Although not a bestseller and currently more of an experiment than a consolidated product, good reviews Steam Deck on a general level, he encouraged Valve to push forward with its plans for future versions of its console/mini-PC. Logically, it is expected that future versions of the Steam Deck will be able to improve, but it is at this point that Valve has stepped forward and asked the user community for patience.

In an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Lawrence Yang, who works for Valve as a designer, warned that we’ll have to wait a few years before we see “a true next generation deck with a significant increase in performance”. This means that if a new version of the device were to appear later this year, it would not bring a revolutionary improvement over the first generation, although the expected presence of RDNA 3 could bring improvements in tracing support. good heavens

Pierre-Loup Griffais, a Valve engineer who also took part in the interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, noted that the company will continue to develop SteamOS, the Linux operating system and distribution used by Steam Deck, and the Proton compatibility layer. which has established itself as the main way of supporting devices and offering compatibility for Linux in general. inside it work is HDR support for compatible external monitors, a feature that, at least for now, eludes the Linux desktop. Hopes on this front are pinned on Wayland, a graphics protocol that aspires to succeed the decade-and-a-half veteran Xorg.

Due to the use of an APU for graphics processing (so no dedicated graphics memory) and compatibility layers, it’s not uncommon for some titles to end up on the Steam Deck with performance issues. However, and while Valve is aware of the mini-PC’s limitations, it hopes that developers will stick with its current specs a bit longer.

Another point that Valve employees pointed out is the adaptation of the title to Steam Deck would enable “smoother performance on a wider range of PCs and improve the experience for the entire player base”. Here we enter the assumption that the console could serve as a floor on the level of requirements in a sector in which hardware sales are declining. Added to this is a growing number of users who have been dissatisfied with prices in recent years and with requirements that are difficult for many to meet, especially due to the difficulties experienced in recent years in purchasing a decent dedicated graphics card at a reasonable price. price.

In short, it’s best to remain cautious in the face of further iterations of the Steam Deck. The ball here is mainly in AMD’s court, which knows how to develop the integrated graphics used by its APUs, and a coup by Intel cannot be ruled out, although it has a lot of work to do to catch up with Radeon and Valve is the main developer of RADV, the Vulkan driver for Radeon, which uses Steam Deck and all Linux distributions by default.