point-and-click adventure called Splittown. According to the official site, you play as the character Leonard Nimby. Nimby is a former “top agent of IM5” who’s on the move to find the person responsible for stealing his shrink gun…right on the day before an election. Seems like a pretty interesting premise. It also has that nice 90s aesthetic to it, reminiscent of the SNES/Genesis days.

Just a few days ago, Valve released the Portal series to the Nintendo Switch, known as Portal: Companion Collection. It didn’t take long for dataminers to discover new, unreleased beta content that never showed up in the final product as a result of this port. From Ossy Flawol’s YouTube video, it appears there are at least nine beta maps from Portal 2. The video then goes on to show these maps as Chell explores them.