Valve has revised downward its performance promises for the Steam Machine.
Big promises in the gaming industry often have a short shelf life. It’s a lesson that, following Sony’s PlayStation 5 buyers, prospective and current Steam Machine buyers must now also learn.
Attentive users on Reddit have discovered that Valve has quietly adjusted a key piece of information regarding the gaming PC’s performance.
Where it was previously boldly advertised as “4K gaming at 60 FPS,” the statement now reads “up to 4K gaming with FSR.”
The Quiet Farewell to Native 4K
Specifically, this concerns a discovery in the popular hardware subreddit r/pcmasterrace. An observant user noticed a crucial text change while comparing the current live version with older versions of the official promotional page:
- The original promise: Valve advertised “4K gaming at 60 FPS” in the specifications. This wording suggested that the built-in hardware provided enough processing power to run modern titles smoothly at 4K resolution.
- The change: In the quietly updated version of the website, this passage has now been replaced with the more cautious phrasing “up to 4K gaming with FSR.”
Without an official press release or an explanatory blog post, Valve has thus clarified a fundamental technical detail. The new text makes it clear that players will experience 4K gaming primarily through AMD’s upscaling technology, FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR).
In this process, images are rendered at a lower resolution and then upscaled to 4K.
Initial tests confirm the updated performance promise. In benchmarks, our colleagues at PC Games Hardware found that players should expect performance levels closer to Full HD or WQHD.
A Case of Déjà-vu for PlayStation Fans: 8K and 4K Promises
This quiet backtracking is likely to seem suspiciously familiar, especially to PlayStation players. When the PlayStation 5 was launched, Sony even advertised it with an 8K logo on the packaging.
The message to buyers was clear: The hardware is so powerful that it also supports 8K resolutions.
Nearly four years later, Sony backtracked on that promise. The 8K logo was removed and has not appeared on the packaging since.
Console gamers also have to make compromises when it comes to 4K at 60 FPS. While standard PlayStation consoles can often run games in 4K in Quality Mode, the frame rate is limited to 30 FPS. In Performance Mode, you get the coveted 60 FPS, but not native 4K.
Sony’s PlayStation 5 Pro also relies on upscaling to display games in 4K resolution at 60 FPS.
Now we want to hear your thoughts. Do you plan to buy a Steam Machine despite the performance adjustments and the relatively high price? Feel free to leave a comment below.=
