DroidDeck looks great but at the moment only really seems good for Qualcomm devices. I tested a fork that is adding other GPU support on my Pixel Fold yesterday and got a few games to run but most did not. Balatro ran but was missing text, Half Life 1 worked pretty much fine, a lot of games did not boot at all. I am impressed at DroidDeck’s desktop mode though, they have a Wayland KDE session and Flatpak running, something Termux doesn’t seem to have working yet.
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I just ordered an Ayn Thor recently but I’m going to put proper Linux on it with ArmadaOS or something.
That’s what I plan to do, at least with ArmadaOS. I don’t think you can put actual SteamOS from Valve on it, it needs to be an ARM Linux OS tailored to the hardware that runs the SteamOS components. ArmadaOS seems to be a Fedora spin similar to Bazzite.
ArmadaOS made my a y n Thor about 300% more usable and I absolutely love the thing now, having been included in the first batch but letting it sit on the shelf for months while the software ecosystem cooked.
I play Megabonk on it pretty much every night but I was impressed with its ability to play real 3D games and I played through considerable chunks of Ghostwire Tokyo with the thing.
It’s tragic that the soc is a few Generations behind, but there’s still plenty of untapped horsepower there.
I hadn’t heard of ArmadaOS before. Does it really make that big of a difference compared to running GameNative on android? Cause 3D games really do suffer.
Disclaimer, I don’t play a lot of android games now but I still have a partition to fall back on when I want to access that or any of the emulators that were built for dual screen. Those can live INSIDE ArmadaOS as well, with Waydroid.
But in a word, ‘Yes.’ it made my Thor a miniature Steam Deck. Complete with dual-screen capable desktop environment and the ability to plug into a keyboard, mouse and monitor with a dock and use like a tiny laptop or desktop.
It makes my hand held so much more versatile, even if it’s a little more battery hungry.
But it feels like dropping into Steamos as opposed to launching a VM and trhn signing into Steam and then trying to troubleshoot game compatibility within those layers, all underneath Android.
I instead open the clamshell and it plays all my startup Steam videos like a jukebox, rotating a new one each time, and actually let’s me play my steam games with fri nds online if I so choose.
DroidDeck looks great but at the moment only really seems good for Qualcomm devices. I tested a fork that is adding other GPU support on my Pixel Fold yesterday and got a few games to run but most did not. Balatro ran but was missing text, Half Life 1 worked pretty much fine, a lot of games did not boot at all. I am impressed at DroidDeck’s desktop mode though, they have a Wayland KDE session and Flatpak running, something Termux doesn’t seem to have working yet.
e I just ordered an Ayn Thor recently but I’m going to put proper Linux on it with ArmadaOS or something.
I think you can put SteamOS on the Thor now that Valve has put out an ARM version for the Frame.
That’s what I plan to do, at least with ArmadaOS. I don’t think you can put actual SteamOS from Valve on it, it needs to be an ARM Linux OS tailored to the hardware that runs the SteamOS components. ArmadaOS seems to be a Fedora spin similar to Bazzite.
I didn’t really look into it, but saw articles (and lots of videos on YT) like this: https://vr.org/articles/steam-frame-steamos-android-handhelds-rocknix-lepton-2026
I’m sure it’s constantly being improved, but it looks like you can do it. They’re using the ARM SteamOS image Valve put out for Frame I think.
ArmadaOS made my a y n Thor about 300% more usable and I absolutely love the thing now, having been included in the first batch but letting it sit on the shelf for months while the software ecosystem cooked.
I play Megabonk on it pretty much every night but I was impressed with its ability to play real 3D games and I played through considerable chunks of Ghostwire Tokyo with the thing.
It’s tragic that the soc is a few Generations behind, but there’s still plenty of untapped horsepower there.
I hadn’t heard of ArmadaOS before. Does it really make that big of a difference compared to running GameNative on android? Cause 3D games really do suffer.
Disclaimer, I don’t play a lot of android games now but I still have a partition to fall back on when I want to access that or any of the emulators that were built for dual screen. Those can live INSIDE ArmadaOS as well, with Waydroid.
But in a word, ‘Yes.’ it made my Thor a miniature Steam Deck. Complete with dual-screen capable desktop environment and the ability to plug into a keyboard, mouse and monitor with a dock and use like a tiny laptop or desktop.
It makes my hand held so much more versatile, even if it’s a little more battery hungry.
But it feels like dropping into Steamos as opposed to launching a VM and trhn signing into Steam and then trying to troubleshoot game compatibility within those layers, all underneath Android.
I instead open the clamshell and it plays all my startup Steam videos like a jukebox, rotating a new one each time, and actually let’s me play my steam games with fri nds online if I so choose.
Very more feature complete.