Can Steam Deck get even better? Nvidia’s expanded GeForce NOW support is a resounding yes
Despite strong competition from Lenovo, Asus, MSI and many others, Valve’s Steam bridge has repeatedly made its position known as one of the best PC gaming handhelds on the market. And with the announcement that Nvidia’s GeForce NOW will introduce broader support for the Steam Deck, its dominance is even more assured. There are two […]
Despite strong competition from Lenovo, Asus, MSI and many others, Valve’s Steam bridge has repeatedly made its position known as one of the best PC gaming handhelds on the market. And with the announcement that Nvidia’s GeForce NOW will introduce broader support for the Steam Deck, its dominance is even more assured.
There are two particularly great updates for Steam Deck users. The first is a new beta installation method for GeForce NOW on Steam Deck, which will automatically install Google Chrome on the device and add all the necessary settings so that users can immediately start playing after the first boot.
And the second is a GeForce Update NOW which allows users to navigate the browser with a gamepad, including the Steam Deck. This makes it possible to find and play games on the handheld without worrying about system specifications, including non-Steam games and titles with Nvidia DLSS and ray tracing support.
Nvidia and Valve have been in talks since 2023 to add more support for the Steam Deck, so these updates were definitely taking a while to come.
Steam Deck launches full steam into the gaming space
These latest updates from Nvidia help address some of the Steam Deck’s issues, primarily the fact that its lack of power compared to other PC handhelds is becoming more and more apparent as time goes on. The Steam Deck OLED fixes some of these issues, but some titles cannot run natively without mods.
But being able to easily stream titles through GeForce NOW is the best way to combat this problem (at least until the Steam deck 2 finally launched, of course) since the hardware has absolutely no relation to the quality of the best PC games run. As long as you have a strong connection, framerate and overall performance are as stable as possible, even for titles that the system can’t otherwise play.
And with the added controller support coupled with the Steam Deck’s biggest advantage over the competition – its excellent operating system fully optimized for the handheld – it really feels like we’ve gotten some improvements significant changes that keep it competitive with its more powerful rivals.
