Steam Deck now lets you download games when the display is off

Valve has announced a new feature for Steam Deck. The handheld can now continue downloading games even when the screen is off.

Odd isn't it. How was this feature not available previously? It is a battery-powered handheld gaming console, and having the display on during game downloads is only going to consume a lot of power, and possibly make the device run warmer. It seems a little silly that they didn't add this power-saving feature until now. Well, it's better late than never.

Prior to this update, the Steam Deck would pause game downloads when the screen went to sleep or stand by mode. You can control the new behavior, so this option is still available.

When you start a download, or if a download is in-progress, and you press the power button on the Steam Deck, it will ask you whether it should continue downloading with the screen off. Valve says that choosing to continue with downloading will let the Steam Deck complete active downloads using a new display-off power mode, before it goes to sleep. This option is enabled by default when the device is connected to a charger, users can manage it from the Settings > Power. You can enable it to download games on Battery Power too. If your Steam Deck's battery falls below 20%, the device will enter sleep mode.

If your device is idle while downloading a game, it will continue downloading the content after an idle timeout (to turn off the screen). When you wake up the handheld, you will see the download progress as seen in the image. Users can choose to wake up the console fully, or let it finish downloading when the display is off.

(Images via Valve/Steam)

Valve's announcement says that display-off downloads are available on the Steam Deck in the Beta and Preview channels. It may take a while before the feature is introduced in the Stable release.

Thank you for being a Ghacks reader. The post Steam Deck now lets you download games when the display is off appeared first on gHacks Technology News.