Valve is putting average frame rates and a full framerate histogram from real Steam Deck players on thousands of store pages. It's the most honest performance info any PC store has offered, and it raises the bar for every handheld storefront, Xbox included.
The “Verified” badge just got some backup. Valve now shows the average Steam Deck frame rate real players get right on a game’s Steam store page, built from anonymous data sent in by Deck owners who opted in. As of Valve’s announcement this week, thousands of games already have numbers, and the list keeps growing.
That is a big deal for anyone who has bought a game because it had a green checkmark, booted it up on the couch and found out “Verified” and “smooth” are not the same thing. Now you get the receipts before you spend a dime.
How to find it
Go to any game’s Steam store page, find the Steam Deck Compatibility box on the right side, and click Learn more. You’ll see the average frame rate, plus a small arrow that expands into what Valve calls a “framerate histogram,” a chart “breaking down the percentage of data samples at each framerate.” The same data is also showing up in the Steam Library for people on the Steam Client Beta.
It covers every game Valve has tested for Deck compatibility, which means Verified, Playable and Unsupported titles, not just the ones with the green badge. Games with only a handful of players won’t show anything yet, because Valve says it sets “a minimum threshold of anonymous data points” before it publishes a number.
Why Valve is doing it
Valve was refreshingly blunt about the problem. Its blog post says the current Verified rating “is based on standardized test criteria, but it may not match every customer’s bar for acceptable gameplay.” It gives the example both ways: “a game with an Unsupported rating due to unstable performance may be considered playable by some customers, and a Verified game may not reach a framerate that some customers prefer to play at.”
That gap is real. According to VGTimes, the Verified bar today is 30 fps at 800p on default settings. Plenty of PC players don’t call 30 fps a good time, and now they don’t have to guess where a game lands.
The histogram is the sneaky best part. Valve says it shows “how often people are running into hitches or stuttering,” which appear as small columns down in the low frame rates. An average can hide a stutter fest. A chart full of dips can’t.
What the numbers do and don’t tell you
Valve is only counting Decks running the default frame limit, which is 90 fps on Steam Deck OLED and 60 fps on the LCD model, and it doesn’t adjust for custom in-game graphics settings. Valve says that even so, the data “consolidates around relatively narrow ranges.” So treat it as the typical experience, not a promise for your exact settings.
Two bars far apart, like 90 and 45, usually aren’t two groups of players. Valve explains that’s what happens when a game’s frame rate doesn’t match the screen’s refresh rate and the system syncs it down to avoid tearing.
For a real example, PC Gamer pulled up Elden Ring and found it averaging 42 fps on Steam Deck OLED and 38 fps on the LCD model, with the LCD data mostly split between 60 and 30. That’s the kind of detail that decides whether you buy a game for your handheld or save it for the big rig.
If you’d rather not share your own numbers, you can change it any time in Steam Account Settings > Data & Browsing > Anonymous Game Framerate Data. Valve says a majority of Deck players have already opted in.
Desktop PCs are next
This is where it gets exciting for the rest of us. Valve calls the Deck rollout “a stepping stone toward providing framerate data for more devices than just Steam Deck,” and it’s already asking desktop users on the Steam Client Beta to opt in to sharing anonymous framerate data, with that prompt shipping to everyone “in the future.” Valve started with the Deck because every unit has the same hardware, which makes the numbers easy to read.
Developers have had this kind of data for a while. VGTimes reports Valve started giving devs average fps for Verified games in the spring, then added the histogram and expanded it to Playable and Unsupported games in October. Players are the last to get it, but they’re getting it.
Here’s our take: Valve keeps winning PC players over with features that help you decide what to buy instead of just selling to you. Imagine this on desktop, sorted by your graphics card, the day a big port drops. That would expose a rough PC launch within hours, and it would put real pressure on studios to ship ports that run right. Good. That’s exactly the pressure PC gaming needs.
And it’s a challenge Microsoft should take personally. Xbox just rebuilt its PC app to load up to 60% faster, and Xbox is pushing hard on handheld PC gaming. Real-world performance data from players on Xbox PC handhelds, right on the store page next to Game Pass, would be a power move. Steam just showed how it’s done. Your move, Xbox.
Image: Valve
Sources
- Valve, Steam News: “Steam Deck Framerate”
- PC Gamer: Steam now lets you see exactly what frame rate you should get in games using a Steam Deck
- GamingOnLinux: Valve now provide Steam Deck Framerate data to the public for each game
- VGTimes: Steam Deck owners can now see how a game runs before buying
- Tom’s Hardware: Steam Store adds average FPS data
- OnPoint 4 Gamers: Xbox rebuilt its PC app to load up to 60% faster
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