We’ve already seen various tools like Lossless Scaling or Magpie that allow you to use FidelityFX Super Resolution in any game that doesn’t have such technology, but of course, there’s no native implementation in the drivers or even better in the operating system. That’s why AMD and Valve are working to include the ability to universally implement FSR at the operating system level in SteamOS 3.0, the operating system used by Steam Deck.
This will allow Steam Deck users to enable FidelityFX Super Resolution in any game and increase its FPS level, which is always a good thing on low-powered machines. However, with such a small screen resolution, FSR’s input resolution should be quite low, so there is little detail to scale, which could affect image quality. This is something that already occurs at 1080p and gets worse at smaller resolutions, so FSR results at 1280×800 probably won’t be the best.
Fortunately, for those who don’t want to use FSR, Valve has already clarified that currently all games in the Steam catalog run at least 30 FPS on the console, and early tests show that many of them even reach 60 FPS, so there shouldn’t be any major performance issues when rendering the image in native resolution to get maximum quality.
The Steam Deck will launch in February 2022, after being delayed by a few months due to a lack of production components. So we’ll have to wait another three months to see how good the console is in the hands of users, although it promises a lot at the moment.