If you’re waiting for a more powerful version of Steam Deck before diving into Valve’s Linux-based portable hardware, you may find yourself waiting a little longer. In a recent interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Valve designer Lawrence Yang said the company will take “several years” before releasing a “true next-generation deck with a significant horsepower boost.”
Looking at the Steam Deck’s performance in its first year of availability, it’s easy to see why Valve is in no rush to release a stronger portable. The current Steam Deck currently supports over 8,000 titles that have been rated playable or verified by Valve’s official compatibility program. And the list isn’t just low-end indie games.heavy hitters like Cyberpunk 2077, elder ringand recent Dead Space The remake works great on handhelds, and the device can even handle ray tracing in slightly older games like: Doom Eternal.
That said, Steam Deck hardware is already starting to show its age with some recent releases.games like wild hearts and return While it technically works on deck, portables have been reported to experience significant frame rate and performance issues. Future software and OS patches may help these cutting-edge games a little, but as PC gamers continue to upgrade their rigs with rich graphics cards (and PC game makers are pushing those expensive ), Steam Deck’s unmodified hardware can start to look increasingly outdated. – exit desktop users with the latest titles).
Sam McCoveck
Still, Valve’s designers see value in developers sticking to the Steam Deck’s current specs, at least for the time being. Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais told his Rock Paper Shotgun: It’s already working fine. “
Developers who can design top-end PC games that can be scaled down to work with Steam Decks “will deliver smoother performance on a wider variety of PCs and improve the experience for the entire player base,” said Griffais. pointed out.
Of course, Valve could also release a slightly upgraded Steam deck with the same basic internals (Nintendo’s history of “lite” portables). Yang and Griffais wrote in his December that he addressed “the pain points” such as battery life and screen quality with Steam Deck 2.0, adding, “It’s one of his best ways to understand what performance levels users should expect. He said he wanted to keep his goals.
Also, Valve will obviously continue to update the Steam Deck OS and Proton compatibility layers over time. Griffais told his RPS that the team is focusing on “value-added features” such as his HDR support for compatible external monitors. This means that a Steam deck you play a year from now won’t be exactly the same as you can play today, even if the internal hardware remains exactly the same.
