Duplicate compatdata added to $HOME for games launched from an external disk when -steamdeck is passed to Steam

[rialpa84]

I keep my games and their compatdata on a ZFS pool added as an external disk in Steam and when I use this to start a Steam BPM session for HDR gaming on CachyOS I noticed that it was creating a new prefix for every game I'd want to play under $HOME/local/share/steam instead of using the designated external disk location my games reside on like how Steam normally behaves on the desktop.

I only caught this because I was switching between my desktop and BPM sessions to see how HDR gaming was coming along and it loaded an Elden Ring save where I was level 20 instead of 78.

Due to the name of the flag I'm assuming this is a quirk for the Steam deck and not the intended behavior for a desktop session or a desktop program. With -steamdeck removed from the CLIENTCMD it uses the compatdata off the external disk, no longer creates it again under $HOME, and everything else seems to be working as expected including HDR.

[alkazar]

That is good to know, but we can't remove the -steamdeck option. IIRC that would remove things like the UI for OS updates, mangohud enablement, and others.

I think you would have to convince Valve to change Steam.

[rialpa84]

I see. I wasn't sure why which flags were used for what in the script so the extras that -steamdeck adds was nice to find out. Thanks.

I'll let Valve know. I was more interested in telling y'all since this is in the AUR and I know that I can't be the only Linux user with games on an external volume alternating between desktop and gaming sessions for HDR.

This can be triggered without anything related to ChimeraOS. Just passing -steamdeck on a desktop is enough to trigger Steam to recreate the compatdata under $HOME instead of using the existing data on the external volume.

I created an issue over at Valve.