Battery life terrible!!

[MightyMarkUK]

Are there any tips anyone could share to extend play time while on battery? It discharges really quickly while playing anything. I only got it 2 days ago.

[Mailer]

What games are you typically playing on the Steam Deck, and what performance are you currently targeting on them?

The universal solution for better battery life is to just cap your framerate lower, or reduce graphical fidelity in a game. I usually stick to 40-30 FPS, as opposed to 60 which sucks the most battery.

Have you checked out the performance overlay in the right-hand menu while playing? it gives pretty good info on how much power is being used.

[kiyohi]

Power Bank 30 000 mah

[MightyMarkUK]

I have just started to cap the frame rate to 40. I'm playing NMS, Cyberpunk, Vampire Survivors.

I think a power bank might be the comprise. :(

[WarnerCK]

Don't forget to cap the refresh rate as well as the frame rate. You don't want tearing or stuttering from irregular timings; just your normal Vsynced experience, only a bit slower.

How much work the Deck needs to do (and thus how much power it needs to draw from the battery) is very much dependent on what you're trying to play.

[invision2212]

The battery life sucks for sure. I just play with it plugged in 100% of the time since I never bring it anywhere.

Capping the frame rate is probably the quickest way to conserve battery but introduces input lag.

[JellyPuff]

For max battery life, you have to do some manual tweaking. You can check resources, like Steam Deck HQ, or YouTube videos testing games for performance and battery life as well as sharing different configs, depending on what you prioritize, but don't expect more than 2-2.5 hours from more recent and demanding games at settings, that push the Deck to ~22w total power draw.
Those performance overviews may not always be up-to-date, but if they're not, it's almost always, because of better performance, like many games have with SteamOS 3.5, which is currently on the preview branch.

For example, here's an overview of No Man's Sky with a 30FPS config, that lasts for over hours with more tweaks in the comments:
https://steamdeckhq.com/game-reviews/no-mans-sky/

[ingramli]

That is the status quo of the current gaming pc handheld, at max TDP of SD, ~1.5hr is all you can get from its battery, to play 3A titles outdoor, concessions have to be made, and better not to even think about ROG Ally if SD' battery endurance is too short, that beast can exhaust the battery in an hour under Turbo Mode (30W), not something you want to do without a power bank...

[Mailer]

Originally posted by ingramli:

That is the status quo of the current gaming pc handheld, at max TDP of SD, ~1.5hr is all you can get from its battery, to play 3A titles outdoor, concessions have to be made, and better not to even think about ROG Ally if SD' battery endurance is too short, that beast can exhaust the battery in an hour under Turbo Mode (30W), not something you want to do without a power bank...

It's the status quo of ALL handheld devices.
Battery technology has seemingly been the weakest link for years now, as humanity struggles to find a more efficient way to store energy. It's why, while on battery power, I personally steer away from games that push the hardware to the max, and instead lean on old-but-gold games like the original Skyrim version.

[Prezidentas]

Originally posted by MightyMarkUK:

Are there any tips anyone could share to extend play time while on battery? It discharges really quickly while playing anything. I only got it 2 days ago.

you haven't said the actual hour number in any of your posts so far.

[[?]legit]

Playing demanding games like MW2 made my deck last about 70 minutes. A power bank can be a good solution.

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by WarnerCK:

Don't forget to cap the refresh rate as well as the frame rate. You don't want tearing or stuttering from irregular timings; just your normal Vsynced experience, only a bit slower.

How much work the Deck needs to do (and thus how much power it needs to draw from the battery) is very much dependent on what you're trying to play.

^ not to mention that while the frame rate cap will reduce the GPU load/power consumption the screen will still be rescanning the image 60 times a second which will still consume a lot of power on its own. Dropping the refresh rate to 40Hz along with limiting the frame rate is a fairly solid compromise to balance game feel, visual quality, and battery life.

You can also do more performance tuning by manually adjusting the GPU clock frequencies down and/or limiting the APU power limits.

AAA games like you've mentioned (@OP) are going to get round 1.5 - 2 hours depending on how much you've reduced things.

Games more toward the "Indie" spectrum like Dead Cells, Rim World, Ori, Sea of Stars, etc. you'll get closer to 5h-8h depending on how much you tune things down.

[DooMsDaYRangeR]

Originally posted by ?legit:

Playing demanding games like MW2 made my deck last about 70 minutes. A power bank can be a good solution.

Are you playing the old MW2 or the new one? Are you able to play online?

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by DooMsDaYRangeR:

Originally posted by ?legit:

Playing demanding games like MW2 made my deck last about 70 minutes. A power bank can be a good solution.

Are you playing the old MW2 or the new one? Are you able to play online?

He uses Windows on his Deck.

[Murasakino Rin]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

Originally posted by DooMsDaYRangeR:

Are you playing the old MW2 or the new one? Are you able to play online?

He uses Windows on his Deck.

used. he sold it.

[OxZ]

I have personally went over the best battery optimization tips for Steam Deck in my personal troubleshooting blog (GameScopes.com.) If you have a moment, you should check out the guide at:

https://gamescopes.com/10-tips-for-steam-deck-battery-optimization-extend-battery-life/

Here's an overview of the tips contained in the guide:

1. Adjust the Steam Deck Display Settings
1.1 Adjust Steam Deck’s Brightness
1.2 Lower the In-Game FPS
1.3 Tweak the FSR Sharpness
2. Reduce the Deck’s Background Utilization
3. Set Up & Use the “Battery Storage Mode”
4. Reduce In-Game Performance Settings
5. Utilize the Steam Deck’s “Sleep Mode”
How to Put Steam Deck in “Sleep” Mode?
6. Re-Calibrate the Steam Deck’s Battery
7. Deactivate Non-Essential Functionalities
7.1 Set Steam Deck’s “Bluetooth” to “Off”
7.2 Deactivate the Deck’s “Auto-Updates”
7.3 Limit the Deck’s “Download Speed”
8. Modify the Way the Steam Deck is Used
8.1 Do Not Play While the Deck Charges
8.2 Play Less Demanding Games/Apps
8.3 Don’t Overload the Deck’s Storage
9. Lessen the Amount of External Devices
10. Activate the Deck’s “Airplane” Mode

Hope this helps!