Category: Steam Deck

Game-Changer Alert: Microsoft Flight Simulator on Steam Deck – A Dream Come True!

Paul2 Replies
Golden Gate Bridge – Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 by Bhautik Joshi

You might be asking yourself, can you play Microsoft Flight Simulator on the Steam Deck?  The Answer is Yes you can and here’s how you would do it.

Before Installing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

Before we even begin installing the game onto the Steam Deck, we shall have to do some things to better make it more likely to run. You’ll probably need at least a minimum of 256 gb of space on the NVME.  I have tried to use the SD card that is was was fast read but slow in writing and that caused problems with the game.  You’ll need to have something that can do fast writes and that would require a NVME or some way to use an external hard drive that you can plug in while you play the game on the Steam Deck.   However if you don’t have the room due to it having a small amount of storage to begin with then I have some good news.   Amazon has started selling NVME that are 1gb of space for around 60$ to 70$.  The Minium hard drive you should use is a 512gb then you should be able to install the game.  The Game requires a massive amount of space that including the world updates that come along over the years which are free. So you want to upgrade your SSD on the Steam Deck, huh? I created a good blog post on how to do it even more but this is about the game and you should at least get the biggest Hard drive you can and that would be a 2 terabytes NVME which does cost a lot but would allow you to have the game and other games installed.

How I did it

Now we get to how I did it because this worked with me, I got a copy of the Steam deck OS image and re-imaged my Steam Deck.  You’ll want to use Rufus or some other imaging software to create a boatable USB drive and boot into that the Steam Deck.  This is the best approach to make sure you have enough space for a the game if you only have a 512gb installed and it is also good just wipe the hard drive because you never know what files are left after you installed a game or not.

If you are doing the install my way, you should update the OS once you boot into the Steam Deck. Log into your account as if this was your first time using the Steam Deck and check for OS updates in the settings.  Don’t install any games yet because you should also be using a Dongle of some kind or dock to speed this process up a bit.   You can use wireless but it will more than likely take twice as long and that can be time consuming to say the least.

It’ll take while to install the game

It’s like a 130gb or a bit more to install the game once you have installed the initial game from Steam which is like 3gb or so.   Make sure to install it on the main hard drive and don’t select the SD card because it will not work more than likely.   It took me about 3 or 4 hours of just keeping the system active while it was download the packages from Microsoft which uses AWS(Amazon Web Services), so the speed isn’t going to be fast.   I would say if you are on dock plug in a mouse or something and occasionally move the mouse while it downloads from Microsoft.   Again this can’t be helped no matter how fast your speed is on your network.   However before you click on the game the first to actually download the files you are needing to install from Microsoft, you should go into the properties and select the Experimental.  This is under the compatibility menu in the game.   You’ll need to make sure that is selected and experimental proton was downloaded from Steam before you can run the game.  Also you’ll need to add the -FastLaunch in the launch options settings.

Community Files on the Steam Deck

Does the steam deck have a community folder for Microsoft Flight Simulator?  Yes it does.  So you want to add your community files you have on your Windows Systems to the Steam Deck, the good news that can now be done on the Steam Deck.   You’ll have to go into Steam Desktop and navigate to the right folder.  Once you do that grab a USB that has the files on them and put the USB into an empty USB slot.  Once done, open up the drive and folder where you put the community folder in and copy all the contents not the folder into:

Where’s the community files located on the Steam Deck?

Go to your steam deck desktop find the home folder.

Before you can find this folder, you’ll need to hit Control + H to show hidden folders and files.

/home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/1250410/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Roaming/Microsoft Flight Simulator/Packages/Community

You’ll want to have a fast USB drive to do this because I am sure the community files will be more than 10 gigs of space at least that is how much mine was, so using a USB 3.0 device is something that helps you move the files over quicker.   However that just depends on how much you have to copy over.   Once that is done you can boot back into Steam environment or just reboot the system to get to the steam menu like before if you aren’t that knowledgeable about this that is one way to do it.

Finally I suggest you just start installing all the world updates you want it just depends on how much space you have on the NVME.   If you have a 2gb then you can possibly install all the worlds and that would be around 300gb of space or something like that.   So you just have to be mindful of that and also which community files you want to install on the Steam Deck. Once you have did all this you can begin to play around and setting it up the way you like to play the game.  On Battery power I would assume it will last around an hour and half on the LED Steam Deck and the OLED probably a bit more since they have a bigger battery.  I haven’t had a chance to see how long it will last on the Steam Deck on battery but I would just be mindful of that and have the overlays showing you how much battery power you have left.

Have fun and if you enjoyed the blog post consider subscribing

P.s. on a side note someone was asking if Microsoft really did use AWS.  I did do a check on this on my desktop and they are going to the AWS servers:

ec2-54-225-216-74.compute-1.amazonaws.com

 

How The Last of Us – will win the silicon lottery!

Paul
Last Of Us Pt 1
My Screen of the Game

Understanding the Silicon Lottery

Whether you like it or not, that CPU or GPU you bought might not last the entire time you have it.   After all, You could have a slighly below average CPU from what others who have the same CPU are experiences.   There is a great Youtube Video on this that you should go check out.   Let me be clear that I think most of the people who are having issues with games such as this are those who have faulty CPU’s or GPU’s.   So a break down of what I have found out, most users who are using a K series Intel isn’t have much issues with the game.   Why’s that well the video tells you what I have always suspected those cpu’s are higher end and probably aren’t likely to fail as much due to the high demand of quality they are wanting out of the series.  Even in th discussions there are several post about who can run this game without issues.   I will admit I had to turn on V-Sync, DSS, and make a limit of 9 FPS to get my GPU not to be used at 100%.  This is something you should do too.   I also did notice some cutsceens (Cineramics) For the game did drop me back into Windows 10.   So I do not like that idea but it did   Even though people will probably blame the game for their GPU’s dying, but in truthfullness you should already be limiting just how much the system uses your GPU.

Gameplay for my Systems

I found this to be very rough to start up with since there was at least an hour that the system was using 100% both CPU and GPU.   It doesn’t help that you have to build the shaders and I honestly would like to know how much space those are taking up in bouth my Steam Deck and PC but I couldn’t find any information, I have found people asking the same question but I have yet to find a way to see just how much shaders are being stored on my systems.  That would be something I would like to know at a glance on my Steam deck.   I have 42gb on my 256gb NVME drive on my steam deck that just say other.  So why can’t Steam fix this for us.

System Specs:

  • I9-10859k on a Asus Prime Z590-P Motherboard  (240 Watercooled Rad)
  • 3050 Geoforce RTX GPU
  • 32 gb DDR4 4,300 ghz ram
  • NVME Hard drive

As you can see this isn’t beginner PC, I built this for my enoyment and thus I know a thing a two about keeping the system cool.   It was constantly getting hot while building the Shaders which took an Hour at the least and I don’t know why they would need to build the shaders in the first place.

The Game

Other than the problems I had, I really didn’t have to much else problems on my computer so far.  I’ve been playing the game on and off for the past few days and I’ve not seen anything else to cause me trouble.   Is that because I won the silicon lottery, that would be a good guess and I’ll probably say yes.  I’m not sure why others are having more issues, but I would be willing to bet it is because they are letting the game take over their Frame rates and cause more issues than they need to.

SteamDeck Play

I even tried it on my SteamDeck and it only could do 20 or 30 FPS on it and it was very intuitive playing it because there was always those times you just couldn’t keep up with the game play due to it stuttering and don’t remind me of the hour long shaders building for it.  Again that needs to be fixed, we shouldn’t have to wait an hour just to play the game, which I did just to not have any stuttering in the beginning game.   I still don’t get the idea of why this is necessary, I thought our systems could build shaders as we go or maybe build the shaders for the next part of the game and so on.   I am hopeful that they at least make the game a little more playable on the Steam Deck because it was something I would like to do more often.   I play Spiderman on it without much issue but The Last of Us just seams to be a little more harder for me to play on the Steam Deck.

The Last of Us Is Coming to Steam Deck

Paul
Last of Us on Steam

Steam and Steam Deck

This is one of those games that has been out for years. I won’t say it hasn’t been something that I look forward to play.  It has some graphical scenes but that goes along with the zombie apocolypses that you see every time in movies and shows.   This popped up on my radar last week when I saw this over the weekend on some social media.  I thought they were kidding so I went did some searching and it is comign to the Steam.  I can imagine it will also be coming to the Steam Deck because of how old the game is.   It’s is almost a 10 year old game but has been remastered to work with the Playstation 4 and Playstation 5.   With all this in the air, I am fairly certain it wil work on the Steam Deck out of the gate as it is released.  Even the newer versions of the game doesn’t require as much as Spiderman game.  Which I love to play on my PC or Steam Deck when I am on long car rides.  I can’t see this not being released to the Steam Deck.

Pre-orders 

It is currently on preorder for the game.  It will cost people $59.99 and it looks to be very interested when they finally release it.  I have heard this game has some great story lines and will be like Laura Croft to a point so that much will always keep me going with puzzles and being able to explore the worlds.   I’ve watch people play through the game from time to time on Youtube and it looks to be insteresting.  I have already put my money down for Pre-order since I don’t have a playstation.   My Steam Deck is ready to recieve the game once it is released.  I suspect the first week or two there may be problems with the Steam Deck but I am hopeful that they will fix them quickly enough.

March 3, 2023

That the time it is set to be released on Steam, I am hopeful they don’t delay it because this will be so helpful on my next trip in April that I am all set to go. I will have several hours to waste while traveling and this game will be my game to play to keep my busy while traveling.  I suspect this will be a 30 or 50 Gb download and install on any system.  So i will be keeping that much ready to be downloaded to my Steam deck.   I also have found a really small portable dock that I can take with me.   I’ve found it around town.  It’s Call the Gizmovine USB-C hub and it is currently not available on Amazon.  I guess you can go to Newegg and buy it if you want to pay more for it.  I do wonder if I can find more of these these hubs to use for later.   Small Post about this upcoming game.

Are you planning to buy this game or do you think it is worth the 60$ price range?  Let me know what you think and tell me if you have played this before.  Thanks.

Getting my Movies my way is the best way.

Paul

film, video, streaming, button, watch, home, show, entertainment, electronics, control, games, room, animation, furniture, recreation, screenshot, Free Images In PxHere

Photo by mohamed_hassan from PxHere

Time to use my DVD collection

I’ve got a really big DVD collection that I want to be able to use when I want to use them.   I’ll tell you when we were at home for those two months, I should of done that then in 2020 but I didn’t think about it until now.   However that doesn’t mean it is to late to do it.  I have a plan for the my Steam Deck and this will allow me to do that.  Although gaming streaming and video streaming are two different beasts it still has some of the princples that you might not think of.   You will still need to stream through wifi or wired if you are trying to get the best quality.    My plan is to have my DVD’s available anywhere I go, so I even can play on my phone if I wanted to.   I’ve found this awesome streaming service that will do just that on the Steam Deck and any other device.   I’ve installed Plex.tv and created a server for myself.   I’ve got this old NAS (Network attached storage) that hasn’t been used very much.   I’ve been upgrading it lately for just this occasion.   I want to put all my DVD’s and Music on their to listen to or use as I wish.  You can buy a NAS for really small amount of money and add storage as you see fit.

What’s the Purpose

The Truth of the matter is, because I can and it can help with not paying for streamin services as much.  I can be more selective of which services I want to subscribe to and save money in the long run.   I can also buy cheap DVD’s and copy them onto my NAS with realtivity easy process.   The really hard part is the CopyProtection that the big names do to prevent you from do just this.   The problem is that we own these DVD’s and we have the right do what we want with them.  Also there a movies that I want to watch that aren’t either on the streaming service or would need to buy another subscription to another service.  There’s to many services and with the prices going up and I have this NAS hardly being used it should be used more.

Understanding the Basics

We’ll not going to talk about the ethics as much as you want but if you are curious how to do it, you can watch this video and learn something.   I’ll talk a little bit about the copy protection that can be hard to circumvent but can be if you really want to own your media.   The problem is that not all this works with but can be useful to understand.   The copy protection of DVD’s has been something that has plagued mankind since the dawn of the DVD.   They deserve their money for the making the movies and films.  Even TV shows should get what is owed to them but that doesn’t mean people haven’t pirated them around the world through other means.

Copy Protection Software

Here’s where it gets a little bit more interesting to some because if you are like me and have some movies in either DVD or Bluray.  You’re going to need these software to do what is necessary to get to the information you might need. I’ll say this much, use as your own risk or own use.  I will not be responsible for anything that might happen.

I’ll say this I’ve only used DVD Decrypter right now because it works with all that I needed but the others look promising and I will try them out later.  It’s up to you on which one you will want to use to decrypt those DRM heavy DVD’s or Blurays.   I think it all depends on which one will work for you and how you like to use them .  Each one has their own unique way of getting the files needed to copy the main movie file.   So it just depends on what you are looking to do.

Are you planning to do this?  What do you think it will be like when you watch movies on the Steam Deck? I plan to try it out on the steam deck and see how well Plex.tv does the only thing that is problem right now is that you need to buy the server software either monthly or lifetime to do it.  I am going to look into buying the Lifetime because I am really curious as to how well this will work outside of my house.   I also might buy a little Pi board and use that as my server because I can use less energy that way instead of using my tower to do the serving of the movies.  What’s your plans for yoru steam deck?  I’d love to hear your plans on what you want to do with yours.

My Upgrade experience with Steam Deck

Paul1 Reply

Steam Deck

Upgrading the 399$ Steam deck!

I won’t say that anyone can do this if you don’t know how to do it in the first place.  It however was realatively quick and easy.  So let’s start from the beginning, I did  talk about which storage hard drive cards would work with the Steam Deck, they call them NVME’s.   I got mine off of Amazon and it works really well,  I installed it in under 20 minutes.  The problem I had was having to redownload all my Games.  That took like 3 hours with it be connected to the dock, and that is no small feet.  I play Elden Rings, Spider-Man Remaster, Halo, Subnautica, Subnautica Below Zero and also Half-Life series.   Althought that was over 180 gigabytes, that is still really fast in my opinion, unlike downloading over wifi, connecting to a wired connection will always by my way to install games on the Steam Deck.

Some Caveats

Let’s talk about some of these small warnings.   If you haven’t backed up anything on the SSD than you will most likely loose them.  You can easily move files that you want to save to your sdcard, which also is very helpful in keeping backups.  You’ll also want to make sure to remove the sdcard before you try to open up the Steam Deck, or you will break the Sdcard.  I’ve done that at least one and it isn’t a fun experience buying a new one.   You’ll also want to install the recovery disk onto a USB-C drive if all possible unless you have a dock and then you can use the dock to reinstall the Steam OS.   The app that comes with installing the Steam OS didn’t require much from me other than making sure I knew it would delete all files on the NVME.  It was a new one so I wasn’t worried about loosing any data.  Also if you moved any files from the SDcard, unless I missed a step, you’ll most likely need to reformat the SD card to move files back to the SDcard.   I honestly think I missed a step because I should of been able to verify my integratity of the files and not have to download all these big games back, it however didn’t cause me too much grief.

Some Take Away

Knowing that if I had to replace the SSD it wouldn’t be much problems.   I did buy a 256gb NVME just because I found some for 30$ on amazon.  You can however install 1tb or 2tb when they become more availabe and cheaper.      It was way cheaper than buying a 512 on the Steam Deck website and I still can replace any part I might need to in the coming years.   One day I’ll buy a newer model of the Steam Deck with better hardware or updated hardware.   It however is going to be an interesting time to see what they come up with on the Steam Deck.  I simply love it and even use it at a desktop whenever I need to.  It will be a great international Travel accessorie instead of taking my laptop to browse the web or do what I might need to do on the go.   I’m in the process of looking for a good Mouse and keyboard setup that might be small and portable so I can do what I might need to do on the go.   Very Powerful and great little gaming device.  Have you upgraded yoru Steam Deck yet, if so what did you do with yours more storage or change the display to a better dislpay?  i’d like to hear what you might did to yours and let’s compare notes.