Winhanced: The SteamOS answer for Windows Handhelds?

Microsoft are taking their sweet time

It’s been almost 5 years since Valve officially unveiled their latest and arguably most exciting piece of tech to date, the hardware that sent ripples through the PC Gaming community, the Steam Deck. A machine that could natively play your PC games in the form factor of a Nintendo Switch – performance varying depending on the demandingness of the game. Technology that had been progressing for years at this point albeit much slower before the introduction of the Steam Deck with the likes of GPD Win and AyaNeo, but has never really been able to break through its niche shell due to multiple reasons, weight, form factor, battery life and price being the main ones, enter the Steam Deck. It looks to solve these issues to the best of its ability with the technology available, being extremely comfortable to hold, sports multiple back buttons for extra mappings and two trackpads on the front to simulate mouse movements. At the time this felt like a momentous leap forward for the PC Handheld ecosystem, and the effects of this are being felt with the development of the ROG Ally/Ally X and Lenovo’s Legion Go and Legion Go S. 

Gamers interested in dipping their toes into the handheld PC market usually gravitate to the Steam Deck and it’s one that is still recommended by the community whole heartedly if the user just wants something to play their games easily on the go, even if it’s beginning to show its age with the Ally X being slightly more powerful in specs and also completely destroying the competitors when it comes to battery life with it’s whopping 80Wh battery. While Valve doesn’t have the commercial chain pull that something like ROG, MSI or Lenovo has, they do though have one, well maybe two… Unique selling points over their competitors in this space, the first being complete trust by the gaming community to deliver a product that is fair and well designed, Valve is one of gaming’s critical darling developer, creator of the Portal, Half-Life, Dota and Counter-Strike franchises, the storefront and game developer has come under fire previously for their 30% store cut fee which was change to slowly decreases down to 25% and eventually 20% the more copies are sold, with many finding this to be fair for the services that are offered through Valve developed Steam launcher and many gamers trust Valve to ask them a fair price for purchase, even more so that Valve themselves admitted getting the Steam Deck down to its lucrative £350/$400 price point was “painful” even for them.

The other and more important ace up their sleeves that they had was their operating system, SteamOS. Removing the need for Microsoft’s Windows operating system and giving users a taste of the Linux lifestyle. Allowing players to access their already purchased PC games and presenting them on a console-like frontend experience, which is one of the many complaints that Windows has had raised against it by the dedicated PC gaming community, amongst other issues to do with security and overall bloat. SteamOS was a breath of fresh air in this space, proof that a handheld doesn’t need to be constrained to being a mouse and keyboard PC first, and can instead be a Steam Machine, GOG Machine, Epic Machine, whatever you want it to be, the possibilities had been swung open. As time has gone on ROG and Lenovo have launched their own handheld PC’s into the space with relatively decent success, as while the Steam Deck allows you to play your games, there’s no guarantee that they’ll work. One of the biggest pain points for the Steam Deck is the reliance on other launchers for some of the most popular upcoming games such as Ubisoft’s Connect or EA’s launcher which have no native Linux version, making the running of these games finicky at times and infuriating in others. This is compounded by the fact that oftentimes some of the largest multiplayer only games will be unsupported due to the nature of their anti-cheat, extremely popular games such as EA FC, Fortnite, Apex Legends, League of Legends, these games actively block Linux gaming and the Steam Deck is no exception. 

Many people instead valued the compatibility of their favourite games over the added convenience, that’s not to say that Windows handheld gamers were completely left out, ROG and Lenovo delivered their own front ends with their handhelds with Armoury Crate and Legion Space but were extremely lacking when they first launched things such as, features i.e. controller remapping, performance of the frontend or even just general feel, as many noted that Lenovo’s Legion Space felt incomplete and half-baked on release, but has been improved significantly since then. In turn, many in the community turned to things such as Playnite, an open-source launcher that has integration for essentially every game launcher you can think of, using Playnite on their handheld PC’s to emulate that SteamOS feeling with Playnite’s Fullscreen mode and range of user created themes, which I highly recommend checking it out and in my opinion is currently the best way for Windows handhelds, so far…

Winhanced, a Windows application that aims to be the SteamOS for Windows handhelds. This had flown under my radar and I only caught wind of it through some online conversations with friends about handheld PC’s I was having. Immediately I knew I had to check it out from what I’ve seen I have to say, I’m excited. The application is being headed by the user named “Floop”, having formally announced the Winhanced project on their old YouTube channel “Screenbites”, a channel initially made for reviewing tech such as cameras, PC accessories such as Mice and even Apple products like the iPhone and iPad. They mention that their “true passion has always been creating”, coming up with the ideas and making them a reality through learning and hard work. Having taught themselves coding and previously working as a Product Designer, they wanted to bring their latest creation into the world and thus Winhanced was born, with the aim to improve Windows Handheld gaming. This goal being born after receiving an Ally X as a gift while already owning a Steam Deck and opting to give it to a family member. Floop experienced the issues mentioned beforehand with ROG’s Armoury Crate just not typically being up to snuff and was inspired by this to put their creative juices and technical knowhow to use on filling a gap in the market that Microsoft are taking a long time to answer. 

The current state Winhanced is still growing as a piece of software with features and library integrations still missing, this is a conscience decision made by the team to release it in this way as they want the community to help guide them on what’s important to them in a Windows Handheld, allowing them to target and plan accordingly to what they’d want the most out of the application, currently they are on version 1.0.018 of their Legacy version and version 0.1.46 of their new and improved “Living Glass” UI. as of writing, the current features that Winhanced provides, according to their feature list, the ability to import installed and uninstalled games from Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox PC libraries (with support for GOG coming), install games from the previously mentioned libraries, view locked/unlocked achievements for libraries supported, How Long To Beat integration, a “What’s New page” that will update users on news about the games they have alongside the ability to manually add a game which allows users to add games from not yet supported libraries and to help support emulated games.

When you click into a game you’re presented with the games information, this page is filled with all relevant information about the game and how you’ve played it, the description of the game populated with artwork alongside it to ensure it’s looking good and fits in with the rest of your library. One of the unique things Winhanced is doing that I find quite exciting is looking to have their own overlay, much like SteamOS has their own quick options, Winhanced is looking to have their own version of that too, allowing users to change settings on the fly such as the thermal design power (TDP) of the unit, the brightness, FPS monitoring, per game controller mappings, universal pausing of the game.

Floop and his team have even looked into improving sleeping/waking issues that have plagued Windows PC gaming for a long time now, this is only scratching the surface, checking their designated ideas tracker channel on their discord it feels like the sky’s the limit and Floop alongside the Winhanced team are looking to reach as high as they can, with other prominent software creators reaching out to help such as the creator of EmuDeck, software that makes setting up emulators as painless as possible, it was initially designed specifically for the Steam Deck/Linux but has since made it’s way over to Windows and Android, to other software creators such as the creator of Lossless Scaling, an application that allows users to apply upscaling technology such as DLSS, FSR and XeSS to any game without requiring the game to support it, this can be crucial for handheld gaming as rendering at a lower resolution will improve longevity and increase performance, but will be traded off for a significantly decrease in graphical fidelity. Lossless Scaling looks to alleviate that by letting you upscale the resolution. 

It’s easy to see the inspiration taken for Winhanced in its design as it very much looks to stay close to that SteamOS’s look and feel. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to take it for a test drive myself with the lack of a Windows Handheld PC, having sold my Legion Go in preparation for the Legion Go 2 releasing (hopefully) later this year, the Winhanced team have me covered though, as they are uploading Dev Diaries to their YouTube channel going over the changes they’re working on and to show them off in progress. If you’re like me and this has piqued your interests then I would very much recommend checking them out and following their progress, please do remember it is still early days, this software is very much a work in progress, there will be bugs and missing features. This is why previously I mentioned that Playnite Fullscreen will probably continue to be the best solution for me currently, but I feel hopeful for the future of the project, perhaps it was the enthusiasm radiating from Floop infecting me from the announcement video but I would love to see it blossom into something great, SteamOS won’t be going anywhere but for those that prefer a Windows handheld this might be something that makes the process a lot more easy to navigate, whether your a diehard Windows or Linux user ultimately, variety is the spice of life as they say, and when consumers have multiple choices then everybody wins.

If you’re undeterred by the in-development nature and wish to download Winhanced then head on over to their website where you can find a link to download the software and also a link to their Discord server where you can follow the updates in real time!