Clemew
Published
Works perfectly out of the box. I tried messing with the ini files following the recommendation or others but it turns out they already had the max framerate set to 60 and the games runs fine as is. PhysX was set to low upon launch too. Haven't encountered the shrinking issue myself but turning off AA apparently fixes it if it ever happens.
On the default settings the game runs at 60 99% of the time. Only issue is SteamOS' frame limiter, which seems to introduce framepacing issues at any other limit than 60. But since the game runs fine as is and isn't too battery hungry, it's not a big problem.
The game will only work properly using GE Proton. Once that is done, you need to launch the game one time to install all the compatibility executables it needs. It will boot you back to game mode once done. Start it again and you're good to go. The game plays flawlessly at 60fps with everything on Very High and 8xMSAA. Do not activate PhysinX as it is not compatible with modern hardware. The game is capped at 62 fps somehow, so you'll need to use SteamOS' frame limiter. I advise aiming for 60 exclusively because the game's cutscenes are pre-rendered and/or capped at 30, and any other frame limit will introduce frame pacing issues in them. Note that there is a config launcher that cannot be bypassed. You can use the touchscreen to press Play on it. May be a little annoying if you play docked, otherwise it is a non-issue.
Altogether, a very satisfying experience once GE Proton is forced. It's nice to be able to enjoy the game in its original form instead of the UE4 remaster which I do not personnally like.
Not much to say here. The game is a breeze to install and setup on Steam Deck, there is zero tinkering needed. It runs at a flat 60fps on ultra settings (90fps is achievable on OLED but requires lowering the settings) and leaves room to adjust the TDP to save some battery. A great experience.
WINEDLLOVERRIDES="dinput8=n,b" %command%
Installed the mod megapack (original music, product placements and adjustments to gameplay). Once extracted into the game's directory (home>steam>steamapps>common>Crazy Taxi) use the launch command above. Works like a charm.
TDP to 6
Although listed as playable, the game won't work with any newer proton version. It will either crash upon loading or on the character screen selection. Set it to the one mentioned above and then it works like a charm. It is completely compatible with the mod overhaul megapack which comes close to the original dreamcast experience (see above as well). Can easily be found with a single google search. The game has a separate config screen which can only be navigated using the touchscreen. Once everything is set, you can ignore it. The game offers a 90hz option but won't go above 60fps regardless. If you use a dock, you can bump the resolution above 800p to your preference, but to access it you need to force the game to launch at a higher resolution through SteamOS, then change it manually in the config launcher. The game is very light and will perform well regardless of its resolution. You can change the TDP and the GPU clocks depending on your target resolution. I set a TDP of 6 while running the game at 1080p, works like a charm.
Not much to say, the Steam version works out of the box (without a third party launcher to boot) and there is a wide array of options to tailor the experience to your liking. 30 or 40fps are easily attainable, 60 may require heavy compromises and still be somewhat unstable. In any case, the very late game will give you some framedrops and force you to turn down some settings, but that's technically true of all versions considering the dynamic nature of the game.
Set the refresh rate of the screen to 50hz
The game is built on Unity and has a known framerate issue tied to the engine. Camera movement and in game animations/physics run at 50fps, even though the game can reach higher framerates. No matter the settings, the game will appear has having stutters and frame spikes unless you set the screen refresh rate to a multiple of 50. Fortunately you can reach 50fps easily on Steam Deck even with high settings. You can limit the TDP to 12 to preserve battery life.
Set the refresh rate to 50hz
The game suffers from a well known Unity issue: although you can reach 60fps pretty easily, the camera and animations will update at 50fps, so the frameraye always looks (and even reads) as choppy. You can actually crank up most settings if you lock the Steam Deck's refresh rate to 50, and you'll get a very stable experience.
The game runs well out of the box. It must have received a Steam Deck specific update because no granular settings are available and instead the game offers a performance and quality mode. The difference in visual quality is rather minimal between the two due to the game's art style, so I advise sticking with performance mode, which runs at 60fps 90% of the time. There are some frame drops in more open and visually complex area, but since they only serve as hubs between the titular dungeons, the core gameplay is unaffected. Capping at 40fps removes these drops completely. Overall a very decent experience.
Text is tiny, at times unreadable
Game runs great of the box. I advise capping at 30fps considering its slow nature if you wand a perfectly stable reading. The most popular community layouts do work well to adapt the decks' controller scheme, or any controller for that matter, to the game. However, text is absolutely tiny, making the game nearly unplayable unless you're ready to spend your time using the magnifier.
Game runs great on Steam Deck OLED. Based on the first two levels (roughly two hours of play), medium settings at full native resolution (800p supported) will net you 60fps almost all the time. Transitioning between areas can bring the framerate down to the high fifties for a couple of seconds, but it never happens in combat. There's room to tweak the settings or cap at 50, 45 or 40 fps, but be aware that capping withing SteamOS will introduce some input lag and change the timing of the game. If you're in for high scores and precision gaming, leave it at 60. If you want to save some battery life, as the game seems a bit power hungry, cap it to your liking. It remains perfectly playable regardless. Very good PC version of the game.
TDP: 6
The launcher's options appear squisky and nearly unreadable. It is fixed by forcing the game to launch at a higher resolution (see full report).
External controller sometimes disconnects
The game runs well out the box but has some quirks. The first one is the launcher which won't won't show readable options at 720 or 800p. The only solution I've found is to force the game to launch at a higher resolution within Steam OS. You can then tweak the settings (resolution included) using the launcher. It's actually useful as the game won't offer you to change to a higher resolution than 800p unless you do that. As aliasing is very noticeable at anything less than 1080p and as the game is very light, I advise using this trick to set a higher resolution (1080p 16:9 or 1200p 16:10), enable 8x MSAA and then set a TDP limit of 6. The framerate won't bulge and the game will look much better as it will be super-sampled. The game is limited to 30fps as its physics are tied to framerate. However, it somehow runs at a constant 31fps, introducing constant framepacing issues. Using SteamOS framerate limiter at 30fps fixes that. Disable the OS V-Sync to reduce input lag. Once all of that is done, it's a very enjoyable experience. The game plays well. There used to be an issue with saves on Steam Deck, but it doesn't seem to be the case anymore and Cloud saves are enabled. It will be delisted on November 6th, so if you want the Steam version, un for it.
The Epic version of the game needs to be launched in desktop mode one time before working in game mode
The Epic version of the game, installed via Heroic Launcher, needs to be changed manually to the latest proton version as wine won't boot the game. Then, the game needs to be launched through desktop mode in order to trigger an Epic internet shortcut that asks for account permissions, and which is required to play. Once all of the above is done, the game can be launched through game mode and runs great with a 40fps cap, all settings on high. TAA pairs a bit poorly with the 720p default resolution, so I advise turning it off or enabling FXAA instead.
Works well out of the box. Due to the dybamic nature of the gameplay (the load of game is basically up to you), I advise capping it at 30fps. Low settings work well enough to provide a stable experience, but a mix of medium and high settings along with FSR2.0 work well too. The game has native controller support as opposed to many of the genre, which is nice. The UI is legible although a bit small, but subtitles size can be changed. Overall a pretty good experience on the deck.
Installed the Widescreen fix (here: https://www.gamepressure.com/download.asp?ID=62030 )
Game runs great. However, it requires a bit of tinkering. I used GEProton to install the GoG version out of safety to run the game's FMV, but I think any Proton version will work. However, the game runs at a 4:3 aspect ratio out of the box, and it can only be fixed by installing the mod listed above and editing the associated ini file (don't forget to change the lines that appear in red as well). Secondly, the game does appear to have gamepad support, but never switches to it under Steam Input. There are community layouts available that work great. Do note that the menus need to be navigated with mouse and keyboard, so any combination of right stick + triggers (for docked play) or trackpads needs to be turned on with mouse inputs. Finally, fog needs to be turned off in the settings as it renders incorrectly ingame.
Once all of that is sorted (a bit of a hassle, but par for the course with older games), the games runs beautifully at 90fps, native 720 or 800p, and consumes very little power ensuring 5h+ battery life.
Played entirely on Steam Deck with all achievements unlocked. The game runs extremely well out of the box. 60fps at a mix of low and medium settings or 40fps at high settings are perfectly achievable and stable. The exception is the questionable area which tends to run lower due to a lot of foliage. Either lower your fps target or your settings when going through it.
The game did not recognize the Deck's screen definition at first, see below.
The game runs well, very well even. But following the splash screens (which show properly), the menu would appear in a small black box on the top left corner of my screen. After changing Proton layers several times, nothing seemed to fix it. I instead used the touchscreen controls to go into the settings and they were showing no resolution at all, which seems to be a bug. After setting it to the proper resolution, the game displayed correctly and remembered my setting every subsequent launch. Otherwise, it's a good experience with some occasional (but unpredictable) stutter. It advises capping it at 40 or 45 fps.
Video episodes now work fine on Proton Experimental, and apparently even on regular Proton as of the latest update, but I haven't tried it. They are streamed from Microsoft's (poor) servers and can pause to buffer pretty regularly however, no matter how good your internet connection is. Medium settings look good and can net you a pretty stable 40fps with SteamOS built-in cap, but some areas (mostly during non combat scenarios) can drop to the mid-30fps. I advise capping the game to 30fps for a perfectly stable experience if that's what you like, as the motion blur is well implemented and makes the game look decently smooth. Input lag can feel pretty high but that's a quirk of the game itself and feels similar to other Remedy games. Disabling Vsync can help a little with it.
In the case of AreaX, the Steam Deck controller was only partially detected, making it difficult to start it as RB did not respond. Fixed it by changing the controller profile and reverting to the original one. Can be replicated, but not every single time.
Aside from the controller problem mentioned above, the game runs perfectly well on Steam Deck at 60fps.
The game suffer from considerable light leaks at times. Seems to be the case on every platform, but is less visible at higher resolutions.
The games runs without any issues out of the box, but is very GPU-heavy. It also chews through Vram and suffers from major traversal stutters on every platform. Basically, it is not particularly well optimised.
I've used SteamDeckHQ recommended settings, which work well enough. Set most settings to low except textures and lens flares. There's no actual need to set absolutely everything to low as most of the stutters are due to traversal / background streaming of new areas and won't improve regardless, and the 66% render scale looks better than FSR1. You should get 2 to 3 hours of battery life on OLED. It is possible to enable FSR3 framegen but it is very unstable and increases input lag dramatically.
As it stands it is a playable and rather good looking experience on the small screen, but it needs serious optimization to be considered good for the Deck. Only go for it if you really want to play it now and have no other options to go with.
The game runs well out of the box, but seems a little heavier with fans blasting at an unstable 60fps. The game is slow, so capping it at 30fps is the way to go. The controls work okay although I advise changing the official controller layout and binding F to the Y button as it is otherwise a bit tricking to turn objects around. Good experience altogether.
Limit TDP to 10
If played in docked mode, the game doesn't recognize any external controller (aside from the official Xbox One) with the official controller profile set by default. Change it to the universal "Controller" profile provided by Steam to make it work.
The game works well out of the box. It has a few quirks however. It won't recognize properly anything else than an official Xbox controller and requires tinkering with controller profiles (see above). The anti-aliasing method used does not pair well with the 720p native resolution of the game (which does not support a 16:10 ratio unless modded). There is a super-sampling option which can be set to 200% to help, otherwise the game can easily be forced to any resolution higher than 720p, up to 4k. It's very light, so there won't be any problem with performance, although you may have to change your TDP limit accordingly. 1080p does a decent job cleaning up the image. Finally, the game has some frame-pacing issues which are cleaned up if you limit the framerate to 30 within SteamOS. The game cannot go above 30fps anyway, so I advise doing it. A decent experience overall once everything is set up.
All ingame text is small, but subtitles are absolutely tiny and some of the voice acting is in Chinese.
The game (in its definitive edition, which is the sale as the base one but with all the DLC) runs well out of the box. The default settings provide a pretty stable 60fps, with occasional traversal or loading stutter. Settings can be lowered to alleviate some of them but considering their nature, it is more efficient to cap the game at 40 or 50fps if you're looking for a perfectly stable experience. Very enjoyable regardless.
The game caps itself at 45fps, not matter what you do.
On Steam Deck Oled, the game caps itself to half the refresh rate, that is to say 45fps. There is no working solution to this, as the overlay FPS cap doesn't seem to work properly in this case. The game was designed to run on a 60hz screen at 30fps. Any change to that ends up messing up with the inputs, which in a rhythm game is more than noticeable. Can't possibly recommend it on OLED. As the LCD Deck has a 60hz screen, I imagine it is perfectly fine to play the game on it.
The game shows an error screen that needs to be bypassed using the touchscreen
The controller did not work on the main menu. Fixed by enabling Steam input from the game's controller settings within Steam OS.
A prompt appears on launch saying a save is corrupted. One of the five save slots is taken by the corrupted save, but the others work fine. So does cloud saving.
The game has quirks. It can crash in the character menu, which is fixed by using Proton GE. It shows an error screen that needs to be bypassed using the touchscreen. The controller may not be recognized in-game past the splash screens, which requires changing the Steam Input settings of the game (for some, it needs to be disabled - for others, like me, it needs to be enabled). The game is set to 1080p while 720p seems like a better fit for the Deck (it can be changed easily in the settings). Finally, a corrupted save files is apparently created upon launch and takes one of the five slots available. Just ignore it.
It's a shame the game has all these quirks, because it otherwise runs like a charm on the Deck with all settings enabled at 720p. It hovers between 70 and 80 fps, meaning it is easy to lock it to your preferred refresh rate. 1080p 40fps works great too but the game seems a little battery hungry, so I decided to go for 720p 45 (on OLED) and set the TDP to 12 to leave some room for the more hectic moments.
My external controller wasn't recognized at first, but pressing the spas several times fixed it.
Ironically, this absolutely excellent puzzle game is preceded by a puzzle of its own. The redux version (which is the only one fully compatible with Steam Deck and its controller) only updated when forcing Proton Experimental. Before that, controls (aside from the touchscreen) were unresponsive and it was impossible to change any controller profile. Forcing Proton Experimental forced Steam Input support and allowed me to launch the Redux version of the game properly after a 300mb update.
Even then, my external controller for docked mode wasn't responding at first, but pressing several inputs inexplicably fixed it. Still, I couldn't access the controller profile settings while using it. Truly odd, but other than that a game I thoroughly recommend.
The Redux version has a good UI for handheld play and full controller support (which is decent for a game like this one). I advise going for this one unless you're an old time player really attached to the vanilla version of the game.
The game shows keyboard inputs instead of controller ones
The game works wonderfully out of the box, as expected. Not many settings can be changed and the framerate is capped at 60fps max however. Note that the game will always show keyboard inputs instead of controller one. To have controller inputs show, you need to manually unbind every single keyboard key in the settings menu, which can be a bit of a hassle with the Steam Deck's built-in keyboard. I advise using an external one for that.
The game runs perfectly as of October 2024 in its Steam version using default Proton. I al surprised it is not verified considering it requires no tinkering at all. You can push all the settings up (8xAA and 8xAnisotropic filtering), you'll still get a perfectly stable 60fps out of the game running at 800p and could probably get good performance at higher resolution as well. On the first boot, the game opens a config launcher that needs to be navigated with the touchscreen. It does not open afterwards and all settings can be changed from the ingame menu. Controllers are now fully supported as well. Great experience altogether.
The game has a launcher that will only answer to touch or mouse. Can be avoided past the first launch.
The game runs flawlessly aside from its typical "mouse only launcher" that only needs to be opened on first launch. 90fps on Steam Deck Oled is perfectly attainable and doesn't bulge, at least on the first level. There aren't many graphics options (aside from a choice between FXAA and MSAA) but the framerate and TDP can be capped to pretty much whatever you want.
