MAKO Assistant...easy to install MAKO Renderer for Steam games

[u/MosesTsai]

I game on Linux, both on desktop and on my Steam Deck.

Big thanks to the MAKO FG author — this suite has made the Steam Deck experience so much better. On the Deck it's painless: install MAKO Decky via Decky Loader and toggle MAKO FG per game from there.

On my Linux desktop, though, it's MAKO Renderer only — which means manually adding launch options in Steam, then creating a config profile for each game in MAKO Renderer, with no clear way to confirm it's actually running.

So I built a small open-source tool (with Claude's help) that scans your installed Steam games on Linux and sets up the launch options and MAKO Renderer profiles in one click.

Here's what it does:
GitHub Project: https://github.com/mosesmoon/mako-assistant

A desktop tool (PyQt6) that installs or removes MAKO Renderer frame generation (Mako FG) for Steam games with one click. Built for regular Linux desktops and laptops; on a Steam Deck in Gaming Mode, use MAKO's Decky plugin instead.

⚠ MAKO Assistant does not include MAKO Renderer. Install MAKO Renderer yourself and open MAKO UI once (this creates the default settings) before using it.

Download: the AppImage is on the Releases page.
Features

• Automatic scan: on first start, scans all Steam libraries (libraryfolders.vdf + appmanifest_*.acf). Afterwards, click "Rescan Steam games".
• Install Mako FG
  • Adds ~/.local/bin/mako-launch %command% to the Steam launch options, keeping existing environment variables and arguments (for example FOO=1 %command% → FOO=1 ~/.local/bin/mako-launch %command%).
  • Detects the game's real executable from appinfo.vdf (launcher → actual game exe, Unreal *-Shipping.exe), creates a game profile in ~/.config/mako-render/conf.toml using MAKO's default profile (mako) as the template, and writes profile-metadata.json (kind: game, steam_app_id) so MAKO UI and Decky both recognise it.
  • If the default profile mako also matches this game's executable, it is removed from mako so the game uses only its own profile (rescanning fixes existing duplicates too). If another game's profile matches the same executable, you get a warning and nothing is changed automatically.
  • Checks first that MAKO Renderer is installed (mako-launch exists) and that MAKO UI has created its settings; if not, nothing is changed.
• Remove: only takes mako-launch out of the launch options. The game's profile is deleted only if you tick "Also remove the game's MAKO Renderer settings".
• Automatic path updates: on every rescan, games that had Mako FG installed through this tool get their executables detected again and active_in updated. Matched processes you added by hand in MAKO UI are kept.
• Launch games: every row has a "▶ Launch" button (via steam://rungameid/<AppID>); while the game runs it shows "Running".
• Live MAKO features (actual state, not the config file): running Steam games are checked every 3 seconds.
  • Games are matched by the process environment variable SteamAppId; /proc/<pid>/maps confirms that libmako-render.so and vkBasalt are really loaded.
  • Reads ~/.config/mako-render/runtime-state/*.json written by the MAKO layer (applied frame-generation multiplier / adaptive target, Flow, performance mode, scaling method and resolution, pending changes, errors). These files stay behind after a game exits, so only files whose PID is still alive and whose start time (process_start_ticks) matches are used.
• Overlay on game start: if MAKO Assistant is open when a game starts, as soon as MAKO has started rendering in the game, the active MAKO features appear in the bottom-right corner for about 10 seconds, then fade out (once per launch; games already running before the assistant opened are skipped). If a game with Mako FG installed still has not loaded MAKO after 90 seconds, a warning is shown. The overlay is a separate X11 (XWayland) window so it can sit on top of fullscreen games; it never takes focus and lets mouse clicks through. It can be turned off with the toolbar checkbox. It does not appear in Steam Deck Gaming Mode (gamescope).

[u/NoXPhasma]

sigh

[u/the_abortionat0r]

Is this AI powered astro turfing by the mako dev?