It's no secret that I love my Steam Deck, and one of the things that makes it better is the plugins supplied by Decky Loader. It's even better on more powerful hardware like the ROG Ally X if you install SteamOS, because it gives you more computing grunt to run your games, on top of the boost from Linux's lower resource usage.

But let's go back to the Steam Deck for a moment, because it doesn't support one of the things more powerful gaming handhelds do — frame generation. That's a shame, because it could really benefit from x2, x3, or x4 framegen at times, letting you run more graphically intensive games at smoother frame rates or lighter games at much higher frame rates.

Or at least, you weren't able to. Thanks to an app called Lossless Scaling and a plugin for Decky Loader that converts Windows DX11 calls to Vulkan, you can use framegen on the Steam Deck. I should caution that it's still a work in progress, with glitches, limited game compatibility, and a still slightly annoying installation process, but it's a huge step forward from how things used to be.

Wait... Lossless Scaling works on the Steam Deck?

Yes, but Proton isn't the fix here

Lossless Scaling has worked on Linux since early 2025, when an open-source developer put out lsfg-vk, which translates DirectX 11 calls to Vulkan with DXVK. That's the main component of Proton as well, so this gives you half of the Linux support you need. The other half was to rewrite the shader pipeline in DX11, so it could be converted as well.

The end result is a chain of conversions that enables Lossless Scaling to work on Linux. And yes, that includes the Steam Deck, although the process of installing it and getting it running was fairly involved. But no longer, as there is a plugin for Decky Loader that gives you handy GUI controls for the variables that you'll need to get up and running.

You'll need a plugin plus the main program

You don't get anything for free, even fake frames, and you'll need to purchase the Lossless Scaling app on Steam to get going. Decky Loader and the plugin Decky LSFG-VK are both free and don't take much to set up. Decky Loader can be the tricky part, as it needs to you match the version with either the Stable or Beta branch of SteamOS, and it tends to break when SteamOS gets an update, making you go back into desktop mode to reinstall Decky to get back to where you were.

• Lossless Scaling

  OS

  Windows

  CPU

  64-bit processor required

  $7 at Steam

• Decky LSFG-VK

  See at Github

The Decky plugin takes all the pain out of configuring LSFG-VK

You only need to add one tiny command to the launch command of your games

Installing plugins on Decky Loader is a simple process of a few taps, but you'll need to install Lossless Scaling first. I didn't read the instructions first time around, which is why there's an angry red reminder in the screenshots above, but after a quick installation, that turned green.

Then you tap the Install lsfg-v button to set up the lsfg-vk Vulkan layer that handles the translations. This stage used to be annoying to do manually, requiring you to type in where the dll file for Lossless Scaling was installed, along with a few other things that are harder to do on the Steam Deck.

To finish up, you set the core configuration settings up from the Decky plugin GUI, so you don't have to type in any launch commands anymore.

• FPS Multiplier: Choose between 2x, 3x, or 4x frame generation
• Flow Scale: Adjust motion estimation quality (lower = better performance, higher = better quality)
• Performance Mode: Uses a lighter processing model - recommended for most games
• HDR Mode: Enable for games that support HDR output

Once the plugin is installed and configured, and both the Lossless Scaling and lsfg-vk reminders are showing green, all you need to do is add a short command to the launch options on every game you want to use. The Steam Deck defaults to using Vulkan for games anyway, so you shouldn't need to tweak many other things, assuming the game is compatible.

Using Lossless Scaling is now easy

Assuming your game is compatible, it's fairly simple to get that game running with frame generation. You add ~/lsfg %command% to the launch options for each game you want to use, so you don't have to do anything but run the game in the future. There's a handy Copy Launch Option button in the plugin to copy the command, so you can paste it easily with the Steam Deck keyboard and then run your game.

The only other thing to change is the ingame settings, you'll want Fullscreen Windowed, otherwise the Lossless Scaling program can't hook into the game and give you the hoped-for fps boost.

It's still a work in progress

Not every game will work (and Decky can be glitchy too)

I've been testing various games, and it's a little hit-and-miss over which ones will work. Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor actually lost frames with this, as the game would regularly run at 70-80 fps without Lossless Scaling enabled, and it would drop to 58–60 fps with it on. I know it was hooking into the game properly, since it flickered while loading up, so I'm not sure what was going on.

Similarly, Elden Ring is a game we managed to get running on a Linux desktop using the non-Decky version of the tool, and I couldn't notice any frame rate changes while running around The Lands Between.

There is a veritable laundry list of quirks and tweaks to try and get Lossless Scaling working with individual games, and some of it will be trial and error. I've had it working on Linux, so I know it's possible, but tweaking for the Steam Deck will involve more time.

Decky Loader has a lot of fluff, but Lossless Scaling isn't one

While many of the plugins for Decky Loader involve changing the UI for SteamOS, Lossless Scaling actually brings benefits in-game. Or at least, promises to, if you can figure out which games work. It's still early days, and, like everything Linux gaming-related, it might just need more work to make it a smoother experience. Until then, there's nothing stopping you from trying your favorite Steam games to see if you get a nice boost to frame rates.