Elden Ring on the Steam Deck has lengthy loved a smoothness that desktop play has lacked. Not a lot in easy framerate phrases – the hand-held spends much more time across the 30fps mark than it does bumping into Elden Ring’s 60fps cap – however due to a Proton compatibility replace again in 2022, it’s drastically much less liable to the flow-breaking stutter that also plagues the RPG in 2024. That now goes for Shadow Of The Erdtree as properly, judging from my transportable time within the new growth.
There are a number of spots that may stretch the Steam Deck’s unassuming internals, and I’d suggest the settings information under if you wish to hold that regular 30fps. However by and huge, Shadow of the Erdtree will get a clear invoice of handheld {hardware} well being, with continued benefitting from that anti-stuttering patch and improved battery life on the newer, extra environment friendly Steam Deck OLED. It’s like Crowded Home as soon as stated: all over the place you go, at all times take Messmer with you.
We’ve know for years that Elden Ring’s controls swimsuit the Deck simply positive, so let’s skip straight forward to efficiency. Shadow of the Erdtree is neither extra easygoing nor far more demanding than the bottom sport, so whereas super-slick framerates have been by no means on the playing cards, it’s simple to attain a steady 30fps base – with occasional rises into the 40s. Typically even the fifties, in a number of of the Realm of Shadows’ tighter interiors.
Which may not sound like a lot when even the sport’s minimum-spec graphics playing cards can close to 60fps on desktop, Nevertheless it’s sufficient. Moreover, I swear on my pet ghost horse’s life: anybody who’s performed on each PC and Steam Deck will discover the shortage of stuttering on the latter. Sure, FromSoftware improved on but by no means truly fastened Elden Ring’s choppiness, and the assorted quality-of-life enhancements that Shadow of the Erdtree makes don’t embody such a treatment. On the Steam Deck, nonetheless, there’s been one in place for ages. Valve themselves stepped in to replace Proton – the compatibility layer that lets Home windows video games run on the Linux-based SteamOS – in order that on the Deck, and finally solely on the Deck, this stuttering wouldn’t be so prevalent. As of proper now, you would possibly nonetheless see the occasional stumble, however typically it’s a extra steady and constant runner than what you’d get on even probably the most bankrupting of high-end PCs.
Shadow of the Erdtree additionally solely provides a hair over 15GB to Elden Ring’s storage footprint, so each it and the bottom sport will nonetheless match on virtually each Steam Deck mannequin’s SSD (64GB house owners, hope you’ve acquired a microSD card). On battery life, although, the Steam Deck OLED claims a totally anticipated win. I’d beforehand clocked an unique Deck lasting for 1h 33m when operating Elden Ring at 50% display brightness; a retest in Shadow of the Erdtree got here in a tad shorter, at 1h 25m. Each of those pale subsequent to the OLED’s 2h 14m, additionally in SOTE. Clearly that consequence isn’t eons-long both, although it’s just about down-the-middle amongst large, 3D open-world video games.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Steam Deck settings information
For the preset-inclined, I’d argue Medium is one of the best guess for Steam Decks. Low can roll a number of frames-per-second quicker however visually suffers from inferior lighting, a scarcity of anti-aliasing, and a nasty flickering impact inflicted by low-quality shadows. However! You possibly can truly hold a number of of the people on Excessive and even Most, with out them noticeably impeding efficiency.
Right here’s the complete settings mixture I’d suggest. It persistently produces 30fps round a lot of the growth’s open world, with larger (and visibly smoother) efficiency in caves and castles.
- Ray tracing high quality: Off
- Texture high quality: Medium
- Antialiasing high quality: Excessive
- SSAO: Most
- Depth of discipline: Excessive
- Movement blur: Off
- Shadow high quality: Excessive
- Lighting high quality: Medium
- Results high quality: Medium
- Volumetric high quality: Excessive
- Reflection high quality: Most
- Water floor high quality: Excessive
- Shader high quality: Excessive
- World illumination high quality: Medium
- Grass high quality: Medium
I’ve opinion-blabbed elsewhere that you just ideally shouldn’t drop under Most shadow high quality, simply to keep away from that distracting flickering, but it surely’s truly lots much less noticeable on the Steam Deck’s smaller, lower-res show than it’s on an enormous monitor. Most additionally appears to value extra frames than it does on desktop {hardware}, so Excessive finally ends up as a viable compromise.
Because you’re most likely not going to be hitting 50fps-plus, outdoors of a handful of spots, you may additionally wish to decrease your Deck’s refresh price/FPS cap (through the slider within the SteamOS overlay’s Efficiency menu) to one thing like 45Hz. This gained’t make Elden Ring run slower itself; you’re mainly simply stopping the show from refreshing extra usually than it must, which might add a couple of minutes to battery life.