Steam Machine: BUY or NO?

canodmr

Skilled Gamer
March 20, 2025
43
7
235
Hello guys

I'm really interested in the SM for the purposes of using mods and cheats. The steam library is so vast that it makes me salivate just thinking about all the possibilities. The letdown was just a few days ago when I found out the Nexus Mods App project was effectively canceled. I've read up on the Steam Deck and see that there are workarounds but I was hoping upgrading to the machine would make that easier. And I'm not convinced it will be..

One of the other things I would be keen to take advantage of is cheat engine, and being able to load up on .tables that are all over the internet for so many games already, but again, that's mainly a Windows thing, not a Linux, thing. I believe there's an application, iirc called Proton, that allows you to layer Windows over Linus, but I'm worried about performance and all that jazz. Also, the other elephant in the room is anti-cheat, which I'm wondering if that's something I need to really worry about. I am hitting 40 this February, and I really don't care about online multiplayer anymore. But games like Dragon Age Inquisition and AC:Shadows have that 'online' component that interferes with the single player experience.

Thoughts? Thanks for reading! :pikadab:
 
if you're set on using mods and cheats, you might want to look into the steam deck's linux compatibility, apparently you can get nexus mods working through proton or something, might be a better option than the steam machine
 
Honestly, I’ve been wondering about this too. I actually tried using Cheat Engine with Steam games on Arch Linux before, but I couldn’t get it working. It could’ve just been me messing something up though. The Steam Deck looks really interesting for modding, but I’m not sure how well things like Cheat Engine and Windows-only mod tools actually work through Proton.