Valve's Work on Graphics Drivers Should Improve Steam Deck Battery Life
Valve is keen to hit the ground running when the Steam Deck launches next month, so keen in fact, Valve's engineers are working on improving the AMD Vulkan Graphics API.
As Phoronix reports, Valve's Samuel Pitoiset has been working on the Radeon Vulkan RADV driver, and more specifically variable rate shading (VRS). In simple terms, VRS allows the amount of processing power required to render an image on the screen to vary for different parts of the image. It can improve the overall performance of a game, but also reduce the amount of power required to render what players are viewing on the screen.
Pitoiset's updates to the RADV driver are focused on power saving and he's added the ability to dynamically control the VRS rate as a game is being played. This should allow for better overall efficiency per game, which leads to reduced power draw and therefore longer battery life when playing on Steam Deck. It also means that Valve could potentially detect when the Steam Deck is plugged in to a power outlet and switch the VRS to prefer quality over power saving. That's just a guess on my part.
The Steam Deck uses a 40Wh lithium-ion battery, which Valve claims can last up to eights hours depending on what games are being played. Portal 2 running at 30 fps is expected to be playable for six hours before a recharge is required (or four hours without the frame rate limit), but that could be extended if the RADV driver update proves to be a positive change. For now, Pitoiset's work is under review and hopefully gets accepted before Steam Deck launch day on Feb. 25.
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