Valve detail Steam Frame and Steam Machine Verified requirements at GDC 2026

GDC 2026 is going on and Valve are doing some talks giving more info on lots of things - like how games will be Verified for the Steam Frame and Steam Machine. While we can't yet see videos of the actual talks, we can at least get the info directly from Valve on this since they've included a public set of slides from their talks.

We still don't know exactly when they will release, or even the pricing yet - but Valve did just recently reconfirm they're coming during 2026.

We already know the general requirements for Steam Deck Verified, and in a few ways it's similar for the Steam Frame and Steam Machine but tweaked for their power differences. And in the case of the VR Steam Frame, it's different again due to the standalone mode that's possible with it.

Here's the Steam Machine Verified details:

What's interesting here, is that Valve's own advertising on the official Steam Machine page says it supports "4K gaming at 60 FPS with FSR", but for the Verified status they're expecting 30FPS at 1080p.

And the Steam Frame Verified details:

For the Steam Frame, they're only verifying against standalone play. Since streaming from your PC will depend on your PC specifications. They also highlight the two main different ways that developers will have their games run on the Steam Frame which will be either through Proton with FEX, or Lepton:

Valve clearly note once again that anti-cheat is a bit problematic with kernel-level access and secure boot, but some like Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye are easy to enable. They also reiterate to developers to opt in for SteamOS as a whole and not specifically for the Steam Deck that we've seen a few developers using Anti-Cheat Expert (ACE) do. More on all that on our anti-cheat page.

The SteamOS Compatible system also got a mention, for all non-Valve devices. Valve highlighted here how the Linux Desktop audience is growing - which is something we've been directly tracking.

See their full slides for all the info.