Steam

Steam runs natively on Linux. You can probably just install it from your App store.

Usually you want to use Steam (Runtime). Only use Steam (native) if you know why you want to use it. If you use the Flatpak version, you will also need to use the Flatpak version of other software that you want to use with it, like MangoHud.

Enable Steam Play for all games

In order to run games that have no Linux version, and that are not explicitly whitelisted by Valve, go to Steam -> Settings -> Steam Play and check "Enable Steam Play for all other titles" and then select "Proton Experimental" in the drop down menu.

It's usually a good idea to use Proton-GE instead of Proton Experimental. It has lots of benefits like improved game compatibility, raw mouse input, additional codecs for cutscenes, and much more. However it can be unstable. So if you have stability issues, try something else, for example an older version. Installation instructions are here. If you want the latest features, you have to update it manually, though.

ProtonUp-Qt

You can use ProtonUp-Qt to make the installation and update process of Proton-GE simple:

• 1. Download the ProtonUp-Qt AppImage
• 2. Mark the AppImage as executable
• 3. Double-click the AppImage to run ProtonUp-Qt

Alternatively, you can install it from Flathub.

Launch Options

You may find something like mangohud AMD_VULKAN_ICD=RADV gamemoderun %command% -fullscreen -dx12 on protondb. These are launch options.

To use them, you right click on the game, and go to the general tab. There you can paste them into the launch options field.

%command% is the command to start the game. Some launch options go before this command (commands to execute programs, for example gamemoderun or mangohud, or environment variables like AMD_VULKAN_ICD=RADV), and some go behind it (flags that are passed to the game itself, typically stuff that starts with a -, for example -fullscreen or -dx12).

Explanation of the command above

1. %command% is replaced by something like wine /path/to/game, so the whole command looks like this: mangohud AMD_VULKAN_ICD=RADV gamemoderun wine /path/to/game.exe -fullscreen -dx12
2. mangohud is started. This gives you a nice overlay that shows stuff like FPS and CPU utilization. MangoHud now runs the command AMD_VULKAN_ICD=RADV gamemoderun wine /path/to/game.exe -fullscreen -dx12.
3. AMD_VULKAN_ICD=RADV is added to the environment. This means that every program that is called behind this, is able to read this. It's up to the program what it does with this information.
4. gamemoderun is started. GameMode will tell your system that it should execute the game with priority, so you get more performance. GameMode executes the command wine /path/to/game.exe -fullscreen -dx12.
5. wine is started. It looks whether or not AMD_VULKAN_ICD is set to any value, and whether or not that value is RADV. Since this is the case, it executes /path/to/game.exe -fullscreen -dx12 using the RADV driver. If the variable would not be set, it would just use the first driver that it finds - which might very well be RADV if no other driver is installed.
6. /path/to/game.exe is started. It gets two flags: -fullscreen and -dx12. This tells it to start in fullscreen, and to use dx12.

Troubleshooting

If you call a program here, it needs to be installed. If it's not installed, your game won't start. If you installed Steam as Flatpak, you need to install the tools as Flatpak, too (and vice versa). If you use environment variables, it's a good idea to think about what they do. For example, AMD_VULKAN_ICD=RADV won't do anything if you have an Nvidia GPU.

%command% should always be part of the launch command and occur exactly once. If you leave it out, you basically tell Steam not to launch your game.

Steam Tinker Launch

Steam Tinker Launch is a swiss army knife tool that allows easy customization of multiple options for Steam games.

It includes helpers for custom commands, Vortex, Mod Organizer 2, Proton GE, Proton/DXVK/wine options, winetricks, ReShade + easy selection for shaders, FSR, debugging, side-by-side VR automation, SteamGridDB, SpecialK, Proton KillSwitch, Gamescope, GameMode, and more. You can find a more comprehensive list of features in the wiki (dropdownlist on the right). You can find instructions on how to install it here.

File Locations

Steam Folder

If you use the Steam Flatpak, your Steam folder is ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/data/Steam/

If you use the "normal" package, your Steam folder is in~/.local/share/Steam/

Games and Save Files

Your games are in <steam_folder>/steamapps/common/<game_name>.

Your save games and non-Steam games are in <steam_folder>/steamapps/compatdata/<some_number>/pfx/drive_c/<windows_path>. In order to know which number is correct, you can just use the search functionality of your file manager (probably ctrl + f) to search for the game name, or type find <steam_folder>/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/ | grep -i "<game_name>" in the terminal.

You have to substitute <steam_folder> and <game_name> with the actual thing, of course.

Bugs & Workarounds

- if the friends list is open & in the background, the Steam client drops to less than 1 FPS

• -> disable animated avatars in the friends list settings