But the Deck is limited in hardware. It makes sense that it has some difficulties running gigantic games and is more aimed towards simpler games.
In parallel I don't understand gamers with 15 years old hardware leaving bad reviews or whining when a game chokes above 720p with minimum settings.
What makes this story even better is how it actually came about - this wasn't initially a top-down corporate initiative, but rather a passion project from a single engineer who worked on it after hours. The fact that Larian immediately recognized the value and threw their full support behind it says everything about their culture.
Swen Vincke shared the backstory:
> The story of how this came to be really is one of true passion. The Steam Deck native build was initiated by a single engineer who really wanted a smoother version of the game on Steam Deck and so he started working on it after hours. When we tried it out, we were all surprised by how good it felt and so it didn't take much to convince us to put our shoulders behind it and get it released. It's this type of pure passion for their craft that makes me fall in love with my developers over and over again. Considering myself very lucky to have people like him on my team. Try it out!
https://x.com/LarAtLarian/status/1970526548592623969
That combination of individual passion and company willingness to back good ideas is what makes Larian special.
Just remember that stuff like red dead redemption ran on those things with all of 512 MB of unified memory. It ran and looked better than borderlands 4 does on current consoles.
Because they bought the game. After decades of PC gaming, it's totally absurd there is no system that tell you how bad or how well a game is going to play on your system. And if it's too difficult to make, how can we expect regular people to know themselves ?
Steam could probably build in a system to guess the performance if there was some benchmarking data, but game performance can change dramatically after release between updates to drives or the game itself.
The only thing I've seen which is close is Star Citizen's telemetry: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/en/telemetry
It's limited, but the limitations in a large part cancel out. It's still very capable.
IMO it's because a lot of these newer games just don't need that much horsepower. BG3 is not one of them, but looking at the broader industry.
A lot of times were seeing maaaaaybe a 5% bump in fidelity or graphics quality in exchange for 400% less performance.
Like ray tracing. Does Ray tracing look good? Yes. But not that good. Its not the PS1 to the PS2. I've seen baked lighting indistinguishable from Ray tracing in 99% of scenes.
Its just not a good trade off with modern games usually. Unless they really optimize them.
The only people still optimizing games is Nintendo from what I've seen.
It's because most of those games don't have the graphics to justify choking.
On lower end hardware it's extremely easy to notice who actually programmed the game and who just used the Unity defaults.
Depends on what the game can be reasonably expected to run on. Most games don't even approximate what would be technically possible on today's hardware and waste your electricity on lazy coding instead. "15 years old hardware" is what was cutting edge when Crysis 2 and Skyrim came out, so that's not a good excuse in the majority of cases.
I game on 1080P and never have issues with any games I play, though I am on a 3080. It's definitely people trying to max out every setting for their 4K monitor that they overpaid for. I might be giving 2K monitors a try soon on the other hand.
15 years old? Have you seen many examples of this (I have not) or are you exaggerating to make a point?
Regardless, some very popular gaming hardware from 10-12 years ago is still in use and still very capable in modern games, so long as they allow tuning the graphics down. People running an i5 3570K and RX 480 at 1080p don't generally expect to get the imagery or frame rates of a modern gaming rig, but they are reasonable to expect roughly 60 fps with (for example) low textures and shadow detail, no reflections, static lighting, etc. Perhaps this is what you meant by "minimum settings", but:
While low-spec options like this have been the norm in 3D PC games practically forever, several very popular games released in the past 5 years have adopted anemic options menus that have negligible impact on performance at the low end. To someone with much experience tuning for older hardware, this is a striking and disappointing change. Especially now that gaming hardware upgrades are far more expensive than they were, and more people are struggling just to pay their living expenses.
The change is almost certainly unnecessary. It smells like the developers just aren't putting any effort into it anymore.
And it's not merely disappointing; it's also wasteful, both by pushing older hardware into the landfill and by denying opportunities to reduce power consumption.
> Now that there is a Steam Deck Native build, is Baldur’s Gate 3 supported on Linux?
> Larian does not provide support for the Linux platform. The Steam Deck Native build is only supported on Steam Deck.
At this point game devs should just discontinue the native version if they aren't going to properly support it and just make sure the game runs flawlessly on Proton.
500 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32471624
The syscall abi has been stable for decades, and any game that included glibc or compiled with musl keeps running just fine?
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime
https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/steamrt/steam-runtime-tools/-/b...
The games by Loki Software are still running great for me. It's a matter of skill and discipline. SDL, OpenGL and alike are very stable.
The problems start when developers start to use lots of small third-party libraries and depend on particular versions of them, but IIRC on Windows it's also solved by simply shipping all the libs with the game.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2024/08/21/linux...
The same, as I understand it, cannot be said about the Linux-native API. SteamOS may have stabilized it somewhat, but there's a reason why the readme on their site for this basically says "it may run on Linux proper, but we're not supporting it except on Steam Deck"
https://flightless.yobson.xyz/benchmark/10
https://flightless.yobson.xyz/benchmark/11
Roughly ~10% better FPS in Act 3 but the first benchmark average is pretty much the same.
You can download the native version on any Linux distro
https://old.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1nokcej/laria...
I'm very grateful that they took the time to build a native Steam Deck release for the game, not really something I had ever expected. Hopefully with this I can actually jump in and enjoy the game!
This is the reason why I don't believe when people say that it runs great without trying it myself.
But if you survive the 12GB update process, I'm sure this is great news :) Maybe I'll finally have to make some time to play this game - bought it two years ago, but never ended up making time for it, despite having played Cyberpunk 2077 a time and a half, and most of Factorio: Space Age, since then.
From my guess, Steam support Vulkan shader pre-compilation so that you don't have to wait in game (like the infamous 10 min Monster Hunter Wilds startup delay). They also seems to also be able to download the compilation cache from Steam if someone already have done the process on the same GPU + driver version. Since fewer Windows games use Vulkan this feature is often not used, but on Linux most games will run on Vulkan (esp. Proton games with dxvk) you may experience the process more often.
I have been having the issue with the system hanging up when steam is doing big writes. I had assumed it was due to something wrong with my drive and was contemplating reformatting it.
This would imply that if I already calculated the shaders for the current game state than i could reuse them and not have to go through the whole compilation step (if no changes happen inbetween).
Matter of fact, i have to recompile the shaders on every game start for every game, even if i restart the game just x times in a row.
For context: using linux/debian and basically running everything on vulcan
Disclaimer: I don’t even like macOS.
I wrote a user space memory reclaimer and have not got a lockup since. https://gist.github.com/EBADBEEF/f168458028f684a91148f4d3e79...
What am I missing here?
Putting up those guardrails temporarily hides big problems more often than it avoids needing to have them solved.
So for BG3, if you don't have 150Gb free on your disk, steam will download it on a different disk and then transfer it over, thrashing you disk.
It's bizarre, incredibly annoying, behaviour and I wish it would just ask so I'd know that was about to happen and just clean up some space. Or refuse the upgrade.
But steam want to force upgrades on users before you can play anything, which for single player games is incredibly frustrating. I get why they do it, but it's another one of those things where you feel like you aren't in control of the thing you paid a lot of money for.
You could do that in the past and I did occasionally for single player games because my internet connection wasn't the best and I did not want to waste the little time I could allocate for gaming.
I am amazed this game is even playable on the steam deck. Was trying to find an excuse to play it after cyberpunk. I guess this one it is…
This is a huge nitpick but I wish they'd just say "other Linux distros" instead of the "Linux platform". It's fine to pick and choose one (or a few) popular distro(s) to support, like SteamOS. It's not reasonable to expect support for all possible Linux software environments. It's already crazy that they support so many hardware combinations, even on just Windows.
Yeah, I know most people will say the Deck is already too slow for 800p, so why would it pull 1080p well?
I have two decks, one's got Deck HD, the other doesn't. I render the Deck HD one at 540 native and upscale 2x with FSR. It looks way better than the stock display one and runs better as well. Similar with HZD and other highly demanding games.
That said, 99% of my time on the Deck is spent playing retro games. Does that need 1080p? No. Can it use it? Yes, very much so.
I never pick up the original deck anymore - the Deck HD modded one is just better.
- https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/handheld/legion-go/len106g000...
- https://rog.asus.com/gaming-handhelds-group/
Honestly, I think a gaming laptop and a controller makes more sense for most things, if you don't need that little bit of increased portability.
I used to be a great fan of Prey Project, but I don't think it's installable on the Steam Deck without leaving Steam mode.
"does not support" is not the same as "no", right? In theory it should be possible to run this build on other arm-based linux?
Does it get easier? Does anyone have any suggestions for coming to terms with the controller weirdness? I would much rather play BG3 on my Steam Deck than on my computer.
I'm not sure if I can recall any tips other than just keep at it and it'll eventually become muscle memory. I don't think it's as good as KB+M but it wasn't something that was bugging me once we got significantly into the game. YMMV.
To me, the modding ecosystem is probably one of the two most important things about this game (the other being that Larian seems to be pretty awesome as far as studios go nowadays, with their CEO taking a firm stance against "crunch" to get games out and in favor of the model of offline games that don't require paid DLC or microtransactions, as well as their continued support of the modding ecosystem itself). Long before I ever considered writing any mods myself, I started referring to BG3 as similar to Skyrim in that the mods will likely keep things fresh long after new official content stops coming out. I still think this is true, but I also keep being surprised just how much work they're continuing to put into the game even with new content presumably finally having come to an end.
Occasionally I do still run things under Windows though like Cyberpunk 2077 as I got about 15 more frames under Windows which let me bump the graphics up a bit more.
Or Assassin's Creed Mirage which got me double the FPS somehow. Currently playing AssCree Shadows on Windows too as it just refuses to run at all via Proton. Other people seem to get it running fine so I dunno why I can't. Ah well.
I’ve since tried a number of highly touted recent CRPGs and RPGs… and gave up on all of them; BG3 really spoiled me I guess, but I’m also a pretty selective gamer.
The default campaigns in Neverwinter Nights are a mixed bag but the fanmade content is amazing.
The images themselves are fine, just the post's formatting squishes them.
I though the steam deck would be the reason why developper start building their game for linux, but it seems like it's a bigger issue than just making a "linux file". Once they have rewritten the code for the steam deck, what would prevent them to compile the game for Debian and other linux distributions ?
I really have no idea how much more work it is but assumed it would be straight forward.
Announcing official Linux support would also require testing on Intel and Nvidia GPUs, as well as other types of AMD GPUs, which would probably take much more time and effort than testing for a device with effectively two hardware revisions you need to test for. I don't think they want the support burden, and I don't disagree with them having had to debug obscure Linux GPU issues myself.
Despite all this I think it’s still a move in the right direction.
On the other hand, that stack can only contain so much, and a lot of Linux bugs involve sound subsystems, GPUs, and compositors/X11/window manager configuration issues. You can't quite target the Linux runtime and assume everything will just work, but at least you don't need to target specific versions of glibc and libxml2 anymore.
You can install Steam on Debian.
I think the value here is that with Steam being the "approved launcher" you offload a lot of "distro weirdness" over to Valve. The value of a standalone build seems fairly low for most game devs.
1000x this.
When I grab the deck it's downtime mode for me now, keyboard/mouse time is work or side-project mode.
Mario Kart is also a funny example as it's one of the few racing games that makes no use of analog triggers for acceleration, so you really wouldn't miss much playing it on a keyboard.
The most comfortable and consistent gaming experience is still a regular stationary PC. But if you really want to play Civ5 on a train then sure the Steamdeck is there for you. I just never felt the need to game something that bad.
That would be playing console on an 80 inch screen from a couch.
I would have gotten a mini PC, but strangely enough the Ally was the cheapest steamOS-compatible option I could find.
My current obsession is Satisfactory.
I won't leave a bad review or whine on BG3, and my (otherwise very capable laptop) is just 6 years old with an Intel UHD 620 integrated GPU, and BG3 barely reaches the 10fps level on 1024x768 with lowest settings on everywhere. So it's not even 720p, and BG3 chokes a lot in this somewhat recent hardware.
I see BG3's graphics and while they are beautiful, they're nothing out of the ordinary in comparison to other games. That is, there are good games that could run very well in my laptop and which look good.
In sum, I see BG3 as being needlessly demanding, and pushes out a large sector of machines and potential buyers. I'd love to have an RTX-class GPU (and have the cash to afford it), but all I have it's a laptop whose GPU cannot be upgraded, and that is perfectly capable in all other areas.
Every time when I point out this limit in games, which I see as silly, I get flamed to death. People in the gaming communities are seemingly unable to understand why making extremely high minimum requirements is not a good sales strategy.
Games can look good with integrated GPUs. See the Wolfenstein games (id engine). Even more recent games like Generation Zero (Apex open world engine) can be run decently at lowest settings on my hardware. MGS5:PhantomPain also runs and looks very good. But no luck with BG3.
In a game which doesn't even look especially good, I see the very demanding hardware requirements as just a contribution to planned/artificial obsolescence.
(and yeah, I got downvoted as expected. This is getting old...)
I’ve seen the term across my life but I have never heard it spoken. I think how I imagine it and how it’s said are different - like I discovered from reading LOTR books and then watching the movies…
Is this a linux binary? Using wine directly linked under the hood?
Or did they actually build a native application with no translation layers, no matter how they're added?
Yes
https://steamdb.info/depot/2330359/
You can download the native version on any Linux distro https://old.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1nokcej/laria...
Thanks to Larian for doing cross platform.
Kudos to Larian.
outstanding work by larien however, I just felt strange reading your comment which somehow implied that the translation is the reason for bad performance, when it is actually more performent then the original
Less see how those benchmarks compare, now that just like with netbooks, Microsoft is finally acknowledging they need to react.
The translation is the reason SteamDeck will suffer the same fate as OS/2, and netbooks, building castles on other companies kingdoms.
For that not to happen, the SteamDeck needs to be sold on its actual capabilities, not by pretending to be someone's else platform.
huh? but Steam Deck is just normal Arch Linux with x86_64 ~~aarch64~~?...
They don't want to deal with esoteric Linux bugs.
For the first few months, act 3 (in the city) was legitimately hard to play. Performance, stability, visual glitches, all pervasive. But later patches did do a better job of improving those points.
Act 3's still the most intensive part of the game by far so on many setups it's still wise to at least crank down the crowd density, but it's come a long way since the launch version of the game.
It’s possible that some of the engine improvements could be easily back-ported to BG3. Or even just compiler improvements could be a little more oomph.
Edit:
> Our Proton version runs on the Steam Deck via the Proton compatibility layer, which requires extra CPU processing power. Running the game natively on the Steam Deck requires less CPU usage and memory consumption overall!
Workaround for a performance regression helps some but I suspect more has gone on.
Here's a review of Steam Deck performance from early 2024: https://steamdeckhq.com/game-reviews/baldurs-gate-3/
I'm assuming this is just an effort to slightly improve things.
>>Now that there is a Steam Deck Native build, is Baldur’s Gate 3 supported on Linux?
>Larian does not provide support for the Linux platform. The Steam Deck Native build is only supported on Steam Deck.
Only half a step forward.
I'm just happy the Steam Deck seems to be pushing devs to make sure their games run on low power hardware. Really any game should be able to run fine on the Steamdeck, there's no gameplay that isn't possible to run on the hardware. It's just the lack of engineering time spent on making sure the graphics have a proper low option.
Anyways, BG3 runs perfectly fine, natively, on my Ubuntu 25.04 RTX 4090 rig.
Gaming on Linux is hard because there's not one Linux, there's tons of Linuses. What version of the glibc/libstdc++/mesa/xorg/wayland/kernel/drivers are you running?
The Linux ecosystem is fragmented in such a way that only open-source and an army of volunteers can really work around. It is really not binary-friendly at a fundamental, philosophical level.
(You're not going to get game companies to open-source their games, except as an exception, and after their economic life is finished)
The Steam Deck provides one well-known hardware and software platform that a vendor can reasonably target. Don't expect much more except by the most dedicated developer.
That sub is mostly pictures of "jUsT bOuGhT a StEaM DeCk", sob bait, random steam sales, and rarely ever anything useful related to the Deck itself.
Every now and then I go to check top posts from the past month to see if anyone has posted anything significant, like the DeckMate or EmuDeck or actual useful stuff. Inevitably, it's all standard reddit garbage.
Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.Basically PROTON = ZERO BUCKS is the only sane way. I am playing proton titles: gacha games which are kind of free-to-play friendly, well... those without 'anti-non-steamdeck-elf/linux' software like ACE(cf WuWa). They have the windows whales to finance them already, and we are only penguins which dislike to be scammed.
But now elf/linux people will be able to buy this game with the legally required official support.
This game is really not my thing, but I'll go back to banging my head against the wall and throwing my keyboard thru the window, aka I am going back to play silk song natively on elf/linux available since day one of its release (well, this is a unity game, then ez).