MaxsTechReview
6ee8866599
With Second library on Automatic, every writable Games folder is now a Steam library: it gets the same private prefix and tool binds as the card, the app hands the session the list (BL_STEAM_LIBRARIES), and droiddeck-steam-library registers, relabels and forgets entries from it. Steam offers them in the install dialog as "<folder> (<volume>)", and Proton mapping, esync, the redist seeder, desktop entries and the compat beat read every registered library instead of only the card. Games folder libraries stop at the fast path's bind budget. Steam's preallocation on Android's FUSE storage either failed outright (NTFS answers EPERM, so installs were cancelled as "not enough disk space") or zero-filled the whole download first (exFAT, minutes for a small game). After fallocate is refused, the Steam client's ftruncate extension of its own staging files is reported as done; the writes that follow fill the file. A 76 MB install to a USB SSD now preallocates instantly instead of taking about 3.5 minutes. A library that is not there is left out of the list and forgotten until it returns, imports whose folder is missing are set aside rather than offered as broken installs, and the front end refreshes when storage is mounted or removed.
DroidDeck brings the SteamOS experience to Android: Valve's Steam client in Big Picture on your Adreno handheld, with Windows games through Valve's ARM64 Proton.
Note: DroidDeck does not have a stand-alone website. Do not click on any download links from websites claiming to be the DroidDeck team.
Requirements and install
Use Android 9 or newer on a supported Adreno device (730 or newer, or 8xx). Adreno 6xx is experimental: DirectX 11 uses DXVK 2 and may run, and DirectX 12 games can still crash. Mali, Xclipse, PowerVR, and Adreno 710 are unsupported. No root is required. Allow about 3 GB for the runtime and 1.1 GB more for the desktop and emulators. Install the APK from Releases, install the Linux runtime, then press Play and sign in. Steam downloads on first launch. Install Desktop & apps to use the desktop and emulators. The Store installs Linux apps and games from Flathub (ARM64 builds) with Flatpak; with additional options to install Appimages and set up scripts.
Before Steam launches, you must turn off Restrict child processes in Developer options. If this option is not available in developer settings (Android 12 and 13 devices), first launch of Steam will present a "Fix it for me" button, which will help automate the setup process.
Community
Join the DroidDeck Discord for help, Preview builds, and device reports. Bug reports go in its #bug-reports forum; attach the session folder from Download/DroidDeck/ so the logs come with it.
Build
Run tools/build_local.sh with Docker, Java 17, the Android SDK/NDK, and zstd installed. It builds the ARM64 audio sinks from PulseAudio 13.0 and packages them into the APK at app/build/outputs/apk/release/app-release.apk. Set DROIDDECK_PA13_SOURCE_DIR to an existing PulseAudio 13.0 source directory to skip downloading it. To install the APK on an attached device, run tools/deploy_local.sh.
Limits
Compatibility and performance vary by device; hardware validation is limited. Desktop compositing uses software rendering. Firefox sandboxing is reduced under proot. See the session logs in Download/DroidDeck/ when diagnosing problems.
Credits and licence
GPL-3.0. Runtime, shim, input, and controller work build on WinNative and Bannerlator (maxjivi05). LSFG frame generation is from the work of Camille LaVey and the Eden emulator project, following lsfg-vk, ported to WinNative and DroidDeck by @maxjivi05; it needs your own copy of Lossless Scaling and ships none of its shaders. x86 AppImages, and any whose own runtime cannot unpack them, are unpacked with uruntime by VHSgunzo (MIT), shipped unmodified with its licence. See LICENSE. Steam and Proton belong to Valve Corporation; this project is not affiliated with Valve.