Steam Deck Beta Client Update: April 16th

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 02:15:31 +0000

We have just shipped an updated Steam Deck Client to the Preview/Beta channel.

General

Fixed on-screen keyboard stealing focus from chat textbox when touched or clicked.
Fixed a case where the input textbox is not focused when opening a chat.
Fixed the Voice chat tab of the QAM not being hidden after exiting all active voice chats.
Fixed spell check not working in certain browsers.

Steam Input

Fixed a case where the controller calibration screen could fail to load the correct values the first time it is opened.

Steam Client Beta - April 16th

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 02:15:23 +0000

The Steam Client Beta has been updated with the following changes:

General

Fixed spell check not working in certain browsers.

Big Picture Mode

Fixed on-screen keyboard stealing focus from chat textbox when touched or clicked.
Fixed a case where the input textbox is not focused when opening a chat.
Fixed the Voice chat tab of the QAM not being hidden after exiting all active voice chats.

Steam Input

Fixed a case where the controller calibration screen could fail to load the correct values the first time it is opened.

SteamOS 3.7.21

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:15:44 +0000

SteamOS 3.7.21 has just been released for all users with the following changes:

General

Security and stability updates

SteamOS 3.8.2 Beta: Second Clutch

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 01:54:15 +0000

Note: This update is for the Steam Deck Beta and Preview channels, and includes new features that are still being tested. You can opt into this in Settings > System > System Update Channel.

These notes contain all changes since the current stable SteamOS 3.7 release, with those additional changes since the previous 3.8.1 Beta:

New in 3.8.2

Fixed a regression that could cause Borderlands 2 to crash on startup on certain systems
Fixed trackpad losing functionality after sleep/resume on the Legion Go
Security updates to Flatpak, libpng and openssl

General

Fixed a case where WiFi performance could become degraded until the device was put to sleep or manually reconnected
Fixed excessive trackpad sensitivity on certain early Steam Deck LCD models
Initial support for upcoming Steam Machine hardware
Updated Arch system base
Updated graphics driver with performance and stability fixes
Fixed a case where per-app performance settings would intermittently fail to apply when launching a game
Improved support for the screencasts in Game Mode (e.g. OBS/Discord)
Fixed dropdown menus not appearing in some games
Improved VRR frame pacing
Fixed FSR badge remaining off in the performance overlay, even if it was actually active
Improved support for games that attempt to open PDF files in external viewers
Fixed an issue affecting certain titles (such as "SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide") where the game window could have an incorrect position
Fixed closing certain titles (such as "STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor™") and Starfield resulting in a session crash
Improved support for certain USB racing wheels and USB devices that boot in a non-standard mode
- Frequently these are devices that appear as USB storage devices with a driver installer, and must be switched to their normal mode by the OS
Steam Deck controller firmware updates now display update progress on the splash screen
Fixes issue on specific Steam Deck revisions where firmware updates could render the left controller inoperative for that session
Numerous stability and security updates

Bluetooth

Re-re-enable Bluetooth Wake for Steam Deck LCD
- Fix for more spurious wake issues that were present in earlier attempts

Audio

Detect HDMI channel count and expose surround configuration if available
Add a setting to allow using Bluetooth headset mics (Bluetooth playback quality will be worse while capture is active)
Restore internal audio device on reboot if set to "Off" in desktop mode
Increase suspend timeout for HDMI devices so initial audio isn't cut off after a few seconds of inactivity
Fixed a bug with switching input devices when a wired headset is plugged in
Fixed an issue where audio underruns could be experienced after sleep/resume

Accessibility

Added an option to force mono audio output

Desktop Mode

KDE Plasma updated to version 6.4.3 from 6.2.5, and now uses wayland by default
- Fixes several cases of reduced performance in Desktop Mode compared to Game Mode
- Improved support for rotated displays
- Better scale factor out of the box on TVs
- Adds support for external HDR displays
- Adds support for VRR displays
- Adds support per-display scale factor
- For more information, see Plasma release announcements
  - https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.3.0/
  - https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.4.0/
Keyboard layout and language are now obeying Game Mode settings
Improved windowing behavior for games running in Proton

System Firmware

Includes Steam Deck LCD BIOS v133
- Security updates
- Added "Memory Power Down" setup option
- Preliminary support for hibernation
Includes Steam Deck OLED BIOS v114
- Security updates
- Charging LED now changes color when charge limit is reached, rather than only at 100%

Non-Deck

Improved compatibility with recent Intel and AMD platforms
Greatly improved video memory management with discrete GPU platforms
Fixed a compatibility issue with the SteamOS chainloader that could cause a boot failure on some desktop systems with recent UEFI firmware
Power button short and long presses now supported across a wide variety of devices
Improved controller support for OneXPlayer F1 series, GPD Win 5, GPD Win Mini, Anbernic Win600, OrangePi NEO, and Lenovo Legion Go
Added controller support for OneXPlayer X1 series and Lenovo Legion Go 2
Added system and controller firmware update support for the Lenovo Legion Go 2
Added preliminary charge limiting support for Legion Go, Legion Go S, and Legion Go 2 - currently only accessible in Desktop Mode
Added controller RGB LED color settings for the Lenovo Legion Go 2
Added controller, TDP control, and speaker audio support for the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally series
Reduced handheld controller input latency from 5-8ms to 100-500us
Night mode, color vibrance, and color temperature sliders in Steam now work on Z2E and later AMD APUs
Seamless boot fixes for Z2E and later AMD APUs
Automatically handle internally rotated display for some third-party handhelds
Improved motion control support for handhelds with BMI260 IMUs
SD card reliability improvements for some third-party handhelds, including ASUS ROG Xbox Ally, Legion Go 1, Legion Go S, Legion Go 2, and MSI Claw
Fixed washed out colors for Zotac and OneXPlayer handhelds with OLED
Fixed some GPU hangs on Phoenix APU devices (Tales of Arise, Octopath Traveler II)
Fixed ASUS ROG Ally power consumption from fingerprint reader while shut down

Developer

Desktop Mode now uses Wayland by default
- X11 support may still be selected via Steam developer settings, or via `steamosctl`
Updated Linux kernel to 6.16
Steam now uses steamos-manager to query available desktop sessions and trigger desktop session switching
Added support for setting the desktop password in developer settings
Initial support for running as a Virtual Machine guest (virtio guest drivers)
Added support for third-party devices to trigger the SteamOS boot menu via EFI variable
Added `custom-update` verb to `atomupd-manager` for easier testing of specific builds
System reports now include more audio debug information
Initial support for LAVD CPU scheduler via `steamosctl set-cpu-scheduler lavd`

Steam Client Beta - April 10th

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 22:33:47 +0000

The Steam Client Beta has been updated again on April 11th to fix a launch failure with certain titles on Linux.

The Steam Client Beta has been updated with the following changes:

General

Added System Report button to the Help section on Windows.

SteamRT3 Beta

Fixed a case where the ~/.steam/root symlink would fail to be created at client startup.

steam RSS Feed

Steam Deck Beta Client Update: April 16th

Steam Client Beta - April 16th

SteamOS 3.7.21

SteamOS 3.8.2 Beta: Second Clutch

Steam Client Beta - April 10th