garenyondem / steam-deck-utilities

Scripts to help make the Steam Deck the best it can be.

CryoUtilities

Scripts and utilities to improve performance and manage storage on the Steam Deck.

Update

Major update! The entire project has been rewritten in Go, and now contains more functionality!

If you're interested, please see the announcement video here, where I go over all the new features and how they work.

Functionality

• NEW One-click set-to-recommended settings
• NEW One-click revert-to-stock settings
• Swap Tuner
  • Swap File Resizer
  • Swappiness Changer
• NEW Memory Parameter Tuning
  • NEW HugePages Toggle
  • NEW Compaction Proactiveness Changer
  • NEW HugePage Defragmentation Toggle
  • NEW Page Lock Unfairness Changer
  • NEW Shared Memory (shmem) Toggle
• NEW Storage Manager
  • NEW Sync shadercache and compatdata to the same location the game is installed
  • NEW Delete shadercache and compatdata for whichever games you select
• NEW Full CLI mode

Look below for common questions and answers, or go check out my YouTube Channel for examples on how to use this and what performance you can expect.

Install

Download this link to your desktop (right click and save file) on your Steam Deck, then double-click it.

This will install the program, create desktop icons, and create menu entries.

Usage

NOTE: This REQUIRES a password set on the Steam Deck. That can be done with the passwd command.

GUI

After installation, just run the "CryoUtilities" icon on the desktop or the application menu under "Utilities".

CLI

The latest version has a full CLI handler, which can be used to perform all tweaks, but doesn't perform game data operations.

sudo ~/.cryo_utilities/cryo_utilities <command> [parameter]

If you want to see the available commands and accepted values, you can use:

sudo ~/.cryo_utilities/cryo_utilities help

Note: You need to use sudo for the tweaks to work, otherwise it can't write to the necessary locations on disk.

Upgrade

Double-click the "Update CryoUtilities" icon on the desktop, you will get a dialog box when the update is complete.

Uninstall

Double-click the "Uninstall CryoUtilities" icon on the desktop, you will be asked if you're sure, then asked if you want to revert the tweaks that have been made.

Revert To Default Settings

To revert to the Steam Deck defaults, do one of the following:

• Boot CryoUtilities and click "Stock" on the homepage.
• Uninstall CryoUtilities, you'll be asked if you want to revert to stock settings. Choose yes.

After choosing these options, the Deck will be identical to an unmodified version.

Known Issues

• If the drive becomes full during the swap file resize, you can trigger a known SteamOS bug that causes boot loops.
  • CryoUtilities is programmed in such a way to not allow this, but in the very worst cases it's still possible if something is operating/downloading in the background, at the same time CryoUtilities resizes the swap file.
  • In the event that it happens, you need to either get into a live environment and delete some files, or reinstall SteamOS with the non-destructive method.
• While using CLI mode, it is possible that the swap file resize takes long enough that the sudo credentials will time out.
  • This does not occur in GUI mode, due to how I was able to implement authentication, and will be patched out of CLI-only mode soon.

FAQ

See the FAQ page.

What does it do?

See the tweak explanation page.

Troubleshooting

CryoUtilities doesn't appear after double-clicking the icon on the desktop

• Make sure that you're using SteamOS 3.4 or later
• Verify that /home/deck/.cryo_utilities/cryo_utilities and /home/deck/.cryo_utilities/launcher.sh exist
  • /home/deck/.cryo_utilities is a hidden directory, so ensure that you can view hidden files

If the above doesn't work, please open an issue here or contact in the Discord!

I have instability in a game after using CryoUtilities' recommended settings

Try rebooting the Deck and trying again, I haven't heard of instability post-reboot, but if you find some please let me know!

Right-clicking the link to save it doesn't open a dialog box

Reboot the Deck or restart desktop mode, afterwards the link should work.

The .desktop file just opens with KWrite after I download it.

Make sure the CryoUtilities.desktop file is on the desktop when you run it. If that still doesn't work, try one of the following:

• Run chmod +x ~/Downloads/InstallCryoUtilities.desktop and then try again.
• Add CryoUtilities.desktop as a Non-Steam game and run it from Steam.

The swap resize times out

Go to Game Mode, navigate to Settings > System, then press "Run storage device maintenance tasks" at the very bottom. After it's completed, you should be able to resize the swap file easily.

Trying to do anything crashes the program

Make sure that you installed using the installer. If you can't, then run:

chown -R deck:deck ~/.cryo_utilities
chmod -R 777 ~/.cryo_utilities

These permissions are more open than necessary, though, so only do it as a last resort.