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Steam Deck prospects boosted by EAC and BattlEye support

by Mark Tyson on 27 September 2021, 11:11

Tags: Valve, Epic Games

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Valve announced its Linux-based handheld PC/console for gaming on the go back in July. The new Steam Deck would enable convenient portable access to your PC games library, with a custom AMD APU, 7-inch 800p touchscreen, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, extensive built-in controls, and SteamOS 3.0 as standard (you can install a different OS if you wish). A slight weakness might be that Steam's Linux library isn't quite on a par with the Windows alternative, but Valve pledged to work hard so that its portable would play the vast majority of Steam games without a hitch, by the time it is launched properly (pre-order product rollout starts in December).

Over the last few days, we have seen some important pieces of the compatibility jigsaw fall into place, and I expect Valve's developers are now much more optimistic about getting the majority of Steam games working smoothly on the Linux-based Steam Deck.

On Friday, Epic Games announced that its Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) system for Windows would be extended to support Linux and Mac for developers who maintain full native builds of their games for these platforms. On Linux, it clarified that EAC will work with the Wine and Proton compatibility layers that are often used by gamers. Epic said it would only take a few clicks to add EAC for Linux via Wine or Proton in the Epic Online Services Developer Portal. Moreover, EAC is free for all users though Epic Online Services.

Major games on Steam which use EAC include; Apex Legends, Hunt: Showdown, Fall Guys, Fortnite, and the Halo Master Chief Collection.

On Saturday, BattleEye shared confirmation that its anti-cheat solution "will also support the upcoming Steam Deck (Proton)". Just like with EAC, developers will have to add the functionality, so it shouldn't be a problem for popular modern games which are still being services regularly to get this update too.

Major games on Steam which use BattlEye include; PUBG, Destiny 2, and Rainbow Six Siege.

Last but not least, it is interesting to see this Steam Deck initiative benefit the wider Linux (gaming) community. With continued tuning to make Linux games work better on the Steam Deck, Linux will become a more attractive choice for PC desktop and laptop users who like to game.

Steam Beta news

In another Steam news morsel, PCGamer is reporting that "you won't be able to revert to old game builds much longer". A new beta of the client is disabling the older game version reverting feature, an aspect of Steam which is enjoyed/appreciated by modders, speed runners, archivists, and others. At the time of writing, it hasn't been confirmed if this beta feature will make it to the mainstream release.



HEXUS Forums :: 5 Comments

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This is huge for the Linux gaming community. The mvasg majority of games on ProtonDB that don't work are down to anti cheat systems not being compatible. If they can get all the major ones on board thst removes a massive hurdle.
spacein_vader
This is huge for the Linux gaming community. The mvasg majority of games on ProtonDB that don't work are down to anti cheat systems not being compatible. If they can get all the major ones on board thst removes a massive hurdle.

This is a very big thing, it could homogenise/blur the barrier massively between windows and linux gaming and make it so that in reality, there may be a time you won't need Windows to game (we can only hope!).

It would be nice to have a Steam Deck that you could also load linux versions of the other major game stores like Epic and Origin and make them easily switchable between Steam et al because at its core, it is just Arch Linux
Awesome Steam Machines for the wi… oh, opps.

Anyway, I've pre-ordered and WILL be installing Windows 10 or 11. If I like it, it'll stay. If not, eBay. I used to REALLY like my Asus R2h UMPC, back in the day, despite it featuring a celeron cpu.
excalibur1814
…..Anyway, I've pre-ordered and WILL be installing Windows 10 or 11…
Is there a reason you seem so adamant that you won't be using Steam OS, even before trying it? I use 5-6 different Operating Systems everyday. I wouldn't dream of putting Windows on a Chromebook or using Windows for my mobile phone. You have to use the correct tool for the job. What advantages are you expecting Windows to have over Steam OS for the Steam Deck?
No-one said that I wouldn't be trying the default OS. I will. Ideally I'd like dual boot.

Windows and Steam have ALL of my games. As stated, I actually liked the UMPC format and owned a couple.

There's not really a reason NOT to install Windows (as long as you can re-install the standard OS).