Steam Deck will arrive in homes this Christmas with the promise of offering access to all Steam games on a portable console with hybrid capabilities. Valve’s proposal will not be that “Nintendo Switch Pro” that many crave, with a resolution of just 800p, but it will have power inside to guarantee that all games go to 30 FPS as a minimum. Ultimately, Valve believes that Steam Deck is a console “ready for the future” of video games, something that translates into the presence of certain technologies with great potential.
In an interview, developer Pierre-Loup Griffais states that the use of a next-generation APU from AMD is “a major factor” in the performance of the Steam Deck, as well as the speed of its memory. “We are using the LPDDR5, which is completely new to the industry,” adds engineer Yazan Aldehayyat. “I think this may be one of the first products to showcase this new memory technology. So in that sense, this makes it very future-proof.”
But back to the brain of the beast, AMD’s RDNA 2 hardware assumes the Steam Deck is technically capable of ray tracing. It is a very technology intensive that is currently somewhat outside the console’s performance target, but Griffais believes that there will come a time when ray tracing can be used on his console, as his requirements are lowered. “I think there will come a time when we can turn on that feature and see the result,” says the Valve programmer.
Of course, the Steam Deck will be output compatible with FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), AMD’s new open technology for enhancing gaming performance thanks to image rescaling. “We have worked closely with AMD in testing the FSR and providing feedback throughout its development process. All games that support FSR work on this device, and the FSR will perform just the way you expect” .
As we mentioned at the beginning, Steam Deck shipments will begin in December of this year based on the order of reservations. A console that seeks to differentiate itself from the Nintendo Switch, despite superficial similarities, and that will offer an open platform to gamers. In fact, Gabe Newell has spoken precisely about this issue in his latest statements, stating that the open Steam Deck proposal is something that benefits us all, both consumers and the PC game market.
