Olav Grey
Published
Was a bit worried that Ubisoft Connect would cause issues on Steam Deck however after installing the game and just launching as is, I've had zero issues. Only thing I changed was capping the framerate to 30 to save my eyes from the bouncing between 45 and 30.
Once capped to 30 I never saw the framrate budge outside of loading screens.
I could not really figure out how to change the right stick's behavior to rotate the camera but that's one big issue for me.
Limited it to 30fps.
A few specific texts were a bit on the small side, but things like an exit button in a pop up window.
Honestly no issues in the time I played. The game does not have any native controller support at the time so everything is navigated with the mouse. The top controller layouts work well but they can only do so much. A smooth experience so long as you know that going in.
Some of the tooltips for things on the top bar during regular gameplay can be a bit hard to read.
Outside of having to bring up the Deck Keyboard and a few rare instances of small text, this game is perfect on the deck. The biggest hurdle is the controls and that's more or less down to the game and not necessarily the controller. A few finicky things like When you can bring up the powers menu ect.
Changed it to 30fps cap
The UI gets too big and falls of screen a bit, and characters take up UI space in the skills menu for instance, but between 70% and 80% UI scaling worked for me.
I play this game via Family Share.
Aside from the UI being either too small at 50%-60% or being too big at 70% and up, the game runs quite well all things considered. I didn't have any crashes (not changing my proton setting at all, just the default it selected) didn't experience any performance drops or loading hangs. it ran really smoothly. I tried reloading different characters, different eras, several times all with no issues. I don't imagine it would run well middle to late game, but I didn't play that far.
Some text, like on navigation windows were hard to read, but just by knowing where buttons were I didn't have too many issues.
A few frame hiccups when landing in a station or settlement, or entering FTL.
I do have the Odyssey expansion and it runs perfectly fine. There's a few slow downs when transitioning between FTL, stations, settlements ect. but nothing to bad. the FPS mode works fine, most text is readable. I've had a great time.
The initial launcher didn't appear, it got skipped. Only reason this matters is that's how you read through the manual which is important. HOWEVER if you already know how to play, then it's not important.
I've been mainly playing this on the Deck and have 0 issues. You might want to fine-tune the controls to your liking but wihtout changing anything, it works just fine! Only issue that I can see is you don't have access the manual to learn the more in depth mechanics.
There is also a dialog screen on start up warning that if you can't connect to the internet you loose out on online features and highscores.
For an MMO so focused on open world exploration, it just makes sense that it works so well on the Deck
The only problem is the launche runs at about 2fps. It's annoying but takes a second or two to get through it and on to the game.
Aside from the launcher window running really choppy, the rest of the game is smooth as hell. The battery life is REALLY long as well, I'm, seeing around 4 hours at 80%. The controls get some taking used to but once you figure it out, it's absolutely perfect.
Kept switching between computer inputs and "Steam Deck button" prompts
Crashed while playing
Crashed the whole Steam Deck several times. Doing a quick painting job or the main menu.
Wait until they fix the performance. Does not run smooth, graphics need to be on low to run and even then it hard crashes.
Set the back grip buttons to Backpack, skills, equipment and map for easy access.
Some menu options can be a bit small to read.
Every 2 log in's or so it changes back from full-screen to windowed. Easy fix of just selecting windowed and fullscreen again.
Text input with the virtual keyboard was quite laggy. Sending messages is very slow, even selecting an amount of GP to take out can be slow.
I'd recommend playing RS on the Deck for easier AFK tasks like skilling. You can use it for combat and questing, but I wouldn't do anything difficult just due to the inpercision of the trackpad and using abilities. But with the ability to fully customize the UI, it really works wonders.
Did not have the proper resolution. The did fully fit on the screen but switching between the game and the menu made it look really stretched.
Anytime I fired my weapon I had some slow down for about half a second or so. While in a little outpost it was well bellow 30fps, hovering around 15.
It's not as bad as I was expecting it to be on Steam Deck. I wouldn't only play SF on the Deck, but for wandering around planets, maybe scanning flora and fauna it'd be great! But get into a fire fight or even smaller settlements and you're in for a choppy time.
A few important keys were missing such as B key (Leave any town or dungeon) and F5 (quick save)
Initiating Fullscreen in the options resulted in a blackscreen with only the mouse showing. Was unable to switch back, had to close the game through Steam
I have no idea why this game isn't verified on the Deck, runs perfectly fine, very readable. Had to adjust a few hotkeys but more for convience rather than necesseity. Only issue was when naming my character I had to use the Steam+X button to bring up the keyboard. Other than that, perfect on the Deck.
When quiting the game the Sims 3 Launcher will still be open. This is a problem on both desktop and the Deck. You just need to close the game from the Steam Menu
I have nothing to complain about when it comes to The Sims 3 on the Deck. It some how runs smoother on the Deck than on my gaming tower, create a sim loads things way quicker, less loading in general it seems.
One change if you're playing handheld without a keyboard is cheats. You'll need to set 3 different buttons to CNTRL+Shift+C to load up the cheat menu.
Had to reload the game for it to download my DLC from Origin/EA App
I encountered one issue that I'm not sure if it was Steam Deck specific or Sims 4 in general. Tried loading into a lot and the game failed to load the lot, asking me to reload the game. Eventually had to mess around in manage worlds to get my sim back.
I'm actually amazed at how well the game runs on the deck. At full charge I'm getting 4 hours of play time without changing anything on the battery. All my EA expansions carried over after a quick restart and it's been smooth ever since.
Mods would be annoying to set up but they would be doable, and that's about my only complaint. That and the lack of any cloud saves.
Some of the finer texts, on unit cards or tooltips were a bit small, but surprisngly not as small as I expected!
Game says it has Steam Cloud however my PC Dwarven playthrough was not appearing on the Deck.
Outside of a few control refinements I need to figre out (Zooming and rotating and stuff) the game is really surprising with how well it works. I didn't notice too much slow down, the game loaded very quickly. I did some skirmish battles and campaign and both ran pretty well! I can't say how mid-late game will run, but for a quick "Warhammer 3" fix, it's perfect!
I didn't run into any issues with secondary launchers like what other reviewers were mentioning so I can't comment on that, only my fantastic experience.
Some of the button prompts look a little bit muddy, but inventory management was no issue.
First time loading up aiming was very jittery. After a restart I had no issues.
In bigger fights where loot is dropping it stutters, dropping from 30 down to around 10fps for a second or two.
In bigger fights the game can slow down to bellow 30fps with lots of action and loot dropping, but on medium settings it's not bad enough to quit. Some of the UI button prompts are a bit muddied, but the overal text (item descriptions and inventory management) are very readable for me. An issue in regards to controller use is the lack of hovering over tool tips makes builds more difficult to plan as you can't hover over a term to understand what it means. Game overall looks pretty decent and plays pretty good. Your character will carry over between PC and Deck with the in game account, not sure if it will work without the account.
Switched it to mouse movement and left click.
Set it to the proper resolution however was not full screen. Didn't affect anything gameplay wise aside from seeing black bars at the top and bottom.
I found the built in controller input alone was finikcy and annoying, so I added in mouse control on the Right track pad, this caused the game to switch between controller input and M+KB input frequently.
I found launching the game with Steam's automatic launch selection would cause the game to not launch, so I switched it. The biggest problem I have is just the games controls are weird and not the fault of the Steam Deck, just the game it's self. If you can over that it's a pretty fun game to turn your brain off and play.
