64GB Deck and Shader Cache.

[Diogenes]

Is there any way to disable the shader cache, or to move the shader cache to SD memory?

The shader cache on my deck is taking up 28GB of space, on a 64GB card.

I am intending to upgrade to a 1TB NVME next year, but, at the minute, the shader cache is taking up most of my internal storage.

[invision2212]

That’s how it’s suppose to work. There is a work around to make the shaders install to the SD card but the performance suffers, so you would probably want to avoid doing that.

Your only other option is to keep only the games you need and uninstall anything else after completing them.

You can find really cheap 256gb SSD on Amazon if you just want something to get by on. I picked one up for 20.00 but never ended up using it as a found. 512 for 50.00

[Ranko]

You can disable it yeah

Originally posted by invision2212:

That’s how it’s suppose to work. There is a work around to make the shaders install to the SD card but the performance suffers, so you would probably want to avoid doing that.

Your only other option is to keep only the games you need and uninstall anything else after completing them.

You can find really cheap 256gb SSD on Amazon if you just want something to get by on. I picked one up for 20.00 but never ended up using it as a found. 512 for 50.00

from the tests i've seen running them on the sd card isn't -too much- worse than running off internal, but it is definitely noticeable if they're off entirely. ANd unfortunately it doesn't seem like shaders always delete after a game goes so on the 64gb its worth learning how to delete them yourself, or using a third party app to do so until valve gives either an automated solution or a manual set with a nice little gui

[ReBoot]

28 GB isn't that much. AFAIR the base model got ~50 GB of usable space, you got a lot of free space left.

[Diogenes]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

28 GB isn't that much. AFAIR the base model got ~50 GB of usable space, you got a lot of free space left.

Yeah, I don't think it quite works like that, when you consider how each version of Proton also takes up about 2GB of space also.

28GB is quite a lot, when all you have is 64GB to begin with.

I don't get how you think I have a lot of free space left, when 28GB is almost half the capacity of the drive.

Considering the Linux OS takes up about 10GB on top of that, and that's 38GB of used space, and then there are several versions of Proton on my drive, all of which are about 2GB each.

[ReBoot]

How much total space is used on your internal storage?

[Diogenes]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

How much total space is used on your internal storage?

1.7GB, and the only games that I have installed are:

Warhammer 40K Battlesector - 8.07GB.
Eternal Card Game - 2.99GB.
Retroarch - 423MB.

I am left with 1.7GB of free space.

The rest of the space is taken up between Shader Cache, several versions of Proton (7.0, experimental, next), and Runtime strippers.

The rest of the space, labelled "Other", takes up a combined total of 28.31GB.

"Games" only takes up 16.46GB, while "DLC" takes up 69.36MB.

So yeah, plenty of space there, eh?...

Nearly half my drive space taken up by Shader Cache.

[ReBoot]

So roughly 14 GB space left if you don't keep games there. Interesting, Ill keep that number in mind as an approximation.

[Jâbbérwôkkï]

First you could set the games update priority to only update when you launch it. Then after enabling developer mode in settings, go to each games icon for the ones you play the least, find developer in the list & uninstall the games shader files. (Or uninstall the least played games all together & do the above to remove their shaders). This would give you more space to run what you do play more often until you get the larger drive.

[Punkovich]

I use this script to keep an eye on what games are using how much for Shaders/Comp Data because i noticed some games were not fulling uninstalling themselves (they deck is pretty good at catching the shaders, but there was good chance it would leave behind the comp data folders.)

https://github.com/scawp/Steam-Deck.Shader-Cache-Killer

As others have stated moving the files is possible but is not advised...

[Bee🐝]

Here's another option:

Stream the games using Moonlight. Keep your largest games on your main PC and simply stream them to your deck. Easy to install and works great. Con? Obviously, not an option for travelling.

[Diogenes]

Originally posted by Bee:

Here's another option:

Stream the games using Moonlight. Keep your largest games on your main PC and simply stream them to your deck. Easy to install and works great. Con? Obviously, not an option for travelling.

Yeah, I was just going to say that, if I'm out and about, that isn't really going to work.

[Diogenes]

Originally posted by Punkovich:

I use this script to keep an eye on what games are using how much for Shaders/Comp Data because i noticed some games were not fulling uninstalling themselves (they deck is pretty good at catching the shaders, but there was good chance it would leave behind the comp data folders.)

https://github.com/scawp/Steam-Deck.Shader-Cache-Killer

As others have stated moving the files is possible but is not advised...

Thank you.

[PrivateXTC]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

28 GB isn't that much. AFAIR the base model got ~50 GB of usable space, you got a lot of free space left.

28GB is loads taken when you only have 64GB.

50GB free was good back in 2001 but it's 2023 almost.

[Diogenes]

Originally posted by PrivateXTC:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

28 GB isn't that much. AFAIR the base model got ~50 GB of usable space, you got a lot of free space left.

28GB is loads taken when you only have 64GB.

50GB free was good back in 2001 but it's 2023 almost.

It makes the difference between being able to install a full sized triple AAA game, or a hand full of small Indie games.

Consider also, that games are generally becoming significantly larger. 20GB is nothing for a game these days. In fact, the average these days, seems to be anywhere between 60GB and slightly over 100GB.

It is quite significant.

[golephish]

I mean ... https://github.com/FranjeGueje/DeckTools/releases/download/v2.3/steamappsCleaner.sh