The Steam Deck’s battery can drain if players don’t cap FPS

Depending on which game is played on the Steam Deck, its battery life can drain in under two hours if players don’t cap their FPS and make some other adjustments.

Valve has previously confirmed that the upcoming Steam Deck device will run on two-eight hours of battery life before it dies, but this depends on how demanding the chosen game

As spotted by PC Gamer, the YouTube channel GamersNexus ran an experiment testing the capabilities of the Steam Deck and found that the handheld device ran out of battery 33 minutes faster than what Valve stated was the minimum.

GamerNexus tested Devil May Cry 5 with an uncapped framerate, 50 per cent brightness, and Vsync turned off, resulting in the unit running out of battery in just 87 minutes. The Steam Deck was tested again, the second time with a 60 FPS cap, Vsync enabled, and lower settings and the device lasted a full two hours.

You can take a look at the full comparison below:

Meanwhile, YouTuber The Phawx also ran their own tests with the Steam Deck by playing Control, which lasted around 85-90 minutes of battery life.

“If you turn Vsync off and have low settings and 90 fps when there’s no reason to—you have a 60Hz display—you can inadvertently have terrible battery life,” The Phawx said.

Both channels also tested Dead Cells and managed to get six hours of battery life while the Vsync option was enabled, which seems to be a helpful tool for longer battery life, while The Phawx tested Forza Horizon 5 which lasted four hours by locking the framerate at 30 FPS with some settings changes. “For the life of me, I never managed to get to eight hours,” he added.

In other news, Fortnite will not be supported on the Steam Deck.