bullet point #2 fails more than half of the time for me.
What I found works for me is… well I’ll just repost my previous advice:
if anyone is struggling with installing 3rd party mods and such in Proton, try starting your installation process from ConEmu (ConEmu64.exe) (It’s a simple, open-source, portable terminal emulator for Windows) instead of pointing the Non-steam Games wizard at each installation and gaming exe individually.
I originally tried to do this with the explorer.exe built into Wine, but getting that thing to launch is a pain.
for example a lot of Windows programs will have you download an .exe that installs the program, then you need to run a different .exe to actually run the program. Steam’s non-steam game wizard in combination with Proton gets confused by this and runs the two .exe’s in separate environments, screwing with any attempts to install a mod or install the app itself.
Honestly, because troubleshooting gets annoying for me when I want to play a game, I have made a brain-dead algorithm for how to play games on the deck, and it looks like this:
Do I want to buy it on Steam? If not,
If it runs in Windows, just download and install in Windows, and then (Warpinator) it into the deck. Add shortcut to steam, use latest stable proton. That’s it. You’re done.
W-wait… It doesn’t run natively on Windows? (Old af games like Touhou 6). Just Bottles it, and finagle with the setup a bit, that’s gonna take some effort.
As a general rule, proton is a beast, and I have stopped bothering with Linux native piracy entirely.
No need get window. You need somes tools though.
From the stock app market (called discover) :
From GitHub:
On desktop mode.
I download my games as torrent from dodirepack or fitgirl with the software transmission(from stock appshop).
Once I have a game I use Lutris(from stock appshop) to execute the installer. Install games on :Z Wich is the steals file system.
Then I add the game to steam on desktop mode.
I set the compatibility in the game options mode on proton or protonGE.
And I rename the game to their steamid to be able to search for contrôler config. (Find steam game I’d on the site SteamDB)
In game mode
I then setup images for the games with the addon SteamGridDB installed from Decky (and addon loader for steamdeck)
If I have trouble running game I use protonGE which I installed with ProtonUp-QT (from stock appshop)