Running EverQuest on a Steamdeck?

What is the Darkpaw/Daybreak's opinion on us doing this. Would it endanger ones account running it on SteamOS? Is a compatibility layer like SteamOS considered "emulation or virtualization" which seems to be a no-no. That said Windows on Steamdeck shouldn't be an issue anymore than anyones clone would be.

I have a macbook and bootcamp Windows on it. Bootcamp is not a VM, it runs Windows as its own OS. Bootcamp is just an easy way to dual boot a mac. It is different than something like parallels which runs Windows as a VM inside of MacOS.

If you can dual boot your device, then you wont have an issue. You just don't want to run windows as a VM inside of the base operating system.

My understanding is that Steamdeck works like Bootcamp, but through a custom Linux OS. In a nutshell. Bootcamp has always, to my knowledge, been perfectly acceptable, so to me it seems safe to assume the same would apply. Unfortunately, I seriously doubt you will get an official answer from Daybreak.

Steam is in the process of releasing windows drivers for the SteamDeck, which will make it "just another PC" as far as EQ is concerned. People are noticing that SteamOS on the deck seems to perform better, between that and a fear of losing an account I've worked on for 20+ years, I wanted to at least ask.

Its not just EQ we need tho, we have to get the 3rd party software that lets us multibox up and running as well. When I play EQ I do it through Steam and I use the gamepad layout to customize controls and play all 3 accounts at once. If I can manage to do this on my Steamdeck I will post a video about it and link it here, but I dont get mine until August.

Looking at ProtonDB, EQ compatibility in SteamOS will be iffy at best, regardless of what Darkpaws stance on it is.

It honestly depends on whether the launchpad or whatever is going to see it as being a VM or not.

The Windows drivers that Valve releases for the Steam deck are always going to be crap. They are going to be minimal and never run as good as the SteamOS does.

... You're expecting to multibox on the steam deck?

Don't expect any of that stuff to be there at any point unless you change the OS to something other than SteamOS.

Try a free to play account, see if it works, see if you get yelled at for doing something strange

That's probably too risky. If customer service wanted to, they could look at your IP address and take measures against any account with that same address. I don't know if that would happen, but I guess its possible.

AMD is releasing the drivers, not Valve. They will mature over time especially as the Deck's components start getting used in more laptops.

OK so I play on linux (I use Kubuntu); the steam deck runs a customized build of Arch linux. (which is another linux* distribution.)

So yes, you can play; but right now, playing through Steam's Proton build is a no-go for me. (has been for a while). You will (in my experience) need to install playonlinux and use that to launch eqgame.exe

PoL has issues with the launcher though, I think it works but you'll only see a white screen... oddly that part works in steam, so I run steam to patch it, and a PoL shortcut to play. Not the prettiest solution but it very much works.

I expect, as Proton is polished, whatever is causing the game to render without models (and its not the vertex shader thing) will get sorted, and I'll be able to fully play using steam proton.

(*yes I'm glossing over the whole gnu/linux thing for the sake of this being a game forum)

You can get windows as the OS and run steam like you normally would. It is true laptop in that sense. I am pretty sure I can make it work but I think its impractical because how can you read anything that small etc.

Valve owns the custom chipsets, AMD just manufactures it. Valve choose whether or not a driver is released, not AMD.

Not if you expect it to run worth a crap though.

It's just Zen 2 and RDNA 2 with minor customizations. Once laptops hit shelves with these companents drivers will be more abundant and probably more frequently updated.

Not that it's super important, but to clarify, AMD doesn't manufacture any chips. They design chips. Their current chips are manufactured by TSMC.

I'm sure it can be made to work - I was using Linux to run EQ 15 years ago for a while and it looks like apart from some missing drivers (speakers being the main one, but bluetooth audio works), Windows works fine on the Steam Deck so there are options on how to get it running.

The question though has to be why? There's few games so information-dense as EQ, I gripe at my 17" laptop screen being too small, I can't imagine trying to read text on a Steam Deck?

Some clarification to the original question.

First. SteamDeck can output 4k so you can totally connect a reasonable monitor/TV to it and play on that to answer the "but the screensize is too small" issue. Or you can make a layout/skin combo for the small screensize. If you started with this game back in the day, it would be similar to that.

Second, what I was hoping for is some sort of official Daybreak stance post, before risking ones two decades old characters with manyears of effort on the characters to account blackmarks, suspensions or even outright banning. Basically a plea for some pre-emptive customer service. This shouldn't be as problematic as the vague perpetual question "is XXX cheating", more like "Does the company care and will they educate the playerbase and the GM support staff on that stance." so we can enjoy or avoid the danger.

No, they won't. Drivers do not work like that. The customizations no matter how minor need specific drivers or they will perform noticeably worse.