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"Steam Machine Verified" only guarantees 30fps at 1080p on the upcoming system

machineverified.jpg

With the Steam Machine and other hardware still reportedly on track for a 2026 release, Valve have shed some light on what will qualify a game for being Steam Machine Verified as a part of their Steam Hardware Talk at GDC 2026. Those gunning for the qualification will only need to make sure their games can hit 30fps at 1080p, notably only a resolution bump from the Steam Deck's 30fps target at 720p for verification. Though perhaps an underwhelming target on paper, it does greatly simplify the verification system for Valve, allowing them to confidently mark any games that are already Deck Verified as Machine Verified without any further testing. Those that are currently marked as Deck Playable for legibility reasons will also be Machine Verified out of the box.

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Alongside this, we also got some insight into what will qualify a game to be Frame Verified, with the platform targeting 90fps for standalone VR titles, and 30fps at 720p for standalone 2D games. Due to the architectural differences between the Frame and Valve's other hardware, no games will be Frame Verified by default, with Deck Verified and Deck Playable games being tested, as well as those not supported by the Steam Deck due to a VR requirement.

Those interested can find the slide deck from the presentation below.

:arrow: Source
 
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Scarlet said:
It's the bare minimum verified titles will run at. The most demanding titles may yet not be compatible. It's just speculation at this point, though at the very least having this verification tier will give developers something to target. I know the Steam Deck Verified has made a lot of games provide targeted graphics settings that work great on other iGPU systems.
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Well anti-cheat will still be an issue with devs who don't want to enable Linux support. But I can't see this thing struggling to run any game at low/medium mix for at least the rest of this gen. Next gen is a different story. Well, unless it's a monumentally shitty port. Which isn't impossible unfortunately.
 
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the listed hardware specs seem to be dramatically more capable than that even with modern games

they had to set an upper limit and lower limit of some kind, that doesnt mean that the lower limit is anything but that: the lowest extreme theyll accept
 
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What is the requirement for "Machine Playable" then? I'd consider 1080p30 to be kind of the bare minimum. If "Machine Playable" is only 720p30 that is not going to be a good experience.
The Switch already struggled to do more than 720p30 in many games, including some 1st party ones, but we dealt with it because it was 300 bucks and it was the only way to play 1st party Nintendo games.
Steam Machine is going to be $800++. For that price to make any sense at all it has to at least be somewhat competitive with similarly priced prebuilt PCs, which are capable of playing the exact same games. If people start comparing the performance to the OG Switch, it has failed as a product.

I think there needs to be a tier beyond "Machine Verified". 1080p60/1440p30 should be a realistic target, and I can guarantee many people will be wanting to know what games they'll be able to play at a smooth 60 FPS or at resolutions above 1080p before making a purchase. But it worries me that they have not made this a tier already. It could show their lack in confidence of this thing being able to run games with good performance at all.

We also have to keep in mind this thing has to be able to run future games that come out in the next few years. If it can't do 1080p60 now, then in 3 years it's not even going to be able to do 1080p30.
 
Last edited by The Real Jdbye,
That seems surprisingly pessimistic for a 6x upgrade over the deck. I'm guessing they're trying manage people's expectations by under-promising and then being able to overdeliver.
This might also be conservative for future proofing, if they had targeted 60fps it might not reach that smoothly with the newest titles in 3-4 years, this way they will have a good amount of room for a few years to come.
 
I'm not keen on game development, etc., but I place more of the blame on developers than the hardware for why games can't run at high resolutions and high frame rates.
 
I don't really care that much honestly. I'm playing mostly indie games or older AAA titles and those should run just fine, probably even in 4k120fps.
 
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Scarlet said:
I think the larger issue there is the added burden on Valve to actually test these games (assuming it is them that do it?). I feel like a good chunk of the reason why it's 1080/30 for Machine Verified is just so they can confidently say everything that is Deck Verified will work well at 1080p. Maybe they did some test cases on higher end games and couldn't be confident that every game would work at 1080/60?
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valve very likely don't test the settings, if they did they wouldn't have marked oblivion remastered as verified
 
Latiodile said:
valve very likely don't test the settings, if they did they wouldn't have marked oblivion remastered as verified
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Looking at the page explaining Deck verification, it seems it is Valve:

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I wonder what the team responsible for doing these reviews looks like.
 
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SuffahBish said:
Yeah. I think that's fine. Again assuming the price is right. Which is why Valve keeps delaying this thing due to current ram prices. You can use FSR to upscale from 1080p to 4k if you want it to look better on a 4k TV too.
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This thing won't even be able to do 30fps at native 1080p unless it's older titles. Also, no, FSR is not going to save it. This is a less than minimum requirements piece of hardware that will rely on upscaling to hit 30fps & frame interpolation to hit 60fps.
 
Wait hold on I just realized. Machine Verified needs 1080p/30FPS, but the same device was also advertised as a perfect companion for the Frame. The Frame does 2160x2160 at full resolution., if we go with the Index as a resolution baseline then the Machine needs to deliver 1600p/72FPS at minimum.

Is the Machine really going to be the perfect companion for the Frame at that point? What if the VR title isn't as optimized as Beat Saber, Pistol Whip or Superhot VR? And why those three in particular? Those are so well optimized that I could play them using a GTX680.
 
emmanu888 said:
Wait hold on I just realized. Machine Verified needs 1080p/30FPS, but the same device was also advertised as a perfect companion for the Frame. The Frame does 2160x2160 at full resolution., if we go with the Index as a resolution baseline then the Machine needs to deliver 1600p/72FPS at minimum.

Is the Machine really going to be the perfect companion for the Frame at that point? What if the VR title isn't as optimized as Beat Saber, Pistol Whip or Superhot VR? And why those three in particular? Those are so well optimized that I could play them using a GTX680.
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There are a lot of VR games that are designed for Quest first and ported to PCVR. These would likely run just fine on the Machine. They may even run on the Frame directly.
Equally there are a lot of VR titles that require at minimum a mid range gaming laptop and there is no way in hell that the Frame or Machine will be capable of running them at a playable framerate, because no iGPU can.

You're gonna have to temper your expectations when it comes to running PCVR software either on the Frame directly or on the Machine. They do advertise the Frame as being capable of running PC titles directly but they say nothing about compatibility beyond "a growing number" which could mean anything really. The Machine will do quite a bit better than the standalone Frame but PCVR in general is incredibly demanding. The list of compatible titles is going to be limited.

They are billing the Frame also as a display for playing your regular PC games which is why the controllers are more conventional with D-pad and buttons matching that of a traditional controller. So when they're talking about using the Machine and Frame together this might be the primary use case they're thinking of.
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Mama Dizzys said:
the listed hardware specs seem to be dramatically more capable than that even with modern games

they had to set an upper limit and lower limit of some kind, that doesnt mean that the lower limit is anything but that: the lowest extreme theyll accept
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I would tend to agree with you. I just can't understand why they would not have a tier for 1080p60 which is the most important target to try to hit. That is the minimum required for an objectively good experience, and people buying this instead of a PS5 or a Switch 2 are going to want at minimum 1080p60, they probably won't even consider less. Only mentioning 1080p30 as the target resolution/framerate if the hardware is capable of much more is shooting themselves in the foot, because that really doesn't compare favorably to even the Switch 2.
 
Last edited by The Real Jdbye,
So almost parity with the Series S?

I do wonder if this is Valve just being over conservative for their labeling. Like there's a ton of steam games marked "unsupported" but can actually be played from start to finish, with the only issue being FMVs that require old codecs.

The device is also being advertised as 6X powerful as the Steam Deck, which I'm able to play The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak I on, in 800p/60fps. The specs and criteria for verified are fine IMO.
 
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What is this, a Wii U?
Jokes aside, AAA have gotten so bloated that something like the steam machine wouldn't be able to handle them above 1440p native.
 
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