Earlier this year, Valve said the requirements for a game to be "Steam Machine Verified" would be much less stringent than for the Steam Deck, mostly because of the power envelope the former is working with. Today, the company has confirmed those initial comments with official slides presented at GDC 2026 for both Steam Machine and Steam Frame Verified programs.
We already knew that Deck Verified games would automatically be Machine Verified, too — games in this category are required to run at a stable 30 FPS at 1080p resolution. The Steam Machine is almost as powerful as a PS5 with 28 RDNA 3 CUs. Hence, "Deck Playable" games that didn't perform well on the handheld would also be Machine Verified because they'd be expected to run better.
