Launching Godot Games on Steam Deck from the command line via Remote Shell
For some reason, my Godot game would no longer launch on the Steam Deck. I could hear it running as if it were running in the background, but the screen kept showing the Steam Deck’s UI.
Since it’s all Linux I figured it should be possible to just drop to the command line and launch a game from there. Linux typically uses the DISPLAY environment variable to tell the application where its output should be shown. And it turns out, it worked exactly as expected.
In the Steam Devkit Management Tool, there’s a
Remote Shell
button.
Once the shell is launched, I was curious about the OS:
Last login: Sun Jul 3113:40:302022 from 10.10.1.10(deck@steamdeck ~)$ uname -aLinux steamdeck 5.13.0-valve15-1-neptune-02197-gf6ec7ad3762a #1SMPPREEMPT Thu, 26 May 202219:57:25+0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux
The location where Steam keeps its games is somewhat hidden:
(deck@steamdeck ~)$ls /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/ Age2HD RiME'BattleBlock Theater'RimWorldCarrion rocketleagueControl'Sea of Thieves''Deep Rock Galactic'"Sid Meier's Civilization V"'Disco Elysium''Skyrim Special Edition'"Don't Starve Together"'Stardew Valley''Elite Dangerous''Steam Controller Configs''Fable Anniversary'Steam.dllFactorioSteamLinuxRuntime'Fury Unleashed'SteamLinuxRuntime_soldier'Neon Abyss''Steamworks Shared'OutwardStickFightTheGame'Proton 7.0''Super Meat Boy''Proton - Experimental'TerrariaRBSValheim'Red Dead Redemption 2'
But a devkit game won’t be found there. It’s in the “devkit-game” directory instead:
And it’s running. Launching games via the command line works well, and this may be great for debugging slightly more complex issues during launch, especially when attaching a debugger, or even when passing arguments to trigger specific scenarios on an actual device.
We can take this up to another level. How about sharing your PC’s mouse and keyboard with the Steam Deck? Let’s go.
It’s not Far Cry, nor Crysis, but it could be. The Realistic Jungle Demo demonstrates that Godot is capable of impressive visuals. If you want to run it yourself, download it from https://wrobot.itch.io/jungledemo. It was announced in this Reddit post. Update: The source code was released (with the commercial assets removed).
It’s been about a year since Valve announced the Steam Deck. Back then, I pre-ordered it as soon as I could, then things were quiet for a year. A few days ago I received the availability notice: I completed the purchase, and it arrived a few days later. Steam Deck Arrival I unpacked it, plugged …
A new version of the Inventory System is available with more multiplayer-related features. The Multiplayer Interaction Demo can now run in multiple modes, through two separate implementations of the Character scene: The simple character scene leverages the MultiplayerSynchronizer and can either let the client have authority and move the character, or have the client send …
Right after I got my Steam Deck, I wanted to know how hard it is to get a Godot game running on it. What’s the developer experience for someone who’s stepping through this for the first time? It was really easy to do, so I’m sharing this here, whether you’re following along or like to …
Launching Godot Games on Steam Deck from the command line via Remote Shell
For some reason, my Godot game would no longer launch on the Steam Deck. I could hear it running as if it were running in the background, but the screen kept showing the Steam Deck’s UI.
Since it’s all Linux I figured it should be possible to just drop to the command line and launch a game from there. Linux typically uses the DISPLAY environment variable to tell the application where its output should be shown. And it turns out, it worked exactly as expected.
In the Steam Devkit Management Tool, there’s a
Remote Shellbutton.Once the shell is launched, I was curious about the OS:
The location where Steam keeps its games is somewhat hidden:
But a devkit game won’t be found there. It’s in the “devkit-game” directory instead:
To run a game, go to the devkit directory where your game is and run it from the command line:
In Linux, output goes to the device specified via the DISPLAY env var. When connecting to the Steam Deck via shell, that is missing, hence the error.
Let’s run it again, with the DISPLAY environment variable set to the first device:
And it’s running. Launching games via the command line works well, and this may be great for debugging slightly more complex issues during launch, especially when attaching a debugger, or even when passing arguments to trigger specific scenarios on an actual device.
We can take this up to another level. How about sharing your PC’s mouse and keyboard with the Steam Deck? Let’s go.
Related Posts
The Godot Jungle Demo
It’s not Far Cry, nor Crysis, but it could be. The Realistic Jungle Demo demonstrates that Godot is capable of impressive visuals. If you want to run it yourself, download it from https://wrobot.itch.io/jungledemo. It was announced in this Reddit post. Update: The source code was released (with the commercial assets removed).
My Steam Deck has arrived!
It’s been about a year since Valve announced the Steam Deck. Back then, I pre-ordered it as soon as I could, then things were quiet for a year. A few days ago I received the availability notice: I completed the purchase, and it arrived a few days later. Steam Deck Arrival I unpacked it, plugged …
Inventory System v1.14 available
A new version of the Inventory System is available with more multiplayer-related features. The Multiplayer Interaction Demo can now run in multiple modes, through two separate implementations of the Character scene: The simple character scene leverages the MultiplayerSynchronizer and can either let the client have authority and move the character, or have the client send …
Running Godot Games on Steam Deck
Right after I got my Steam Deck, I wanted to know how hard it is to get a Godot game running on it. What’s the developer experience for someone who’s stepping through this for the first time? It was really easy to do, so I’m sharing this here, whether you’re following along or like to …