Steam Deck can handle all Steam games performance-wise, even new ones

Valve confirms that the Steam Deck's specs will be enough to run the full Steam library at acceptable performance.

While Valve is still working on official Steam Deck compatibility for all Steam games, the company says the handheld-PC's custom AMD SoC and 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM should have no issue running the full Steam games library. In a recent interview with IGN, Valve developers say the Steam Deck is running older and current-generation PC games released in 2021 without issues.

"All the games we wanted to be playable, it's really the whole Steam library there. We haven't really found something that this device couldn't handle yet," said Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais.

"We've been looking at various games across the last few years in the back catalog but the real test for us where games that were coming out last year. These couldn't really run very well on previous prototypes and architectures we were testing. This is the first time we've achieved the level of performance that is required to really run the latest generation games without problem.

"We've experimented with other previous generation processors or off-the-shelf processors in this form factor and this power envelope and it wasn't until now that we felt like the entire Steam catalog is available to people who have this device."

"So far we're looking pretty good. I think everything that's been coming out this year has been running without issues."

Keep in mind that Valve is targeting 800p 30FPS performance for games on the Steam Deck.

"We think that we were able to achieve that point where all the games that we wanted to be playable and have really good perf and deliver a really good experience," said hardware engineer Yazan Aldehayyat.

"I think a big factor is that we are using the latest generation GPU and CPU from AMD, even the memory itself we're using LPDDR5 which is brand new for the industry. We might actually be one of the first products to showcase the memory technology."

Steam Deck news

• Steam Deck's suspend and resume feature was a top priority for Valve
• Steam Deck reservations are now open to all Steam users
• Steam Deck should run every Steam game at launch
• Scalpers selling Steam Deck reservations for up to $5,000 on eBay
• Valve's $399 Steamdeck handheld: a portable PC that plays Steam games
• Steam Deck uses an M.2 2230 SSD that's 'not intended for replacement'
• New Steam Deck 512GB pre-orders won't ship until Q3 2022