Enabling Steam Deck UI on Any PC: A Simple Guide

The developer has created a simple way to test drive the Steam Deck UI on any PC, including Linux systems. This method is easily swappable and can be used to experiment with different interfaces without committing to purchasing a Steam Deck console.

To start, one must first ensure that Steam is installed on their computer. The author began by opening up Steam, allowing it to fully update, and then closing it down. Next, the user navigates to their Steam folder, located under Program Files (x86) > Steam. From this folder, they select the "Package" section.

To begin customizing their Steam experience, the user chooses to view file name extensions and adds a new file called "beta" inside the Package folder. This text file will be used to enable the Steam Deck UI on any PC. The author then opens up the "beta.txt" file and adds the necessary line of code, which is also detailed in the Reddit thread linked in the description.

Once the necessary changes have been made, the user deletes the ".txt" extension from the "beta.txt" filename and renames it simply to "beta". They must also navigate to their Steam launcher or shortcut on their desktop, right-clicking and selecting "Show more options", properties. From here, they can add "Gamepad UI" to the list of available features.

After making these changes, the user starts up Steam, which will update for them. Upon launch, the Steam Deck UI is displayed, offering a walkthrough and guidance on how to use it. The user can navigate through this interface using their keyboard or a game controller. Notably, the author tested the Steam Deck UI on Windows 11, but it should also work with Linux systems.

One of the benefits of this method is that it allows users to experiment with different interfaces without committing to purchasing a Steam Deck console. The user can launch games from within the Steam Deck UI and access their library of non-Steam games using their keyboard or game controller. To exit the Steam Deck UI, the user can press Alt + Enter to enter full-screen mode or close Steam completely.

The author tested this method by launching a game called "God of War" directly from within the Steam Deck UI. They also briefly demonstrated how to remove the Gamepad UI feature if desired, and re-enable it later on. The entire process is straightforward and can be completed in just a few steps.

Overall, enabling the Steam Deck UI on any PC offers an exciting way for users to experiment with different interfaces without committing to purchasing a console. With this method, users can enjoy the Steam Deck UI's sleek design and intuitive navigation without having to invest in a dedicated device.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's going on everybody it's eta prime back here again today i'm going to show you how to run the new steam deck ui on basically any pc i'm going to be using windows but it also works with linux and this is coming to us from a reddit user named gb2 big shout out there this is really awesome and i thought it was interesting enough to make a quick video on so obviously what i have here isn't a steam deck i'm still waiting on mine to ship and i will have some videos coming out but i'm going to be messing around with this ui for a little while on my laptop and my desktop and yeah this is actually really cool it works with a keyboard or a controller so if you do have a bluetooth or a wired controller connected to the pc you have this up and running on and if you do own a different kind of x86 handheld you could always set this up on there we've got the great on deck section here we can go into the settings update steam there's a lot of great little settings in here but unfortunately it doesn't give us that awesome overlay to show us the fps and everything like that while we're playing a game that's osd this is basically just switching up the way steam looks on your pc but this is the steam deck version of steam here so we have that full ui and it does work out really well so this is going to be a quick one but i do want to show you how to enable it i'm going to actually move over to my desktop pc i haven't set this up on there yet i'll just give you a quick walkthrough and by the way you can easily swap back to the older version of steam or just use big picture if you want to it's really easy to enable and disable this okay so this method is actually really simple like i mentioned i will leave a link to the reddit thread in the description you can go ahead and follow along there or just follow the video it's really up to you but i really thought that this was awesome and it's a great way to kind of test drive the steam deck ui on basically any pc this also works with linux he goes through on how to set this up with linux but we're on windows 11 it's also going to work the same way on windows 10. first things first you do need steam installed i just started mine up to get it fully updated and now i'm just going to go ahead and close it down so the first thing we need to do is navigate to our steam folder mine's on my local c drive it's going to be under program files x86 we'll find steam from here and from the steam folder we want to go to package so the very first thing i recommend doing is going up to your view we're going to go to show and file extensions we want file name extensions to show we're going to create a new file inside of this packages folder and we're going to call it beta so i'm just going to right click new and i want to create a text document from here i'm going to name this beta and we will have to change this in a second but it just makes it easier to go ahead and edit as a text file we'll open this up and basically what we need to do from here is just add this line right here in the text file it's on screen now it's also listed over in that reddit thread and just a heads up i'm not sure if this is going to change in the future but just keep an eye on that thread just in case it does and this one here doesn't work we're going to choose file save we're going to close the text file down and now we want to delete the dot txt behind this beta.txt we just created so we're going to right click and from here show more options since i'm on windows 11 we'll rename and we want to get rid of any extension on this that's why we enabled show extensions it's just going to be called beta it's going to give us a warning we'll choose yes and we're done with that now there's one more thing we need to do we're gonna head over to our steam launcher or our steam shortcut on our desktop it's usually located on your desktop once you install steam we're gonna right click show more options properties and at the very end right here we're gonna add gamepad ui it's on screen now really easy to do we'll click apply continue okay and now we're gonna start up steam it's gonna update for us and you'll be in the steam deck ui so it's actually really easy to do and as you see here this is the first time starting it up on this machine so it's going to give you a little walkthrough and if you want to go full screen just press alt enter and uh you can just walk through it with your keyboard it also works with a game pad but now you have that steam deck ui that you can mess around with so from over here we can go to our library great on deck all games installed non-steam you can navigate with a controller or a keyboard through here also and uh yeah i mean if you want to launch a game i'll just go with uh god of war real quick it'll go ahead and launch it so i'm actually just going to exit this real quick and yeah not bad at all really cool so if for some reason you get stuck here if we're not in total full screen mode we can go down to our steam icon and you can go to big picture mode or if you want to totally get rid of this we'll just close steam completely down we'll head over to our steam icon show more options properties and we're going to remove that gamepad ui from the end apply continue okay we'll start steam back up and it's going to be regular old steam it might need to do an update but there you have it got regular old steam back personally i will be messing around with the steam deck ui for a little while i think it looks really good even on a desktop monitor but that's it for this video really appreciate you watching i did think this was interesting enough to make a quick video on link to that reddit post is in the description like always thanks for watchinghey what's going on everybody it's eta prime back here again today i'm going to show you how to run the new steam deck ui on basically any pc i'm going to be using windows but it also works with linux and this is coming to us from a reddit user named gb2 big shout out there this is really awesome and i thought it was interesting enough to make a quick video on so obviously what i have here isn't a steam deck i'm still waiting on mine to ship and i will have some videos coming out but i'm going to be messing around with this ui for a little while on my laptop and my desktop and yeah this is actually really cool it works with a keyboard or a controller so if you do have a bluetooth or a wired controller connected to the pc you have this up and running on and if you do own a different kind of x86 handheld you could always set this up on there we've got the great on deck section here we can go into the settings update steam there's a lot of great little settings in here but unfortunately it doesn't give us that awesome overlay to show us the fps and everything like that while we're playing a game that's osd this is basically just switching up the way steam looks on your pc but this is the steam deck version of steam here so we have that full ui and it does work out really well so this is going to be a quick one but i do want to show you how to enable it i'm going to actually move over to my desktop pc i haven't set this up on there yet i'll just give you a quick walkthrough and by the way you can easily swap back to the older version of steam or just use big picture if you want to it's really easy to enable and disable this okay so this method is actually really simple like i mentioned i will leave a link to the reddit thread in the description you can go ahead and follow along there or just follow the video it's really up to you but i really thought that this was awesome and it's a great way to kind of test drive the steam deck ui on basically any pc this also works with linux he goes through on how to set this up with linux but we're on windows 11 it's also going to work the same way on windows 10. first things first you do need steam installed i just started mine up to get it fully updated and now i'm just going to go ahead and close it down so the first thing we need to do is navigate to our steam folder mine's on my local c drive it's going to be under program files x86 we'll find steam from here and from the steam folder we want to go to package so the very first thing i recommend doing is going up to your view we're going to go to show and file extensions we want file name extensions to show we're going to create a new file inside of this packages folder and we're going to call it beta so i'm just going to right click new and i want to create a text document from here i'm going to name this beta and we will have to change this in a second but it just makes it easier to go ahead and edit as a text file we'll open this up and basically what we need to do from here is just add this line right here in the text file it's on screen now it's also listed over in that reddit thread and just a heads up i'm not sure if this is going to change in the future but just keep an eye on that thread just in case it does and this one here doesn't work we're going to choose file save we're going to close the text file down and now we want to delete the dot txt behind this beta.txt we just created so we're going to right click and from here show more options since i'm on windows 11 we'll rename and we want to get rid of any extension on this that's why we enabled show extensions it's just going to be called beta it's going to give us a warning we'll choose yes and we're done with that now there's one more thing we need to do we're gonna head over to our steam launcher or our steam shortcut on our desktop it's usually located on your desktop once you install steam we're gonna right click show more options properties and at the very end right here we're gonna add gamepad ui it's on screen now really easy to do we'll click apply continue okay and now we're gonna start up steam it's gonna update for us and you'll be in the steam deck ui so it's actually really easy to do and as you see here this is the first time starting it up on this machine so it's going to give you a little walkthrough and if you want to go full screen just press alt enter and uh you can just walk through it with your keyboard it also works with a game pad but now you have that steam deck ui that you can mess around with so from over here we can go to our library great on deck all games installed non-steam you can navigate with a controller or a keyboard through here also and uh yeah i mean if you want to launch a game i'll just go with uh god of war real quick it'll go ahead and launch it so i'm actually just going to exit this real quick and yeah not bad at all really cool so if for some reason you get stuck here if we're not in total full screen mode we can go down to our steam icon and you can go to big picture mode or if you want to totally get rid of this we'll just close steam completely down we'll head over to our steam icon show more options properties and we're going to remove that gamepad ui from the end apply continue okay we'll start steam back up and it's going to be regular old steam it might need to do an update but there you have it got regular old steam back personally i will be messing around with the steam deck ui for a little while i think it looks really good even on a desktop monitor but that's it for this video really appreciate you watching i did think this was interesting enough to make a quick video on link to that reddit post is in the description like always thanks for watching\n"