Steam store pages now show how a game actually runs on the Steam Deck. Valve has added average frame-rate figures, gathered from Deck owners, to games’ Steam Deck compatibility details, with a histogram alongside.
The numbers come from players who opted in to anonymous frame-rate sharing. Valve says most Deck players have already done so, and the setting can be changed in Steam account settings under Data & Browsing. Only Decks left at the default frame limit are counted, which is 60 FPS on the LCD model and 90 FPS on the OLED. A game needs enough data before its average is published, and LCD and OLED results can be compared.
The data covers thousands of games, including those rated Verified, Playable and Unsupported. That matters because a rating alone is a blunt tool: some players are happy with 30 FPS and others are not, and the average shows which side a game lands on.
Valve describes this in its Steam Deck Framerate announcement as a stepping stone to framerate data for more devices than the Deck. Desktop users on the Steam Client Beta are already being asked to opt in to anonymised sharing, and that prompt will reach all customers later. Valve has not said when desktop PC figures will appear in the store.
Valve does not account for custom in-game settings, so two players on the same game can see different results. It says the data still clusters in fairly narrow ranges once the effect of vertical sync is accounted for.
The change targets a real gap. Valve’s Deck Verified labels say whether a game meets its quality bar, but they do not say how smooth it feels in practice, and few buyers write reviews that list their hardware. Real averages from many handhelds give a better picture before money changes hands, and the refund window is no substitute for knowing in advance.
For now the figures sit under Steam Deck Compatibility on the store page, and in the library for people on the Steam Client Beta.
