Valve will continue to optimize for Steam Deck
Valve’s first handheld, the Steam Deck, has been on sale for a month. And to celebrate, Valve released a blog to share some of the progress of the Steam Deck and its games, such as the progress of the Steam Deck game certification program, as well as working with Microsoft to bring Xbox Cloud Gaming to the handheld, etc.
We started shipping Steam Deck just one month ago, and it’s been a huge thrill seeing it out in the wild in players’ hands. One of our favorite things about that is finally getting to hear from you about your experience using Steam Deck. This first month has given us a chance to start collecting your feedback as we continue our work to make Deck better in the months and years to come.
This blog also mentioned that there have been more than 2000 games that have obtained the verified or playable level label of Steam Deck. Meaning these games will have no issues with the experience when running on Steam Deck. Valve said that they will continue to certify more games in the game library in the future, and will also listen carefully to consumer feedback in this regard to ensure that the certification program can continue to play its due role.
Valve also mentioned changes to using the Edge browser on Steam Deck to run Xbox Cloud Gaming, as well as adding new mechanics to extend Steam Deck battery life.
Finding ways to improve battery life for Steam Deck is always high on our list. We find that depending on what you’re doing, you can expect between 2 and 8 hours of gameplay, but if you want to optimize for battery life even further there are additional options. In the past month we added the ability to reduce your framerate allll the way down to 15 fps (this setting works great for visual novels, puzzles and a lot of simulation games). And for those who love to tinker, we’ve made TDP (processor power), GPU Clock control, and FSR (screen scaling) settings available to optimize power even further.
