The Steam Deck is already feature-packed, but that doesn’t mean things can’t continue to improve. Along with releasing a newSteam Deck OLED, we’re getting a significant update to SteamOS 3.5.5 with a bevy of changes.
The latestSteamOS 3.5.5 updateis now available on the stable channel. It brings performance enhancements, new features for the dock, display color profile adjustments,Variable Refresh Rate(VRR) and HDR for external displays, improved Bluetooth controller connectivity, and more. Steam specifically mentions the ability to change the default color rendering for the LCD Steam Deck to emulate the sRGB color gamut. This delivers vibrant, rich, and warm tones to gaming experiences. However, you’re able to always swap it back to the old default setting.
We saw many of these changes in the beta back in September, but now they’re readily available to everyone on the stable channel. You’ll notice new options in the quick-access scaling settings menu to stretch and zoom or use other aspect ratios. The changelog mentions upgraded graphic drivers with lots of performance and compatibility improvements, sleep resume speed increases, and processor undervolting options.
This is a large update with a slew of under-the-hood tweaks. In the blog post, Steam mentions two big fixes that should make a ton of owners happy. The company fixed a long-standing issue where the internal display backlight always stays on and touchscreen orientation bugs while using an external display.
Valve has also updated the Linux components in SteamOS. The changelog explains, “This update pulls in newer performance, security and stability fixes for the underlying packages that are the foundation for SteamOS. Most notably, this includes recent changes to KDE Plasma, Steam Deck’s Desktop Mode.” SteamOS is now runningKDE Plasma 5.27, which was released in February with a new window tiling system and improved Discover app.
The changelog also mentions better Bluetooth connection stability, especially with multiple controllers, support for Steam Deck OLED, and auto-mounting of external drives. However, if you’re running low on storage,upgrade the SD card.
And finally, today, we’re also getting a new Steam Deck Dock firmware v121 and a new Steam client with a wide range of improvements and bug fixes. Grab it today and enjoy all the changes.
