In the run-up to the Steam Deck, which recently had its launch date pushed back a couple of months, most likely due to the ongoing component and tech shortage, more and more details about the device have been surfacing as the release window fast approaches. Recently, there was a discussion on the Steam Deck’s suspend and restore mode, and there’s been some news about some of the company’s own games being given tweaks in time for the hardware hitting the market. Now, additional information has come to light, related specifically to the hand-held PC’s operating system.
A report referencing some shared release notes for the Steam Deck show that the OS for the device will take up around 10 GB of storage. This is 15% of the 64 GB version of the hardware, with the report going on to say that this is down significantly. In previous iterations, it was required to use 24 GB of the internal hard-drive for the operating system, so this is a vast improvement. It remains to be seen whether Valve will be able to get this down any more before the Deck releases in February.
To put this into perspective, Windows 11 requires 64 GB of storage, and while this relates specifically to PCs, which will likely have more HDD or SSD space than the Steam Deck, that’s more than three times Windows 10, which needed 20 GB. Given that, 10 GB for the Steam-specific OS seems quite small, and, as stated above, there may even be a possibility that this could be reduced again before release day, though that’s just speculation at this stage.
As many are already aware, the Steam Deck runs on a Linux-based operating system called Proton. Although there have been numerous concerns about this choice of OS for the device, given that some games were in danger of not running due to the system’s incompatibility with anti-cheat software, the Deck is designed to be able to run Windows games on a Linux machine natively.
Valve may have had to push the launch date for its hand-held PC back a little bit, but the company seems near enough ready to unleash it. With the Steam Deck’s final packaging being shown recently, and developers now having had a chance to test the kit out, it’s only a matter of time before the public can get their hands on one. Let’s just hope that it lives up to the hype and has the potential to move the mobile gaming market forward.
The Steam Deck is due for release in February 2022.
Source: PC GamesN, Meta Council
