steam-deck-utilities VS Steam-Deck.Shader-Cache-Killer

CryoUtilities for performance optimization.

First you will need Cryoutilities installed. Set it up and set the recommended settings. There is a guide on how to set VRAM to 4gb in the video for Cryoutilities, so do this as well. Next install the Starfield Potato Mode Textures Mod and use the 256 bit version for slightly better quality (the standard version is a bit better performance but I don’t like the muddiness of the textures).

Then I installed the CryoByte utility as described here: https://github.com/CryoByte33/steam-deck-utilities (also worked fine).

CryByte33 utilities app. Pay attention that you will need to apply 4G graphics memory fix from Steam Deck BIOS too.

CryoUtilities will let you keep the shader cache on the same storage device the game is installed on. I still think an SSD is a worthwhile upgrade but I thought that was worth mentioning.

Use https://github.com/CryoByte33/steam-deck-utilities to move your game's shader caches to the drive each game is on, instead of the default 64gb ssd.

INSTALLATION: To install Cryo Utilities, make sure you have a sudo password already set otherwise it cannot perform tweaks necessary for this to work. 1st download the installer here: CryoByte33/steam-deck-utilities: A utility to improve performance and help manage storage on Steam Deck. (github.com) scroll down till you see a link that says "Download this link" and right mouse click over it to open the context menu and click "save link as" and save it to your desktop.

By default, Steam stores these shaders at /home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/shadercache/ where each directory is named after the relevant game’s Steam app ID. (For example, 1551360 is the app ID for Forza Horzion 5, whose shader cache takes up 8.9 gigabytes on my Steam Deck!) I wouldn’t really recommend deleting these caches, but you can use tools like Shader Cache Killer or CryoUtilities or Storage Cleaner for Decky to better manage these shaders– or just uninstall the relevant games that take up too much space. There’s tons of YouTube videos out there that can help you with this.

To clear them out you need special programs (careful, when clearing out compatdata on games, as those are the fake windows folders (one per game) also savefiles are stored there, back them up, if they arent cloud synced, also dont delete a compat folder of a random unnamed small thing, because that might be the protons versions compatdata folder, and doing that would ruin the functionality of that entire proton versiion until and uninstall reinstall of that proton version) like https://github.com/scawp/Steam-Deck.Shader-Cache-Killer

if u need clean cache after gaming session try it

GitHub - scawp/Steam-Deck.Shader-Cache-Killer: Script to Purge The Steam Decks Shader Cache

Last but not least, some games break, after you change proton versions via force compatibility - they are in the vast minority but it happens. In which case before switching to a new proton version its also recommended to kill compatdata for that game (can be done via https://github.com/scawp/Steam-Deck.Shader-Cache-Killer or CryoUtilities. Make sure to only kill them for the game, and not for unknown or all uninstalled games - as if a mishap happens there and you kill the compatdata folder for an entire Proton install, that version is then borked for every game - so dont.)

Otherwise: Shadercachekiller is helpfull: https://github.com/scawp/Steam-Deck.Shader-Cache-Killer