The Steam Deck UI, while it has technically been available for quite some time on devices other than the Steam Deck, is now officially available as a beta. You can use this on desktop, or any other PC handheld for that matter. To use the new UI, you’ll need to opt-in to the Beta branch in your Steam settings (Steam -> Settings -> Account -> Change… -> Steam Beta Update).

An exciting new update has landed for vkd3d-proton. For those who aren’t aware, vkd3d-proton is a part of what makes up Proton, and “aims to implement the full Direct3D API on top of Vulkan.” It probably won’t be long before Proton Experimental or GE-Proton picks up this update. When it does, we will be seeing lots of benefits. So first off, we have an improved pipeline cache. This release incorporates an “internal ‘magic’ disk cache to enable SPIR-V caching for all games.

Today’s update to GE-Proton adds a Protonfix for UNCHARTED: Legacy of Thieves Collection on systems that have more than 16 CPU cores. The Lost Legacy game in this collection has also received a tll.exe amd_ags_x64 override to allow the game to run. A save file fix was added for Persona 5 Strikers, and a shader compilation patch was added for Overwatch 2 (although apparently it’s for other games; Overwatch 2 isn’t available on Steam and the use of GE-Proton outside of said client is not recommended).

WinesapOS – the brilliant Arch-based gaming distro created by Luke Short – has evolved from 3.2.0 alpha to beta. Noteworthy updates in this release include: support for VMware Fusion/Workstation bauh replaces Pamac – this is evidently more stable now built against “the latest Arch Linux” rather than targeting the outdated SteamOS 3’s packages – provides a more stable graphics library progress bar is now shown on initial setup rather than using terminal minimum requirements to run the distro have been lowered – you can run it on a single CPU core and 2 GB RAM!

New Deck client update (beta) mostly focuses on bug fixes. It improves the login time for users with big game libraries. DPI scaling should now be proper on initial load, and the OSK in Desktop Mode should be properly resized. All of this and more: Improved login times for users with large libraries Fixed links to store/discussions/etc in the Library Fixed crash when trying to view emojis in virtual keyboard in desktop mode Fixed improper DPI scaling on initial load Decreased load time of virtual keyboard and standalone controller configurator in desktop mode after the first time Properly resize virtual keyboard in desktop mode Streamlined joining a voice chat in groups without multiple voice chat channels.

Today’s beta Steam Deck client update allows the user to check the individual components that make up their Deck. As you can see in the cover photo, I can see how much memory is in the Deck, who the supplier is, the part number, and I can see these same statistics for every nook and cranny that make up the device, including the: controller board thumbsticks LCD eMMC module PSU custom APU speaker module fan thermal module Per Steam’s blog post, this was made in the effort “to provide further clarity and transparency about the components and their sources for your specific Steam Deck.

Not too long after yesterday’s beta Deck client update, Valve pushed an update to the Stable branch with these additions. This update brings improvements to the Quick Access Menu, adds an external display safe mode, increases boot video duration to 30 seconds, adds controller-specific glyphs to the Lock screen, fixes for Steam group chats, the Lock screen, the OSK, the performance overlay, and Steam Input. Patch notes are as follows:

Today’s beta Steam Deck client update adds a toggle in the Developer menu for safe mode when connecting to an external display. Enabling this will force the Deck to use a low resolution when it’s docked; this might help if the external display has issues. An in-game crash has also been fixed with regards to Steam Input, and “the previous behavior of using stick deflection” has been restored, rather than “the capacitive sensor for Radial Menus that don’t have center buttons bound.

Proton 7.0-5 is now available as a release candidate. Included in this update are 15 newly playable titles: Rift Unravel 2 Airborne Kingdom ToGather:Island Nancy Drew: Legend of the Crystal Skull Re-Volt Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Aspire: Ina’s Tale Battle Realms: Zen Edition Deathsmiles II Primal Carnage: Extinction Pico Park Classic Edition Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind Darkstar One Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb Several bugs have been fixed:

InfiniTime – one of the many firmwares available for Pine64’s PineTime smartwatch – 1.11, codenamed “Red Nectarine,” adds support for external resources, while adding two new watch faces. In regards to the former, this allows the developers to store “heavy data,” such as fonts and images, into the external flash memory. This frees up more resources to the main memory of the watch. As a result of this move, this makes adding support for new watch faces and apps easier.