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Turning My Arch Linux PC into a Gaming Console (with Steam + Gamescope)

🕹️ Turning My Arch Linux PC into a Gaming Console (with Steam + Gamescope)

Because why buy a Steam Deck when you already have a Zotac tank collecting dust?

🧠 The Idea

I had a Zotac Magnus One mini-PC with an RTX 3070 GPU sitting idle. Instead of letting it gather dust, I figured — why not turn it into a full-on gaming console?

It was already running Arch Linux, and with a few tweaks, I managed to make it boot straight into Steam big picture mode, ready for couch gaming in 4K glory.

Here’s how I turned it into my own ArchBox console.

🧰 Hardware & Software Specs

  • PC: Zotac Magnus One
  • GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3070
  • OS: Arch Linux (Wayland)
  • Display Manager: LightDM
  • Gaming Frontend: Steam (via Gamescope)

🚀 Step 1 – Installing Steam, Gamescope and LightDM

This part’s easy:

1sudo pacman -S steam gamescope lightdm

If it fails, make sure you enabled multilib in your pacman config (uncomment the [multilib] section in /etc/pacman.conf)

👻 Step 2 – Auto-login + Auto-launch Steam via Gamescope

We want the PC to boot directly into Steam, just like a console. Here's what I did:

✅ LightDM auto-login

Edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf and set:

1[Seat:*]
2autologin-user=yourusername
3autologin-session=gamescope

Replace yourusername with your actual user.

🎮 Create a Gamescope session

Now, lightm needs to know how to load the gamescope session, so create the following file in /usr/share/wayland-sessions/gamescope.desktop:

1[Desktop Entry]
2Name=Steam
3Comment=Start Steam in Big Picture Mode
4Exec=env VKD3D_DISABLE_EXTENSIONS=VK_KHR_present_wait /usr/bin/gamescope --force-composition --force-grab-cursor -W 3840 -H 2160 -e  -f -r 60 -- /usr/bin/steam -tenfoot
5Type=Application
6PrefersNonDefaultGPU=true
7X-KDE-RunOnDiscreteGpu=true

-e runs gamescope nested, and -tenfoot tells Steam to launch in Big Picture mode. Setting VKD3D_DISABLE_EXTENSIONS=VK_KHR_present_wait helped for God of War Ragnarok that was freezing a lot without that setting. Tweak -W, -H and -r to customize the width, height and framerate: here I'm using 4K resolution at 60fps. --force-composition also limits tearing for me, but may not be necessary.

🚀 Enable LightDM

Now that LightDM is installed and configured, let's auto start it:

1sudo systemctl enable --now lightdm

🖥️ Step 3 – Fixing NVIDIA Issues (Tearing, Flickering, Boot Trouble)

I am using the proprietary NVIDIA drivers.

To make everything work smoothly on my RTX 3070, I had to add the following kernel parameters:

nvidia-drm.modeset=1 nvidia.NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0
  • nvidia-drm.modeset=1: enables proper KMS (kernel mode setting), required for Wayland.
  • nvidia.NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0: oddly, disabling GPU firmware helped with tearing issues, especially at 4K.

🛠️ How to set kernel params

Edit your bootloader config. For example, if you're using systemd-boot like me, edit your boot config, for me it's:

/boot/loader/entries/arch.conf

And customize (or add) the options line:

1options nvidia-drm.modeset=1 nvidia.NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0

🎮 Controller Setup?

I'm using Xbox controllers, with a dedicated dongle. To make them work, I use xow (https://github.com/medusalix/xow).

🏁 Result

Now, when I boot the PC, it:

  1. Logs in automatically via LightDM
  2. Starts a Wayland session via Gamescope
  3. Launches Steam in console mode
  4. Ready to play — with zero desktop bloat.

All running Arch, with great graphics!