Valve’s latest SteamOS update is a big one for Steam Deck fans – and I’m literally talking about the handheld gaming fan. One common complaint about Steam Deck is its at times loud and high whining of the fan, even when playing light games. Some, including my colleague Sean Hollister, have tried a DIY solution to fix the whining, and iFixit’s Steam Deck replacement fans are already sold out, although they’re on sale in less than a week.
With SteamOS 3.2, however, Valve has introduced a new OS-controlled fan curve that aims to improve things. “This means it’s generally smarter, more responsive to what’s going on and inside Steam Deck, and quieter, especially in low-use situations,” the company said in a blog post. of Valve).
To see if I could see a difference, I installed the update on my Steam Deck and tried a few games. In my brief and extremely unscientific testing, my impression is that Valve has made some major improvements.
First I launched Rogue Legacy 2, a roguelike side-scrolling that isn’t too graphic-intensive. I immediately noticed that the fan was dramatically quieter – I could only hear it from time to time – and with the speakers on, I couldn’t hear the fan at all. I had a similar experience with Vampire Survivors, although I didn’t have time to get to a typical finale, where the whole screen is filled with enemies and weapons – I’m curious to see if this will push more fans.
Valve’s new Steam Deck update seems to make a BIG difference in fan noise. I tried to videotape it with Vampire Survivors. The first part of the video uses the old fan settings. The second part uses the updated ones. (sorry for the horrible cinematography) pic.twitter.com/SxIsHMgrg0
– Jay Peters (@jaypeters) May 27, 2022
In Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice with maximum settings, the fan is still audible, although it is generally much quieter compared to the old fan behavior, which you can switch back to in the settings menu if you wish. With the new update installed, I also didn’t hear the fan running idle on the Steam Deck menu screen, which was one of my biggest annoyances with the device.
SteamOS 3.2 also allows you to change the refresh rate in the game on the go directly from the three-point menu button. “The default is 60 Hz (which can be limited to 60, 30 and 15 frames per second), but you can now drag it down to 40 Hz (with frame limits at 40, 20 and 10 frames per second)”. says Valve. Reducing the refresh rate is a lever that you can pull if you want to improve battery life.
You can read the full notes on the correction here. And thanks to a Steam client update, the Steam Remote Play Together feature, which allows you to play local multiplayer games over the Internet, is now “fully functional” on Steam Deck.
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