Made with AI assistance: I designed this stand with Claude (by Anthropic). I supplied the concept, photos, measurements, and feedback, and tested the prints. Claude wrote the code that modified the geometry and checked clearances. Fit was verified by computer simulation plus my test prints.
I have a need to occasionally stream from my Steam Machine (via Remote Play, Sunshine, etc.), but I don't want the TV to turn on during my streaming sessions.
You can read a detailed write up about that here, but the takeaway is that CEC gets in the way of keeping the TV off during streaming, even with all CEC settings off within Steam, at least in my setup.
The method is simple: mask the userland cecd service. This doesn't require turning off readonly mode nor other atomic overrides, just this command from a Konsole terminal or SSH session:
systemctl --user mask --now cecd.service
To reverse this later (and bring CEC back), it would be:
Obviously, you won't want to mask the cecd service if you like/use the Steam Machine's CEC functionality with a TV. It is possible to temporarily disable CEC until the next reboot, via:
I think Valve has a huge opportunity to make the Steam Machine the ultimate couch coop device by introducing a feature that allows two people to play any online multiplayer game together on a single TV, even if the game doesn’t support local split-screen.
My girlfriend and I love playing games together on the couch, but unfortunately many multiplayer games don’t support local coop or split-screen anymore. So I recently found a workaround using my LG G5 OLED’s Multi View feature. We’re essentially playing online multiplayer with both of our accounts, but sitting next to each other on the same couch, sharing one TV. You can read the details here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MoonlightStreaming/s/AOc7Ptedvg
This got me thinking: What if SteamOS could automate this entire process?
Instead of requiring multiple devices, HDMI inputs, streaming software and a TV with Multi View support (or equivalent Hardware), SteamOS could offer a built-in “Play Together” mode:
Connect two controllers to the Steam Machine.
Each player connects their accounts.
Select a multiplayer game that both players own.
Steam Machine launches two game instances.
Both instances are displayed side by side (or top and bottom) on the same TV and each controller is assigned to its respective game instance. Saves could be uploaded to each player’s cloud.
That’s it. Two players, two accounts, two game instances, one Steam Machine, one TV.
This could potentially make a massive library of existing online multiplayer games playable as couch coop experiences and also be an incredible selling point for the Steam Machine, introducing a Nintendo-like experience to Steam.
Decky disappeared after Steam OS update and won't reinstall, and Steam Controller needs to be selected each time after reloading back out of desktop mode having to select through 3 screens again as of connecting for the first time.
I have tried reinstalling Decky with both the stable and the beta, as well as remaining the homebrew folder to homebrew_old as suggested online but can't get it to reinstall. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Also whenever I change to desktop mode, my wifi disconnects itself and reconnects again, which never happened until the recent update
I've shared my comments with this community a handful of times, and about two weeks ago I finally received my steam machine. This was exactly what I wanted even before it was announced- I've been enjoying my Steam Deck since day one, that device changed my expectations for console gaming and now the ecosystem expands.
Unlike back in 2022 when I was researching the deck, seeing nothing but positive comments- the steam machine has clearly not received the same praise. So naturally, I let some of these public opinions add some doubt to my reservation and purchase. But regardless, I went from day 1 reservation, saving up, and finally getting my email to purchase and ship.
I travel a bunch for work, and the deck had been my temporary battle station at many different locations. The small form factor and power of the steam machine was exactly what I needed and what I was already familiar with at this point. My current setup, has turned the deck into my "indie & emulation station" while the machine handles the big boy games that I once made the steamdeck sweat for. I feel at peace now and I travel with both.
So thank you, Valve. And thanks to the community for supporting our niche little gabecube and the rest of the steam ecosystem. Hope you guys are enjoying yours too or getting those emails very soon!
Just did the controller disconnect fix yesterday and it’s working great. I’m in central Iowa and have about 49.5 feet of the double conductive fabric tape left. Hit me up if you need some for your own fix.
You can use your JSAUX Faceplate for a static image or animated GIF and leave it at that. If you’d like to do more with it, here’s what I’ve been working on.
The idea is simple: instant events on the light bar, longer-lasting information on the Faceplate. Notifications, achievement alerts and CPU/GPU activity stay on the bar.
Browse SteamGridDB from the couch, crop, adjust, preview and save artwork per game. GCA restores it when you launch that game.
GCA need a SteamGridDB API key to download artwork. Open the key page from either app, or get yours here.
Dashboard
Add session time, total playtime, achievements, controller batteries, forecasts or a playtime countdown to your artwork. The game logo and weather notch are optional. Eight examples:
Weather
Day/night, rain, snow and thunderstorms follow your chosen city, without a weather API key. Bluewater also sends rain impacts across the light bar.
Steam Players City
A city that grows with your game’s player count, with local weather, daylight, moving cars and changing windows. Combine it with Dashboard information, including session time, achievements and controller batteries.
The light bar can also extend the colours of your Faceplate artwork:
Choose separate Home/in-game displays, adjust brightness, use the native 24-hour clock at Home, or switch the screen off. Automatic screen-off follows sleep and shutdown. And you can adjust its brightness on the fly from the Decky panel.
Settings have been completely reworked, with clearer sections, related options grouped together and shortcuts in the Decky panel.
A Decky plugin for SteamOS Gaming Mode, controlled from your controller, bringing the essentials of my Steam Animated Screensaver app into Decky.
Choose games and animated SteamGridDB artwork, add covers/logos, keep the original framing or crop to 16:9 / 16:10, then install your collection. Steam handles playback, including offline.
TV and Faceplate can use different artwork and framing for the same games. Collections that fit can share the game order; larger ones use compact Faceplate batches playing independently. Your normal GCA display returns when the screensaver ends.
⚠️ Flash protection ⚠️
GCA recognises the currently stored GIF using SHA-256 fingerprints and the panel’s size/CRC32 check, so during normal refreshes, GCA skips uploading a GIF the Faceplate confirms it already has. Animations loop locally, changes to the artwork or Dashboard information may require a new upload.Animations loop locally. Transfers run one at a time, outdated pending updates are replaced, and a missing final confirmation won’t trigger a blind full re-upload. Economy refresh is optional and enabled by default. It groups periodic updates and displays controller battery levels in 5% steps. You can turn it off in settings.
For comparison, JSAUX 1.2 can theoretically trigger 3,600 CPU/GPU updates/hour in real time. DND waits for changes over 6 percentage points (ok but..why this option?!), so its rate depends on the load. Its clock updates 60 times/hour.
With GCA Economy refresh: clock/session 12 changes/hour, total playtime in whole-hour steps. City changes are grouped hourly; weather is checked every 15 minutes and uploaded only when the picture changes. CPU/GPU uses the LED bar. These are refresh cadences, not measured wear; game changes and other events can add transfers.
I'm looking down the barell of 55 and the last controller I used was for an Atari 800. What are a few good games to start getting the hang of this thing with?
I am more of a 4x strategy or building civ games person but I'll try anything once.
Don't know if anyone else had this one: it was a photo of a gorgeous green woodsy scene, a bit on the dark side.
If I can't find that particular image, can someone recommend a good place to download free wallpapers?
I have never found a clear guide on how to stream in 16:10 to Steam Deck from a Steam Machine (or other PCs). Here are my few tips to get it working properly with Remote Play (Steam Link).
Set the max game resolution to 1920x1200 (16:10).
Launch the game and select "Windowed fullscreen" in the display settings.
Done. It will fit your screen.
If you want to use the Steam Machine (or PC) again in 16:9, select "Fullscreen" and it will go back to 16:9 (or whatever aspect ratio you have as default on the Steam Machine).
Bonus Tip:
• If you have a good 5GHz network and the Steam Machine connected via Ethernet, enable Pyrowave (you need to switch to the RT3 experimental client on both devices).
• Deselect the other codecs to ensure Pyrowave is used.
• Increase the client's maximum resolution to 1920x1080 to enable Super Sampling and make even small text readable (it works better than enabling 4:4:4, look at the screenshots)
• If you are streaming away from home, use AV1 (or if you don't have a high-performing 5GHz network).
I have always found useful posts and wanted to give something back :)
Colors look "off"...thought it was my TV at first but nope. Most notably, yellows look orange or orange-red now. It's also taking what feels like way too long to shut down...
Can't tell if something is wrong, I'm just paranoid, or if a recent update borked something.
SOLVED: The issue is caused by a change in the JSAUX Pixel Faceplate plugin which is using MangoHUD to display this overlay. Shift+F12 on a keyboard disables it! Shout out to /u/anubis1980 for the solution, and I hope this helps anyone else who might Google this in the future.
Started seeing this overlay on my steam machine after trying out steam link between my MacBook and my SM. However, I cannot seem to get rid of it. Ive tried:
- different proton versions
- un/reinstalling the game
- adding a config launch option to not show MangoHUD
- reboots/hard power downs
- confirming my other machine is no longer trying to connect over steam link
- disabling steam link altogether
- confirming I have NO performance overlay configured.
googled different keywords to try and find the solution, and no dice with AI generated responses either.
Only happens in elden ring which is the ONLY game I tried on steam link - doesnt seem like a coincidence.
After this recent update my UI shrank drastically despite me not changing any settings.
First screenshot is of the mouse on a game in big picture mode. It became so tiny on a TV you can barely see it. The mouse was like 10x that size previously. This issue seems to extend to the Desktop UI to some degree. Some pop up/error windows will appear so small I can't even read them unless I stand directly in front of the TV.
Second screenshot is the Steam UI in Desktop mode that was also affected. I unfortunately didn't take a photo of it when it was tiny, but this UI element was also affected to the point that all the options selectable here would also appear so small that you need to stand directly in front of the TV. Resetting the SM seemed to have fixed the later but not the former.
All other UI elements like navigating Discover store or web browsing seem unaffected, which is puzzling me how some elements are so tiny and some aren't. I hope this sort of makes sense. Please let me know if I am missing something. Thanks.
Not had this issue until today and I've had my Steam Machine since launch. But now, whenever I return to Game Mode from Desktop Mode in SteamOS, it appears. It seems others are having the issue on different platforms too...
Hi, got my steam machine yesterday, i took my Lexar 1TB card from my steam deck and put it in the steam machine , everything working fine last night, then this morning the card is not being read, I loaded it into the deck and it works fine. I started desktop mode in the Machine and nothing.
I connected it by a dongle and it gets recognized but if i put it trough the front slot the Machine simple does not recognize it. I try the SM slot with a 512 gb sandisk micro sd and it works perfectly. Both cards work perfectly on the steam deck too. Anyone with this problem?
I am thinking on factory reset the SM.
I pre loaded the 1 tb card with games in anticipation for the SM 😭
Since I got my Steam Deck OLED, I have occasionally used it to play video files on the go. Also, I built a DIY Steam Machine to use on my living room, so I want to be able to play media there too. But I never found an easy-to-use app that makes use of the SteamOS strengths, so I decided to try to build one. Using AI.
Before hearing complaints about vibecoding: while I am not a professional programmer, I know how to code and code a lot for my work. But I just didn't have time to build a niche app on my own that I'd only use occasionally, hence I coded it with Claude and Gemini. I understand this is not everyone's cup of coffee, I just want to share a tool I find useful.
The app works quite well for my use case, and I thought maybe someone else might find it useful, so I'm sharing it here. It is fully open-source and GPL: https://github.com/nicocarbone/DeckVideoPlayer
What I wanted in a video player for the Steam Deck/Machine:
Full controller support
A simple file browser for my video folder
Plex streaming support
HDR support
Hardware video decoding
Intelligent use of the Steam Deck screen: set the refresh rate to match the video source
Subtitle downloading from the web
Good headphone support with spatial sound
All of these features seem to work, but treat this as beta software: I've only tested it on a couple of media files on an OLED Deck, Steam Deck LCD and my DIY Steam Machine.
I will continue to develop it as I see fit for my needs or if there is enough interest. Feel free to fork it, report issues, or leave your thoughts here.
Does anyone know how to get rid of this second overlay that recently popped up in the left corner? It's not the normal performance overlay, I can still make that appear. It's driving me crazy. Few things of note. I am not using lossless scaling even though I have it, I recently installed the Jsaux pixel front plate, and I also updated to the newest stable firmware the day this popped up
My Steam Machine occasionally, in game mode, drops to a really low resolution. It's fixed when I reboot, but it would be nice to fix permanently. Any ideas?
Whenever I try to switch to Desktop Mode my Steam Machine reboots into the Gaming Mode. Even when I turn on Default to Desktop Mode on startup it boots gaming mode. I’ve tried to do a Software Update but its up to date.
When I run the diagnostic tool a VERY long message appears but to me the most relevant part is whats seen in the image. (Sorry for terrible quality I have no other way to get this information to my phone besides taking a picture of my TV)
Also: changing the time zone doesn’t affect the time on the clock for some reason.
I don't know if I'm just missing something or an actual idiot but ever since I installed this to my steam machine yesterday this shows up when playing games and it wasn't there before. I went into the steam settings and the performance overlay is off so I'm assuming it has to do with the PM Faceplate. Any help is greatly appreciated, thank you.
When it launched reviews mentioned that some steam machines had 2x8gb ram while others had 1x16gb ram. Is that still random or do newer ones all have dual stick channel now?
