Goodbye black bars: New plugin brings fullscreen gaming to Steam Deck and other handhelds

Black bars appear when a game's aspect ratio doesn't match the display and the image is neither stretched nor cropped. Many modern games are designed for the common 16:9 format, while Valve uses a 16:10 display on the Steam Deck. Although the aspect ratio can be adjusted manually in many games, doing so is often cumbersome and doesn't always produce the desired results.

A Decky plugin called AnyAspectRatio has now been introduced on Reddit, bringing together fullscreen fixes for Steam Deck games. Instead of manually installing mod files for each title, users should be able to apply a fix with a single tap. By default, the fixes target the Steam Deck's native 16:10 aspect ratio at 1,280 × 800 pixels. The plugin's compatibility list already includes more than 100 games, including Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Resident Evil Village and Dark Souls III. It also supports other aspect ratios, such as 4:3 and 3:2, making it potentially useful on other devices that support Decky.

An interesting example

As far back as three years ago, users were experimenting with ways to get Monster Hunter Rise running in fullscreen mode on the Steam Deck. One approach involved using REFramework with an appropriate aspect ratio adjustment, although this could sometimes cause visual glitches. Coincidentally, Monster Hunter Rise, along with Resident Evil Village, is one of the games featured in the images shared by Reddit user u/TLinCAR when introducing the plugin. Ideally, the game should now be able to run without black bars in just a few taps.

With little user feedback available so far, it's difficult to judge how well the plugin works in practice, and results may vary considerably from game to game. The developer also notes that this is only a side project and that updates will be released whenever time allows. Still, anyone frequently bothered by black bars on the Steam Deck may find AnyAspectRatio, which is available for free on GitHub, a useful addition to their handheld.