Harley Maranan / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Valve is releasing a compatibility rating system for third-party devices that run Steam OS.
- The rating system will tell you if a game and its features are supported on Steam OS.
- This compatibility rating system will roll out over the next few weeks.
There are plenty of handheld gaming PCs out on the market, but only the Steam Deck runs on Steam OS. However, it will soon be joined by the Lenovo Legion Go S, with more to follow. In preparation for the launch of these third-party Steam OS devices, Valve is rolling out a rating system that will let you know how compatible a game is for these devices.
Valve has announced that over the next few weeks, it will launch the Steam OS Compatibility system. This rating system will cover all Steam OS devices that aren’t a Steam Deck (this only includes the Legion Go S at the moment). These ratings are based on a subset of the existing Steam Deck Compatibility testing results.
As the company explains, Steam OS Compatibility is designed to give players a glance at whether a game and its features are supported on Steam OS. This includes factors like the game launcher, anti-cheat support, and game functionality. However, this system will not gauge how well a game performs on the device. The game will be marked either SteamOS Compatible or SteamOS Unsupported, depending on whether it and all of its middleware are supported.
Players will only see Steam OS Compatibility ratings if they are using a third-party device. It will be shown in the Steam Store and Steam Client. Valve says that it plans to have over 18,000 titles marked as compatible as soon as the system is available. Additionally, developers won’t have to lift a finger as “results are automatically generated from Steam Deck verification results without additional testing.”
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