The Steam Machine will get a comparable level of post-launch software support and feature updates to what the Steam Deck has enjoyed, according to a Valve hardware designer. In an RPS interview last week, just prior to the Machine’s launch and price confirmation, Lawrence Yang told me that Valve already have a wishlist of extra tricks and tools to add to their boxy lil’ PC, including some which weren’t quite ready in time for release.
Asked what future Steam Machine support will look like, Yang says that it’s “Pretty similar to what almost all of our hardware looks like. Whenever we ship something, we’re never like, ‘Okay, we’re moving on.’ We always continue shipping updates and improvements, especially in the first month or so.”
Yang points to the original Steam Deck’s launch back in 2022, which was followed by SteamOS updates adding not just small fixes and minor QoL improvements, but whole new features like the lock screen, custom boot videos, and eventually, video recording. Proton, the software Valve uses to trick Windows games into running on SteamOS, has also long received patches to improve compatibility. In many cases, new feature additions were sparked by user feedback, something Valve couldn’t properly gather until the Deck was out in the wild.
“In the first few months [of the Steam Deck], we received so much really great feedback from customers about things that they’re running into that our limited test pool couldn’t catch, or features that they really wish they had,” Yang recalls. “And we’re like, that is a great idea, we should add that! And that’s how we got things like adding customisable boot videos and lock screens, and stuff like that. That came directly out of community feedback, so we expect a lot of that to happen for the Steam Machine.
“We also have our own list of features that we wanted to add, that we want to get to, and that we’re continuing to work on. So, I would say that similar to all of our hardware, you can expect continued updates over time.”
The contents of this feature list remain a secret for now, though I note that my Steam Machine review unit has already received multiple high-impact SteamOS beta updates, and the thing hasn’t even started shipping yet. One patch significantly improved ray tracing performance across a bunch of games, while another – released yesterday, and thus not part of my original review testing – gave a big framerate boost to Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, by far the slowest of my benchmark games. This got 1080p/High performance up from a 19fps average to 31fps, making playable an entire additional graphics tier.
And, while Valve can only share credit for it with AMD, the Steam Machine also just got FSR 4 support, just in time to start shipping. I’ve given this a little test run too, and as on desktop PCs, FSR 4 can be a bit slower than FSR 3.1: switching to the newer upscaler, on Quality mode, saw Forza Horizon 6 drop from 56fps to 53fps on 1080p/Ultra and from 74fps to 67fps on 1080p/High. Cyberpunk 2077, at 1080p/High, also fell to 91fps, from 106fps on FSR 3.0.
In both games, however, FSR 4 looks noticeably cleaner and more detailed. Which is especially noticeable on a big TV – the Steam Machine’s natural habitat – where pixel density is typically lower than it is on smaller desktop monitors. If I was getting high framerates either way, I’d almost always favour the higher clarity of FSR 4, which I suppose means my three-day-old review is already out of date. Cool!
Of course, to anyone buying a Steam Machine, these won’t be updates at all; they’ll just be what comes out of the box. Or, at least what, comes in an immediate download to what comes out of the box. But if Valve remain keen to keep adding features and fixes, they could still be a taste of what’s to come, SteamOS-wise.
In our chat, Yang and Steam Machine engineer Yazan Aldehayyat also spoke on the Steam Machine’s high pricing, and why they weren’t delaying the new hardware in the hope of lower component costs. The Steam Machine is technically on sale now, though the initial round of reservation signups is closing shortly, at 6pm BST / 10am PST. Not that Julian cares, Steam Link convert that he is.
