Steam Deck's Framerate Limiter Seems to Have a Huge Latency Issue
Valve has been hard at work deploying substantial updates to the Steam Deck over the past few weeks, with the optional beta version of the device's operating system already loaded with a number of much-needed improvements and upgrades. Not everything seems to be according to plan, however, as one Steam Deck user may have discovered a serious flaw.
Namely, Redditor Dacvak recently posted on the Steam Deck subreddit with a series of discoveries about the device's actual input latency, and things are not looking good. According to Dacvak's data, Steam Deck's implementation of a system-wide frame rate cap seems to effectively quadruple the amount of time that passes between the user input and its in-game effect.
Some Games Being Blocked on Steam Deck Is Due to A Technical Issue, Valve Says
Steam Deck's effective battery life has been one of its main faults from the very start, and to resolve the issue, Valve implemented a system-wide frame rate cap feature that allows users to fine-tune their games' performance and power draw for maximum effect. According to the data that Dacvak collected, however, enabling the frame rate cap will hugely increase the device's input latency, which can make games feel sluggish and unresponsive. Using the new 40Hz refresh mode without a frame cap, users can expect about 34 ms of delay, but a cap will increase that number to 120 ms, instead.
The introduction of a 40Hz refresh mode on Steam Deck was a widely lauded move due to it opening up an almost perfect balance between battery life and gameplay smoothness. If Dacvak's findings are correct, however, users may be subjecting themselves to a very substantial amount of input lag by enabling this option, and there doesn't seem to be a good way to
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