Reading the specs list for the new OLED left me with a burning question: will the new display support VRR?
I’ve always said that proper VRR support would be a real game changer for portable consoles like the Steam Deck. We work so hard to lock FPS to 30, 40, 60 — whatever — but a lock is practically irrelevant if you’re running VRR. Locks are to maintain proper frame pacing, but VRR would allow the display to just draw new frames at whatever speed/rate the GPU cranks them out at. This can make not-quite-60fps games feel substantially better.
At the same time, I’ve always wondered… shouldn’t even the old SD LCD support VRR? I mean, you can control its frequency manually. Why can’t it accept a dynamic frequency on the fly?
I would love — LOVE — for the new steam deck to support VRR. Anyone else think it’s possible?
It is not a VRR display unfortunately.
I mean, you’d want to lock frame rates even with VRR available because it can drastically lower power consumption, which in turn increases battery life and makes the thing run cooler and quieter.
Even if the deck had VRR (which it should not gonna argue there), you’d likely still want to run at a capped frame rate under pretty much every circumstance.
As someone who uses their Deck almost exclusively plugged in, I don’t think I’ve ever imposed an FPS cap except to stabilize frametimes in one or two games.
on the contrary, VRR would help keeping power consumption down as you don’t need to hit the screens refresh rate. So you can offord to lower the power limit and to drop frames without loosing smoothness - 29-37 fps instead of 40 , 48-58 instead of 60 etc.
As an avid user of the ROG Ally, I can 100% confirm that VRR is a game changer for handheld PCs. Most of the games I play rarely come close to the native 120fps of the panel, but instead run mostly @70~90fps. Without VRR, I would still need to lock the framerate to 60fps (90 would be too juddery), and would still get judder on those rare occasions when the framerate drops below 60. The Lenovo Legion GO is stupid because of the lack of VRR, making its 144Hz panel a waste. It’s a shame that the new Steam Deck does not support VRR. That would have made it the perfect handheld. I still ordered one, and will share my impressions if anyone cares (which nobody will. That’s what The Phawx and RGC are for)