Steam Deck will have a built-in FPS limiter to help battery life

Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais confirms the Steam Deck will have options built right into the OS to help optimize performance and battery life.

Valve's new Steam Deck is a full PC built into a handheld, complete with mod support, multiple OS support and your entire Steam library. Playing PC games on-the-go is pretty demanding on battery life, though, even when targeting 800p 30FPS. That's why Valve is adding options like a frame rate limiter to help keep thermals and battery usage down.

"The 30 FPS target refers to the floor of what we consider playable in our performance testing; games we've tested and shown have consistently met and exceeded that bar so far. There will also be an optional built-in FPS limiter to fine-tune perf vs. battery life," Valve's Griffais says.

Internal testing shows the Steam Deck can run practically every Steam game at the minimum 800p 30FPS threshold, and Valve is currently working with anti-cheat developers to ensure the full Steam games library is playable when the system launches in December.

Other major Steam Deck innovations include a built-in global suspend and resume functionality that lets you quickly jump back into a game, not unlike Quick Resume on the Xbox Series X/S.

Steam Deck news

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