Do you own a lot of games on itch.io? I do, and a huge amount more from past charity bundles I've yet to go and claim so maybe the Steam Deck will help me and you get through them all.
Since the itch team provide a launcher app, I wanted to see how well it would work on the Steam Deck and there were a few requests to check it out. Thankfully, their native Linux build runs just fine in desktop mode. Here's a quick video look with the steps below:
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It's nicely easy to get set up:
- Head to itch.io/app and hit the big download button.
- Run the downloaded file from your Downloads folder.
- Login and have fun.
However, the itch app itself does not like Game Mode / Deck UI. So, you will need to add the games individually, the same way you add anything to Steam. Either the Games menu up top, then add a non-steam game. Or the Add game button on the bottom left on the main Steam client window.
All itch games by default install into /home/deck/.config/itch/apps/
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Quoting: ShmerlA question to experts. How do non Steam games work with controllers on the Deck? Is controller support untied from Steam? Same question for all controls, like pads, touchscreen and so on.
If I understood Liam correctly (in the story about Epic Game Store on Steam Deck), you have to run non-Steam games from within Steam to have controller functions work correctly. Hopefully he will clarify if I got that wrong.
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Quoting: PhlebiacSome games work outside in desktop mode but it's iffy. Running inside Steam gives you Steam Input so everything should work.Quoting: ShmerlA question to experts. How do non Steam games work with controllers on the Deck? Is controller support untied from Steam? Same question for all controls, like pads, touchscreen and so on.
If I understood Liam correctly (in the story about Epic Game Store on Steam Deck), you have to run non-Steam games from within Steam to have controller functions work correctly. Hopefully he will clarify if I got that wrong.
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So in essence controller support is tied to Steam so far. At least good one.
Last edited by Shmerl on 8 March 2022 at 5:26 pm UTC
Last edited by Shmerl on 8 March 2022 at 5:26 pm UTC
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Quoting: popsulfrHi Liam, could you also maybe test GameHub on the Steam Deck through gamescope to see how it behaves ? It has itch.io, gog, Humble Bundle, emulation integration and there's a cool feature with an "Add to Steam" button that automatically adds non-steam games into the client with cover picture and all. Pretty cool stuff.
That sounds pretty interesting! I was indeed looking for an alternative client to access my itch.io games as I'd like something that works while in Steam UI mode.
I gave it a try, and currently GameHub seems a bit too rough, at least when it comes to its packaging options. Both the AppImage and the Flatpak are labelled as unstable, and indeed I tried the flatpak on Steam Deck and it:
- Broke Plasma Discover
- Doesn't seem to support Steam or Itch
And the AppImage depends on a specific version of the gio-2.0 library from Ubuntu Bionic, doesn't work on my Mageia desktop, and probably won't on the Steam Deck either.
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Quoting: AkienThat sounds pretty interesting! I was indeed looking for an alternative client to access my itch.io games as I'd like something that works while in Steam UI mode.
I gave it a try, and currently GameHub seems a bit too rough, at least when it comes to its packaging options. Both the AppImage and the Flatpak are labelled as unstable, and indeed I tried the flatpak on Steam Deck and it:
- Broke Plasma Discover
- Doesn't seem to support Steam or Itch
And the AppImage depends on a specific version of the gio-2.0 library from Ubuntu Bionic, doesn't work on my Mageia desktop, and probably won't on the Steam Deck either.
Thanks for testing it out! That's very interesting feedback.
I've been using the flatpak version downloaded from github which I installed like this:
flatpak install GameHub-bionic-0.16.2-1-dev-448a0bd.flatpakfor Itch to work you need to point it to the itch config folder (usually it's ~/.config/itch) and it should detect the games and let you install them.
But yeah... gamehub is still rough but the auto cover downloader and steam shortcut creator is super handy instead of doing it manually and hunting for the game logos.
The AUR gamehub-git package is quite better for sure.
Last edited by popsulfr on 10 March 2022 at 5:13 pm UTC
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Thanks for the great article as always!
Does this work for non-linux-native games on itch? Will it automatically install and setup the game in wine/proton like Lutris?
Does this work for non-linux-native games on itch? Will it automatically install and setup the game in wine/proton like Lutris?
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Quoting: matt22207Thanks for the great article as always!
Does this work for non-linux-native games on itch? Will it automatically install and setup the game in wine/proton like Lutris?
The itch.io app will try to run a Windows game using whatever Wine version you've installed on your system, but there's no fancy prefix handling or configuration support like in Lutris.
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All you need to run itch.io app in Gaming Mode is adding
to Launch Options.
Last edited by dos on 1 May 2022 at 5:00 am UTC
LD_PRELOAD= %command%to Launch Options.
Last edited by dos on 1 May 2022 at 5:00 am UTC
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Quoting: dosAll you need to run itch.io app in Gaming Mode is adding
LD_PRELOAD= %command%
to Launch Options.
Just tested, that works like a charm! Thanks a lot.
Do you know what's triggering the issue when not clearing `LD_PRELOAD`?
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Quoting: AkienDo you know what's triggering the issue when not clearing `LD_PRELOAD`?
LD_PRELOAD is used to inject the library that's usually responsible for Steam Overlay. I'm not sure what is it useful for under Gamescope as Overlay is handled in a completely different way there, but Steam tries to inject it anyway and the itch app doesn't like it.
Last edited by dos on 2 May 2022 at 10:56 am UTC
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