Valve is targeting 30 FPS for the Steam Deck

Valve’s upcoming Steam Deck handheld device is a simple pitch, one of allowing a player to take their Steam library with them on the go. When you look at the Steam Deck specs list, it packs some solid hardware considering the form factor, but players should know that Valve is targeting 30 FPS for the Steam Deck, at least for a large number of games. Speaking with IGN, Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais notes that the target for games is 30 FPS.

“If people are still valuing high frame rates and high resolutions on different platforms,” he says, “I think that content will scale down to our 800p, 30Hz target really well.”

This will depend on exactly what settings players choose when running games, which will also affect the battery life. Valve previously noted that if the framerate is set to 30 FPS, players going through Portal 2 will get around five hours of battery life. You’ll be able to access most of the best PC games, but they aren’t going to look as good or run as smoothly as they would on a massive dedicated gaming rig.

The Steam Deck is using similar AMD hardware like the most recent consoles, the Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PS5, which engineer Yazan Aldehayyat notes will also aid in better-performing games for the Steam Deck.

“We’re not the only people with this architecture,” Aldehayyat explains, adding that “…any optimisation game developers make for this new architecture will carry forward to all system makers too. So I think we’re in a great place.”

The Steam Deck is currently set to begin shipping orders in December 2021, with some orders, especially those for higher-end models, slated for Q1 or Q2 2022.