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Steam Deck now supports 1200p gameplay — with a catch

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The Steam Deck OLED on a pink background.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Steam Deck is about to get an exciting new patch that will add official support for 1920 x 1200 resolution — but it’s not what you think. Valve is updating SteamOS to add support for the DeckHD screen replacement. DeckHD offers a major boost to screen resolution, going up to 1200p from the console’s native 800p. However, it’s not as easy as all that, because not only does it cost you extra but you also need to feel comfortable carrying out a screen replacement by yourself.

The scoop comes from Tom’s Hardware, which spotted an interesting GitHub commit to SteamOS. Titled “Rebase DeckHD patches on latest gamescope code,” and what it refers to is essentially merging the third-party patches made by DeckHD into SteamOS itself. This should hopefully mean full support for the screen, including display timings. SteamOS should also now recognize the DeckHD as a known display.

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At the time of its launch, DeckHD had more to offer than it does now, but it’s not due to any fault with the screen upgrade. It’s Valve that majorly improved the Steam Deck by releasing the OLED version that replaced the old LCD screen and improved the contrast, color accuracy, and saturation on the console. Compared to the IPS panel in the original Steam Deck, DeckHD was a major improvement, with an 87% sRGB color gamut coverage versus the roughly 70% offered by the Steam Deck LCD.

A Steam Deck OLED sits on a table.
Giovanni Colantonio / Digital Trends

These days, there’s less use for DeckHD. Boosting the resolution is certainly nice, as Steam Deck’s native 800p is not that impressive when compared to some of its competitors — but the hardware inside the console was not really built for higher resolutions. On the other hand, with things like AMD FSR 3.1, 1200p is not so much a pipe dream as it is a stretch. It’s doable, especially in 2D games.

The Steam Deck remains the undisputed king of gaming handhelds. It may not have the most powerful hardware — that title goes to one of the consoles running AMD’s Z1 Extreme, such as the ROG Ally X — but it offers a good balance of price and performance. Now, with support for an important display hardware mod right around the corner, there’s hope that Valve might extend this kind of support to other Steam Deck mods.

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Monica J. White
Monica J. White
Computing Writer
Monica is a computing writer at Digital Trends, focusing on PC hardware. Since joining the team in 2021, Monica has written…
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