ScopeBuddy GUI is a graphical interface you can use to easily generate a configuration for environment variables, launch options, and Gamescope. Ordinarily, this would require you to understand command-line syntax and Gamescope well enough to manually type-out every detail of what you want. With this tool, all you need to do is click on the settings you want! To activate these settings in any game you have¹, all you need to do is type scb -- %command% into the Launch Options box for that game! If you do not wish to install scopebuddy and scopebuddy-gui, but still want a Gamescope config generated, there is a web-based version here.

Scopebuddy itself is extremely powerful, and this GUI does not currently aim to cover all of its power – it is safe to use alongside any such advanced configuration, however.

To be useful, ScopeBuddy GUI largely depends on the user having Gamescope and/or ScopeBuddy installed:

Gamescope is a micro-compositor made by ValveSoftware that is used to simplify running games and other software. It can handle a lot of things many games struggle with such as extreme resolutions, entering fullscreen, extremely wide monitors, and more! This can greatly reduce glitchy behavior, improving the gaming experience.

Scopebuddy is a tool made by HikariKnight that makes it easier to use Gamescope. It allows you to do many things, which includes creating a general Gamescope configuration for all of your games.

_{1. ScopeBuddy works best with games installed through Steam, but is also able to be used elsewhere.}

Using Gamescope can be a great tool even on standard monitors, and can be especially helpful for very unusual monitors (very high resolution, ultrawide, etc)!

It allows you to easily configure your games and how they perform. You can maximize visual quality by setting a high resolution, or increase performance by setting a lower resolution! It allows you to fine-tune a variety of game-related settings to your liking.

For example, I personally have a very high-resolution 3:2 aspect ratio screen paired with a computer that can struggle with modern games at that resolution. Gamescope allows me to play games at a performant 1080p resolution and avoid any potential issues that come with my odd aspect ratio! I have some games I have only managed to open with Gamescope.

Desktop UI

Open Steam and go to your Library.

Right-click the game you want to use with Gamescope and select Properties.

In the Launch Options field, enter either of the following:
scopebuddy -- %command%
scb -- %command%

This will launch the game using your current ScopeBuddy configuration.

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Big Picture Mode

On the SteamDeck interface (gamescope session), using ScopeBuddy results in Gamescope launch arguments being ignored as they would otherwise prevent the game from starting; Gamescope cannot be run within itself. Enter desktop mode when launching games for gamescope settings to be applied!

Navigate to your Library and select the game you want to use with Gamescope.

Click on the gear icon (Settings) at the opposite side of the Play button.

In the Launch Options field, enter either of the following:
scopebuddy -- %command%
scb -- %command%

This will launch the game using your current ScopeBuddy configuration.

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My recommendation is to use the built-in configuration tools within Lutris, as all important features are present and scopebuddy currently does not easily work with every game run using Lutris.

For playing games on the Epic Game Store, Bazzite recommends using the Heroic Games Launcher instead of trying to run the Epic Games Store on Linux.

It is possible to use scopebuddy with Lutris, but games that pop-up a launcher before the game window may launch the game outside of scopebuddy. To apply scopebuddy to a game in Lutris:

Right click on the game, click on Configure

Click the System Options tab

Enable the "Advanced" toggle in the top right of the window

Scroll to the "Game execution" section, in the Command Prefix line, enter scb -- , then click "Save" in the top right of the window.

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If you follow these steps and create a Steam shortcut, the shortcut will properly work with your scopebuddy settings!

I recommend you use the built-in Gamescope configuration provided by Heroic.

A guide for Heroic has not been created. If you launch Heroic itself with ScopeBuddy, games launched in Heroic should also launch in ScopeBuddy.

Low resolution, poor visual quality

Make sure the resolution you chose the game to render at is a "regular/standard" value. Some examples are the ones in the dropdown menu, half of the resolution of your screen, exactly the resolution of your screen, etc.

Leaving the rendered resolution fields blank will lead to their default 720p resolution, which will look very low-quality on many screens! Setting the rendered resolution too high will cause poor performance.

If setting the rendered width and height to match your screen fails, you can also check the in-game settings to see if they can solve the problem! For example, I have noticed that Overwatch 2 in Gamescope works best when it is run in borderless window mode.

If you have an issue, especially one that is easy to encounter, post it in the GitHub!

The app itself uses Python and PySide6 (Qt for Python). I utilize Qt Designer for the interface and Python code for the logic. The web-based version uses JavaScript. The app itself is built from source with the following commands (run inside of a folder with the yml):

flatpak-builder --force-clean --repo=repo builddir io.github.rfrench3.scopebuddyGUI.yml

flatpak build-bundle repo scopebuddyGUI.flatpak io.github.rfrench3.scopebuddyGUI

If you are interested in making a flatpak app with Qt and Python, or a website with bootstrap similar to this one, my GitHub has templates of both you can use!