The Steam Deck will have been available on the market for three months at the end of May, albeit in limited quantities. We can't go to a store and pick one up because production is still in its early stages, but we can at least join its enormous waiting list in the hope that it will finally arrive in a few months. Even so, Valve is taking advantage of the fact that the device is already in the hands of its first owners to polish any potential flaws that weren't considered during development.
Custom performance per game?
That's precisely what Valve thought would be useful: telling each game how much of the console's power it will use depending on its optimal performance requirements—that is, with good graphics, no lag, and without draining the battery. Clearly, running Death Stranding is not the same as playing a decade-old title, so now we'll have the opportunity to choose how we want Steam Deck to behave.
This update, which is rolling out to those who own one of these laptops, allows us to create a performance profile for a game so that, each time we launch it, we don't have to repeat the steps over and over again in the settings menu. This way, these presets are stored and are activated almost by default when launching the game they're linked to.
And what parameters does this performance profile consider? Well, you can probably guess. It's something like going into the game's video settings menu and adjusting the frame rate, CPU usage, power consumption, etc. In other words, you'll have to choose between good frame rate performance or image quality, which, to be fair, won't need to be too high on a 720p panel to look good and appear fantastic.
in the right line
Valve seems to have hit the mark with the Steam Deck concept and, above all, its price. In recent weeks, many brands that manufacture PC-based gaming laptops have begun to respond to the success of Valve's offering. It has effectively become the best mobile gaming alternative for PC games thanks to its outstanding performance, game playback quality, and, most importantly, its price.
We're talking about Steam Deck offering three options at prices of €419, €549, and €679, while the competition typically operates in a much higher price range, closer to €800 or more. That's why Gabe Newell's team's success could be bringing PC gamers a little closer to these alternatives that don't tie them to their computers and allow them to have their entire library and games ready to enjoy anywhere.
For now, though, the waiting list to acquire one of these Steam Decks remains active.