Polaris v1.4.8

Spaces arrives as an early preview. Every player on one PC gets their own Steam sign-in, games and saves. It needs a host set up for it, and there is no public runtime download yet. This release also fills your library from a folder of emulator games, allows frame rates past 120 on the displays Polaris creates, and tells you why a launch was refused. Nova v1.4.8 comes out alongside it. Existing settings and paired devices keep working.

Spaces, an early preview

Spaces gives each player their own Steam sign-in, library and saves on one PC. Choose a Space in Nova, browse its game posters, or open Steam Big Picture. Device access stays easy to find, and removing a Space retains its games and saves. Ordinary streaming keeps its familiar setup and needs none of this.

The same words everywhere. Nova, the console and the guide all call it a Space, and all three show the same status for it.
The host says why. When a Space will not open, you get the reason instead of a bare error.
The Spaces page looks like the rest of the console. It asks before it removes or restores a Space, gives you setup commands you can copy, and names the device holding a Space.
The Spaces guide follows the order you run into things: what a Space is, whether you need one, setting up your first, and what to do when it breaks.

What the preview does not do yet. There is no public runtime download, so the Spaces catalog stays empty until an approved image is published. Guided setup allows one active Space. Handheld audio is still being looked at.

More games, less setup

Import a ROM folder once, then rescan to pick up new games. Eden, Dolphin, Cemu, DuckStation, PCSX2, PPSSPP and mGBA are presets; any other emulator takes a command with {rom} in it.
Reuse covers from your game folders, ES-DE or RetroArch. No artwork API key needed.
See what an emulator still lacks before you try to play: Eden’s keys, a BIOS image, or a Flatpak that cannot read the folder, each with its fix.
Launch emulator games directly, with the controller their console expects, and read the console and emulator on the tile in Nova.
The emulators guide covers the whole path, from keys and BIOS files to what End Session gives an emulator to write its save.

More room to play

Choose frame rates up to 240 FPS on the displays Polaris creates for a stream, where 120 was the ceiling. Nova offers 144, 165 and 240 when your screen supports them.
NVIDIA streaming on Ubuntu 24.04 now keeps frame capture on the GPU, avoiding an extra copy through system memory.

Help that gets to the point

A refused launch now explains what went wrong and what to try, instead of leaving you with error 503.
Doctor gives clearer guidance for HDR, hybrid-GPU laptops and capture problems, and says which binary is really running.
Support reports retain more of what happened before a freeze or restart, making recurring problems easier to investigate.

Heads up

A launch command with single-quoted arguments, such as a path with a space, is now split the way a shell would before it runs. Commands without single quotes or backslashes run exactly as before.
End Session in a private stream now waits the app’s Exit Timeout after asking it to quit, at least two seconds and at most thirty, instead of a fixed two. An app that ignores the request holds End Session for that long.
The Ubuntu 24.04 package is built with CUDA, like the Fedora and Arch packages, and needs only the NVIDIA driver at run time.
Higher frame rates are targets, not performance guarantees. Your hardware, game and network determine the result.
Reports from real Eden or Dolphin setups belong on #699.
Bazzite hosts should still install the Fedora 44 RPM through rpm-ostree. The system extension stays withdrawn.
SteamOS remains experimental Desktop Mode support rather than certified Game Mode support.
Steam Input stays manual and read-only.

Install (Fedora 44, Arch / CachyOS, Ubuntu 24.04, SteamOS 3.8)

Fedora 44

wget --output-document=./Polaris-fedora44-x86_64.rpm https://github.com/papi-ux/polaris/releases/download/v1.4.8/Polaris-fedora44-x86_64.rpm &&
sudo dnf install "./Polaris-fedora44-x86_64.rpm" &&
sudo -H polaris --setup-host &&
systemctl --user restart polaris

Arch Linux / CachyOS

wget --output-document=./Polaris-arch-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst https://github.com/papi-ux/polaris/releases/download/v1.4.8/Polaris-arch-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst &&
sudo pacman -U ./Polaris-arch-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst &&
sudo -H polaris --setup-host &&
systemctl --user restart polaris

Ubuntu 24.04

wget --output-document=./Polaris-ubuntu24.04-x86_64.deb https://github.com/papi-ux/polaris/releases/download/v1.4.8/Polaris-ubuntu24.04-x86_64.deb &&
sudo apt install ./Polaris-ubuntu24.04-x86_64.deb &&
sudo -H polaris --setup-host &&
systemctl --user restart polaris

SteamOS 3.8

Run this in Desktop Mode. It sets up the package keyring when needed and restores the read-only root before starting Polaris.

wget --output-document=./Polaris-steamos3.8-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst https://github.com/papi-ux/polaris/releases/download/v1.4.8/Polaris-steamos3.8-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst &&
(
set -e
trap 'sudo steamos-readonly enable' EXIT
sudo steamos-readonly disable || exit $?
sudo pacman-key --init || exit $?
sudo pacman-key --populate || exit $?
sudo pacman -Sy || exit $?
sudo pacman -U ./Polaris-steamos3.8-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst || exit $?
sudo -H polaris --setup-host || exit $?
sudo steamos-readonly enable || exit $?
trap - EXIT
) &&
systemctl --user enable --now polaris

Bazzite users should follow the Bazzite guide and use the Fedora RPM through rpm-ostree. SteamOS 3.8 users should follow the SteamOS guide; SteamOS remains experimental Desktop Mode support rather than certified Game Mode support.

Assets: Polaris-fedora44-x86_64.rpm · Polaris-arch-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst · Polaris-ubuntu24.04-x86_64.deb · Polaris-steamos3.8-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst