Valve’s newest portable console not only hides a – compared to its size – powerful PC under the housing, but also a real graphical miracle. Steam Deck already supports ray tracing, and the first game to take advantage of this feature is none other than id Software’s hellish action game.

Ray tracing is a technology that enables realistic lighting and reflection effects in games. Most modern video cards already have this feature, but until now ray tracing was not available in Steam Deck. However, Valve updated their operating system (SteamOS 3) and turned on this option.

The Doom Eternal is the first game to support ray tracing on the Steam Deck. In the game, it is possible to set only water surfaces or all surfaces to be reflected in real time. The end result is impressive: we’ve never seen devils’ blood shine so beautifully.

Of course, this is not free: ray tracing is a resource-intensive technology and significantly reduces image updating. The basic model of the Steam Deck offers a resolution of 800×1280 pixels with a refresh rate of 60 Hz. If we turn on ray tracing, it can even be halved.

Therefore, it is worth considering how important this extra graphic finesse is to us. If you prefer to enjoy the fast-paced action of Doom Eternal smoothly, it is better to disable this option. However, if you want to see what this little machine can really do (and we don’t mind a few lags), then it’s worth trying this novelty.

Valve promises that ray-tracing will soon be available in more games on the Steam Deck. For now, we don’t know exactly what these will be (perhaps we can expect titles like Cyberpunk 2077 or Control), but we are sure that they will offer an impressive sight.

Steam Deck is a portable PC console hybrid device (not to be confused with Nintendo Switch) that runs over 50,000 games directly from Steam. The device is available in three versions: with 64 GB internal storage (1,899 lei), 256 GB NVMe SSD (2,599 lei) and 512 GB NVMe SSD (3,399 lei). All three models also have a microSD card expansion option.

Steam Deck is expected to go on sale in Romania and other countries in December.

Source: PC Gamer