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As powerful and cost-effective as the Steam Deck may be compared to other competing devices in this niche, its relatively small form factor and power delivery concerns constrain its performance a fair bit. Therefore, it just isn't feasible for it to maintain 60 FPS in some high-end AAA games, while 30 FPS, on the other hand, is well below its capabilities, which puts it in an awkward position.
This, however, won't be an issue in the future, because Valve's developers have confirmed that alternative refresh rates will, indeed, be available on the Steam Deck in the future. What this means is that games that hover between 30 and 60 FPS will now have a stutter-free mid-point target at 40 FPS, instead, which will likely be the sweet spot between performance and battery life.
According to Pierre-Loup Griffais, a coder at the company, Valve's future plans for Steam Deck go well beyond what's been openly discussed so far, with Valve specifically looking into providing users with alternatives to the device's default 60Hz screen refresh rate. This is important because, at 60Hz, the screen can only evenly display 15, 30, and 60 FPS, with everything that isn't locked to these frame rates appearing stuttery and juddery, which makes for a poor gaming experience.
For games to play smoothly, there needs to be the same amount of time between every rendered frame, and a 60Hz display cannot evenly divide and render a stable 40 FPS, for example. Once Valve releases this particular post launch Steam Deck improvement, however, users will be able to set their display to 40Hz, which the device should have no trouble matching in any modern game, and will ensure a stable and stutter-free gaming experience across the board.
The discovery of this feature was first made on a Steam Deck running Windows, strange as that might sound. Tech YouTuber The Phawx showed the potential of this feature in a short overview video where he used a Windows hack to force a 40Hz refresh rate on the Steam Deck, allowing games that couldn't quite reach 60 FPS to feel perfectly smooth with perfect frame times across the board.
A 40Hz screen refresh rate wouldn't just be a huge performance boon, however. Sitting at a mid-point between 30 and 60 FPS, it would be easier on Steam Deck's somewhat small battery while still being more satisfying to play than regular 30 FPS, with improved reactivity, smoothness, and overall gaming experience. Sadly, there's no ETA on when this feature will be coming just yet.
Source: Twitter
