Grort
Published
On title screen, it doesn't display the controller input to go to menu, it instead gives a keyboard prompt. Pressing 'Start' on controller still allows you into the main menu. No other issues with button display.
Minor stuttering at points but infrequent and not really during the fights, I think it happened while trying to load the next large environment, but it wasn't a common issue.
One minor freeze that required exiting the game by Steam menu. Not hard crash requiring reseting Deck, thankfully.
Refresh rate 40 and 40FPS, set graphical settings in game to low.
Text can be difficult to read occasionally in handheld mode.
When loading in to the cult base, there is a noticable lurch in the framerate. Occasional small frame rate drops out on crusade as well.
Resolution has to be input manually, but does adjust automatically, it seems, when moving between handheld and docked modes. This may contribute to more slowdown if putting on to a telly without manually changing resolution if using borderless window.
It doesn't run completely perfect, with some issues present, but nonetheless it works well enough that it doesn't dissuade me from continuing to play it or installing on another computer. There's probably something you can do to make it run smoother, but since the only issue that repeatedly shows itself is lag while loading the base, it's perfectly serviceable. In the dungeons, it mostly feels like it skips a few frames while dodge rolling during a busy fight. All in all, not really affecting your ability to play through the game comfortably.
It's a bit disappointing that there are these issues with it, but it's absolutely playable, even if it's not the best way to play the game.
30FPS
Text in inventory menu's were small but the subtitles are perfectly satisfactory.
The sea seen from Majula has some pretty heavy artifacting. Not seen other artifacts once outside of Majula, but I've not explored to other areas with an open view to the sea yet.
Could stutter while playing cutscenes. They were considerably less smooth than my previous experiences on a Windows PC.
Online isn't currently working for DS2 at the moment, but that looks to be a wider problem with the original release of DS2 at present.
Notably the only Fromsoft game on PC not to be verified at the Deck's launch.
Works without issue, but without native gamepad support. Default Steam K+M controls work well enough for handheld.
K+M controls are a bit more awkward in handheld, but it works. Not a very taxing game, mobile game looking interface, no issues running in handheld or desktop. Just... works.
Capped to 30FPS using the Deck and set to low graphic setting in game.
Text can be a bit small at times given the screen in handheld mode.
Can sometimes crash while trying to launch the Easy Anti-Cheat or after the Easy Anti-Cheat has been launched, though once it's reached the publisher splashes, it's blessedly rare (it's crashed a couple of times on longer sessions).
Most of the crashes happened near the start of my playthrough, so it might be temporary instability.
No issues connecting to other players and messages didn't fail to load. Only time it dropped was when the Deck dropped connection, the game itself never had issues.
Some framerate drops, but not frequent enough to be a major deterrent, especially for such a relaxed game.
30FPS cap, Half-rate shading
The speed limit can be a bit small while in handheld mode, and actual road signs can be very difficult to read at times.
Will dip under 30FPS during rain, especially in major cities with more to render. Lowest it's gone is 18FPS, but it usually dips to around 22-25FPS in the rain. There is in game option to remove or reduce how often it rains, though. Short pause when autosaving sometimes.
Good to have the game on a handheld, and it runs well enough for casual play.
FPS can dip fairly drastically when driving in rainstorms and when going through the busiest parts of the map, like Guanajuato and some of the more densely populated parts of the Hot Wheels map.
Occasionally crashes or freezes when moving between main map and DLC map.
Has also crashed during one race, when my car and an AIs car were in the air, landing on one another and a rock. That said, the game sometimes crashes in similar scenarios to that on Windows, so it's not something to be too alarmed about, but it is a possibility.
The game can sometimes visually slow down quite drastically if it's struggling with connectivity. While rare, it is something you'll come across if you have a weak or poor connection.
Graphical Settings Suggestions
- Would recommend turning off what settings you're willing to after using the 'Low' graphical preset in the game to get as stable a frame rate as possible.
- Turn on long blur in the in-game graphics settings.
- I also set the FPS to 30 in the game, but kept the framerate limited on the Steam Decks side menu at 60FPS, because the game looks a lot more like a slideshow if you force 30FPS that way.
- Turn on FSR on the side menu, it makes the game look a lot better.
- I keep half-rate shading off since it's makes the HUD display really fuzzy and bad looking (that is to say, your speedometre, the icons showing your radio station/quick chat, the mini-map, and your skill points feed).
How it looks
Even with low setting, the game still looks remarkably good in handheld mode, the small screen really masks a lot of the graphical sacrifices you have to make to get it working happily enough. Does look at bit grosser when you pull it up on a monitor, but that's the trade off of having it work on the go.
It seems to run well enough on the initial try. Useful if you want a micro-PC to take the game with you. Doubt it would be great without K+M
Text gets quite small, as it uses a lot of small windows you are intended to scroll through. Very much made for playing on a monitor
The game doesn't launch into native resolution, so before you even log in, you will want to click to options buttom at the bottom, tell it you want Fullscreen Borderless, and the resolution is immediately sorted.
Seems to run well enough, no obvious issues adventuring in the early parts of Ascalon, going through loading transitions or interacting with NPC, using actions, or fighting enemies. Runs happily enough, graphically it looks as you'd expect an old game to, and the audio plays fine. Some pretty obvious pop in of distant trees, but that's probably just because I left it on the default settings apart from screen resolution.
Remapped the left trigger to inventory hotkey instead of the default skill stats screen.
It's a game designed for monitor play so a lot of the text is small when used handheld. Also not great when thrown on the telly.
So, it starts windowed, so you need to click it into full screen. Also, if you play the game both docked and handheld, every time you switch between modes, you need to make the game not fullscreen on the main menu and make it fullscreen again to make it change the display resolution.
You also need to use the Steam button menu to close the program when you want to log out as there is no in game close function, just a log out of session function.
I will say, I don't expect serious combat would be the funnest in handheld, nor would I go into the Wilderness in handheld, but for idle skilling and some questing it is a very workable set up. Perfectly fine while mining, woodcutting, fletching, and smithing, anyway. Wouldn't use it for agility training, though. But it was good enough to get me through two weeks of dogsitting away from my normal PC set up.
Not really super necessary, but given how unimportant high FPS in visual novels, I set it to 15 or 30FPS depending on how much I want to stretch battery life.
Works really well, nothing seems to break in the normal running of things.
No native controls, so trackpad and trigger buttons are what Steam defaults to.
Saving involves going through a couple of menu's and then okaying the save, which is a bit cumbersome given it is entirely mouse based, but not really that bad.
Steam Deck Performance menu: capped to 30FPS, Scaling Filter FSR
Ingame settings: Render scale 1.0, high-texture quality, shadow resolution 2048, anti-aliasing x2
Menu's can be a bit small at times, but they aren't very important, mostly flavour text.
No issues to speak of. The default resolution of dirt and grime was a little fuzzy initially, but playing around with both ingame settings and Steam Deck settings eventually got to a place which is nice for both handheld and monitor play.
Some small artefacts in the Cardianon Ship, little white squares flashing up in the bottom corners, look unintentional.
Doesn’t cleanly exit most of the time, so need to use Steam button to hard close the game. Pretty consistent after longer sessions where I've saved multiple times.
Game runs well enough, no real issues there. Be aware when playing it out and about that you can only save at specific points on the map, and some sections can involve an hour between save points if you aren't avoiding combat, so it is not a game that lends itself well if you need to quickly save and quit. The game doesn't, however, have any issues playing after being suspended by pressing the power button on the Deck, so that can suffice in a pinch. Default game art on Steam isn't good for the portrait game box icon or for the header of the games page, recommend downloading and setting custom art of the game using desktop mode.
It throws a Javascript error when trying to launch from desktop mode for some reason, but launches perfectly fine in handheld/gaming mode. It's kind of peculiar, but worth noting if you use desktop mode a lot.
No issues in handheld mode. Bit of slowdown when things get really hectic on screen, but the FPS counter doesn't drop, so probably more a limitation of the game than the hardware or proton.
Performs very well, and allows for both unmodded and modded Wreckfest fun on the go with no visible compromises compared to Windows.
You'll need to use the touchscreen or a mouse and keyboard for the inital launch secondary window used for setting up the game for the first time.
I got asked by the game on launching it if I wanted to import my cloud save using a really old looking GUI before going to the launch window for initial set up.
The positions board's text can be quite small and difficult to read, expecially if you've expanded it to the entire field using the 'Select' button on the gamepad, and so can be difficult to keep track of during the main action.
On high setting, there was a notable frame rate dip at the start of the Hillstreet Circuit with a twenty three car field. It dipped from the normally steady 60FPS to 43FPS, but only on the intial launch and first corner or so. That however seems to have mostly disappeared after setting graphics to medium.
There were no performance dips while doing a crowded oval race with the full field, so it's possible that the launch FPS dips need a big pack of cars and a more complex circuit using high settings. So a very minor issue and one extremely easily rectified by using medium settings, achieving a lovely consistent 60FPS.
The game crashed once during a major car crash, but this is also something the game occasionally does playing on Windows natively.
Online races work fine, as does the Tournament challenges that get updated by internet connection.
With the standard Steam WASD+Mouse controls, it is very frustrating to play, but the community layout works really well and is intuitive.
Capped to 30 FPS
If you have half-rate shading on, it'll look extremely pixellated. Turn it off on the battery mamangement tab of the Deck. No graphical issue other than that, but it was a common issue for others as well who have HRS on as standard.
Requires a constant internet connection, including for solo play and deck building, and it'll throw up a complaint screen if it loses connection. If you cannot regain the connection, at least for me, I got stuck on the screen, and had to use the Steam button to close out the game, which was annoying, but given the online nature of the game, it didn't really lose any progression or save data, so it's a minimal issue, if that.
