Steam deck owners have moved to version 3.6.0 as Valve has given us a lot of gifts with the latest SteamOS preview update. There are many fixes and additional features to enjoy along with graphics driver updates that promise "many performance and accuracy improvements."

The OS itself has been moved to a more recent Arch Linux base, and the Linux kernel has also been updated. I thought I would lead in the most exciting bit. Oh kidding, there are a lot of fixes, including improved pairing with Apple AirPods, improved Bluetooth connection speed, improved performance and stability in high memory usage scenarios, and the addition of the ability to wake the device from sleep with a Bluetooth device.

The graphics card driver has been updated to Mesa24.1, with many performance improvements according to the release notes. I was driving through some of the more demanding areas of Cyberpunk2077, and the frame rate seemed a bit less stuttering than before, but this

Still, any performance improvement will take me. Those who like to push the hardware to the limit are delighted that the BIOS for the Steam Deck LCD has added overclocking controls.

Speaking of LCD displays, there were also some software improvements on the screen. Display uniformity should be improved with the horrific "Mura effect", Mura compensation, designed to help alleviate common problems with LCD displays that are exposed to high temperatures over time, where the displayed images can be viewed unintentionally grainy. 

I've never noticed any problems personally with my deck, but if you're suffering, this should hopefully minimize the effect. It also improves the color balance of the display at low brightness levels, so lowering the screen and maximizing battery life will make things look better.

In desktop mode, you get a thumbnail preview of the video in the file browser, and Deck Dock — a name I love to say out loud — gets some interesting HDMI CEC features too, including TV remote input, TV wake-up, and TV input switching . There are also some compatibility fixes for high refresh rate VRR displays.

This update is for those who have opted in to the preview channel for now, but there is a drop-down box next to the "System Update Channel"

Red Letter day for Steam Deck owners Then there are a lot of quality of life and compatibility improvements, and there are a lot of improvements. Performance has also improved a bit. There is still no version available for other hardware, which is a shame, but you can't have everything, but ey?