SteamOS 3.8.10 stable adds early Steam Machine support and Wayland desktop default

SteamOS 3.8.10 has moved to stable for all users. Valve’s release notes frame it as the full set of changes since SteamOS 3.7 stable, with an updated Arch system base, initial support for upcoming Steam Machine hardware, wake-from-sleep support through a connected Steam Controller, faster future OS updates on high-speed connections, and many stability and security updates.

For Steam Deck owners, the immediate list is heavy on Game Mode fixes. Valve says screen casting support has improved for uses such as OBS and Discord. The release fixes dropdown menus not appearing in some games, frozen video output during Remote Play, a possible Game Recording crash tied to the maximum video height setting, incorrect window positioning in titles such as SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide, and session crashes when closing games including STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor and Starfield.

The display and performance section updates the graphics driver, adds preliminary HDMI VRR support for devices with native HDMI output, improves VRR frame pacing, and fixes configurations where Allow Tearing did not behave as intended. Valve also fixed cases where the FSR badge stayed off in the performance overlay even when FSR was active, and where per-app performance settings intermittently failed to apply at launch.

Desktop Mode gets one of the larger platform changes. KDE Plasma moves from 6.2.5 to 6.4.3, and Wayland is now the default desktop session. The release also adds better support for rotated displays, TV scale factors, external HDR displays, VRR displays, and per-display scale factors. Developer-facing changes include Linux kernel 6.16, a developer-settings path for setting the desktop password, early virtual machine guest support, and initial LAVD CPU scheduler support through steamosctl.

The non-Deck section shows where Valve is aiming SteamOS next. SteamOS 3.8 improves compatibility with recent Intel and AMD platforms, video memory management on discrete GPU systems, controller support for OneXPlayer, GPD, Anbernic, OrangePi, Lenovo Legion Go, MSI Claw, and ASUS ROG Xbox Ally devices, and lowers handheld controller input latency from a listed 5-8ms range to 100-500us on supported hardware. In the r/Games thread, discussion centered on SteamOS becoming a broader handheld and Steam Machine base rather than only a Steam Deck update.

Sources: Valve Steam News API, r/Games thread.