Steam Deck Boost | How to Increase VRAM on Your Valve Steam Deck
6th Jun 2023
The Valve Steam Deck, with its handheld console like design, offers a unique gaming experience. It's a compact device that packs a punch, and with a little bit of tweaking, you can take its performance even further giving it a boost in those demanding games. Give the Steam Deck a visual boost by covering with one of our Valve Steam Deck Skins.
Today, we'll guide you through the process of increasing the Video RAM (VRAM) on your Steam Deck, the default UMA frame buffer is 1GB with options to increase it to 2 or 4 GB. Increasing can improve frame times and help depending games run smoother but if you don't feel the benefit don't worry it's quick and easy to reverse, so always worth it to try and squeeze the most performance out of the Valve Steam Deck.
VRAM and it's importance
VRAM plays a crucial role in your gaming experience. It's the dedicated memory that your GPU uses to store the data it needs to render images quickly. More VRAM can result in smoother gameplay, especially for games with high-resolution textures and detailed environments
The default is 1GB and the Steam Deck can allocate more if needed when requested but setting the UMA frame buffer to 2 or 4GB pre allocates more which can keep things running smother if the game needs to use more and the Steam Deck is slow to increase causing choppy gameplay.
Is increasing the UMA frame buffer a good idea?
Yes, if needed it can be reversed anyway so it's always good to give it a try if playing demanding games and looking for more performance.
The Valve Steam Deck has 16GB of RAM that can be used by the CPU & GPU, increasing from 1GB to 2 or 4GB just preallocates the VRAM.
Running demanding games that have big open worlds and run high resolution textures this can definitely help. I have been playing some older games and having more VRAM is great for the 4k texture packs add ons.
In some cases games my not benefit from the increased VRAM, especially if they are more cpu heavy so switching back to 1GB if it seems to be hindering performance is fine.
How to increase VRAM UMA frame buffer on the Steam Deck
- Turn off the Steam Deck, make sure to shut down not just sleep.
- Hold the volume up [+] button while holing the power
- Hold till the Steam Deck boots up
- In the bios menu select the Setup Utility
- Select the advanced settings
- Scroll to the UMA frame buffer
- Select and switch from 1GB to 2 or 4GB
- Press the start select button to exit and save the changes.
It's all done now your steam deck will have more pre allocated VRAM for those high resolution big open games.
Increasing the VRAM on your Steam Deck is an excellent way to enhance your gaming experience, allowing you to enjoy even the most graphically demanding games smoothly. And with our high-quality skins, you can ensure your Steam Deck looks just as impressive as it performs. Explore our collection today and make your Steam Deck uniquely yours with a case hardened CS:GO inspired skin.