Every Steam Deck Owner Should Install This App For Better Battery Life And Performance

There's no doubting the power and performance of the Steam Deck, but if you're an everyday player that puts hours into your favorite action-adventure and RPG titles, you'll know how taxing certain games can be on the hardware. While there are a number of tweaks you can make to enhance your Deck's gameplay settings for improved battery life and smoother performance, one of the best optimizations actually comes to us from GitHub. But first, we have to talk about another program entirely:

It's a bundle of software called Lossless Scaling, and once implemented, it allows your Steam Deck to run at up to double its normal frame rate. Initially developed for Windows, Lossless Scaling uses a custom-built machine-learning model, known as LSFG 3, to inject extra frames into whatever game you're playing — even those that don't have native frame generation or scaling features.

Thanks to the ingenuity of one PancakeTAS and a few other GitHub contributors, the LSFG model at the core of the Lossless Scaling software can now be used with Linux builds. The community mod is called lsfg-vk, and it's available in a number of pre-built Linux packages. This homegrown plugin tells the LSFG model to act as a Vulkan layer between actual gameplay and your Deck's graphics card.

Here's everything you need to know about downloading and installing the software for your Steam Deck, and how it can improve your console's deliverables.

The Steam Deck has a few frame scaling optimizations tucked away in its settings (e.g., FidelityFX Super Resolution, Integer Scaling, etc.), but none of these options will generate interpolation — the "in-between" frames that the lsfg-vk plugin is renowned for.

Once installed, the lsfg-vk plugin will actually tell your Steam Deck to render visuals at a lower base resolution, at which point the third-party upscaling kicks into gear. But because the console is upscaling from a lower pixel count, less strain is placed on the Deck's CPU and GPU, resulting in less power draw. Improved battery life, anyone?

You'll also be able to tweak the plugin's parameters on a per-game basis, so you'll be able to hone in on the best multipliers and flow scale to suit your needs. So, even if you're playing a game that's usually locked at 30 FPS, lowering the base resolution while adding upscaling should still give you a boost in visuals and gameplay smoothness.

If this sounds like something you'd like to try yourself, we've put together a step-by-step guide for installing and booting the lsfg-vk plugin on your Steam Deck for you to follow.

First and foremost, you'll need to purchase the Lossless Scaling software using your Steam Deck, as it requires some files that are baked into its coding. Once you've done so, switch to Desktop Mode by pressing the Steam button > Power > Switch to Desktop Mode.

Now open the web browser and type https://decky.xyz into the search field. This is the download page for software called Decky Loader, a plugin manager that lets you add community-generated plugins to SteamOS. Click the Download button at the top-right corner of the screen, then save the installer to your Downloads folder.

Next, we're going to create a System Password in order to approve the lsfg-vk plugin's onboarding. Click System Settings > Users > Select the user > Change password. Then press X to bring up the on-screen keyboard, create your password, and when asked if you'd like to update the keyring or login settings, choose Leave Unchanged.

Our next step is downloading Decky Loader to the Steam Deck. Open Dolphin File Manager > Downloads, then double-click decky_installer.desktop. Click Continue, enter the password you created, then click Enter. On the next screen, click Release > OK, then click OK once the install is complete. We're about halfway through the process now.

Next, head over to the lsfg-vk Github Releases page, download the losslessscaling.zip file, and save it to your Downloads or Desktop folder. Now put your Steam Deck back in Gaming Mode by clicking the Gaming Mode icon on the desktop.

Second to last is enabling Developer Mode in Decky Loader. Press the Quick Access Menu button, find the Decky Loader icon, then press Right twice to get into Settings. Find the General option, then click Enable Developer Mode.

Last but not least, it's time to install the plugin. With Deck still open, press Left, then scroll down to Developer. Choose Install Plugin from ZIP file, then head to your Downloads folder. Click losslessscaling.zip, and finish by selecting Install.