v0.8.6: The Party Continues

The first release under new maintainership. PartyDeck is alive and well, this one was delayed a bit because both @davidawesome02-backup and I (@Blahkaey) have been busy planning and building new features behind the scenes. This release is on the smaller side feature wise, but expect some follow up releases with cool new additions soon.

What's Changed

• Docs: Revert wunnr final commit and add minimal required continuation changes by @davidawesome02-backup in #152
• feat: add mangohud toggle by @Blahkaey in #154
• Update git module and bug report asignees to properly work. by @davidawesome02-backup in #155
• build: added release workflow and moved build scripts to build.rs by @Blahkaey in #153
• Bug fixes and improvements by @Blahkaey in #156
• Remove walkdir dependency, use Zip crate for zip_dir by @Xyphyn in #161
• Add deps patch to main build to fix gamescope or any other deps by @davidawesome02-backup in #162
• fix: kwin scaling by @Blahkaey in #167

New Contributors

• @Xyphyn made their first contribution in #161

Full Changelog: final...v0.8.6

New discussion fourm!

We just launched a matrix instance you guys can join to give comments or get help on, for more information, read #168
Join URL: https://matrix.to/#/#partydeck:matrix.org

DO NOT USE - 0.9.999999: Fin

Warning

Do not use this release, this is saved for historic purposes, but has known flaws that are being fixed in continuing updates primarily by davidawesome02-backup and Blahkaey

Fin

This is the final release of PartyDeck, the app will no longer be supported after this. I encourage anyone to start a fork and take the project further. This release is untested, so if you find anything broken that worked in the previous release, feel free to revert to that version. Thanks all for supporting and using PartyDeck, happy gaming!

Changelog

• UI updates
• New option to toggle per-profile environments (this was enabled by default, but can now be disabled)
• Case-unsensitive file extension check for determining if a game is Windows-based (thanks @framilano!)
• Moved Proton settings into their own tab on the settings page
• Added option to enable experimental WoW64 mode for Proton
• Added support for Steam Runtime 3.0 (sniper) and 4.0 (unused) for handlers
• Removed unnecessary dependencies, reducing the file size of the executable (thanks @davidawesome02-backup!)
• "General system stability improvements to enhance the user's experience" :P

0.8.5: Steamed Hams

Changelog

• PartyDeck now uses Goldberg's steamclient emulator rather than binding over games' steam_api dlls. This should lead to better compatibility with games.
• In select games that use the Steamworks API, selecting an in-game button that would normally bring up the Steam Overlay's friend invite window (e.g. "Invite Friends" menu options) on one instance will now automatically bring all other instances into the lobby.
• SDL2 overriding moved from a global setting to a per-handler setting, as it's only needed in a few older native games.
• Handlers now have an internal "specification version": if any breaking changes are made to the handler format in the future, PartyDeck will warn about potential incompatibilities between handler and launcher. If you have a handler that isn't broken by the format update and want to get rid of the warning, you can edit your handler (rightclick the handler -> Edit) and update the specification.
• Various UI updates.

If you have handlers that were broken by this update, updated versions of handlers have been uploaded here.
I anticipate that the move to goldberg steamclient may cause issues; if you notice games that previously worked but are now broken, don't hesitate to write a bug report! Happy gaming!

0.8.3

Changelog

• Profiles now generate Windows user folders (Desktop and Saved Games) that certain Windows programs might expect to exist
• Profiles now generate a configs.overlay.ini file in case any handlers need to use the Goldberg experimental overlay
• A new file GamingModeLauncher.sh has been added for easy launching from SteamOS's Gaming Mode, simply add this script as a shortcut to Steam

0.8.2

Changelog

• (Hopefully) fixed the mounting and unmounting of game dirs through fuse-overlayfs
• Added an option to disable mounting game dirs and force running instances from the original game directory. This breaks handlers with "overlay" folders for mod content as well as per-profile saves inside the game directory (saves from other locations such as $HOME or AppData/Documents still work fine), but may be useful for debugging
• Handlers: Added a $INSTANCECOUNT arg variable that fills in the number of instances being ran. (For example, if you put in the args +com_maxplayers $INSTANCECOUNT, and launched the game with 4 instances, each instance would run with +com_maxplayers 4.
• Added back a missing goldberg .so file for 32-bit native Linux games

Reminder: if you're updating from 0.7.0 or earlier, you'll want to clear your entire ~/.local/share/partydeck folder as handlers, profiles and prefixes from 0.7.0 and below are not compatible with 0.8.0 and up!

0.8.1

Changelog

• The launcher now properly warns users to install fuse-overlayfs if the executable can't be found
• Handlers: the $GAMEDIR launch option can be concatenated (e.g. $GAMEDIR/dir now properly references the subdirectory of the gamedir) and now converts to Windows-style formatting for Windows games (e.g. /path/to/gamedir becomes Z:\path\to\gamedir), and you can now use $HANDLERDIR to reference the handler's directory (e.g. using $HANDLERDIR/mods to reference a custom directory from within the handler)
• Gamescope-kbm reverted to an earlier version, should fix the libdisplay-info.so.3: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory on certain distros while I figure out a real fix
• Gamescope settings now has the option to use --force-grab-cursor flag

Reminder: if you're updating from 0.7.0 or earlier, you'll want to clear your entire ~/.local/share/partydeck folder as handlers, profiles and prefixes from 0.7.0 and below are not compatible with 0.8.0 and up!

0.8.0: DIY

⚠️ This release makes breaking changes to almost everything! Handlers, profiles, and prefixes from previous PartyDeck versions will not work in this version! I recommend backing up any profile save data you have and then completely wiping the ~/.local/share/partydeck/ folder and starting over.

Changelog

• The handler format has been reworked to allow for easier loading, saving and creation. Along with this, the new GUI handler creation wizard allows anyone to add support for their games in just a minute or two! Simply click the + button in the games list to get started. For games that include mods or require a more complicated setup to launch, handler packages can be imported just like before by clicking the ⬇ button, and handlers can be exported by right-clicking the handler and selecting Export.
• Profiles are now automatically given their own Windows user data (AppData/Documents) and $HOME folder for Linux games. In addition, game folders are now mounted with a profile "gamesave" folder on top so that profiles can hold their own unique save data even for games that store that save data in their own folders rather than in the aforementioned user data folders. Note that this requires fuse-overlayfs to be installed (SteamOS includes this already).
• Instances are run in separate Proton prefixes by default now, as this seems to be generally less problematic when running Windows games. You can still disable this and run all instances in one prefix if you wish to save disk space and the games you play aren't impacted.
• Various tweaks and additions to the UI

I'm sure that with the amount of stuff refactored or overhauled that there will be new bugs and problems. If you notice any missing functionality, games that previously worked being broken, or crashes, feel free to write up an issue. Enjoy!

0.7.0: Multi-Man Melee

Changelog

• Initial support for choosing which monitor an instance launches to. This requires having the SDL backend enabled in the Gamescope settings. The KWin tiling script has also been updated to tile gamescope windows on their respective monitors.
• Handlers can now force PartyDeck to wait a specified amount of time in-between instance launches with the "game.pause_between_starts" field.
• The option for handlers to have unique .local/share folders per-profile was broken. This has been fixed.

I anticipate there will be many issues with this initial multi-monitor implementation, so be sure to create an issue if you experience instances going on the wrong monitors, having the wrong resolution or aspect ratio, or any other related problems.

Happy gaming!

0.6.2: Come Out And Play

Changelog

• Added an option to have each instance run on a separate Proton prefix. This takes up more disk space, but may help with certain Proton-related issues such as only one instance opening on Windows games.

0.6.1: Fixer-Upper

Changelog

• If any instance has a resolution lower than 600p, that instance now automatically gets resized to 600p before launch to prevent graphical glitches/crashes with certain games. This is enabled by default but can be disabled if you want pixel-perfect instances and the game you're playing supports lower resolutions.
• On sessions with three instances, all three instances will now have the same size, instead of one of them being ultrawide. This unfortunately means that three-player sessions won't take up all screen space, but is a temporary fix for an issue where the KWin script wouldn't apply the three-instance layout correctly #35
• Added a tooltip in the devices section with instructions to help with devices not being detected
• Changed wording in the Instances menu so each button's functions are more clear