My current little wish list for Steam deck upgrades

The Steam Deck has been around for a while, it’s now easy to buy with no reservation queue, and the long-delayed Steam Deck Docking Station is here too! Valve has rolled out a lot of updates, but there’s a lot they could improve. Honestly, it’s very different from when it was released.

After thinking about it for some time and gathering some inspiration from people on our Discord and YouTube, here’s an updated short list of items I’d like to see that I think would make the Steam deck better overall. I think all of this is absolutely doable. Obviously there’s a lot I want from a Steam Deck 2 that’s basically confirmed, but what about software updates for now?

Here is my little list:

A more customizable home screen. Let me place collections here, let me move things and make it “mine”.

Customize the performance overlay. I already know it’s possible because it uses MangoHud, which itself has a lot of things you can tweak on desktop Linux, and it can be moved to different parts of the screen. The current monitor is great with the different layers you can switch to, but let’s at least move it to a different position, it obscures the top left of the UI for a lot of games.

Downloads with the Screen out. The screen itself is probably consuming quite a bit of battery life, so it sure would be nice if we could turn off the screen while the downloads continue, right? Maybe an option that allows us to toggle the power button to turn off the screen with a tap, where a double tap will pause? There are probably better ways to do this, but it would be a really nice option. I know that due to technical limitations it’s probably not possible to do downloads while paused like other consoles do, but that would be one for the Steam Deck 2, so this feels like a nice little compromise.

For more “official” apps that can be easily installed in gaming mode, visit the non-Steam section of the library. We know Valve can do this, they did it with Chrome. Let’s get more in here! Netflix, Spotify and many more direct apps. Again, a proper music player would be great for your local collection.

Shader cache handling options. Not only can it get quite large, which is a problem for the 64GB model, but it can also be confusing for new users. There are constant posts on it where people get confused about what’s eating up their disk space. Clean up the speech on it, make it more visible for each game. Let people move it too.

Let’s move the on-screen keyboard in desktop mode. A really compact version would be great too, it just takes up way too much space.

More regular upgrades for the Plasma Desktop. It’s pretty far behind at the moment and will likely be again after the next major update is released. The KDE team has put a lot of effort into improving the desktop experience, we should be interested.

Steam Controller 2. That’s all I need to say, isn’t it? Well, the docking station is now available, there are many third-party docks and many people will connect to a TV. Give us a good official controller!

Let’s choose what the deck will boot into between gaming mode and desktop mode. I’m sure most people use it in gaming mode, but the option for those of us who use it like a PC a lot or leave it docked could be really useful.

Even more attention to Deck Verified. It’s good that the system exists, but it’s far from perfect. Paladins, for example, is still listed as a Steam Deck Playable even though the anti-cheat broke it quite a long time ago. How are things like this not picked up? Confidence in Deck Verified is essential.

I’m sure you all have your own wish list as well. Let me know what you want to see in the comments.

The article is from GamingOnLinux.com.