Logically, although in this article we are going to base ourselves on Valve’s portable console, in reality it is also valid in most cases for any other portable console, be it a Nintendo Switch, the new Asus ROG Ally or any other. Let’s see what steps you can take to try to make your battery last longer so you can have longer gaming sessions.
Settings to make the Steam Deck battery last longer
First of all, you should keep one thing in mind: the settings that can make the Steam Deck battery last longer could impoverish your gaming experience, since to make the battery last longer we will have to sacrifice other things, such as performance . However, this doesn’t really have to have a negative impact either, as it will depend a lot on the game you’re playing and how demanding it is on the console’s hardware.
With that said, here we go with the tips.
Reduce screen brightness
One of the most obvious things you can do to make your battery last longer is to reduce the brightness of the screen, since this contributes a lot to leaving the battery dry in a short time. Keep in mind, however, that reducing the brightness will make you see the screen worse if there is a lot of ambient lighting, especially if you are outdoors… but if you are on the sofa at home, for example, you will not notice much difference either.
To do this, you must click on the Steam button on the console and then go to Settings -> Display and disable the adaptive brightness option. Disabling this will not only turn off the light sensor (which also consumes some battery life), but will unlock the ability to use the console’s brightness adjustment slider.
Lower the Thermal Power Limit
The Steam Deck has some settings that you won’t see on any other console… not even on PC, and one of them is the Thermal Power Limit. Changing this setting will allow you to reduce the amount of power consumed by the processor, which will significantly increase battery life at the cost of reduced performance (but as we mentioned before, it will also depend on what games you want to play and how demanding they are). .
To do this, you must press the shortcut button (if the Steam button is located on the left, under the trackpad, it is on the right, right between the trackpad and the speaker) and then go down to the battery icon. Then select Performance, Performance Settings and there you will see that there is a “switch” called Thermal Power Limit. By activating it, you will be reducing the consumption of the processor from 15 to 3 watts, drastically reducing battery consumption but also lowering the performance of the console. Be careful with this.
Limiting FPS improves battery life on the Steam Deck
A better alternative to the above to avoid losing so much performance is to limit the FPS, since in this way you will have adequate performance in games but you will be avoiding energy being consumed in generating extra FPS that you really do not need. To do this, go back to quick access, click on the battery icon again, Performance and Performance settings (exactly the same as before), but what you must activate is “Framerate Limit”.
Here you can limit the maximum FPS so that energy is not consumed in an absurd way; Be careful, it depends on the firmware version you have, you can choose between 10, 20 or 40 FPS limit, or 15, 30 and 60.
Adjust graphics in games
You already know that, in essence, the Steam Deck is a PC in the form of a portable console, so in reality you are running the games as is and you can change the graphic settings in the game menu itself.
It is well known that the higher the graphics settings in games, the more the APU of the Steam Deck will be demanded, which means that it will consume more power; therefore, if you do the opposite (relax the settings) it will consume less energy and therefore the battery will last longer.
