Auto game config changing

[Wozza]

I'd love for my Deck to automatically change a games settings based on where I'm playing (or maybe a number of factors).

I have 3 real scenarios where I want my games to automatically change to my chosen graphics settings and resolutions:
Battery (regular) - Usually a decent looking setting, lots of custom settings to try and optimize visuals with a decent 3-4 hour battery life - usually at Deck resolution or 1200p overscaled for some games,
Battery (extreme) - For when I'm on a long trip, I want the game to be lowering its settings to barely visually acceptable in order to really max out battery life. Resolution likely a bit lower as well
Docked - 1440p or 4K with the best visuals to maintain an acceptable frame rate, again tweaked heavily to optimize all around. Battery no issue here so performance is to the max.

Now imagine whenever I want to swap to one of these scenarios, I have to open the game, change the settings and resolutions etc all of which has to be done for each game and then reversed back when I return to regular playing.

Instead, I have a proposal on how this could be done for a lot of games right inside SteamOS (which is actually an advantage for this)

Requirements:
- A global performance toggle at a minimum, e.g. low, medium, high - this could later be auto-controlled by things like docking
- A system for users to define where config files are located for each game and share (similar feature is available for control settings)
- Settings for the current power state will be saved when you exit the game to a separate location
- If available when loading a game, the system will swap the necessary config files out for ones you defined when you previously exited the game in that power state.

I appreciate defining this would be difficult for some games, but a lot of games are a plain text .cfg file and would take no time at all before startup to swap that file

SteamOS is at an advantage because each game runs in its own file system and structure, meaning very low chance it will ever affect another game. I think something like this will really open up some flexibility for using Steam Deck in many scenarios.

[ReBoot]

You're putting the cart before the horse.

Such a system is impossible to implement in SteamOS because games offer little to no way to change their settings externally. Before designing how the UX, you gotta design the technical foundation.

[Wozza]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

You're putting the cart before the horse.

Such a system is impossible to implement in SteamOS because games offer little to no way to change their settings externally. Before designing how the UX, you gotta design the technical foundation.

This would be an overarching feature as described, simply replacing the config files as the global setting is changed. The game itself is irrelevant, it would just be replacing the files necessary - perfectly fine in most cases, doesn't even need those files to be in a readable format, just need to know where those settings are located so that the files can be swapped

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Wozza:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

You're putting the cart before the horse.

Such a system is impossible to implement in SteamOS because games offer little to no way to change their settings externally. Before designing how the UX, you gotta design the technical foundation.

This would be an overarching feature as described, simply replacing the config files as the global setting is changed. The game itself is irrelevant, it would just be replacing the files necessary - perfectly fine in most cases, doesn't even need those files to be in a readable format, just need to know where those settings are located so that the files can be swapped

... assuming there's dedicated files for visual configuration. Which there isn't for many games. Then there's the topic with every engine and even with games running on the same engine saving this stuff in different places.

[Wozza]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by Wozza:

This would be an overarching feature as described, simply replacing the config files as the global setting is changed. The game itself is irrelevant, it would just be replacing the files necessary - perfectly fine in most cases, doesn't even need those files to be in a readable format, just need to know where those settings are located so that the files can be swapped

... assuming there's dedicated files for visual configuration. Which there isn't for many games. Then there's the topic with every engine and even with games running on the same engine saving this stuff in different places.

Yeah I acknowledged that some games would be very difficult, maybe even not possible. Any kind of user submitted config would obviously be able to swap out multiple files where necessary instead of just one. Scripting of some kind may even be possible to do more complex swaps, but that would be up to devs.

[neotechni]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

You're putting the cart before the horse.

Such a system is impossible to implement in SteamOS because games offer little to no way to change their settings externally. Before designing how the UX, you gotta design the technical foundation.

then they should do that

Add API to send resolution changes to the game and have it react, like how Switch does it when you dock/undock it