this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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Steam Hardware

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Is the Steam Deck performance struggling with new AAA games? Should I be concerned buying a Steam Deck now?

I'm guessing/hoping not because most game developers would optimise the games for the Switch 2 and Xbox Series S which have similar performances as the Deck.

I think 30 fps (consistent) is perfectly fine, and I don't mind medium details.

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[–] simple@piefed.social 48 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It depends, a lot of modern AAA games run fine but a good amount of them are very unoptimized and run poorly on the Deck.

Valve said not to expect a hardware refresh soon since newer chips are more expensive and not that much faster, just look at the handheld PCs selling for ~$900 that are only 25% faster.

There are plenty of benchmarks online so you can check if the games you want will work properly or not.

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Yeah there isnt anything of the same size with significantly more power afaik. Gotta go with a laptop then if u need the power.

[–] FrankLaskey@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It’s new so reviews are just filtering out but it’s starting to look like SteamOS powered version of the Legion Go S (Z1 Extreme version) is a pretty great handheld that uses the latest AMD chipset with a sizable assist from Linux/proton efficiencies vs Windows to drive a 15-30% performance improvement which does make some more modern games more playable though it is significantly more expensive than the deck. I watched Retro Games Corps review of it yesterday. That said, if you’re okay waiting another couple years or so I bet there will be a Steam Deck 2 release but it seems like it mainly rests on AMD to deliver a significant (“generational”) leap with upcoming mobile APUs. Valve seems keen on not releasing a follow-up to the first deck until it is significantly better in every way and the chipsets available now just aren’t quite there yet it seems.

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Efficiency is also a major problem i think. You can always just slap a higher power APU in there, but then you also have to cool that thing. And that means either a higher RPM fan or a larger device with a bigger radiator.

[–] FrankLaskey@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago

Not to mention battery life..