Steam Deck has a lot of things going for it, but it just got an update that gamers have been asking for, for a long time. As per their last update, you could tweak settings of every game in Steam Deck to make it exactly what you wanted. The only downside was that Steam Deck would not save these tweaks for every game, forcing you to re-enter the combination of settings every time.
The latest Steam Deck update changes just that. Each game will now have its own performance profile that saves the settings you enter for each game so you don’t have to rely on memory.
The best part of Valve’s portable gaming PC is how you get the most from its AMD RDNA 2 graphics and 40 watt-hour battery, but this update really takes performance of each game to the next level. You can lower your screen’s refresh rate to increase your frame rate and reduce latency, or you can throttle the CPU and GPU to give you an ideal setting for each game.
The new feature can be accessed in the Quick Access menu. From there, go to Performance and Advanced View. Here you can set the toggles for each game according to how you would like them to be. The settings should save and launch automatically when you open each game. You can even switch the feature off and it will go back into the global system settings.
So if you want to maximize the battery and you’re on-the-go, you can turn down the full throttle on games that don’t require it. You can also adjust settings to maximize the performance in games like Elden Ring or Vampire Survivors. This should make the Steam Deck an even better portable gaming PC than it already was.
The update does not let you save multiple profiles or share them with the larger community. We hope that addition will be next because it would be great to get and share ideal peak performance or battery-saving profiles for various games without trial and error of our own.
This update also takes care of the virtual resolution when connected to a remote display — it has now been cranked up to 1280 x 800. There are some keyboard fixes for certain regions as well.
Steam Deck has garnered pretty strong reviews from early adopters. It hit some road bumps with stock issues which it resolved with its updates on shipments.
Steam Deck can also run Windows even though there are several limitations.
Valve has had many updates recently for Steam Deck, some of which have included keeping the fan noise low and keeping the GPU temps at a reasonable level.
