I received feedback on my game from users that the startup videos (the ones assigned in project settings) are showing as a test pattern on the Steam Deck hardware. Also, an in-game video played as a media texture displays as a white screen.
The little bit of info I’ve found on the Steam Deck developer page says videos need to be VP9 codec. I’ve re-encoded them as such using Handbrake and now the intro videos don’t even play at all (skips right to my startup map) and the in-game video displays as white – all this while testing on my development PC, not a Steam Deck.
Does anyone have the answer to getting these videos working correctly on Steam Deck?
Update, good news! Apparently this was an issue on Valve’s side, not with UE4. One of my testers came back today and said all of the videos are playing correctly now on his Steam Deck.
My users are still experiencing this and I have no idea if it’s even possible for me to fix it… can anyone else confirm if this is still happening to them?
Ok, for visibility, I was able to get a video with a VP9 codec running on a Steam Deck but unfortunately there’s a performance issue when the video loops and it’s a significant hiccup in framerate. Also, the video is not playing smoothly. I’m investigating the following:
Are there different VP9 codecs that are better and is the free one I downloaded from github causing this?
I used Adobe Media Encoder and I had some issues getting the WebM extension to work.
Was there something wrong with the test video?
H.264 plays beautifully on Xbox and Playstation (current and previous gen). Feels odd that the PC version will be lower quality simply because it’s the same version as the Steam Deck version that only accepts a VP9 codec. We might want to ask Valve to make it possible for us to deliver different versions of the game depending on the hardware it’s running on (like other platforms).
Valve should just fix the H.264 playback. I’m on UE5. They probably did fix the playback problem for the intro videos only, but any videos running on Electra for example has the same issue…
Sorry for bumping this topic but is there any workaround for this issue?
I’m running into the very same issue on Steam Deck. All my videos are encoded with H.264 and they are not playing at all.
The only workaround I have found is installing and using Proton GE. Videos play flawlessly with Proton GE but I definitely don’t want to ask players to go through the hassle of installing this.
Is coding videos with VP9 solves this issue? If so, how can I encode my videos in VP9? I’m using Adobe Premiere to export my videos.
@Fouinoo I gave this a shot, but only the audio plays. The video doesn’t. Could you explain how you converted it? I’m really stuck and running out of time. I used this command:
Turns out I was wrong. H.264 still isn’t working on Steamdeck. IMO It’s a bit embarrassing since it works on Nintendo Switch.
Also, it seems that the hiccup in performance when a video loops is still there too. Everytime a VP9 video loops, I hit a +20ms draw time. Is anyone else noticing this?
I just ran into the same issue and realized that I only encounter the issue when I deploy the build to the steam deck using the SteamOS Devkit Client!
If the exact same build is uploaded to the steam server and then downloaded to the steam deck (basically the standard way to deploy to regular steam users), my h264 encoded mp4 video plays perfectly fine on the steam deck.
