What you need to know
- The latest Steam Deck client update includes several fixes, prominently relating to the adaptive brightness toggle, which previously caused performance and stability issues, and has been temporarily disabled.
- This update initially caused the screen brightness slider to become unresponsive, but Valve quickly re-published the update with an additional patch.
- The client update is available now for all Steam Deck users.
Valve has released their latest client update for the Steam Deck, bringing a variety of fixes and a couple of little features explained in a new YouTube video. Most importantly, this update addresses a serious bug relating to the adaptive brightness toggle, which previously was causing performance slowdowns and instability with games for some users. Developers thanked the Steam Deck community for bringing it to their attention, and the toggle has been temporarily disabled while a permanent fix is in the works.
Initially, this update caused the Steam Deck's brightness slider to be unresponsive, but Valve quickly identified the problem and re-published the update with a patch. UI performance improvements included in the update allow users to push games over their pre-set maximum screen resolution, and adjustments to default aspect ratios help with the use of external displays. A fix for updated fan controls coincides with the recent SteamOS 3.2 update, which improved the behavior of the internal fans and reduced noise while the Steam Deck is idle.
Check out the full patch notes and their new video in which Valve goes into full detail about the latest Steam Deck improvements. These consistent updates to their handheld console mean the future looks bright for portable PC gaming fans, finally able to enjoy some of the best PC games wherever they are.
Patch notes
- Added Game Resolution setting to App Properties, allowing players to override the max display resolution for games, on a a per-game basis
- Added mouse cursor (using right trackpad) for built-in web browser interactions when connected to an external display
- Improved default aspect ratio behavior for external monitors - games will now default to 1280x800 for 16:10 external displays and 1280x720 for all other external displays
- Improved UI performance in game carousels
- Improved UI performance when connected to an external display
- Improved controller order when using external gamepads to assign the controller slots by the order of input. This should help with compatibility in games which locked onto the Steam Deck controller.
- Fixed 'Enable updated fan control' toggle not remembering its state across reboots
- Fixed Bluetooth controllers not working on the lockscreen
- Fixed some formatting issues on the Steam Deck Chord Summary page
- Fixed issue preventing deletion of some controller layouts
- Temporarily disabled adaptive brightness toggle, as it was causing performance and stability issues. Big thanks to the community for catching this weird bug - we're working on a fix for it now.
