Steam Deck adjusts space for pre-built shader caches in next update

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In a future update, the Steam Deck plans to reduce the space occupied by various games’ shader cache files. According to a report from Phoronix, the file size reduction will be around 60%, which will give players some space back.

The change is expected to come with the Mesa 23.1 update, which brings a change to the open-source video drivers used by the Steam Deck. These changes were made thanks to contributions from Valve, AMD, Intel, and Microsoft, as well as other major companies.

According to PCGamer, Steam Deck developer Pierre-Loup Griffais has confirmed that Valve hopes to make these changes to the Steam Deck and how it handles pre-built shader caches.

“That’s what we expect from pre-built shader caches,” said Griffais, who also asked that expectations be tempered, as shader cache changes don’t affect transcoded video repositories, which do also part of the shader pre-caching process in the Steam Deck UI.

The Steam Deck enjoys some support, with a recent report showing that 73 of the top 100 most played games on Steam are supported on the portable gaming platform. Valve also recently released a list of the 20 most played games on the Steam Deck, which was led by titles such as Hogwarts Legacy, Elden Ring, and Stardew Valley.