7 methods to customise your Steam Deck

The Steam Deck is mainly a small pc in your fingers. Its primary function is playing games, however it’s much more open to customization than different consoles or even the Switch. Regardless that you could possibly simply use it with no downside as it’s out of the field, you would be lacking out on so many prospects.

Personalizing your Steam Deck is available in two primary flavors: aesthetic and technical. The previous includes giving your deck a singular, cool look, whereas the latter focuses on ease of use and bettering efficiency. I perceive that delving into the technical particulars generally is a bit intimidating, so I’ve chosen seven of the good and most helpful customization suggestions that you must check out, none of which require a level in pc science.

Steam Deck

The Steam Deck is like having a handheld gaming PC in your fingers that performs a ton of pc video games

1 Change your startup film

A contemporary boot display

The very first thing you will notice when turning in your Steam Deck can be a bit startup film earlier than it drops you into the principle UI. Valve anticipated that individuals may get bored with the default and generously included a option to change it. Simply head to the Factors Store to money in any Steam Factors you might have gathered to get a contemporary intro from certainly one of your favourite video games.

Should you’re prepared to do some extra tinkering within the desktop mode, you may technically add any video file to the boot animation. This might be something from a house video to your favourite YouTube clip, or something in between that you just need to see earlier than attending to the video games.

2 Decide your keyboard theme

Flashy keys

Going proper alongside together with your startup film, an alternative choice you may spend your Steam Factors on is varied keyboard themes. These clearly will not change any performance of the digital keyboard however can provide it a extra pleasing coloration palette and are a small option to add a private contact to your deck.

You get a few free keyboard themes to start out with, with the remaining costing you the aforementioned Steam Factors. Sadly, not like the boot motion pictures, there does not appear to be a manner so as to add your individual customized keyboards right here, and it’s important to make do with those provided on the system.

3 Experiment with Decky Loader

Make it your individual

Decky Loader

If we’re going to speak about tweaking nearly each beauty facet of your Steam Deck, I’ve to name within the massive weapons and go straight to Decky Loader. It is a plugin that you have to set up by means of desktop mode, however it’s simply well worth the small quantity of bother required.

There’s virtually an excessive amount of this program does to cowl comprehensively, however some highlights embrace altering the system’s sound results, animations, menu kinds, and a lot extra. It even makes accessing settings simpler with a Fast Entry menu.

4 Tweak your efficiency settings

Stability your energy and efficiency

When you cannot get fairly as granular with settings as on a PC, the choices the Steam Deck provides for getting video games to run and look pretty much as good as attainable are often ample. Relying on the sport, tweaking just a few settings may considerably enhance your expertise and even assist preserve battery on a protracted journey.

Simply going into the Efficiency Settings menu enables you to modify issues just like the system’s FPS restrict, refresh charge, HDR, and extra, relying on the sport and scenario. You’ll be able to push the deck to the restrict however run out of energy in an hour, or scale issues again to final so long as attainable.

5 Flip off (or on) notifications

Don’t disturb

Gaming is a implausible communal expertise. That stated, generally I simply need to play a single-player recreation in peace with none distractions. The Steam Deck must be nice for that in idea because it enables you to get away out of your PC, however by default, you find yourself bringing all of your Steam distractions with you.

Even should you do not thoughts the occasional notification, I nonetheless extremely advocate you go into the Notifications part of the Settings menu to see what notifications are on. You’ll be able to disable any non-critical ones on a regular basis, solely whereas in a recreation, or choose and select what you get advised about and the way.

6 Remap your buttons

Default is not at all times finest

For probably the most half, Steam video games are likely to have good controller assist by default. This is actually because video games are developed for each PC and consoles. Nevertheless, there are a major variety of PC-exclusive titles that weren’t designed to be performed with a controller. When you have the choice to make use of a keyboard and mouse together with your Steam Deck, this is not at all times sensible, particularly while you’re on the transfer.

Should you hit the Steam button whereas in a recreation and entry Controller Settings, you may absolutely rebind all of the controls to fit your preferences. It is a very deep system, too, permitting for issues like customized radial buttons and extra. This additionally works should you’re taking part in with a Bluetooth-connected controller just like the PS4 or PS5 controller.

7 Allow a lock display

Keep protected

It is a function that I believe must be enabled by default and isn’t solely a pleasant little bit of customization but in addition added safety. A lock display to your Steam Deck behaves precisely prefer it would on your iPhone. You merely arrange a six-digit password that must be entered to entry your system. Enabling a lock display is finished within the Safety part of your settings and could be triggered to pop up both while you wake the console up from sleep, or solely when going into desktop mode.