Valve has added average Steam Deck frame rates to Steam’s store pages, giving handheld players another way to judge a game before buying it. A compatibility badge is useful, but knowing what performance to expect is rather handy when your backlog is already making financial threats.
The figures come from players who have opted into sharing performance data. To find them, open a game’s Steam store page and look under Steam Deck Compatibility, then select Learn More.
There is also an expandable graph showing how frequently different frame rates occur. That provides more context than an average alone, helping players spot uneven performance rather than assuming one reassuring number tells the whole story.
There are caveats, though, because PC gaming was hardly going to let us escape those. Valve filters the results to Decks using the default frame limit, but does not account for every custom graphics setting, so these figures are guidance rather than a promise about your own configuration.
Games also need enough collected data before results appear. That means an absent figure should not automatically be treated as bad news about performance.
This is a useful addition to the buying process. Checking compatibility and performance together should make choosing your next handheld obsession a little less of a punt.
We spotted the update through Kotaku’s coverage and checked the feature details against Valve’s official Steam announcement. That is the place to read the full explanation of how the performance data is collected.