Valve Adds SteamOS Support For Its Steam Deck Rivals

Valve's SteamOS 3.7.8 update brings official support for AMD-powered handhelds like Lenovo's Legion Go and Asus' ROG Ally, along with a new "Steam OS Compatible" library tab and key bug fixes. Other features include a battery charge limit, updated graphics drivers, and a shift to Plasma 6.2.5. Polygon reports: Valve outlines two requirements for the third-party devices not explicitly named in the update to run SteamOS on the handheld: they must be AMD-powered and have an NVMe SSD. Specific instructions for installing the operating system have been updated and listed here.

Before this huge update, players had to use an alternative like Bazzite to achieve a similar SteamOS experience on their devices. The new update also piggybacks off of Valve expanding the Steam Deck Verified categorization system to "any device running SteamOS that's not a Steam Deck" in mid-May. To make matters sweeter, a SteamOS-powered version of the Lenovo Legion Go S is scheduled to release on May 25. You can learn more about SteamOS 3.7.8 here.

Valve needs to go after EOL Windows 10 and 7 users

[xack]

I've said it before and I said it again, SteamOS needs to be marketed to Windows 10 and 7 gamers as an escape route to keep their expensive gaming hardware going from Microsoft's end of support, make proton officially compatible with common desktop apps and Microsoft could finally have a real competitor.

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[AgTiger]

If I had mod points, you'd be getting a +1 insightful. That is a great idea.

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[sinij]

Fully agree, Microsoft abused gamers for decades, many will run away if they are offered direct alternative.

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[drinkypoo]

make proton officially compatible with common desktop apps

That's a very big job, and meanwhile Microsoft is making it less relevant by moving Office towards being a web app. Sooner or later they are going to retire the desktop version and only offer office as-a-service. Supporting those desktop apps is Wine's focus. What would ideally happen is that wine and proton would merge so everyone can get all of the benefits of both projects.

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[packrat0x]

Anything that hastens the demise of Microsoft, is a blessing to humanity.

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[kurkosdr]

The problem with this approach is that literally every little hardware peripheral on those PCs has to be supported: Obscure fan speed and RGB controls, brightness and volume controls for gaming laptop keyboards (and obscure stuff such as Alienware TactX macro keys), audio drivers for hi-end sound chips, various Ethernet, WiFi, and Bluetooth drivers, the list goes on. And keep in mind some of that hardware has proprietary drivers that will have to be reverse-enginered. And no, gamers don't want to hear you s

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[kurkosdr]

I really hope Valve keeps working on Proton and Wine, Windows has been gradually reducing win32/win64 compatibility to the absolute minimum they can get away with. They've already killed Secdrv support (which made most CD and DVD games unplayable), and they've recently introduced a change in Windows 11 memory management that broke some games (that relied on certain memory garbage being in certain places). Proton and Wine may soon be more compatible even for post-XP games than Windows itself.

eMMC

[darkain]

Steam Deck: "we're shipping with eMMC"
Valve to others: "YOU MUST HAVE NVME!"

Granted, its been a few years now, and I whole heatedly agree with the "you should be on NVMe" idea.