TerrbearSF
Published
As of current Season 1 update, the game installs fine and gets through Easy Anti-Cheat with no problems. Once it gets to the game splash screen it stalls and eventually crashes out to SteamOS.
Recently noticed GE-Proton 14 for Linux users made it possible, but GE builds 14 through current 20 at this time on the Steam Deck does not improve results. Default proton and experimental doesn't work either.
After the launcher updates the client, the launcher will appear unresponsive to input as it continues to unpack and update the client. Wait and be patient until the blue Play Now button appears and then the launcher can recieve input.
Sometimes the audio will sound like it is skipping. At least when I was undocking from a station, it occassionally produced audio skipping.
Initially due to the spreadsheety nature of this game I was concerned that reading the text on the UI would be an issue especially while in space. The UI and text surprisingly scales pretty well and I was easily able to mouse and click using the Steam Decks trackpad. The game appears to have a device profile for it and the controls were already mapped. The graphics defaulted to High for this device's max resolution.
March 2022 Update 0.8.25290 - Devs added device profile for Steam Deck with graphics options
The developer posted a response on the Steam forums that patch 0.8.25290 added a device profile for the Steam Deck to recognize. This also unlocks the graphics options in the Options menu for further tweaking. The low fps I have seen before this build is no longer an issue and it is now playable.
Can optionally cap FPS to 30 as this game has wildly fluctuating frame rates between Horizon (50-60fps) and Odyssey (15-30fps) content.
UI text on floating menus in your ship and on space station kiosks will appear fuzzy unless you set Upscaling to Normal and set Anti-Alising to No or FXAA.
Odyssey content such as engagements with a lot of combat npcs and action going on will see fps dip between 17-27fps area. It by no means wasn't a slideshow and was still playable as I was still able to win every engagement.
The game can easily run on Ultra settings, but if you plan for any Odyssey content, you should run it on Medium to Low settings for better performance.
Connected with a few commanders. Did some PvE missions together and multiplayer performance as stable.
24mins of video footage showing a range of Elite Dangerous content in action. https://youtu.be/7tz_JxzVEyg
For near 60fps, set graphics to Low and use Resolution 75-100%. For more quality, set graphics to Average and cap fps in-game at 30fps.
Playable on Steam Deck if you don't select Avengers Inititive from the title screen and not mind seeing the controller icons.
Some UI text on the War Table such as the power-level requirements noted on the mission thumbnails.
The controller is detected and works, however, no controller icons appear throughout the game's UI.
Selecting "Avengers Initiative" at the title screen will put the game into a loading screen and then crash out to SteamOS. You can easily bypass this to go online by entering the game through any Operations mode, then access the War Table to access any online Avengers Inititive mission.
Played five multiplayer game sessions and their performance was similar to PC performance.
Runs great in the front-end menus, then significant stuttering occurs both in the loading screen and during gameplay ...almost playable
- After selecting your character, during the loading screen it will stutter significantly and then appear to freeze. If you are patient and wait, it eventually loads into gameplay.
- Upon loading into game world, it continued to stutter significantly. During gameplay, it continues to stutter off and on like with recent Linux user reports.
Stuttering impacts all aspects of online multiplayer.
Testing Observations
- The following observations occurred in both base PSO2 and PSO2 New Genesis versions of the game. Wanted to make sure the first report noted what initial core problems exist with all default settings on the Steam Deck (default version of Proton with no launch options added).
- GameGuard now supports Linux! The great news is the game can now launch on the Steam Deck and reach the title screen and front-end menus.
- Front-end menu performance is great up to character selection. It is after you select your character and launch into the loading screen tube does the game become unstable. The loading screen starts performing correctly, then stutters, then eventually appears to freeze or softlock sometimes. Just be patient and wait, it will load into the game.
- Once you've entered the game world it continued to stutter significantly and match recent reports from Linux users.
- Set graphics to Lowest setting. Currently, higher settings appear to freeze the game during loading.
Conclusion
General gameplay performance is similar to recent Linux user reports. At this time due to the stuttering during gameplay, I wouldn't recommend combat. Until further testing and tweaking, I'd only recommend loading it up to socialize with friends in-game.
During installation, the screen will turn black. Hold the Steam button and tap X to bring up the virtual keyboard and tap the Enter key to complete the initial install.
Once you login to the game and get to character select screen, it does not recognize the Steam Deck's controller. It does respond to touch on screen, so you can select a character and login, but then you will be stuck in-game with no controller support.
The game is playable on the Steam Deck, but it does not recognize the device's native controller. If that hurdle can be overcome, it'll be playable.
Many of the Linux reports have noted launch commands that do not appear to impact or change performance for the native Steam Deck install. I was able to launch and login to the game without any launch commands.
Playable on Steam Deck after getting past black screen during install and setting gamepad mode to ON in the game's settings
During installation, the screen will turn black. Hold the Steam button and tap X to bring up the virtual keyboard and tap the Enter key to complete the initial install.
Once the game loads, it does not recognize the Steam Deck's controller. Hold the Steam button and use the right joystick as a mouse to select your character and click Play.
Once you are logged into the game, hit Esc (Steam button + Left Dpad) and use the mouse to click Settings, then Gameplay, then next to "Gamepad Mode" select ON. Exit and reboot the game.
