Last night time was a stressed one for the Steam Deck. In addition to a huge client update for the hand held PC, Valve pushed out a Proton Experimental replace to repair a crashing drawback with games that use the Ubisoft Connect launcher on Steam.
Ubi’s launcher had acquired an replace of its personal, sadly one which interfered with the power of Proton – the layer of software program that helps made-for-Windows games run on the Linux-based SteamOS – to maintain it appropriate with the Deck. Indeed, similar to the 2K Launcher final 12 months, with the added irony that the affected games (which embrace The Division 2, Watch Dogs Legion and Ghost Recon Breakpoint) solely arrived on Steam previously few weeks.
Valve’s repair does require a second of guide enter, however it’s straightforward sufficient for those who now end up locked out: open the Properties menu of the affected game, head to the Compatibility part, verify “Force the usage of a selected Steam Play compatibility device” and choose Proton Experimental from the checklist. From my checks this morning, this does the trick, although the anticipated caveats about experimental branches missing full testing will apply. Hopefully this repair makes it option to Proton’s steady department asap, as with out it, all you’ll see after launching is that this error display:
On a happier notice, there’s dozens of constructive modifications within the shopper replace, starting from UI enhancements to bug fixes associated to particular mice and keyboards. Too many to simply paste right here, actually, so have a learn of the patch notes for the total checklist. My private spotlight: the Navigation pane within the SteamOS overly is now centered correctly. That all the time bugged me!
Extra cursor keys on the onscreen keyboard is one other good contact, and gyroscope calibration has been upgraded to extra intelligently account for attainable drifting. I’ve been curious to attempt gryo controls extra typically, after belatedly watching Team Fortress 2 YouTuber SolarLight’s video on the topic, in order that enchancment sounds good to me too.
Between this Ubisoft Connect situation, GTA Trilogy – Definitive Edition, and the Dead Space remake, it’s not been the Steam Deck’s greatest month. Even so, it’s good to see fixes for Proton issues pop up as shortly as they’ve been, right here and for Dead Space particularly. And there’s all the time the 30 greatest Steam Deck games while you simply wish to play one thing that works out of the proverbial field.