There’s always been a significant gap between how Valve advertises Steam Deck compatibility and how games actually run on the hardware.
A certain title might have a Verified badge because everything works properly on the Deck, but when you start playing, you find that framerates really aren’t what you imagined.
That’s now been fixed in the latest Steam update, which adds average framerate data to the info panel.
This gives potential buyers a lot more data to work with, and it arrives for all games that have gone through the verification process (whether they come out the other side as Supported, Playable, or Unsupported).
Valve is getting its data from its own massive pool of users; don’t worry, it’s opt-in only. Not only does the new data give you a quick tally of the average FPS on the Steam Deck, but it also opens into a detailed chart with more info about averages.
(Image credit: Valve)
These graphs do a good job of relaying the highs and lows while gaming. If you see framerate distribution weighted heavily at, say, 90FPS with just a few blips on the lower framerates, it’s safe to assume you’ll mostly be playing at 90FPS.
But there is some nuance. As Valve points out, some graphs will show large gaps between weighted framerates. In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, for example, the chart falls heavily on 30FPS with a decent spike at 60FPS.
This is evident in many other games. Here’s how Valve explains it:
These gaps are a consequence of VSync. When a game is not making framerate, VSync will synchronize the game’s framerate to the display’s refresh rate in order to avoid image tearing. This means that on a 90Hz display, if a game has a framerate of 75fps, VSync will force the game to present as many frames as it can at 90fps, and when it can’t make that target it will drop to 45fps, and then recover to 90fps for the next frame. This produces a pattern that averages 75fps, e.g. 90 90 45 90 90 45. Another example would be some games set an internal frame limit to 60, so on Steam Deck OLED set to default (90) it will bounce between 90 and 45 to hit 60 FPS.
Valve
Valve also notes that the averages shown in this new info panel are derived only from data on Steam Decks set to their standard FPS limit. That’s 60FPS for the original Steam Deck and 90FPS for the Steam Deck OLED.
Valve also does not account for tweaked in-game settings, as it thinks that “the framerate data consolidates around relatively narrow ranges.“
Why only Steam Deck data when there are so many other gaming handhelds?
On the note of the growing selection of gaming handhelds on the market, there’s a big gap left to fill. Valve’s new performance chart only accounts for Steam Deck users, leaving plenty of other handheld devices behind.
It makes sense that Valve is piloting the changes with its own Steam Deck, “because every device has the same hardware configuration.” But Valve states that it’s “starting with the Steam Deck,” suggesting that there will be a larger initiative to rope in other handhelds at some point.
Valve’s new performance chart exposes the Steam Deck’s weaknesses
I’ve been a Steam Deck owner for a few years, and although it’ll always have a special place in my heart, it’s certainly showing its age.
Compared to the latest handhelds, like the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ and Acer Predator Atlas 8, the Steam Deck just doesn’t have the same performance. I’ve been testing the latter for the past week, and it’s shocking how much better it performs thanks to the onboard Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip.
As this power gap grows — barring a Steam Deck 2 from Valve — it’s getting tougher to determine which games will actually run smoothly on the Deck. I’ve purchased games in the past that passed Valve’s check, only to discover dreadful framerates.
That’s the big thing here. My bar for “good framerates” is probably not the same as yours, and until now, you had to search third-party reviews and tests to see how a game was actually running on the Deck. Now, it’s all available right on the store page.
No matter your opinion of Valve, this change is all about benefiting the consumer. That’s becoming increasingly rare these days.
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