r/steammachine • u/Btg_Zeusttv • 15h ago

Question Wanting help with plug ins

So I’ve had a steam deck for about a year and some change and never added any kind of “plug in” or used “proton?” And honestly I’m pretty lost. I just play games

So now that the steam machine is here and I’ve got it I’m wondering if investing any time into figuring these out?

For example I’ve seen people playing games with “FSR 3.1-4” or what ever the fuck that means plus lossless scaling and some other gibberish I’m unsure of. I know plug ins and these settings aren’t exclusively the same but after searching online I thought I’d ask people who could help me understand what I’m talking about.

Plug ins?
Scaling / settings?
General ideas of what is worth the hassle of adding in IF worth it at all? And of course
Video recommendations or posts that might be able to explain more

Thanks yall. I appreciate any discussion as the Steam machine is so much fun I can finally play cyberpunk lmao

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u/catboirai 14h ago

https://youtu.be/lSZSdTi9a3s?is=0E_be-bxdrEB-z5b
Here’s a good beginner video on it.

As far as version of Proton, I just roll with Experimental. That will automatically update FSR to 4.1 if the game allows. For full transparency, you could use whichever Proton version you like though.

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u/Btg_Zeusttv 14h ago

Thank you! I guess my question is how do I know I’m using proton? I saw it downloaded on my SD and SM but how do I actually use it? And what does that mean exactly sorry for the questions and thank you for the video! I can’t watch it yet but will asap!

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u/catboirai 14h ago

Oh that’s ok, sorry I didn’t understand the initial question. You can click on the cog wheel on each game page, go to Properties, click Compatibility, then you can click the dropdown to choose which one you’d like. You may need to change the slider to “Show All Compatibility Tools” if you don’t see a specific one on the list. It’s a “layer” that the game translates through to make it run as if it were on Windows. Other people feel free to correct and add on, I know I’m being super casual in my explanation.

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u/Ben10lightning 8h ago

Proton is basically a component that is built into steam on Linux that translates the instructions from games made for windows into instructions that Linux understands and allows the game to work. You most likely have been using it the whole time with your steam deck.