MaxsTechReview
d207b35d94
* fix: Red Dead Redemption 2 launches again, its Vulkan runtime installer is left to run droiddeck-seed-redists marked every process in every game's install script as already run, Red Dead Redemption 2's VulkanRT-1.1.108.0 installer included. Steam's compat config for the game says nativevulkanloader, so Proton loads vulkan-1.dll native only, and Khronos' loader is in the prefix only once that installer has run. Without it the Rockstar launcher starts RDR2.exe and it exits with STATUS_DLL_NOT_FOUND (0xc0000135) before it opens a window. A Vulkan runtime installer is now left out of the seeding, and a marker an earlier seeding wrote for one comes out of each prefix and Proton template once (dates kept), so the client runs the installer on the next launch. The installer finishes in a few seconds under FEX. * fix: Steam's screensaver no longer covers a running game The client's defaults show screensavers while a game runs, after 300 s on AC power without a button press - and a held stick or trigger is no press. Red Dead Redemption 2's intro runs longer than that: the slideshow covered the game, and the button that woke it reached the game too (B asked to quit to the desktop). Customization/Screensaver/WhileInGame is seeded "0" in config.vdf once, like the UI scale and native resolution, so turning it back on in Settings stays the user's choice. On the RedMagic: 18 minutes from the last button press through the intro and riding, focus never left the game and no screensaver was created. * fix: Rockstar's hidden launcher no longer takes cores from its game The Rockstar Games Launcher keeps drawing its Chromium interface (SocialClubHelper.exe: renderers, and a GPU process compositing through DXVK) for as long as the game runs, hidden behind it - and Wine passes Chromium's priorities on, so those threads ran above the game's (the GPU process at nice -10), across every core. With Red Dead Redemption 2 in front that was 1.3 to 2.5 cores under FEX for a page nobody sees. droiddeck-launcher-cores follows gamescope's focus from the agent's focus.json: while a game window has it, every SocialClubHelper thread runs on the last core of the slowest cluster at nice 19; when the launcher's own window has focus again each thread gets its own mask and priority back (also on exit). Stopping the helpers would not hold - proot resumes a stopped tracee. Started for Steam sessions; BL_LAUNCHER_CORES=0 turns it off. RedMagic, RDR2 all Low, riding at the thermal limit, same spot and session: released 46.5 fps, 1% low 27.5, p99 31.8 ms, CPU 89%, 2200 MHz; held 48.7 fps, 1% low 32.6, p99 27.6 ms, CPU 79%, 2638 MHz. * fix: sessions clean up what earlier ones left in /tmp The guest's /tmp is a directory in the rootfs that no boot ever empties, and Android ends sessions by killing them. Every session left a /tmp/mangohud.XXXXXXXX (mktemp, never removed), and the Steam client, its web helper, Chromium apps, dbus-run-session, AppImage runs and KDE their own temporary files and sockets: 1,422 entries on the RedMagic. mangoapp's config is now one fixed file rewritten each session, and the session's first pass sweeps each kind of leftover while nothing that could own one is running, with a single find. On the device that cleared 1,391 entries over two sessions, leaving 38.
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. Stores (Setup › Stores › "Show Stores in the rail") signs in to GOG, Epic Games and Amazon Games, browses their catalogs and libraries, downloads games into the Games storage and adds each one to the Steam client as a non-Steam game, so it launches through Proton like everything else; the cog on its chip row sets which tab a store opens on and the download speed tier.
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 zip from Share logs (Setup, or the session drawer) so the logs come with it.
Build
Run tools/build_local.sh with Docker, Java 17, the Android SDK/NDK, Rust through rustup, GitHub CLI, Python 3, and zstd installed. It prepares the same native libraries, pinned components and audio sinks as CI, then checks the APK's assets, JNI exports and dependencies. The APK is 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. Set DROIDDECK_SIGNING_ENV to a signing environment file to install over a release build; relative keystore paths resolve beside that file. To install on an attached device, run tools/deploy_local.sh.
After preparation, ordinary ./gradlew :app:assembleRelease builds can reuse the verified inputs. If native sources, component pins or staged files change, packaging stops with instructions to rerun the helper. Generated audio stays under app/build/; the tracked base bundle is never modified. ./gradlew -PskipRust=true :app:testDebugUnitTest needs no native preparation. For an APK without store engines, use DROIDDECK_SKIP_RUST=1 tools/build_local.sh; it omits cached engine libraries too.
Run the helper and preload regression suite with bash tools/test_local.sh. On macOS it runs in Linux through Docker, matching the helpers' runtime and CI instead of compiling Linux preloads against macOS headers.
Limits
Compatibility and performance vary by device; hardware validation is limited. Desktop compositing uses software rendering. Firefox sandboxing is reduced under proot. Logs are kept app-private (files/logs/, the last 30 sessions); Share logs packs the newest session, with the stores and tool logs, into one scrubbed zip.
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.