Steam Deck & Linux guide

Three ways to run Pokopia Recomp on Linux & Steam Deck

Linux and SteamOS handheld players have three verified options depending on whether you prioritize Link Play co-op today, zero-Proton native execution, or pre-tuned Steam Deck LCD defaults:

Option 1: Recompia v0.11.1 Stable on SteamOS & Linux (Proton Experimental)

1. Switch your Steam Deck to Desktop Mode, open Steam, and install Proton Experimental under Library > Tools.
2. Download PokopiaRecomp-0.11.1-linux-x64.tar.gz (161.3 MB) from Download & SHA-256 and extract it into your home folder (internal NVMe SSD is strongly preferred over slow microSD storage).
3. Run PokopiaLauncher.AppImage inside the extracted folder (double-click or run ./PokopiaLauncher.AppImage in Konsole; if your Linux distribution has no FUSE support, run ./PokopiaLauncher.AppImage --appimage-extract-and-run).
4. Select your 2.0.1a dump folder and press Set up. On first run it downloads Python and Zig (~100 MB), compiles the game, and translates the shader cache through Proton. You can pause and resume at any time.
5. To launch directly from Steam Game Mode: in Desktop Mode, click Add a Non-Steam Game, pick PokopiaLauncher.AppImage, and set its Steam Launch Options to --play. (Without --play, the launcher also scales to full screen with touch-friendly controls in Game Mode since v0.10.2-beta.4, #461.)

Option 2: Recompia v0.12.0-beta.1 Native Linux (No Proton, glibc 2.35+)

Shipped in v0.12.0-beta.1 (#562), Recompia now compiles a true native Linux binary linked against libpkp_rt.so and SDL3:

• System requirements: any Linux x86_64 distribution with glibc 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04+, Debian 12+, Fedora 36+, Arch/CachyOS, Bazzite, and SteamOS 3) plus standard host graphics libraries (libvulkan, libEGL, libGL, libGLESv2).
• Why native Linux is leaner: runtime/src/os/ talks directly to POSIX files, memory mappings, sockets, and threads without Wine or wineserver. Page write tracking arms an entire memory range in a single mprotect call (cutting a 10 MiB arm from 3,132 µs down to 34 µs), and timed address waits use Linux futexes so the game’s ~100 µs GPU-fence polls no longer spin two CPU cores.

Option 3: tinfoil-chewer/pokopia-recomp-linux (v0.1.1-linux.2)

Maintained at github.com/tinfoil-chewer/pokopia-recomp-linux, this community Linux edition packages a 236.2 MB standalone AppImage (PokopiaLauncher-0.1.1-x86_64.AppImage) tested on an RTX 4070 Linux desktop, a Steam Deck LCD, and an AMD Steam Machine:

• 50–55 fps on Steam Deck LCD: detects SteamDeck=1 automatically, enables the game’s 720p handheld mode, sleeps short SleepThread waits so the CPU and GPU share the Deck’s 15 W APU power budget efficiently, and invokes Steam’s on-screen keyboard via steam://open/keyboard for name entry.
• 10-second microSD boot shader pack: packs the boot shaders into a single zstd archive after the first start, cutting startup shader loading on a microSD card from ~60 seconds down to ~10 seconds.
• View + Menu gamepad overlay: hold View + Menu together on the Steam Deck to open the Dear ImGui settings overlay and navigate with the D-pad.

Steam Deck OLED 45 fps vblank lock & AMD handheld tips

• 16:10 full-screen fit: Steam Deck and Legion Go S screens are recognized automatically so 16:10 displays fill edge to edge with no black bars and controller glyphs stay locked on screen.
• Steam Deck OLED 45 fps vblank lock (v0.11.0): on a 90 Hz Steam Deck OLED display, enable Vsync, set the frame rate limit to 45, and add vblank_lock = 1 under [latency] in pkp.ini so every frame holds for exactly two display refreshes without uneven frame pacing.
• Fixed "graphics device was lost" (v0.11.0 #531, #533): Ocelot fixed the random Vulkan device loss on Steam Deck RADV and the matching full freeze on Linux NVIDIA drivers by keeping host-visible graphics memory synchronized and guarding compute light-list loops ([nvn] loop_guard).
• Submitting handheld telemetry: after playing for ~20 minutes on a Steam Deck, ROG Ally, or Legion Go, open Settings > Testing and click Copy handheld report (#443) to copy an anonymized summary of your driver, memory, and frame times for GitHub bug reports.