Credit: Valve

Valve’s Steam Machine desktop is currently in a state of involuntary limbo, driven by historically awful pricing and availability for memory and storage chips. AI data centers are absorbing much of what memory manufacturers can produce, leaving much less for enthusiast and hobbyist hardware like the Steam Machine and the Steam Frame VR headset. Even the years-old Steam Deck is currently out of stock thanks to component shortages.

But that hardware uncertainty hasn’t stopped Valve from working on the software, and the company released a major update this week. The SteamOS 3.8.0 preview release comes with a long list of changes for the Steam Deck as well as third-party gaming handhelds and other PC hardware, and it also adds “initial support for upcoming Steam Machine hardware.”

Many of the update’s improvements come from various upstream Linux components. Valve says the update includes a new Arch Linux base, an updated graphics driver, version 6.16 of the Linux kernel, and a new version of the KDE Plasma desktop environment for Desktop Mode (which now uses Wayland rather than X11).

These and other updates give SteamOS 3.8 “improved compatibility with recent Intel and AMD platforms” and improve the operating system’s compatibility with third-party controller accessories, newer AMD chips like the Ryzen Z2 Extreme, and third-party gaming handhelds like the Asus ROG Xbox Ally, various versions of the Lenovo Legion Go, and the MSI Claw (notably, one of the rare Intel-powered gaming handhelds; the Deck and most others mostly use AMD processors).

One of the key improvements for the Steam Machine and other desktop hardware is “greatly improved video memory management with discrete GPU platforms.” When we tested SteamOS on a range of generic PC hardware last year, we found that GPUs with 8GB of RAM could perform a lot worse in SteamOS than in Windows—a big issue for Valve since the Steam Machine is shipping with a Radeon RX 7600-caliber GPU that has 8GB of video memory.

We didn’t run into the same performance problems with 16GB GPUs or with integrated graphics that let games dynamically grab as much system memory as they need. We’ll need to run tests with this new SteamOS update to see whether and how much the situation has improved.

Other changes made with the Steam Machine in mind (but which should also benefit anyone rolling their own Steam Machine at home) include improved HDMI audio support, fixes for performance issues that affected Desktop Mode specifically, better support for HDR and variable refresh-rate displays, better default scaling behavior on TV screens, better support for rotated screens, and the ability to set different scaling modes for different screens in a multi-monitor setup.

We think the Steam Machine will be the most interesting as a console-like computer you connect to your TV, but Valve clearly expects that some users will want to use the system more like a traditional desktop PC, too.

People running a version of SteamOS 3.7 can get the new SteamOS 3.8 preview update by opening Settings, then System, and switching the System Update Channel to “Preview.”

Valve has said it still hopes to launch the Steam Machine in the first half of the year, but the company hasn’t announced specific details on pricing or availability.