Steam Deck’s green Verified badge is useful, but it has never told you whether a game runs at the framerate you actually want. Valve is now adding that missing detail: performance figures collected from people playing on the handheld.
In its Steam Deck Framerate announcement, Valve says average framerates are available for thousands of games, with more to follow as enough data comes in. The figures use anonymised reports from customers who have opted into sharing their performance data.
On a game’s Steam store page, open the Steam Deck Compatibility section and select Learn more. Performance information is available for tested games across the Verified, Playable and Unsupported categories, provided Valve has collected enough samples.
You can also expand a histogram showing the percentage of samples at different framerates. An average alone can disguise an uneven experience; the distribution gives you a better idea of how consistently a game reaches its reported performance.
The same information is coming to the Steam Library through the Steam Client Beta. It gives owners a reason to look again at games they already have, including titles whose compatibility label might otherwise put them off.
There is an important limit to these numbers. Valve filters the data to Steam Decks using the default frame limit: 90fps on the OLED model and 60fps on the LCD model. It does not account for players changing graphics settings inside a game.
That means the figures describe how people are playing, rather than a controlled benchmark at one graphics preset. A demanding game running with reduced settings can contribute data alongside somebody using a different configuration.
Valve also warns that the graph can have quirks. On a 90Hz display, Vsync can produce a pattern of 90fps and 45fps samples, so two peaks do not necessarily mean two completely different groups of players.
The feature gives more substance to Steam’s compatibility labels, which use standard testing criteria that may not match everybody’s tolerance for lower framerates. Valve plans to extend performance reporting to other devices, and the desktop opt-in prompt is already in the client beta. Players can review their preference under Account Settings, Data & Browsing, then Anonymous Game Framerate Data.
