Current Events > My Steam Deck game impressions so far...

(+) Yeah! (+)

NOTE - If the game has native Xbox One controller support, Steam seems to automatically choose that option for any game you download.

Elden Ring - Mostly 30-50 fps with high settings and FSR on. Pretty much a locked 30 fps if you turn on 30 fps VSYNC. Looks and plays really great. Controls a bit weird because the shoulder buttons on the Steam Deck are kinda chonky.

Sonic Generations - Basically 60fps w/ max settings all the time. Looks incredible on the Steam Deck. Some slowdown when action gets really crazy.

No Man's Sky - This is a weird one; on planets it actually runs really well, and same for space travel. But when you're flying around above the surface of a planet, it's really choppy. Visually it looks fine, but everything has to be set on low or medium for it to stay near 50-ish FPS. Otherwise it's very good.

Duke Nukem 3D 20th Anniversary World Tour: So flawless you'd swear you're running native code designed specifically for Steam Deck. Obviously a locked 60fps no matter what.

Crysis Remastered - This one is legitimately surprising. With everything set to Medium or High, the game runs at a mostly locked 60fps unless you reach those scenes where you can see the entire island. I honestly expected this game to be a dumpster fire given that, well, it's Crysis.

Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed - The game boots but once it gets past the opening screen the visuals go black. The game logic still apparently works because you can hear the menus beeping and whatnot.

Half-Life 2 / Portal 2 - As you'd expect, not only are they flawless, but Valve went the extra mile and completely redesigned the menus / frontend for the Steam Deck.

Ion Fury - Steam claims this game isn't supported, but it runs 100% fine without any issues at all. Strange.

The Ultimate Doom - Like Ion Fury, Steam claims it's not supported but it's completely fine. This is the Bethesda port, though. I suspect the DOS version doesn't work. The problem is that Steam actually lumps them together.

Dark Souls III - With everything maxed, it hovers between 50 and 60fps but mostly 60. Looks and runs better than Elden Ring (as expected) though thanks to Namco/Bandai, the servers are offline so you're gonna be a Solo Ashen One.

Mega Man 11 - Steam claims this isn't supported. It works 100% fine without any issues whatsoever. Same deal - locked 60 at native resolution.

Tales of Arise - Around 50fps with everything set to max. Pretty damn good way to play this game.

Doom Eternal - 60fps locked with everything set to Ultra Nightmare and seriously wtf how is this engine so good

what about nekopara

What about the main reason everyone is going to buy it.

What I find most surprising is that games that clearly Valve never even attempted to check (Chantelise, a really nice action RPG by the devs behind Recettear) often run flawlessly.

DarkRoast posted...

Sonic Generations - Basically 60fps w/ max settings all the time. Looks incredible on the Steam Deck. Some slowdown when action gets really crazy.

Pretty sure the slowdown is just crappy programming. I've tried this game for a decade on tons of high end GPUs and that slowdown is always there.

Just turned off the VSYNC and Portal 2 runs at about 200fps. So it has that going for it.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Doom Eternal runs at 60fps with all settings set to Ultra Nightmare. I'm not sure whether that says me more about how optimized the engine is, or how surprisingly good the Steam Deck is.

Witcher III - At medium settings you get 50-60fps. Basically about as good as you could reasonably expect.

I think the general consensus is that most games can hit 60 FPS if you lower the settings, but virtually everything has more than enough overhead for a locked 30fps at high settings. You can definitely tell that the 8 GB of video memory pays off in games like Eternal.

What I'm more impressed with, honestly, is how easy the compatibility is. I expected that PC games would be extremely fussy with the steam deck, but even ones that haven't even been tested tend to run flawlessly and controls always map correctly. That's seriously impressive.

viewmaster_pi posted...

what about nekopara

*noraneko

@NeonOctopus

Can you connect it to a TV with an HDMI cord?

BignutzisBack posted...

Can you connect it to a TV with an HDMI cord?

Yes. All you need is a USB C to HDMI adapter, which you can get for cheap on Amazon.

It also supports Steam remote play natively, so you can actually remote play your PC on it as well.

Im shocked that the fps is that high for some of those titles

lww99 posted...

Im shocked that the fps is that high for some of those titles

I know, me too. The only thing I can reckon is that at a technical resolution of 800p, it takes exponentially less GPU muscle than you would normally need to play games on PC or television, where 1080p is the bare minimum and 1440p / 4K are common.

Plus I'm sure having RDNA 2 architecture means it supports a lot of graphical features that previously would have been more taxing on gpus.

I'm even more surprised at how rarely games are CPU limited. Although that might say more about how games were designed over the past decade thanks to weak console CPUs.

Is it worth the price?

tripleh213 posted...

Is it worth the price?

At $399 for the base model, it's basically a complete steal for the hardware. I got the $530 model with the 256 GB SSD, but in my experience my one terabyte micro SD card seems to have about the same speed as the internal SSD. Which I didn't expect.

Mine isn't scheduled until Q3 :(

Interesting. I have a gaming pc but Ill keep my eyes on it for now.

Cant order in Aus yet but Im on the fence. On one hand, its Valve hardware which is generally shit. And I think theres other competitors with better specs or something and run full windows instead of Linux? On the other hand, it seems to be getting decent reviews. Im worried about game compatibility

I can tell you that even if there are competitors, the level of polish and integration with your PC games on steam is what makes this work. Everything just works. Which is the part I find most surprising.

After trying out nearly every modern game I have on Steam, I have yet to find a single one that isn't playable. That's amazing.

The web browser is too sluggish tho

I absolutely want one, but at this point, lol I'm never getting it.

Can you make a steam account or whatever and buy games through it? I'm gonna assume yes but I felt I should ask cause I don't even own a PC

Sufferedphoneix posted...

Can you make a steam account or whatever and buy games through it? I'm gonna assume yes but I felt I should ask cause I don't even own a PC

Yes, and it also clearly shows which games are 100% compatible versus which games are kind of a crapshoot. But like I said, I haven't encountered more than one or two games that won't run out of the few dozen games I've tried. And nearly everything runs well above 30 frames per second, which is totally reasonable.

Cyberpunk 2077 - Unbelievably, this game runs at 40fps with everything on High. I'm going to see what happens cranking everything to low does.

So basically it defaults to Fidelity super resolution. If you turn that off, it mostly hits 30 FPS at native resolution. And looks really good. But you can also set the super resolution to ultra performance, which makes it look like you're playing it on a switch, but it gets you 60 FPS. Honestly, I think in this case the 30fps is better because it actually looks like it does on PS5.

Is there a comprehensive list of all the games that it will play? I want to get one eventually but I want to make sure it can play everything I want to on it.

Well that's odd - I tried out Master Chief collection, which Steam explicitly states is incompatible. It works absolutely fine. In fact, as long as you don't play the multiplayer, it's basically flawless. Every game runs at 60 FPS at the Deck's native resolution with graphics set to Enhanced.

It even lets you log into Xbox Live.

The compatibility issue is Easy Anti-Cheat, but since one of the options is to play without EAC, it works fine.

Lokison posted...

Is there a comprehensive list of all the games that it will play? I want to get one eventually but I want to make sure it can play everything I want to on it.

There's a list on steam, but it seems to be extremely conservative in terms of what it defines as Steam deck compatible. The vast majority of games I've tried that were listed as incompatible worked completely fine.

TC have you played Project 06?

nuclearratchet posted...

TC have you played Project 06?

I don't understand the concept of remaking a game that doesn't exist

DarkRoast posted...

I don't understand the concept of remaking a game that doesn't exist

It's pretty fun last time I played it because they added a lot of new stuff and the long loading times are gone. But I understand the hate.

nuclearratchet posted...

It's pretty fun last time I played it because they added a lot of new stuff and the long loading times are gone. But I understand the hate.

Silver: IT'S NO USE!
Silver: IT'S NO USE!
Silver: IT'S NO USE!
Silver: IT'S NO USE!