ValveSoftware
Steam deck outputs 30fps to external display when docked, even with frame limiter disabled
Your system information
- Steam client version: 1705108172
- SteamOS version: 3.5.7
- Opted into Steam client beta?: No
- Opted into SteamOS beta?: N9
- Have you checked for updates in Settings > System?: Yes
I have my Steamdeck connected to an external display (a Philips 27E1N5300AE) using an official dock. Using this setup, and FSR, I have been able to play Team Fortress 2 at 1080p/60FPS for the past months. Framerate was a stable 60 FPS and I could detect no issues with performance or output.
Yesterday, I updated my steamdeck to the latest version, and installed the newest firmware to the dock. After this the Steam Client has been choppy, and Tf2 gets capped to 30FPS with the frame limiter set to 60 FPS. If I disable the frame limiter the FPS shoots up to around 150-200 FPS while playing, but the output to display is still only 30 FPS. If I disconnect my deck from the dock, the framerate immediatly returns to 60 fps and remains stable there. Reconnect it to the dock, and it gets capped back to 30, without me changing any settings. Looking around for possible fixes I already tried several solutions, including disabling FSR, disabling the frame limiter, manually setting the resolution/frame rate to the correct amount in both gaming and desktop mode. But so far nothing I have tried has resolved the issue. These issuss only popped up after I installed the most recent updates to my deck and dock. Before that, no issues when it came to low performance or locked framerate.
UPDATE 18 feb 2024: Rolled back Steam OS from version 3.5.7 to the previous version, 3.4.11. This has fixed the slowdown issues I have been experiencing, so the problem was introduced with one of the newer Steam OS versions