Before you jump the bandwagon and buy a Steam Deck, Valve is allowing consumers to test if the Steam Deck will play your games.
Valve, the developer behind Steam and the much anticipated Steam Deck handheld gaming PC, has released a new tool for the consumer to test exactly how many of their existing Steam Library will run on the Steam Deck. Anybody considering getting a Steam Deck or due to receive one shortly can run the compatibility checking tool from the Steam website now and confirm what exactly they will be playing on the go.
Compatibility Report
The Steam Deck Compatibility Checker tool will give the games in a Steam Library more than a simple yes or no. There are four types of potential responses from the new tool. Players will find a Verified, Playable, Unknown, and unsupported for each title. While Unsupported and Unknown speak for themselves, the Verified label confirms a title will play right out of the box with full controller support and display at the Steam Deck’s default resolution. Playable games will appear to require some undefined level of tweaking to get working, varying from fixing controller mapping to changing settings. It’s likely that based on the pace of the Steam Deck rollout, the majority of titles will sit in this category.
The release of this compatibility checker is timely, with the Steam Deck due to launch this week, Valve will be eager to make sure that expectations are set so players get the best experience possible with their new hardware. You can run the check on the official website now. Pre orders with a deposit are still open for the Steam Deck, which comes in a 64GB EMMC, 256GB NVMe, and 512GB NVMe configuration. Each of these will set you back £349, £459, or £569 or local equivalent over on the Steam Deck website now.
