Playing games

Install Steam, then press Play. bromigOS keeps everything a game needs to start ready by itself, and tells you only when something needs you.

Steam and Proton

Steam runs Windows games through Proton, a compatibility layer built on Wine. You don’t need to know how Proton works: bromigOS chooses a good one, keeps it current and repairs what would stop a game from starting.

Get started

1. Open Settings › Playing games and press Set up Steam. A terminal opens and asks for your password once. It installs Steam, GameMode, and the graphics drivers games need for the graphics cards in this computer.
2. Log out and back in.
3. Start Steam, sign in, install a game and press Play.

The first time Steam starts, bromigOS downloads the newest GE-Proton in the background. When you quit Steam, it makes it the Proton every game uses. GE-Proton is a community build of Proton with extra fixes for games and video. It’s checked against the checksum its makers publish before it’s installed.

What bromigOS does for you

After every bromigos update, and each time you quit Steam, bromigOS:

• installs the newest GE-Proton, and makes it the default when the default is missing or an older GE-Proton;
• points a game set to a Proton that isn’t installed any more back at one that is;
• puts the setting that lets Steam install its own runtimes back to Steam’s own value;
• moves a broken Steam Linux Runtime aside, so Steam installs a fresh one the next time you press Play;
• moves old GE-Proton versions that no game uses aside, keeping the newest two.

It never changes Steam’s files while Steam is open, because Steam would write its own settings back when it quits. It never starts or stops Steam. Everything it changes can be undone. Steam’s settings file is copied first, and anything it moves aside is kept for 14 days.

Your choices stay. If you picked another Proton as the default, such as Valve’s Proton Experimental, bromigOS keeps it. A game you set to a Proton that’s installed keeps it too.

Is everything ready?

Open Settings › Playing games. The top of the page says Games are ready, or lists what needs you, each with what to do. Hover over anything on the page to see what it is and does. The page also shows which Proton your games use.

Things bromigOS fixes by itself are listed with when it will fix them. To fix them now, close Steam and press Fix. If a leftover file from an older bromigOS set-up still changes your login screen, Fix asks for your password to remove it. Updates remove those files too.

When something needs you, such as a setting outside your home folder, you get one notification that says so. You get it once, not every time you quit Steam.

DLSS on NVIDIA

DLSS and Reflex need NVIDIA’s NVAPI, which Proton leaves off unless asked. On NVIDIA’s own driver, bromigOS turns it on for your session with PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1. You need nothing per game.

To swap a game’s DLSS for the newest version Proton has, add this to the game’s Properties › General › Launch Options:

PROTON_DLSS_UPGRADE=1 %command%

Use it per game. Some games check their DLSS files and refuse to start when they change.

With two graphics cards, a game may start on the wrong one. Then DLSS isn’t there and the game may crash. To keep games on one card, choose Games and heavy apps on it in Settings › Graphics, and turn on Start Steam on the games card. For one game only, set its Launch Options to:

bromigos hw run -- %command%

Run games on another card explains both. Underneath, bromigos hw run sets MESA_VK_DEVICE_SELECT=vendor:device, the card’s ID from bromigos hw graphics, such as 10de:2f04. That puts the card first in Vulkan’s list, and DXVK and vkd3d-proton use the first device. bromigos hw run --print shows what it sets.

If you changed the file that holds your session’s graphics settings, ~/.local/state/bromigos/hw/hyprland.lua, bromigOS leaves it alone and doesn’t turn NVAPI on. Settings › Playing games says so. To hand the file back to bromigOS, run:

mv ~/.local/state/bromigos/hw/hyprland.lua ~/hyprland.lua.mine
bromigos hw setup --user-only

Then log out and back in. Your own version stays in ~/hyprland.lua.mine.

Game mode

Game mode gives the focused game your keys, including Alt, Ctrl, letters and F-keys. It quiets notifications, stops idle locking and sleep, pauses the live wallpaper and hides panels (widgets). The bar shows GAME MODE.

Press Super+Ctrl+G to turn it on. Press Ctrl+Shift+F12 to leave. An on-screen message confirms entry and exit. The escape key appears when you enter. It is the only desktop shortcut that works during game mode. Leaving restores your previous notification state, panels and wallpaper behaviour.

You can also use Settings › Playing games or these commands:

bromigos game on
bromigos game off
bromigos game toggle
bromigos game status

If you need to recover from a TTY or SSH, run bromigos game off as your normal user. The keyboard escape resets the shortcut mode even if the helper cannot answer.

Your keyboard’s Game Mode key

After first installing this feature, log out and back in so the session loads its shortcuts, bar indicator and keyboard helper. Updating alone does not start the helper.

With the Razer keyboard module enabled, OpenRazer’s Game Mode key toggles bromigOS game mode. On a BlackWidow V4 Pro this is Fn+F10. Its gaming LED follows game mode, and turns off when you leave. Use Ctrl+Shift+F12 to leave even if the keyboard has disabled Super. See Keyboards and peripherals.

Automatic mode

Automatic mode is off by default. Turn it on in Settings › Playing games, or run:

bromigos game auto on

It enters when a fullscreen Steam, Windows, gamescope or Lutris game gets focus, and leaves when that game loses focus or stops being fullscreen. Launchers are excluded. Detached native games may need manual mode. If you leave with the escape key, automatic mode waits until focus or fullscreen changes before entering again.

To stop automatic mode, run bromigos game auto off. A game mode you turned on manually stays on when you switch windows.

Battle.net and StarCraft II

Battle.net uses the bar’s tray. Right-click its icon for its menu. After installing a tray-bridge update, log out and back in, then reopen Battle.net.

A Lutris shortcut can launch StarCraft II through an existing Battle.net installation. Set its Wine prefix and executable to the ones used by Battle.net and its arguments to --exec="launch S2". This uses that installation without creating another Wine prefix.

For power users

Everything above as commands, files and rules: to see exactly what bromigOS does, to script it, or to change it.

Every button, as a command

bromigos game setup               # install Steam, GameMode and your GPUs' 32-bit drivers
bromigos game check               # find what stops games from starting
bromigos game check --fix         # fix it now (close Steam first)
bromigos game maintain --dry-run  # what bromigOS would change by itself, changing nothing
bromigos game proton              # the Proton versions here
bromigos game proton install      # the latest GE-Proton
bromigos game proton install GE-Proton10-25   # one version
bromigos game proton remove GE-Proton10-25    # remove one (close Steam first)
bromigos game maintain            # the upkeep now: the newest GE-Proton, and Steam's files if Steam is closed

game setup --dry-run shows what setup would install. Steam needs the multilib repository, which holds 32-bit packages. If it’s off, setup says how to turn it on and stops.

game proton install downloads GE-Proton from its GitHub releases. It checks the download against the SHA-512 checksum published with it, and throws away a download that doesn’t match. Pick a version for one game in Steam: the game’s Properties › Compatibility. remove won’t remove a version games are still set to, unless you pass --force.

To see what bromigOS did and when, run:

journalctl --user -u bromigos-game-maintain

Settings › Playing games › Log opens the same list.

Script it

• bromigos game check exits 0 when games are ready, 1 when something needs fixing and 2 when it couldn’t check. --json gives each finding, with auto: true on those the upkeep repairs by itself.
• bromigos game setup, game proton and game maintain take --json too. game setup --yes doesn’t ask before it installs.
• game maintain looks for a new GE-Proton at most once an hour. --refresh looks now, --no-download doesn’t look. --wait waits for Steam to exit first, and --notify sends one notification for each new problem only you can fix. The service runs bromigos game maintain --wait --notify.

When the upkeep runs

• After bromigos update: its last step starts the upkeep in the background.
• Each time Steam starts or exits: the systemd user unit bromigos-game-maintain.path watches ~/.steam/steam.pid, which Steam writes as it starts, and ~/.local/share/Steam/config/config.vdf, which it writes as it exits. Either starts bromigos-game-maintain.service, at Nice=10 with idle I/O.
• The GE-Proton download starts at once. Steam’s files change only after Steam has exited and stayed closed for 15 seconds, because Steam restarts itself after its own updates.

How it decides

Steam keeps its tool choices in CompatToolMapping, in config/config.vdf under Steam’s folder (~/.steam/root, else ~/.local/share/Steam). Each entry maps a game’s app ID to a tool, a name and a priority. The entry "0" is the default for every game.

• The default. It becomes the newest GE-Proton when it names a tool that isn’t installed, is unset, or is an older GE-Proton. Any other tool that’s installed stays, such as proton_experimental, proton_9 or a TKG build. With no GE-Proton installed, a missing default becomes proton_experimental.
• The default’s priority goes back to 75. A higher one makes Steam run its own Linux runtimes through Proton, and installing them fails with “Invalid platform”.
• A game set to a missing tool loses its entry, so it follows the default. That’s what unticking “Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool” does. A game set to a GE-Proton or TKG build that’s gone gets the newest GE-Proton instead. Steam’s own tools count as present, since Steam downloads them itself.
• Old builds. GE-Proton and TKG folders in compatibilitytools.d that nothing uses move aside. The newest GE-Proton and the one before it stay. Links, a package’s tools in /usr/share/steam and other kinds of tool are never touched.
• Versions compare across GE’s naming schemes: Proton-6.21-GE-2 < GE-Proton7-43 < GE-Proton11-11-x86_64.

The files it touches

The developers’ version, with Steam’s file formats, is Steam and Proton.

What the check says

Reinstall a broken runtime by hand

If games quit at once and bromigos game check isn’t at hand:

1. Quit Steam (Steam › Exit).
2. In the Steam library that holds the runtime, delete the runtime’s folder in steamapps/common, for example SteamLinuxRuntime_4.
3. Delete steamapps/appmanifest_<id>.acf, steamapps/downloading/<id> and steamapps/temp/<id>. The ID of Steam Linux Runtime 4.0 is 4183110.
4. Start Steam and press Play on the game. Steam installs the runtime first.

Installing a runtime from a steam://install/ link doesn’t work. It fails with “Invalid platform”.

Turn off the automatic upkeep

To stop bromigOS from keeping Steam and Proton ready by itself, run:

systemctl --user mask bromigos-game-maintain.service

Updates then leave Steam and Proton alone too. systemctl --user unmask bromigos-game-maintain.service turns it back on.