A few days ago, developer Valve surprisingly released the latest update from the preview channel for all Steam Deck users. This is probably the thickest package of changes since the PC handheld appeared.
Many fixes and improvements
For one thing, the Bellevue, Washington studio is delivering version 3.4 of massive improvements in the form of the latest snapshot for ArchLinux, the underlying distribution on the Steam Deck. In addition to new optimizations (e.g. more extensive touchscreen gestures, search functions, widgets and more) for KDE Plasma, the device’s desktop mode, there are also critical patches such as closing security gaps.
On the other hand, SteamOS itself was of course also fed with extensive bug fixes: A performance-hungry error when adaptive screen brightness was activated, fan curves incorrectly adjusted based on SSD temperatures and a docking bug with various HDMI 2.0 devices are just the tip of the iceberg. This is joined by a wide range of other improvements that can be found if you are interested in the official patch notes can read. Valve responded quickly to community feedback and caught up well before the end of the year.
Allow tearing and TRIM
Probably the most influential innovations that were introduced with SteamOS3.4 are of a completely different nature: With the new switch “Allow Tearing” in the quick menu, the previously enforced, system-wide V-Sync can be deactivated at will. In the past, for example, triple buffering caused significant input lag in most games if you set the FPS limit in the same menu. Now you can switch off the forced V-Sync and calmly fall back on the frame rate limit.
In addition, Valve has now enabled TRIM system-wide. This function ensures that the internal SSD automatically recognizes old loads and automatically overwrites the corresponding sectors in future processes. Otherwise this would have to happen sequentially after the sectors are erased – which takes more time and processing power; ergo lifetime of the data carrier costs. In abstract terms, you can imagine it like this: To replace a word in the text editor, you would either first delete or select it and then overwrite it. However, if the “Insert” key is pressed and the cursor is placed in front of the word, it will be overwritten directly instead. Sounds silly in theory, but helps enormously in practice. Valve ensures that the TRIM optimizations are regularly triggered when the system is idle and are even applied gently to the inserted MicroSD card.
In this sense: Happy updating and gaming.
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