it's a gabe
Published
The game runs out of the box, but it will NOT recognize DLC or mods you might have installed. You have to switch to Proton GE for the game to acknowledge that you have DLCs and mods installed.
60 FPS in the space rig without mods + no online party. Nyakuza's Metro frerroam mode without any other players around was another story, capping at the mid 50s and often dropping to high 40s. Therefore, I locked the FPS to 30. Pretty stable that way.
Mods caused severe performance issues and also made the whole system crash upon attempting to load a level.
Online party works just fine.
Local co-op also works just fine.
For the love of all that's holy, don't bother installing mods. Unless I'm missing something quite significant, the game runs quite badly with mods, which also causes the whole system to crash upon attempting to loading a level. You also cannot play with the default Proton version if you have the DLCs, as the game just won't acknowledge that they're even installed. I switched to Proton GE and seeing the game works with the DLC and without mods, I don't feel like tinkering further. Honestly, I think Valve need to be more meticulous with what they deem verified, cuz A Hat in Time should not have that tag. It should be playable at the very least, but not verified considering the issues listed on this report.
You can even enable ray traced reflections, though I wouldn't recommend it as the Steam Deck wasn't designed to handle ray tracing of any kind. The only problem I had was HDR. For whatever reason, the option remains greyed-out in the settings. Otherwise, the game runs beautifully and looks rather stunning at 30 FPS.
I just didn't try MP cuz as you can see on SteamDB, the game's pretty much dead, even with crossplay enabled and the devs' regular live streams.
It's Borderlands 2. I'm pretty sure it runs on a toaster nowadays, but here's a few essential battery saving tips.
-nolauncher -nostartupmovies
First, I'm not a big fan of how the Deck defaults the trackpacks to function as the d-pad and right stick respectively, so I disabled them here. Then, I mapped the d-pad to the back buttons. You change weapons a lot in this game and since you can't comfortably run and swap weapons with the d-pad (as you would on an Xbox controller, for example), it helps to have those buttons mapped to something you can access more easily.
For the love of all that's holy, lock the FPS to 30. I know the Deck can handle smooth 22-62, 60, and perhaps higher, but the device will heat up and die fairly quickly if you set the FPS this high. I gained about 2 whole hours of battery life by locking the FPS to 30, turning on 'allow tearing,' setting the TDP limit to 10 Watts, and locking the GPU clock to 800. I was at over 75% when I made these changes. The battery forecast was for about 2h. And then it jumped to FIVE! I knew I had to change something when I had to charge my Deck three times a day in the span of three or four days, all of which I spent playing BL2 non-stop. I usually only need to charge the Deck once or twice a day even when I have it on from the moment I get up to bedtime, so this change was crucial.
Icon preview for pick ups is quite difficult to read regardless of the UI scaling option. Not a big problem, but worth noting.
BL2 often skips a beat when the game's saving. This is normal and happens on PC as well, but thought I should point it out for any newcomers who don't have much experience with it on beefier hardware.
Multiplayer was fine, by the way.
The fullscreen option cuts the floating 3D interface (the soda bottle for your health, trinkets collected, and level) if widescreen is enabled. Unticking the fullscreen option at launch fixes this.
The only notable problem I found is listed above. The other thing I found odd is that the edges of the screen seem to curve somewhat. I don't recall this being a thing on Windows and if it is, it's not noticeable on a larger monitor. On the Steam Deck, however, the curve is a bit too sharp.
Launching it OOTB causes the colors to become extremely saturated. It's playable, but the game was never designed with this much saturation in mind. The trick is switching to the native Linux version by selecting 'Steam Linux Runtime 1.0 (scout)' in the compatibility settings. The color saturation will be as intended by the developers.
Keep in mind that DOASPJ isn't the most stable game on Windows. All the stability issues I found on the Steam Deck are ones common to the Windows version, so it runs pretty much on par with its intended hardware. I do recommend locking the FPS to 30 as that'll be more stable than the constant drops from mid-50s to low-40s and, in some cases, 30. This isn't the kind of game where playing at 60 FPS makes any difference gameplay-wise anyway.
Stutters every now and again, but nothing drastic. Perfectly playable.
Upon launch the game may occasionally present a black screen that persist across the entire system. Just put the Deck in and out of sleep mode and it'll be fixed.
Pretty stable 30 FPS + high settings outside of some minor stuttering that doesn't really detract from the experience. You can get away with playing it at 1080p if you have a dock. I would recommend playing with graphics on high as some elements are very visibly jagged (e.g. shadows) even on the Deck's screen at 800p.
With games such as this I often bind my own keys as I tend to find community layouts don't quite match where I expect some commands to be.
Might be a little too much for the Deck. Not a lot of graphics options and the few there are didn't improve performance by a considerable margin.
I'd say it needs controller support (or better yet, Deck-specific support as the trackpads can be a godsend in this game) and some further optimisation to work well enough on the Deck. As it is, I would recommend playing this on something with more power to it.
My personal preference is using the left trackpad as the mouse and the right one as a single button (LMB). You'll need to use the cursor (though you could also use the touchscreen, I guess) to change the game's settings, enable gamepad, and navigate PlayOnline and start the game
At first I launched the game with the default Proton version. It seemed to run flawlessly, but I decided to switch to the recommended version (4.11-12 or 4.11-13, the latter of which was the only one available for me) just in case I'd run into any issues using the default version. I had a single crash upon changing zones so far (with the recommended Proton version, though I recall retail being a bit unstable even on Windows), but no other problems.
Considering how much of a pain retail is to set up on Windows, I was expecting it to be worse on the Deck, but it was the exact same experience. I didn't even have to switch to desktop mode. I just recommend being very careful if you're resubbing after a long time away as the process to get your account up and running again is finnicky and COSTS MONEY on top of the monthly fee! The Square Enix website charges you £1 to change your payment method and as I ket getting an error (even after setting it up once, it didn't seem to save the information at all), I had to attempt to set everything up about four times, meaning I had to pay around £4 on top of the £8-9 for the basic sub fee. I've no clue if this money will be refunded, but there's your warning.
Other than all that, actually playing the game on the Deck is such a dream for me. I love this device and although I don't have as much of an attachment to FFXI as many others, I do love this game and I think once you get past the PlayOnline nonsense, it ends up being one of those games that feel like they were made for the Steam Deck. If you're considering it and think the set up process might be worse on Linux, fret not: it's the exact same as on Windows. No more, no less.
Controller support is horrendous when interacting with the interface. Make sure to set cursor controls, especially to click and drag comfortably.
Lower graphics settings, lock the FPS to 30. The Deck can't maintain a consistent 60 FPS in this game, so either lock it to the highest it goes or 30.
The first time the game loads every time you open it is rather slow.
This game is a major pain on the Steam Deck. Installing it takes much longer than any other game, actually starting to play it takes ages every time you launch it, updating it is also much slower than any other game, and even uninstalling it is a pain. I kid you not, this thing messed up the wifi adapter when I uninstalled it. I couldn't download anything, cloud saves wouldn't sync, and even my playtime didn't register on another game after I uninstalled Gedonia. I could still access the store, but it's as if it turned off wifi or something (even though it was on and I had signal). I don't know why this game is such a pain on the Deck, but the dev knows it's a problem and it seems like he's not that interested in addressing any issues. Other than that, I didn't find the text particularly difficult to read. There's a UI scaling setting, but use it with caution as it will make some windows impossible to use (e.g. the crafting window). Ignoring all that, it plays alright, but this game is just not worth the hassle. There are better RPGs that run flawlessly on the Deck. If you're reading this and considering playing it on the Deck, don't. You probably have a Windows machine somewhere, be it a PC or a gaming laptop, so play it there instead.
You'll need to add a few things to the official layout as you might enable couch co-op by accident when trying to type in the chat. It helps to set a back button as enter + show keyboard (yes, in the same button), which will allow you to type your messages quicker. But also, set a button for Esc and a trackpad for mouse movement + LMB. If you enable couch co-op by accident, you'll have to open the menu with Esc and kick the extra player through there with the mouse. I also found that setting "select" to one of the back buttons helps.
Flawless multiplayer experience.
Activated couch co-op by accident more than a few times when using the on-screen keyboard to try and type messages. Yeah, it works.
I have a category in my library called "made for the Deck." I put this in there before I even played it, but was not disappointed once I got to it. This is one of those games that truly feels like it was made to be played on the Deck specifically.
Binding the d-pad to the back buttons makes switching weapons easier as it allows you to use the Y menu whilst moving.
In-game graphics preset: Medium // Frame limit: 40 FPS // TDP limit: 10 Watts // Manual GPU clock: 800 MHz
This only happened once, but a high-pitched audio from a map persisted throughout the game once the match was over. I had to restart the game to get rid of this problem.
If you have film grain enabled at all, it may sometimes get overblown when loading a map directly from a previous match as opposed to the main menu. Just lower the film grain or turn it off altogether to solve this as soon as it happens.
This is a bit convoluted to explain, but bear with me: if you launch the game after having played it before and you haven't launched another game in-between sessions or even restarted the system, there's this issue where the game won't connect to your Steam inventory and you won't be able to access the in-game store. The only way I found to fix this was to launch a game in-between sessions or rebooting the Deck.
It's hard to pin down what causes it, but sometimes the Deck struggles to maintain 40 FPS when launching the game if you've launched it before without playing another game or switching the Deck on and off. If this happens, either launch another game and then relaunch KF2 or reboot the Deck.
Furthermore, it's very common for the game to freeze for a second randomly when killing zeds or when zed time happens. It's not often, but it does happen.
Bear in mind that when you first launch the game (either when it's the first game you launch after booting up the Deck or if you launch it after playing something else), there'll be a black screen between the logos and the main menu. As mentioned in previous reports, DO NOT click on anything when this happens. If you come across this black screen, it means the game is successfully connecting to the inventory server. You'll still have issues with the inventory as that seems to be a problem with the game itself, but alas.
If you don't get this black screen, that means the game hasn't connected to the inventory server, meaning you won't be able to access your inventory or the in-game store (if you care for it). Launch another game and then relaunch KF2 or reboot the Deck to fix this. Follow the other tips on this report to fix other issues that may crop up.
All in all, I found the game itself to be fantastic and fairly enjoyable on the Deck. It has problems, but nothing too detrimental to my playtime (12h on the Deck as of the writing of this report). If you're patient and don't mind getting around some small technical issues, this can be a lot of fun on the Deck.
It seems like some things can't be done with a controller, such as swapping your party layout. To remedy this, I set the left trackpad for mouse input and the right to function simply as a left mouse click. How you set up the mouse and the left click is up to you, though.
The interface as a whole is quite small on the Deck. Changing the resolution didn't seem to improve this much. You can play without zooming in with L1+Steam (which I recommend as there are issues with that), but you have to get a little closer to the screen to read some of the text.
Long story short, the interface is minuscule on the Deck's screen. This game was designed to be played on a proper monitor, hence the problem. The solution would be a native UI scaling option or perhaps a mod doing the same if that's at all possible.
Rad Codex, if you're reading this, please allow us to scale the UI so that this gem of a game can be more comfortable to play on the Deck.
The tutorials are all difficult to read and it's impossible to read the maps without using the Deck's magnifying lens feature. I didn't notice if too many other UI elements are difficult to read, but I'd say these should be enough to bump it down to playable instead of verified.
The Deck mode (enabled by default) causes extreme ghosting due to FSR being set to a performance mode (you cannot change this). It looks atrocious and it'll make it impossible to see the ranged combat "reticle" along with other environmental details. You can disable the Deck mode with a command line, which allows you to set FSR to quality, but that'll cause performance issues.
It runs well enough if you're playing with the Deck mode enabled (default), but there are dips in framerate here and there.
All in all, it runs well enough all things considered, but it's hard to swallow when it looks this bad thanks to the heavy ghosting caused by FSR. I tried both the Deck mode, which was fairly playable, and the PC mode, which looked better with FSR set to quality but came with much more dips in performance. Also, the UI has plenty of elements, text and otherwise, that are quite difficult to read.
The game starts on medium graphics settings by default, which seem to drain a lot of power. Lower the graphics to improve battery life. Additionally, turn off v-sync and set the FPS to 30 if you really want to extend battery life further (default is 45 FPS).
It runs perfctly out of the box. Better than on Windows, I'd say. I always found this game to be rather unstable on Windows even with a beefy gaming laptop, but it runs butter smooth on the Deck even at 60 FPS. Make sure to use my controller layout, 'Meadow unofficial Steam Deck controller support,' which includes all default keybindings you'll need to play the game comfortably, laid out in a way that makes some sense for someone who's used to playing other games with a controller (not all key placements make perfect sense as they're just odd commands to begin with, but this is due to the game's nature and gameplay). Rest your thumb on the right stick to move the camera and move the cursor independently with the right track pad. The left track pad functions as a scroll wheel. Finally, use L4 and R4 to cycle animals in the den, but also feel free to use L2 and R2 to rise and fall as the eagle. Refer to the layout preview for more commands.
The common method to fix this seems to be installing OpenAL via protontricks, but the easiest way is to simply force the game to use Proton 6.3-8. No need to do anything else.
Basically, the only problem this game has (which is also an issue on Windows) is the missing audio. The fix for this on Windows is installing OpenAL, which some people have also done on the Deck via protontricks. However, I found a thread that suggested using Proton 6.3-8 instead. Lo and behold, it works like a charm. No need to fiddle with protontricks at all.
Basically, the game's main branch has no controller support. However, if you switch to the beta branch (properties>betas>experimental - test builds), you'll be greeted with full controller support. I don't understand why the developer makes no one aware of this, or why he keeps releasing patch notes without any warning that they don't refer to the main branch. On top of that, I can't agree with a game being tagged as verified when the way to play it properly on the Deck is unnecessarily obscured by a complete lack of communication. Great game, but I wish the developer was better at communicating that all of his updates have been exclusively for the beta branch, where controller support can be found.
Initial setup requires installing UE components. This caused a black screen at first, but worked out alright when I launched it a second time. You might need the touch screen or setting up cursor and mouse click controls to get through this.
Although you can adjust the interface and text size, it doesn't account for all interface and text. Some text is difficult to reach despite these settings.
I started a fresh save on my Steam Deck. Upon swapping to my PC the next day, progress seemed a bit confused. I swaped between my PC and the Deck throughout the day and cloud saves seem to be working properly.
Some maps can be very demanding. I have the graphics preset set to low and FPS locked to 30 and 'twisted nerve' still dropped occasionally. Not unplayable, but drops do happen.
It actually looks quite decent on the Deck with the lowest graphics preset. You can play it at 45 FPS if you need smooth gameplay, but I found 30 FPS to be more consistent and overall playable once I got used to it (took me a minute or two).
I didn't try multiplayer, but I hear it's pretty much unplayable. ProtonDB didn't give me the option to comment on that for whatever reason. Perfectly playable with the AI teammates, however, who are surprisingly competent.
Ubisoft Connect is a bit of a pain when you first install the game, but once you launch it after that initial install, it's not much of a problem.
I didn't find most of the text that difficult to read, especially when you can scale the HUD to be more readable on a smaller screen. Other interfaces might present smaller text (e.g. the commendations tab), but it was barely an inconvenience for me. All in all, it plays rather well despite Ubisoft Connect.
A lot of the UI is quite small.
Doesn't run incredibly well compared to other games of the same caliber, especially the first Division.
TD2 runs alright on the Deck, but I wouldn't say it runs well enough. Even locking the FPS to 30 and turning all graphics settings to low will see regular dips in performance. Playable, but not ideal. Unless you can put up with these regular dips, I say avoid this one and play the first game instead, which is a lot more stable on the Deck.
Came up with my own layout. Not shared.
I found the text to be small across the UI. Sharp enough that you can read it, but you have to get the device up to your face.
This game has a problem that I also found in Guild Wars: I've set the capacitive touch of the right stick to activate the RMB so I can move the camera seamlessly without having to hold anything else. This causes the FPS to drop noticeably for a moment and it happens consistently. Doesn't make the game unplayable, but it is annoying. Locking the FPS to 30 didn't completely mitigate this, but it did make it less noticeable.
Not cloud support at this time. Hopefully will change later.
This game struggles on my PC in populate lobbies, so it'd make sense that the Deck would struggle more. Furthermore, there's no cloud support, so you'll either have two separate save files or you'll have to transfer the file back and forth if you play on another device.
Wouldn't recommend playing this on the Deck in general due to performance, but also because it lacks controller support (which brings other problems, see above) and typing with the on-screen keyboard is quite the hassle. You might have an OK time if you have a dock, but it'll perform better on a gaming laptop or a proper PC.
