By default, the Steam Deck will throw everything it can at the games you play but in some instances you can save a lot of battery by tweaking some settings.
Written Tutorial
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Summary
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Today, I will be showing you the two settings that I change with every almost every game on the Steam Deck in order to maximize battery life. These are built directly into Steam OS so there's no need to install any mods or enable any hidden developer options to find them.
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Go ahead and go into any game that you have installed and then we're going to press the 3-dot ellipsis button on the right-side of the Steam Deck.
Make sure the Performance tab is selected so that you can see these features here.
While you don't have to set the Performance Overlay to this level, it can help to visualize what we're doing here.
At the very least, though, enable it to level 1 so you can monitor the changes you're making.
So while playing this game with the default settings, you can see we're running at 90 frames per second.
This results in the Steam Deck using around 13 watts of the battery.
Depending on what we're doing in the game, you'll see the wattage change a bit here.
And the more watts the Steam Deck uses the quicker our battery will be depleted.
So the first thing I recommend you do is open up the Quick Settings menu.
Go into the Performance Tab and then enable the Per-Game Profile toggle.
This will make it so that anything you change in the performance tab will only be applied to this specific game.
That way the changes we make here aren't going to be applied to Baldur's Gate 3. . .or even that retro game you have loaded up in an emulator.
What we change here will only be applied to this game we have open.
And the first change we're going to make is limit the framerate.
Now I'm not going to tell you that 30 FPS is good enough in this game or any other game.
That is entirely a personal preference and that will not be debated here today.
But what I will recommend is that you adjust this slider to a framerate that you're actually comfortable with.
If you feel that a game like this can be played just fine at 30 FPS, then you should set it to that.
If you're comfortable with the game running at 60FPS, then that is what you should set it to.
Or if you want all games to run at or as close to 90FPS because you bought the OLED Steam Deck and want to utilize the hardware you paid for, then that is your right to do so.
Either way, you should set this slider to a performance level you're happy with.
In a strategy game like this, I'm happy with setting it to 30 frames per second.
But I may also want to gain a bit more fluidity to the animations and bump this up to 45 or 60FPS.
Just realize that the lower you can set this number the more playtime you'll be able to get out of the battery.
With the framerate limited, we will then be scrolling down a bit more in the Performance tab here until you see the TDP Limit toggle.
This should be disabled by default, but we can turn it on and immediately begin limiting the amount of power the Steam Deck will use.
Unless you've overclocked it or Valve has updated Steam OS, you're likely going to see this capped at 15 watts when it's off the charger.
And you saw that the game was running at around 12 to 13 watts when it was left to its own accord.
So now that the framerate has been limited, we want to begin inching the TDP Limit back one watt at a time.
This means change the TDP Limit slider to 14 watts and then play the game to see if you notice any lag or stuttering.
Also, remember to keep your eye on the FPS counter in the top left corner as well.
You'll know you have dropped the TDP Limit slider too low when you notice lag or see your FPS numbers drop lower than what you set it to manually.
You're likely to be doing this testing in a calm, and quiet area of the game. So when you find the lowest TDP Limit your game will allow, it may be a good idea to bring it up 1 or 2 watts just so there's a bit more headroom. With that said, you may be happy with the second of lag here and there if it means you can keep the wattage down during the majority of the game.
Remember, this is something you are able to customize to your own enjoyment level. There's no need to follow a guide for each game when adjusting a setting like this. You know what FPS numbers you're happy with and with these features I showed you here today you will be able to lower the TDP Limit to something you're happy with.
