How To Use A Chromebook To Play Games From Steam

Chromebooks now support Steam. Here’s how to configure it.

Thanks to a collaboration between Google and Valve, Steam was made available on Chrome OS in early 2022, enabling Steam gaming on Chromebooks.

There are a few restrictions, though: Steam on Chrome is still at a very early alpha stage as of the time that this article was written. Because of this, it only functions on a small number of Chromebooks and only when you convert them to Chrome’s Dev channel.

The methods necessary are outlined in Google’s own Steam for Chrome OS guide(opens in new tab), which also cautions against installing Steam on any Chromebook you can’t afford to break until all the issues are worked out.

“Anything may shatter in an alpha world. We don’t advise attempting this on a Chromebook that you rely on for work, school, or other everyday activities because of the inherent instability of the Dev channel and the in-progress nature of this functionality “Google issues a caution. It’s part of the excitement to run across crashes, performance regressions, and previously undiscovered issues.

Nevertheless, it’s worthwhile to make the effort to see if you can get Steam to operate on your Chromebook. Given that many of the Steam games that now run (sort of) on Chrome OS don’t run natively on Steam for Mac, it could make your Chromebook a more viable Steam gaming machine than your average MacBook. While it probably won’t compare to the best gaming laptops on the market, it may help keep you entertained in a pinch.

System requirements for playing Steam games on a Chromebook

According to Google, in order for a Chromebook to run Steam, it must comply with the following minimum system requirements:

• Intel Core i5-i7 CPU from the 11th generation with integrated graphics from Intel

• RAM of 8 GB

Since many Chromebooks don’t have a lot of storage space and Steam games frequently consume between 3GB and 100 GB of space, I also advise you to attempt to free up some hard drive space.

How to use a Chromebook to play Steam games: backed models (as of February 2)

The most recent list of Chromebooks that support Steam for Chrome OS, according to Google, is shown below. Please take note that even if you already own one of the Chromebooks listed, it could not be the appropriate one: Google expressly states that Chromebooks equipped with a Core i3 processor or 4GB of RAM cannot run Steam. Because of this, you require a Chromebook with at least an Intel Core i5 processor (a Core i7 is preferable) and more RAM than 4GB.

Google cautions that there are presently a number of concerns with Steam for Chrome that might make it impossible for even a qualified Chromebook to run games properly or at all. Notably, games occasionally have issues scaling appropriately on Chromebooks with display resolutions higher than 1080p and Steam for Chrome has difficulties running games that demand 6GB or more RAM on Chromebooks with 8GB of RAM.

So, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a bit longer if you were expecting to play some 4K games on your Chromebook in between courses. We’ll do our best to maintain this list as updated as possible because Google claims it is addressing these issues right now and will be expanding the list of supported devices over time.

Chromebook 514 by Acer

Chromebook 515 by Acer

Chromebook Spin 713 from Acer

Chromebook HP Pro c640 G2 

ASUS Chromebook Flip CX5

Chromebook 5i-14 from Lenovo

Install Steam to play games on a Chromebook.

Even though installing Steam on a Chromebook may be done quickly, it is not an easy process. You’ll need to be comfortable making system-level changes to your Chromebook and turning on test features, which might have a bad effect on your system if you want to pull it off. Make sure to back up any important documents and files to another system or one of the top cloud backup services before you begin.

Are you prepared? Let’s give your Chromebook a little Steam. How to install Steam on Chrome OS is detailed below:

1. Change the Chrome OS Dev channel on your Chromebook. To do that, go to the About Chrome OS tab in the left-side menu, click Additional details, and then select Change channel in the Channel menu. You can also open your Settings menu by clicking the clock in the lower-right corner of your screen, followed by clicking the Settings gear icon at the top of the menu that appears.

2. Switch off your Chromebook.

3. Click the Enter key after typing chrome:/flags into the menu bar of a Chrome browser window. You may activate or disable the experimental features on Chrome’s website by clicking here, which will take you there. The #borealis-enabled flag, which enables Borealis (the codename for Steam on Chrome OS), may be found and enabled using the search bar at the top.

The #exo-pointer-lock option, which locks control of the mouse pointer to Linux programs (like games), is another setting Google advises you to enable. To run Steam, however, you simply need to have the Borealis flag activated.

4. Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open a crash (short for Chrome Shell) terminal window. In the box that pops up, enter insert coin volunteer-JOlkth573FBLGa precisely as it appears here.

5. Adhere to the instructions to download and set up Steam on Chrome. When it’s done, you can begin downloading and installing games to test their compatibility with your Chromebook.

You should activate Steam Play, which uses Proton to attempt to run Linux games on non-Linux devices since Steam will attempt to run the Linux version of a game if it exists.

6. Open the Steam Play submenu from your Steam Settings menu to activate Steam Play for all eligible games. Make sure “Enable Steam Play for all other titles” is turned on after that. You may choose the program you want to use, however, Google suggests Proton Experimental.

You ought to be close to being able to use your Chromebook to play Steam games if all goes according to plan. Keep in mind that this program is currently in the alpha stage of development and might crash, freeze, or cause odd issues. Have a wonderful time!