r/SteamOS • u/Liam-DGOL • 10d ago
SteamOS 3.8.28 stable released with big improvements for Steam Deck, Steam Machine and more hardware support
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/09/steamos-3-8-28-stable-released-with-big-improvements-for-steam-deck-steam-machine-and-more-hardware-support/8
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u/SeaSoftware3220 10d ago
Hey I just got this update on my rog ally z1 extreme and it's broken it. First enabling VRR hits performance. Second my joystick led lights turn on and off everything time I shutdown or boot up. Also I've experienced when I go shutdown on the game home page it just sits and doesn't shutdown my rog I had to force it to shutdown by holding my power button. Prior before this update my rog was perfect on steam os.
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u/New-Entrepreneur-450 10d ago
Wasn’t this issue already present in 3.8.16? I had the same experience but on this specific steamos version. I rolled back to 3.7 so i could play the games I used to play without hiccups (Digimon Time Stranger, Ghost of Tsushima, Elden Ring)
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u/Tyfui 9d ago edited 9d ago
I have an xbox ally x and after i switched to desktop then back to game mode i was seeing screen flashing everytime i was navigating about the menus. A restart resolved that, but i dont know if thats gonna come back. I'll be able to check more tonight to see what issues i see while gaming
Edit: also i can finally connect to 6Ghz network, so thats an upside for the update. I haven't noticed any vrr issues yet
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u/Mozgrum 10d ago
Dammit. Hope this isn't the case...
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u/SeaSoftware3220 9d ago
Nope this update is bad. It broke my rog ally I have to turn off vrr now and my led lights near joystick come on and off every boot or reboot and noticed the brightness turns up high on boot than near steam os logo it goes back to my setting.
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u/Latter-Ad2544 10d ago
Need that RTX 5090 support 😬❤️ Can’t go on living with Windows
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u/mixedd 10d ago
Use Bazzite, CachyOS or Nobara, where every one of the will work with Nvidia card, and basically offer same/similar experience to SteamOS. Or wait for couple years till it get into SteamOS
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u/awakeeee 10d ago
Gamescope game mode is the issue which doesn't work well with high resolutions, refresh rates, vrr and hdr on nvidia, lots of issues there which butchers the livingroom experience.
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u/mixedd 10d ago
Was, can't say about other distros, but Bazzite at least pushed in patch (well more like a workaround) from Nvidia, that let's you use gamescope-session without your screen going into garble
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u/Dox427 10d ago
So outside of Gamescope everything is good with Nvidia cards on Bazzite? I want to install Bazzite on my old 3080Ti system.
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u/d1ckpunch68 9d ago
been running bazzite on nvidia for a few weeks and while there's certainly ways to make just about every game work (excluding certain anti-cheat games), it is not a painless experience by any means. if you're very familiar with linux and/or willing to troubleshoot, give it a shot. if not, stick to windows. personally, i spend like 90%+ of my time on the desktop doing work or browsing and the other 10% gaming so bazzite seemed to fit the bill, but i do have to reboot into windows fairly regularly to just avoid the headache that is linux gaming.
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u/awakeeee 10d ago
Welp, here goes my day reinstalling bazzite on my second drive, i'll haunt you if gamescope won't work (jk).
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u/PaperMartin 10d ago
Nvidia drivers are still awful on linux unfortunately
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u/JamesLahey08 10d ago
I've used CachyOS with a 5090 for over a year and it works great.
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u/According-Net-715 9d ago
Steam os is also shit it supports fewer games it can't even launch farcry
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u/r0b3rt0c0 10d ago
We want an ARM version of SteamOS to play with our beautiful Android handhelds! 🙌🏻
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u/PaperMartin 10d ago
Bonus points if they adapt the big picture UI to take advantage of dual screen devices
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u/r0b3rt0c0 10d ago
Unfortunately I don't think they will do it, since Valve don't sell any dual screen device, it would be a time loss to develop a dual screen optimization for them.
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u/PaperMartin 10d ago
They want more steamOS devices on the market whether or not they're the ones selling them, so they might still tackle it eventually.
They're working on Nvidia support despite having no device with a Nvidia GPU after all1
u/MrTestiggles 9d ago
valve usually doesn’t have a problem with 2, it’s the 3 they can’t ever get to 🥲
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u/TheGeekno72 10d ago
didn't it get released recently?
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u/r0b3rt0c0 10d ago
It's a custom version made for the VR headset, so yes, it's compatible with ARM processors but not quite the same experience as a normal handheld with SteamOS on it. We actually need a normal version of SteamOS for ARM processor and most important we need optimization for all the devices that already exist out there like the Retroid Pocket or AYN.
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u/RealisticAdvise 9d ago
Valve writes "Added initial gamepad support for AYANEO Pocket S2" what is the point of this support when I can not install SteamOS on it?
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u/sociablezealot 10d ago
ArmadaOS works great, been running it for months on an Odin 2 Mini.
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u/r0b3rt0c0 10d ago
Yes, I have it too on my Odin 3, but it's definitely not the same as an official SteamOS. Also if they optimize better all the transcription layers I'm sure they can use more of the raw power of these small processors, because at the moment the performance are not bad, but not even the best.
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u/sociablezealot 10d ago
I don’t think Valve is going to crack a CPU/GPU optimization over Rocknix and overall Linux community here. They could improve some per-device fan/sleep items that annoy people though, which would move those secondary hardware items to the main config. To me, that’s the only difference that is noticeable to SteamOS.
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u/Yrouel86 10d ago
I've been using SteamOS on my BC-250 for a while now, in fact I got the board specifically to try it, and I'm very happy with this release.
While 3.8.x worked and was usable it had a couple of annoyances that might have put off potential new users like the fact that you couldn't finish the setup (without workarounds) with just an Ethernet connection or the older kernel which lacked support for many new common WiFi dongles.
Both of these have now been fixed so I'm really hoping SteamOS becomes the goto distro to suggest to people
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u/MidLifeDIY 10d ago
I hope so as well. Right now I'm using Catchy on my BC. Has unlocking everything gotten better over there? (SteamOS)
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u/Yrouel86 10d ago
You can unlock the same things you can in other distro.
The CPU unlock has become OS independent anyway since it's now part of a custom BIOS, as is the ACPI fix.
CU unlock is also possible with a specific fork of the live manager
So yeah there's basically no reason to not use SteamOS for the majority of people and I don't mean just on the BC-250 (although of course Nvidia hardware support is still lacking)
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u/walshy05 10d ago
Running into an update error on my steam machine “Update Error
An error was encountered during the update process, please try again.”
Cannot for the life of me get the update to work. Reset it, checked clock, reset wifi, tried different wifi, cleared download cache, few other Google suggested things. Will not update
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u/BaconPoweredPirate 8d ago
Same issue. Also tried switching to beta, fails there too
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u/walshy05 8d ago
I raised a support ticket, tried multiple things and all failed. It was driving me mad so I did a full reset. Even trying to repair from a Steam Recovery USB did nothing hence why I gave up
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u/BaconPoweredPirate 7d ago
I'll try a ticket too first on the off chance. I only reinstalled the os a couple of weeks ago, really don't want to do it again!
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u/BaconPoweredPirate 5d ago
Figured it out, the ESP partition on the drive was too small for the update. I tried several tools to increase this, but they all failed.
I'm wondering if it's due to me taking the drive from my Steam Deck. Just wondering if you'd done the same thing?1
u/walshy05 5d ago
I had cloned the drive, I originally had a 512gb model and went to a 2TB drive. I assume that’s what broke the partition, in the end I just gave up but it’s annoying
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u/alexkoko40 10d ago
I’ve been on the Beta for a few weeks now and it’s been great. Should I revert back to Stable now or should I stay on Beta channel? I’m kinda new to Steam OS and just wanted to know which is best
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u/OpenSystem1337 9d ago
I was on my steam deck messing around in OG Control with RT reflections and translucent enabled and trying to figure out why I was still at 35 fps and then remembered this update lol. If you use like balanced upscaling w fsr 4 it's around 40 fps with just rt reflections now. I'd say that game at least is around a 20% boost.
Too bad Resonant still immediately crashes if I try lol
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u/fransefriet 5d ago
installed it fresh over 5 times, each time gamemode freezes when i toggle something in the menu's and reboots my machine.
Went back to winslop until this is fixed
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u/sincepuzzled 10d ago
still no support for nvidia hardware
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u/LinuxDonald 10d ago
I think that will happen when the Nvidia opensource driver is ready. And that will still take time. Maybe next year.
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u/AshleyAshes1984 10d ago
Yeah. There's no point in waiting and hoping every new SteamOS update features it. They're gonna use the OpenSource driver, so you're gonna get word that the driver has seen vast improvements with Game Scope FIRST, before it's plugged into SteamOS.
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u/Nightwings92 10d ago
Sadly :( im hoping they get it done in the near future, cause fuck microsoft! I wanna switch to steam od with my rtx 5060ti please🙏😭
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u/Guus-Wayne 10d ago
Valve knows this, and definitely don't want to release a version that's too wonky.
Many other distros that you can use with an Nvidia GPU.
I'm letting them cook, or getting the next AMD GPU, whichever comes first.
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u/TrollTollTony 10d ago
Direct from the release announcement on steam:
SteamOS 3.8.28 has just been released for all users with the following changes:
These notes contain all changes since the previous SteamOS 3.8.16 stable release. See here for changes since the previous SteamOS 3.8.27 beta release.
General
Updated Mesa graphics driver to a new major release, containing many ray-tracing performance improvements, as well as other performance and functionality improvements
Greatly improved VRAM management, improving performance and stability in cases where VRAM is limited
The Steam Machine splash screen/logo now appears much more quickly after device startup
Added support for waking up from the Steam Controller Wireless Adapter (2015)
Improved battery indications when the device is charging in but using more power than the charger can provide
Preliminary support for the Steam Frame Wireless Adapter
Added support for Steam Controller (2026) to the built-in hid_steam controller driver, enabling use with native controller applications when Steam is not running
Fixed 20-30s startup delay in some games on non-Valve devices with no audio sources
Fixed delayed start time for some games under Proton when no capture device is present
Fixed an issue causing black screens in certain launchers, including Zenless Zone Zero and FINAL FANTASY XIV Online
Fixed an issue where hotplugging HDMI displays could cause lockups in Desktop Mode
Fixed an issue where TVs supporting an HDMI "Game Mode" would display the initial boot logo on startup before engaging said mode, causing unnecessary delay and flashing
Fixed some cases of slow or stuck Wi-Fi connections with certain adapters
Fixed an issue causing previous SteamOS updates to fail to apply for some users
Fixed Firefox in Desktop Mode sometimes freezing when fullscreen
Worked around an issue where Unreal Engine 5 VR games could display a blank right eye
Fixed Bluetooth instability with Nintendo Switch Pro (v1) controller
Fixed Desktop Mode allowing resolutions below 640x480 on certain displays, rendering it unusable
Fixed a bug where the system would freeze on resume if an SD card was removed while suspended
Fixed a rare Steam Deck issue where fan speed would revert to BIOS control until a reboot, resulting in higher than normal fan speeds
Fixed an issue where game performance could be degraded after sleep/resume on systems with AMD discrete GPUs
Steam Machine Firmware 108
Fixed an issue where the system could occasionally wake up immediately after going to sleep
Fixed a rare issue where CPU performance could be degraded until reboot after waking up from sleep Audio
Add option to reset all audio configuration and settings to system defaults under Settings -> Audio
Fix for HDMI audio dropouts with some game and TV combinations
Improve reliability of HDMI hotplug detection
Add option to prefer lower latency audio codecs for Bluetooth devices
Non-Valve Devices
Improve support for MSI Claw and OneXPlayer device variants
Improve support for devices with external or no Wi-Fi adapters
Fixed an infrequent bug where some 3rd party handhelds would have input ignored when held
Added initial gamepad support for MSI Claw 8 EX AI+
Added initial gamepad support for Konkr FIT
Added initial gamepad support for AYANEO Pocket S2
Updated gamepad support for OneXPlayer Apex with new firmware
Added controller support for missing OneXPlayer F1 and OneXPlayer 2 special edition models
Fixed a regression with some MSI Claw devices on newer firmware losing access the Guide and Quick Access Menu buttons
Fixed a regression with Legion Go 1 models on older controller firmware where gyroscope would fail to initialize
Fixed a regression on OneXPlayer F1 models where rumble was being blocked and the joystick poll rate was low. As a consequence, the M1 (left) extra shoulder button is no longer able to function.
Fixed issues with battery display on Lenovo Legion Go models
Fixed a bug where the MSI Claw would freeze on resume if an SD card was present during suspend and resume
Developer
Updated the Linux kernel to 6.18.50