![]() The setting I find myself shifting around the most is the frame rate limiter. Of course, some people may find these settings intimidating to play around with, but I was able to grasp what most of them do with a little research. There are also several easy-to-access, PC-like Steam Deck settings related to GPU clock frequency, thermal power, limiting the frame rate, scaling filters and more, that can come in handy if a game is pushing the Deck just a little too hard. However, as a primarily console gamer, my Steam library isn’t very extensive, and I haven’t yet spent a lot of time adjusting controls beyond Jet Set Radio. During my time with the Steam Deck, I’ve played Horizon Zero Dawn (I ran into some slowdown during certain open-world areas), Tunic, Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead, Portal and more, and the experience has been very solid.Įven games that aren’t listed as ‘Verified’ tend to work relatively well on Steam Deck if you’re willing to spend a bit of time on setting up the controls. Valve’s ‘Steam Deck Verified’ system makes it relatively easy to figure out what titles are optimized for the handheld while browsing the Steam store. Still, even when Elden Ring wasn’t running perfectly on the Deck, I found it difficult not to marvel that I was playing a recently released, modern game on a handheld - something I’ve dreamed of doing since I was a child and first picked up the OG Game Boy. I’ve never used hardware that’s as fluid as this. For example, I was initially unable to format my microSD card to the Steam Deck’s Linux-based ext4 file system, only to have it work the next day after installing the latest SteamOS update. An issue you’re experiencing with the Deck’s software one day might be fixed the next morning. Updates come fast and almost daily, but this also means progress is quick. I mention my experience with Elden Ring because it’s the first example of the Steam Deck’s very work-in-progress nature that I encountered. This update eventually made its way to the standard version of SteamOS roughly a week later. Thankfully, Elden Ring‘s performance issues were solved by joining Proton’s ‘bleeding-edge experimental‘ branch of updates, giving access to the game’s latest compatibility layer courtesy of Valve (Proton is the translation layer that allows Windows games to run on Valve’s Linux-powered SteamOS). It’s also worth mentioning that while I’ve recently fallen off playing Elden Ring, I’m shocked at the amount of fun I’ve had with the game, especially considering I typically have no interest in the ultra-difficult ‘Soulsborne’ genre. To my surprise, Elden Ring played solidly on the Steam Deck even at high graphics settings, though I did experience occasional bouts of lag. Ahead of getting my hands on the Deck, I’d read FromSoftware’s latest runs reasonably well on the handheld, albeit with a few performance hiccups, so I was eager to test it out. ![]() My journey with the Steam Deck started back in late February, roughly around when Elden Ring released. In fact, if the Steam Deck continues to improve on the game compatibility front, I might go so far as to say I prefer it over the Switch. With this in mind, if you go into the Steam Deck with appropriate expectations and understand that it’s a handheld designed for PC gamers (this isn’t the plug-and-play Nintendo Switch), you’ll walk away very impressed with what Valve has accomplished.
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