The Steam Deck does loads of issues nicely, however in the event you fill it up with high-end 3D video games, you’ll quickly discover its inner storage straining. The costliest mannequin solely has 512GB of house, and even upgrades like the excellent Sabrent Rocket SSD are restricted by the 2230 kind issue of the M.2 inner drive. But if an evaluation of an upcoming software program patch holds true, a few of these space-hogging recreation recordsdata are about to shrink in a really satisfying manner.

According to PCGamer, the May replace to the Mesa video driver will end in a reduction of shader cache file sizes by around 60 percent. Shader cache is a collection of recordsdata that the sport engine masses together with a recreation surroundings to extra shortly and precisely render the graphics, amongst different issues, and these little recordsdata make up a fairly sizeable chunk of a recreation’s set up dimension in your storage drive. (They’re additionally one of many largest issues that contribute to loading instances — just ask The Last of Us players.)

Streamlining the best way that the cache is applied for Mesa in OpenGL and Vulkan means extra compact shader recordsdata, which implies extra free house in your storage drive and (hopefully) sooner loading instances for complicated 3D video games. Exactly how a lot drive house is saved will rely on how particular video games implement the Mesa driver, nevertheless it’s widespread sufficient that anybody with a sufficiently big Steam library ought to discover a particular financial savings in house. Hopefully Valve can add the enhancements to the Steam Deck’s Linux-based working system someday this summer season.