I just groan when the new Windows Update arrives. Really, right now, Windows. Is it really necessary? Meanwhile, new versions of the Linux kernel always seem to be a mini-event in the open source community, promising exciting new features and performance improvements for the many devices that run Linux. The kernel is the fundamental building block of Linux that many distros like Ubuntu and Arch (Valve's SteamOS is based on it) turn into a fully fledged operating system.

Steam Deck will soon share in the excitement of "new kernel day" as Valve's next major update, SteamOS 3.5, will upgrade the Linux kernel for the first time since its launch. This means lots of good things for Steam Deck owners, most of which you won't even notice. [Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais told PC Gamer that the kernel update means "many excellent additions, performance fixes, and functional fixes that improve every aspect of the system, bringing it closer to the latest and greatest." Valve's Pierreoup Griffais told PC Gamer, "In terms of core functionality, game execution, and completeness, these fixes are few and far between at this point."

However, this summary comes with a caveat: Valve plans to significantly modify Steam Deck's performance in SteamOS 3.5. Steam Deck's processor will be able to run games with a common SMT (simultaneous multithreading) SMT (simultaneous multithreading). Simply put, SMT is the ability to run two threads on a single CPU core. smt should be an overall performance boost, but the Linux kernel that Steam Deck shipped with had some obscure issues that in some cases resulted in poor performance.

"There was a hard-coded behavior in the Linux kernel on the AMD side that would invalidate the cache when a core went to sleep. We found that if there were two threads on the same core, and one thread was still working on something, and the second SMT thread went to sleep, the same logic would cause the cache to be discarded. In other words, the running thread suddenly loses its L3 cache, and from a CPU perspective, this is really bad. It causes a lot of latency and is basically a "bubble" in computing. And frame times get screwed up. That's what was happening."

AMD discovered and fixed this problem before Valve identified the issue. The kernel update will finally allow users to deploy it.

The problem reared its head primarily in older games and affected emulators that were not built for modern multi-threading. If you have seen large stutters or oddly low frame rates in older games, SMT is most likely the culprit; depending on what you play in Deck, you may not notice any changes.

However, some Steam Deck owners noticed the problem and started using a plugin called PowerTools to disable SMT; Griffais said that some people wanted Valve to integrate that feature into SteamOS, but that was not the route they stated that was not the route they wanted to take.

"We needed to fix the bugs that were making people have to deal with this instead of adding a super intuitive setting that people didn't have to disable," he said. It should improve overall completeness." So we wanted to look at the actual root cause of the problem. As opposed to adding an option that is counter-intuitive and difficult to use. 0]

Griffais praised some of the plugins developed by those tinkering with Steam Deck, but the way he went on to describe Valve's approach to the SMT problem, unlike other game consoles, the tricky Deck has to take He highlighted the balance.

"We're constantly straddling the line between 'is it a very complex power user product' or 'is it a very consumer electronics product that is a really easy way to get into PC gaming? "We recognize that without all of the options and all of the power of PC gaming, the Steam Deck is nothing, and it represents PC gaming. But there is a lot of value in a consumer electronics-like experience. So we always try to represent both and make sure everyone has access to both. We didn't want to put people in a situation where they had to turn off their settings in order to make it work well. We wanted to eliminate that."

Based on internal testing, Griffais believes that the SteamOS 3.5 update will eliminate the need to disable SMT, but he needs data from the general release to confirm that the bug has been squashed for good.

SteamOS 3.5 also includes new graphics drivers, but Valve fast-forwarded some of its updates to 3.4.6, which was released on March 13. When 3.5 is released, it will be available on the Steam Deck preview channel until a stable release is ready for testing will take place.