It’s widely known that Valve is making strides in enhancing the AMD Mesa drivers for Linux. However, some news reports from earlier this week suggested that the latest driver updates could indicate that Valve might be developing a competitor to the Xbox Series X or the PlayStation 5 (currently priced at $449 on Amazon).
Rumors vs. Reality
As we talked about back then, these speculations seem to be misinterpreting Valve’s real goals in improving Linux drivers for AMD’s RDNA 4 architecture. Even though Valve collaborated with AMD for the Steam Deck, Pierre-Loup Griffais, a prominent developer for the Steam Deck, provided some clarity regarding the recent enhancements to the RDNA 4 drivers:
…we’ve [Valve] done pre-release Mesa Vulkan work on every AMD architecture since Vega because they have kindly lent us hardware, so there’s not much to read into that.
What’s Next?
To put it simply, the rumors surrounding AMD RDNA 4-based devices can be placed in the same category as last month’s assertion that AMD had verified a Ryzen Z2 update for the Steam Deck. At this moment, there’s no solid proof of new hardware from Valve that would operate on SteamOS. Instead, there have been some suggestions about a device with the codename ‘Fremont’, along with potential images showing designs for a Deckard controller and a Steam Controller 2.
In summary, Pierre-Loup Griffais’ comments suggest that while Valve is actively working on driver improvements, the speculation about new gaming hardware is premature and lacks substantial backing.
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