Steam Deck and Older PC game support

[Dario8676]

Hi everyone, will we be able to install older windows pc titles on the steam deck like Warcraft 3, or old classics like Myth? I'm not too familiar with Linux and it's supporr for ancient pc games.

[Dynamonic]

Valve's aim is to get the vast majority of the Steam catalogue working great on the Steam Deck using emulation software known as 'Proton'.
ProtonDB is a great website to check out to get a clue as to how games on Steam are currently running under Proton emulation. It's fair to say, that many classic and older PC games will run great on the Deck.

https://www.protondb.com/

It's possible to install games outside of Steam on the Steam Deck too, however, it's currently more difficult to tell how they will perform.

[Guybrush]

Sometimes the community can fill in the gaps thats what Lutris does
https://lutris.net/games/warcraft-iii-the-frozen-throne/
https://lutris.net/games/warcraft-iii-reforged/
https://lutris.net/games/myth-the-fallen-lords/

Lutris uses any of the open source software tools developed and produces compatibility fixes to make games run.

Its not yet clear what SteamOS 3 supports in its default protected mode (you cant break anything), Valve have said they will support flatpaks which are a very easy way to install software on Linux. But Lutris does not have a stable version in flatpak form.

The other easy wayo to install softtware on Linux OS is via a software repository like a library of sorts were you'd just search for Lutris and install it, but again its unclear if SteamOS 3 will have one.

Valve have said you can enable dev mode and then installing anything you want.

So its basically wait and see what happens.

[DirtyCamper]

Linux has better support for old windows games than windows. So there is a high chance that in total the deck will be able to support a lot more games than a new windows11 system.
Proton is a good translation layer, but there are original source ported engines that you can easily install these days as another compatibility engine.
However to make it easy it's handy if you have the game on steam and not as an external CD.

[kilésengati]

Depends… new or old, disc or digital: DRM[drm.info] ruins everything!

Games from the 90s and early 2000s tend to have rudimentary DRM protection like install keys and basic disc checks, which although not always trouble-free should pose less of an issue.
However, from the late 90s and onwards, more sophisticated DRM solutions like driver-based DRM, hardware checks, online registration, etc. pp. became increasingly popular. Solutions from that era are almost guaranteed not to work on modern hardware and operating systems - even Windows!

DRM is by far the biggest issue to gaming on Linux and also the greatest threat to gaming culture preservation. DRM-ed products are defective by design![www.defectivebydesign.org]

For your convenience on the Steam Deck, you ideally check if the game is available for (re-)purchase digitally: DRM-free at best, else DRM solutions compatible with WINE/Proton. Same goes for other middleware.

As pointed out before, ProtonDB[www.protondb.com] and Lutris[lutris.net] are good places to get informed about a game's compatibility. Gaming forums and the PCGamingWiki[www.pcgamingwiki.com] can be helpful, too.

Some classics may have received native Linux ports back then, but chances are they won't run on newer Linux versions, as older Linux software tends to require deprecated dependencies.

[retrogunner]

The Steam Deck is really going to benefit from so many Linux Gaming SME's. All the good stuff will surface and the community will naturally form. A little patience is required.

In the same vein of wanting to play some legacy/vintage/abandonware Linux games like Myth ('damage'), it might worthwhile for the community to come up with an AppImage build environment so all the deprecated deps can be contained therein.

Why AppImages?
* Download a single file, make it Executable, and run.
* AppImage are portable. You can run them off SD Cards and USB Sticks.
* AppImages configs can be either in $HOME or AppImage Config directory so you can have the config directory on the portable storage.
* AppImages are like Android/Mac/NeXTStep Apps - all deps are stored within & execute as the user

Why not Flatpaks? ('damage')
* Flatpacks require elevated privileged and other bullstuff to install.
* Flatpacks lack all the advantages of AppImages

Why not Snaps? ('damage')
* Those are from a Canonical managed store (like Google Play) and need extra rights like Flatpaks.

[Yistaan]

A lot of the older windows games can be found on gog, as for others you'd have to plug in a disc drive to the Steam Deck or rip them into an ISO and install the that way.

[kilésengati]

Originally posted by retrogunner:

The Steam Deck is really going to benefit from so many Linux Gaming SME's. All the good stuff will surface and the community will naturally form. A little patience is required.

In the same vein of wanting to play some legacy/vintage/abandonware Linux games like Myth ('damage'), it might worthwhile for the community to come up with an AppImage build environment so all the deprecated deps can be contained therein.

Why AppImages?
* Download a single file, make it Executable, and run.
* AppImage are portable. You can run them off SD Cards and USB Sticks.
* AppImages configs can be either in $HOME or AppImage Config directory so you can have the config directory on the portable storage.
* AppImages are like Android/Mac/NeXTStep Apps - all deps are stored within & execute as the user

Why not Flatpaks? ('damage')
* Flatpacks require elevated privileged and other bullstuff to install.
* Flatpacks lack all the advantages of AppImages

Why not Snaps? ('damage')
* Those are from a Canonical managed store (like Google Play) and need extra rights like Flatpaks.

@retrogunner Depending on who you ask, they will give you a different answer on which way to ship software on Linux best, but comparing Flatpaks to AppImages is like comparing pears and apples. Flatpak is much more comparable to Snap in what it aims for, except not made by discount-Musk[en.wikipedia.org]. On top of that, local installations of Flatpaks don't require sudo – and for most applications, local installations work fine.
Whilst I agree AppImages may be right for videogames and archives, shipping every dependency for every tiny applet independently makes for an inefficient use of disk space and bandwidth.

[Mr. Mania]

Hard to say if stuff like that will be supported natively but never underestimate the power of community programmers and modders

[rexaar1979]

I am relatively new to this awesome thing called "linux gaming". Kinda got into it after I purchased the best gaming system from me, the steam deck. I was able to load Warcraft 3 ROC onto the steam deck with minimal tinkering (ie add it as a non-steam game setting the compatibility to most recent proton 7.41). But every time I try to add the frozen throne it says there is no ROC installation. Any one got any ideas on how to get TFT to load without lutris?

[⎛⎝Duckers McQuack⎠⎞]

Originally posted by Guybrush:

Sometimes the community can fill in the gaps thats what Lutris does
https://lutris.net/games/warcraft-iii-the-frozen-throne/
https://lutris.net/games/warcraft-iii-reforged/
https://lutris.net/games/myth-the-fallen-lords/

Lutris uses any of the open source software tools developed and produces compatibility fixes to make games run.

Its not yet clear what SteamOS 3 supports in its default protected mode (you cant break anything), Valve have said they will support flatpaks which are a very easy way to install software on Linux. But Lutris does not have a stable version in flatpak form.

The other easy wayo to install softtware on Linux OS is via a software repository like a library of sorts were you'd just search for Lutris and install it, but again its unclear if SteamOS 3 will have one.

Valve have said you can enable dev mode and then installing anything you want.

So its basically wait and see what happens.

Sadly lutris, bottles nor proton wants to install theme park world. Tried every way possible, but neither wants to install that damn game.

[WarnerCK]

Originally posted by ⎛⎝Duckers McQuack⎠⎞:

Sadly lutris, bottles nor proton wants to install theme park world. Tried every way possible, but neither wants to install that damn game.

I've not tried it, but you might be interested in OpenTPW.[github.com]

[Clone303]

yeah, it's great