Category: Steam Deck

PolyMC no longer working on any Platform

Paul
“The account has expried and needs to be logged in manually again.”

No More PolyMC for Steam!

According to sources Lenny, the owner of the polymc program, decided to remove all contributators for the GitHub depository due to a political Mess. Everyone thought he got hacked and I am going to guess it was something he didn’t think to entirely about when he decided to all this. He’s has his reasons, and I will not debate those reasons or even try to comprehend them. I’ve tried PolyMC on my desktop Windows 10 Computer and I get this same error. You can’t even link your account back to polymc, this seems like Microsoft is serious about keeping some of their younger users safe. They blocked the app from being used and now no one can use it anymore. I don’t know how long Microsoft will ban or if there is even a chance to get this game unbanned by Microsoft. Due to that issue we will need to find another game launcher to play on Steam and others platforms. Many people are urging players to go to other launchers and I really can’t blame bloggers from saying this. You just don’t know what is in the code and why the author did what he did.  Now my tutorial will not work and we should focus on a new Minecraft launcher.

Other Minecraft launchers on Steam Deck

There are several good launchers on steam deck, if you are using JAVA.   You can always get them either through the Discovery App or through Pacman in Console.   Here are a few that I have seen that might work just fine with a few tweaks:

  • The Official Minecraft Launcher— You Will need to install gnome-keyring with a few strings to keep yoru minecraft creditials from having to be entered everytime it launches.
  • ATLauncher — Is best know for me as least with Sky Factory and other mods for a serious good time in Minecraft.  It however may not work as well as we hope.  I’ve seen comments where this doesn’t work, so only time will tell.
  • Minecraft Bedrock Launcher — If you like play the bedrock version this is the luancher for you on Steam or even Arch.   I haven’t tested this one out either.  It however looks to not be working on arch.

There are several other launchers on Arch but they seemed dubious and I don’t want to recommend them until we get more comments and more people trying them out.

Minecraft Launcher

I will be using the Minecraft official, until I can find a better one and hope I can figure out how to get it to save my profile for offline and online use.  I’d hate to have to keep putting in my when I want to use it and have to be online all the time to do it.  Other than that, I am not sure what else to try to play Minecraft on Steam.   I know I’ll be looking for ways to play Minecraft on Steam again without have to do much hacking or doing anything that might be too difficult.  I’ll probably even post a tutorial on how to install a good Minecraft launcher once I find one that will work with my Steam Deck.

What’s your Plans on playing minecraft on steam?  Do you know any good ways to do it now?  or are you like me just searching for another way to play on the Steam Deck?   Let me know your thoughts, I’d love to hear them.

Is streaming feasible on the Steam Deck or to the computer?

Paul1 Reply

Live Audio Streaming Second Life

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The Preface of this post

Let’s begin with that what I am about to talk about is probably not even going to work for most of you because it would require way to much money to upgrade your home networking. This however is going to be something to understand and consider in your future upgrade plans for your home networking. Nothing here right now will stop you from streaming or make it useful but it will be a chance to educate you on how you might want to proceed in the future and make the experience a little more enjoyable. You also have the options of downloading games and installing onto your steam deck but someone games won’t work with the Steam as well as streaming them. This topic will at least maybe make it more enjoyable for you and make it so you can stream and not be pulling your hair out in the process.

Bandwidth will be the issue

Depending on what your computer you are using that you want to stream to your Steam Deck, the issue will be for the time being the amount of information that is sent to the Steam Deck.   Most  games are playing at the Highest possible settings and that requires the information to be transmittable to the Steam Deck.   Something like 1440p or really good RTX graphics card will want to send all this information to the Steam Deck.   There will be movement Lag or game lag even if you had the best home network in the world.  I can’t see this being without some form of lag.   You are essentially trying to send loads of data over either wired to Wireless or Wireless to Wireless, or even Wireless to Wired connections.    Even then you have a cap of how much data can be sent to through the air or though a wired connection.

Wired VS Wireless

Let’s Now talk about the speed caps and how much you will most likely get with each one of them.   According the LifeWire, You will get these types of speed:

I tend to think this is somewhat accurate because I can’t see this not being any faster than this in most cases. You have objects in the way to get to the wireless whether it being a Door, a Wall, or even other objects. That will tend to slow the connection down because of errors and bandwidth.  Even then even if you had gotten a 802.11ax wireless router the Steam Deck right now could only do the 802.11ac so that would mean it could only do 200 mbps(Milibytes Per Second) even at the best of times.

Now let’s talk about Wired options.   You can buy  dock that will connect to your wired network but the Steam Deck Dock will only do 1 Gbps which is way faster than you could wireles.   You would need  to do several things to get a faster connection.   One buy a Switch or Router that is 2.5Gbps capable, and upgrade your wired connections to a Cat 7 or 8.  You’d also need a 2.5Gb Ethernet connection to the Steam Deck by using a USB-C to 2.5gb Ethernet connection.  You can also use this to download games faster if you have a already have installed a big enough HDD or maybe you expanded your MicroSD card selections.  I have not yet to found a dock that will support 2.5gbps that will work with the Steam Deck but I am not sure if they even make them just yet.  It would be nice but I doubt anyone but maybe Steam Deck will incorporate that into their next versions of the DOCK.  You will also need to make sure you Desktop system that you want to stream from or two is capabile of thw 2.5gb also on a wired network.  You will need to check with the company that you bought your system from or check the motherboards website to see if it has a 2.5gbs ethernet connection.  Most gaming systems or motherboards will already havea 2.5gbs connection but some don’t.  So you might need to buy a 2.4gb ethernet connection dongle for the laptop or desktop in question.

Game performance tweaks

Finally with all that  being said, the last way to not have so much game lag while streaming is drop your resolution of the game and make the game run with less graphics.  Turn off DLSS and other options in the game, also if it says it is running best possible graphics, drop it down to mid way or lower and that will allow the information tobe transmitted faster to your streaming device such as the Steam Deck.  Even with this, it might still be a little slugish and slow to respond.  So the best approach, I have come up with is to download the games onto the Steam Deck and try to play them on the steam without streaming them.  I’ve found that most games work rather well playing from the Steam Deck than to try to stream them.   The only one so far I haven’t had a chance to try to figure out is Micrisoft Flight Simulator 2020.  I am hopeful they will release a patch for that so that I can play that on my Steam Deck.  Although, I have begun to try to figure out a way to get it to run on the steam deck like it does on the Linux machines I’ve used in the past.  Hopefully I will come up with a Hack to do that.

What’s your thoughts on Streaming Vs Downloading?  Do you have any problems streaming or have you had similar issues?  What games seem to run smoothly while streaming or did you have any games that will work well streaming?  I’d like to hear your results also.

What types of SD cards are the best for your Steam Deck

Paul1 Reply

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As small as a fingernail: close-up of Micro SD card SanDisk Ultra 64 GB on white background

So you want a Good Gaming Experience

If you are like me, you only bought a small 64gb version of the Steam Deck. After all You can upgrade the internal storage up to 2tb if you really had the money for the hardware. I know I will be doing this in the future myself but until then. I still have a lot of steam games and other games I want to play on the Steam deck. This is another way to increase your storage and you can save a lot of money this way also, if you aren’t confortable about opening up your Steam Deck. No screws required to do this way also.  This is the easiest way to increase your storage space but you have to have the right cards to have the best gaming experience.   I’m going to talk about some of the things you will want to look for and also give you some examples of the cards you should buy.

Read and Write Speeds

This is the first place you should be looking for.  The SDXC (MicroSD card) has to be able to write  and read up to 100 mb/s.  The faster you get the better experience you will be.  You should look for cards that says V30 and has the U3 Symbol.   These will tell you that they are designed for up to that amount but I find that you will want to get something that is as fast as possible but also really cheap.  You can buy several of these and switch them out with the games you are wanting to play at the time.  You can buy several small 256gb MicroSD cards and switch them off when you need because of games being on them that you want to play.   Here’s a Few of my Amazon recommendations on which ones to buy that will get you the most out of gaming experience.

Final Thoughts

My final thoughts on this is that you can have anywhere from 64gb up to 1 tb of extra space and if you have a 1tb internal space.  I can’t see you needing more that a 2 tb amount either way.  This would probably the most you probably, unless you add in the Epic Games and other ways to mod your Steam Deck.  I’ll be talking about that in an upcoming post about how you can do that for almost any gaming network but maybe not Nintendo.   The Steam Deck is more powerful than the Switch right now.  You can play games from other providers and enjoy playing mobile.   This is something that has been a long time coming to allow gamers to take their games anywhere they want to and play them on any display they want to.   I don’t know how the Logitech G Gaming handset will be but at least the Steam Deck is far better than what people have thought it would be.  I can’t wait to see the Version 2 of the Steam Deck and see what they do in the future.

So you want to upgrade your SSD on the Steam Deck, huh?

Paul2 Replies
The Prices of Steam Deck

Upgrading is Possible

I’m not going to say it won’t be easy to do. It just depends on how much of knowledge you have to do this. I bought the 64gb Model because well it was the cheaper of the 3. I figured it would be cheaper to do it myself than to pay them to do it. I am looking now and think I did a great job with this because I didn’t have to spend the 600 dollars for the 512gb model. In fact there are more bigger kinds of the SSD that I can install that will go beyond the 512gb that they are selling. If you want to do this, I really suggest checking out the Steam Deck Teardown that the IFIXIT guys did. I simply love the idea of tearing it down and being able to MOD it, if I so choice.  I’m going to talk about the best choices you have to upgrade your storage in the Steam Deck.   These are just my recommendations on which ones will help you and save you money in the process.

Buy NVME 2230 30 mm SSDs

So we start to talk about the kind of SSD’s you will need to buy in order to upgrade your Steam Deck.   You will need to find SSDs that are one sided NVME.  They can not have chips on both sides of the card, there would be no room for it.   You’re going to look for the type you might want but here are some good options that I see on Amazon.

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SkHynix 256GB PCIe NVMe 2230 SSD for 31$

Here’s the first one that I recommend for anyone who might just want to upgrade to a little bit bigger size. This however will not give you as much room as you might want but it will give you enough room to start off with and then you can SD cards to do the rest.  As you can see this one will be a good deal for you right now.   You can quickly and easily upgrade your Steam Deck to a bigger storage.   It however isn’t the only one I would recommend.

Micron SSD 512GB M.2 2230 30mm NVMe PCIe 4.0 for 99$

Now here’s a great deal going from jusst paying 399$ pluss tax to 499$ Plus tax.  Saving you over 130$, if you just did it yourself.   So this one should fit Steam Deck and I don’t see any problems with it.  It is small enough and fast enough to use with the Steam Deck.  You won’t see it slowing you down as you are gaming on the Steam Deck.

SN530 m.2 2230 SSD 1TB NVMe PCIe For 184$

This seems to be the best deal around because you can get almost a 1 tb for the best amount of money.   The only problem with this one is you really only get 866gb of space and the rest is taken up by design of the chip.   I don’t know if you want that or not but at least this one is available to you to buy.  You might be able to find other 1tb that will get closer to the 1tb limit but not  many and they start to get more expensive.

2TB M.2 2230 NVMe PCIe SSD Gen 4.0 for 539$

Finally we get to this bad boy, it is a bit expensive for my tastes but at least this is a Samsungs SSD.  So it will be blazing fast but I don’t know if I would pay 500$ for a 2tb when you can easy get Micro SD’s for cheaper.  I guess those who can afford to pay it will most likely.  I am sure there will be other manufacturers who will come out with 2tb but for right now this one is the only one on Amazon and claims to be able to upgrade the Steam Deck.  I suspect your will only get like 1.7tb of space off this SSD but it will be massive.  If you have a lot of games, this would definately let you put them on the Steam Deck.

Installing the Steam OS

So you bought a bigger SSd and went to install it but you will need to install the Steam OS.  You can follower the instructions on how to create a Steam OS recovery USB drive.   I personally might go with my own and use CloneZilla and clone the hard drive and move it to the new one after you install the new SSD.   Then grab something like Gparted and expand the disk to the size you need that would be my recommendations so you don’t loose any of you games or have to reinstall the games that you have already installed.   You will need a USB stick that has the size you want to clone so if you have a 64gb then you will need one that is at least that big.  You can use a dock or something like that, See my previous post about Docks.  to use multiple USB sticks.  Hope this helps.  Did you find this informative, why not share it and let others know that it is possible to upgrade your Steam Deck.

How to move your Minecraft World from PC to SteamOS (Archlinux)

Paul1 Reply

Installing Minecraft

See Link here for more information

After you get done install Minecraft on your Steam deck you will then be able to log into your Minecraft Java Edition. I suggest setting updifferent version for the game if you have several different versions for example 1.16.2 and 18.1 and Maybe even 1.19.0+. I’ve found this to be the very easy to use and keep your from having to log into to your minecraft java edition. Once you have Micraft installed and ready to played. You really should go ahead create test world so you can verify that it is working properly. Once done you’ll want to process to the next step.

Zipping your saved worlds

This next step is important because you never know what could happen. You’ll want to hit “Win + R” and type in “%appdata%\.minecraft” while you are logged into your Windows device. This should bring your to C:\users\[loginID]\Appdata\.minecraft. Once there you will want to navigate to saves directory. You’ll find in most times it is there unless you have designated another location in the Minecraft Java launcher where to go. I’m going to assume you know where your save directory and we’ll talk about what you will need to do next.  I’d use something like 7zip or even Windows Zipping utility.  For the People who are absolutely beginners with this.   I recommend copying these to a USB and then copying them to the Steam Deck that way or you could use the microSD card if you have have a MicroSD card reader to move the zip files over.   Once you have zip the worlds you want to play on you Steam Deck.   You basically just want to zip the whole directory of the world name for example if you have a Test World on your Windows computer, it will probably be something like “Test World” folder.  Zip the whole directory up and copy it over.   Don’t change anything when it get’s zipped up.

If you have multiple worlds and have them set up with different version.   I’d suggest zipping them up and creating folders with the different version onto the USB or MicroSD card.  So when you create and import them into PolyMC you will know which versions you will need to create in Java PolyMC.

Importing world into PolyMC

Once you have them zip files copied over or at least installed on the MicroSD card and inserted into the the Steam Deck.    You are going to want to start PolyMC in Desktop mode if you are using this on the Steam Deck.   One you run it you’ll want to view the worlds:

View Worlds _ PolyMC

Then once you do that, The next screen you will want to click Add (saved world).

Add worlds as Zip files

Once you hit Add you will then want to go to the directory on the MicroSD card or USB drive or Where ever you moved the zip files. Once you find it and click OPEN. It should start to add it to the PolyMC World. If you created the right version you will not have to worry about it when you start the game. After Adding all the worlds you want to play with, you can then get out of Steam Deck Desktop mode and go back to the the Steam OS and play your game that you were playing on your PC. I haven’t tried moving these back to the PC or keeping them syncorized but at least you can play your favorite worlds on Steam Deck.

Like this little quick tutorial. Why not share it and tell people so more people can play Minecraft and or use your worlds you were using it on the PC. This will only work for the JAVA version of Minecraft. Bedrock will probably not work, I haven’t tried or thought about trying it for Steam Deck. Hope this helps. Have a Good Monday Morning.