DroidDeck 0.7.1 fixes Steam launch hangs and adds GOG DLC support

DroidDeck 0.7.1 is out on Android, merging 33 pull requests to clean up regressions from the 0.7.0 update while adding automatic GOG DLC installation and the launcher's first light theme. The free, open-source project acts as a local compatibility layer and frontend rather than a remote streaming app. It runs Valve's native ARM64 Linux Steam client, Gamescope, FEX instruction translation, and Proton directly on unrooted Android phones and handhelds.

First publicly released in late September 2026, the project spent its early versions tied to Qualcomm Snapdragon chips and custom Turnip drivers. Version 0.7.0 widened that net to support Mali, Samsung Xclipse, and PowerVR GPUs, though it broke several basic functions in the process. Four contributors (@maxjivi05, @xXJSONDeruloXx, and first-time contributors @EnzoDLofi and @GiovanniCarbinatti) put 0.7.1 together without ads, telemetry, or proprietary components.

Steam stops hanging at the door

Most of the 22 pull requests from lead contributor @maxjivi05 and eight from @xXJSONDeruloXx target launch failures introduced in 0.7.0. Games were getting stuck at the "Processing install script" prompt, stalling on downloads that never finished, or dropping into an endless loading screen and a black "Abort game" screen upon exit. DroidDeck now waits for the Steam client to finish initializing before firing off a game launch, and it stops resetting user-selected compatibility tools like Proton Experimental back to the default DroidDeck-Proton build.

Games using EasyAntiCheat also have a working path forward now, as Linux-only tools like the Proton EasyAntiCheat Runtime keep their native platform designation instead of getting tangled in translation layers. The update also resolves a c000007b crash that happened whenever an installer dropped an x64 system DLL into an ARM64 prefix. I'm curious to see how many multiplayer games actually let an Android handheld through the door before a server-side check panics anyway.

Color returns to Pixel 10 phones

Moving to the Ubuntu 26.04 runtime in 0.7.0 had the strange side effect of turning Steam and games completely grayscale on PowerVR GPUs, specifically the Imagination Technologies graphics hardware inside Google's Tensor-powered Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL. Version 0.7.1 restores full color rendering on those chips. On the Qualcomm side, AppImage, Flatpak, and Snap programs (including standalone Linux emulators) no longer fall back to rendering through system memory on Adreno GPUs, and Flatpak apps actually open their display windows now instead of just playing audio in the background.

Hardware with 13 GB of RAM or less gets a noticeable performance fix too. Previously, the runtime was re-compressing active game memory every 30 seconds even when the game was reading that data straight back, causing periodic stutters. The patch also fixes native guest code hangs in Linux emulators, stabilizes Firefox tabs in the desktop session, and updates the droiddeckctl command-line tool so it works on handheld shells lacking the standard Android content command, such as the Retroid Pocket Duo.

GOG DLC and a theme for Masochists

Beyond the stability work, GOG integration works properly again after owned games vanished from the library view back in version 0.6.0. Search now reaches GOG's entire catalog, owned DLC installs automatically, and installer support files reach the prefix so modded editions boot right after installation.

On the interface side, @EnzoDLofi added "Scarlet snow," which is DroidDeck's first light launcher theme, alongside left and right picture alignment options to match the existing top and bottom settings. Both direct touch and the controller pointer track the shifted image properly, which helps when plugging a phone into AR display glasses. Finally, the bottom-screen Dashboard's frame graph stops jumping around, and its Notifications page is gone entirely, meaning a PC game launcher no longer asks for permission to read your texts.