Does the non-steam versions of the game work the same as a steam version?

[Brusus]

I bought GOG version of Witcher 3 on release. I'd like to play it on steam deck. Does using stuff like heroic games and playing my GOG version impact the game's performance in any way? I don't know whether steam version is somehow better optimized for steam deck.

[Clone303]

not all of them but many do, i got destroy all humans 2 on gog and i cant get to work on the Steam Deck but same Turbo Overkill works fine on the Steam Deck also from gog

[Mahjik]

Most games that are sold on different store fronts, unfortunately are all different versions. If you intend to purchase a title from a non-Steam store to play on the Steam Deck, do some Google/Bing searches first to see if you can tell if there are any issues first.

[Taktloss]

There is nothing special about the Steam Version they only added Steamworks features like achievements, Steam Overlay and so on. Thought SteamOS is easier to use and games are somewhat tested while you need to fiddle around with heroic games launcher.
This might be useful
https://github.com/Heroic-Games-Launcher/HeroicGamesLauncher/issues/2202

[@R+5]

use lutris rather than heroic to install and manage your non-steam games. its more reliable and versatile.

the linus version of a game (native) sometimes runs better than the windows version; same thing when running some game using proton vs running them in windows. some games may run a bit better in windows, but the difference in fps usually will be small, so theres no reason to worry about performance, as long as the game is able to run "properly" (ie without compatibility issues with proton)

[Grey-fox-13]

Originally posted by Taktloss:

There is nothing special about the Steam Version they only added Steamworks features like achievements, Steam Overlay and so on. Thought SteamOS is easier to use and games are somewhat tested while you need to fiddle around with heroic games launcher.
This might be useful
https://github.com/Heroic-Games-Launcher/HeroicGamesLauncher/issues/2202

Steam versions also have the benefit of downloading precompiled shaders while other store versions need to compile them themselves at runtime which may cause brief stuttering.

[Canadian Gamer]

Originally posted by Grey-fox-13:

Originally posted by Taktloss:

There is nothing special about the Steam Version they only added Steamworks features like achievements, Steam Overlay and so on. Thought SteamOS is easier to use and games are somewhat tested while you need to fiddle around with heroic games launcher.
This might be useful
https://github.com/Heroic-Games-Launcher/HeroicGamesLauncher/issues/2202

Steam versions also have the benefit of downloading precompiled shaders while other store versions need to compile them themselves at runtime which may cause brief stuttering.

Proton-GE with ASYNC Compute can mostly eliminate this.