How to enable Steam Play / Proton on Steam Deck

[Kevbot_Prime]

Like literally anybody who wants to play the games they like on a Steam Deck, there are non-Linux titles I want to play, but I cannot for the life of me find where on the Steam Deck to enable "Steam Play" so Windows games can be played. I started theorizing that maybe it was default enabled and not a changeable setting, but that doesn't seem to be the case, either. So where can I go on my Steam Deck to enable Steam Play so that I can play non-Linux/non-SteamOS games? Talk to me like I don't know the difference between Windows/Mac/Linux and have never heard of Proton and I've never operated a Steam Deck. Please and thank you.

[LeviathanWon]

Open Steam.

Top left hand there is a "steam" tab.

Left click on the "steam" tab.

Above "Exit" under the "steam" tab you will see a "Settings" button.

Left click on the "Settings" button.

In the "Settings" pop up window, left click on the tab called "Steam play".

[Man's Best Friend]

Steps to play Windows games from Steam on the Steam Deck:

1: Install the game like you would any other game on Steam.
2: Play.

Seriously. That's literally it. You just install the game, and Steam handles all the Proton stuff in the background on its own. Now, not all games are compatible with the Deck, but that's a different issue. For Verified, Playable, and a good number of "Unknown" games you simply install them like you would on Windows. If that's not working for you, then you've either picked a game that truly isn't compatible, or something has gone very wrong. I've been playing mostly Windows games on my Deck, and have only twice had to even look at the Proton settings.

[Compa]

All I literally have to do is download any game that shows unsupported, hit yes I'm sure I want to download it, and run it when it's finished.

[Punkovich]

The only time you would ever need to enable proton is when the game has a native linux version and you wish to run the windows version instead. otherwise it would be on by default.

Under game properties >compatiblity> check box and pick a proton version.
You also do this if you are having issues with the default proton version...

[Kevbot_Prime]

Yup, there wasn't anything special that had to be done in the Deck's settings. Just a matter of each game's individual compatibility properties. Thanks so much for the input everyone!

[DarkWaterSong]

There is one thing you need....the host computer has to not be asleep. My desktop went to sleep last night when I went to the bathroom upstairs. Lost the game on my deck, but after hiking downstairs was able to get my PC woken up and streaming to the deck again.

Also I just wanted to see how it worked, and I am not going to bother with it in the future. Even over 5ghz with transfer rates over 150 MBs, the game native off the steam deck works better.