this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2024
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Steam Deck
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A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.
Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
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The following is a list of suggested flairs:
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- Follow the rules of Sopuli
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Different question: what's the benefit/difference to launching the game from desktop mode instead? increased performance?
Nah, there's no performance overhead for gamemode (if anything, you should see MORE performance in gamemode as it doesnt do complex window compositing)
But you do get stuff like drag-n-drop for files, virtual desktops, multi screen support, and other desktop features. Otherwise there's no technical benefit, just workflow ones.
Because while the whole reason I got the steam deck was that it has the capacity to function as a normal linux desktop, desktop UIs are terribly designed for anything other than mouse and keyboard and a nice big monitor.
Being able to launch Kdenlive in Gaming Mode makes the process of viewing and editing gameplay footage feel like a natural next step to playing the games and getting the footage. It doesn’t feel fiddly and obtuse like switching to Desktop Mode every time you want to browse the videos you recorded.
Also Kdenlive has a good full screen mode that is a really nice natural fit for Gaming Mode on the Steam Deck.
Another reason, when you add a game or program to steam so you can launch it in Gaming Mode, steam creates an associated Controller profile for that program. This is a natural place to create a custom control scheme for an in-depth technical software like a video editor, where you can tweak what the steam deck’s controls are mapped to without worrying about how it is going to mess with navigating around the desktop. Need to bind a hot key for a feature you are using in Kdenlive? When you are in Gaming Mode you can just bind it in the controller menu to whatever is most natural in the context of using that program.
Ok lol one more, the way in which the Steam Deck is able to suspend programs in Gaming Mode is really useful for helping desktop software behave in an environment where you repeatedly put the Steam Deck into sleep mode and wake it back up when using it in on the couch or in the kitchen or some other context where you are switching between tasks frequently. Being able to hit “pause” on a program is actually a great way to keep janky shit from happening when rapidly waking up the steam deck from sleep mode and sending it right back into it almost immediately without causing issues for a complex involved desktop software like Kdenlive.
Ok,the suspension is actually a big deal.I noticed that in desktop mode it usually closes my open files in GIMP and others when I suspend. Not that I wouldn't save everything first anyway, but good to know.
It really is something that when I finally can afford a nice gaming computer that I think I will miss, the ability to pause the reality a program resides in rather than have to rely on an internal capability of the program to pause without crashing is incredibly useful in my opinion. (I know you can do this with virtual environments on a pc, but it is part of the core experience of using a Steam Deck).
It gets all fucked up when games or apps require always online functionality..... grrrr.... but that isn't the Steam Deck's fault.