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 way 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 nicely, judging from my transportable time within the new enlargement.
There are a number of spots that may stretch the Steam Deck’s unassuming internals, and I’d suggest the settings information beneath 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: in all places you go, all the time take Messmer with you.
We’ve know for years that Elden Ring’s controls swimsuit the Deck simply wonderful, 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 had been by no means on the playing cards, it’s straightforward to attain a steady 30fps base – with occasional rises into the 40s. Generally 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, However 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 varied 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 usually it’s a extra steady and constant runner than what you’d get on even essentially 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 nearly each Steam Deck mannequin’s SSD (64GB homeowners, hope you’ve bought a microSD card). On battery life, although, the Steam Deck OLED claims a totally anticipated win. I’d beforehand clocked an authentic Deck lasting for 1h 33m when working 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 massive, 3D open-world video games.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Steam Deck settings information
For the preset-inclined, I’d argue Medium is the most effective 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’ll be able to truly hold a number of of the people on Excessive and even Most, with out them noticeably impeding efficiency.
Right here’s the total settings mixture I’d suggest. It persistently produces 30fps round many of the enlargement’s open world, with increased (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 area: 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
- International illumination high quality: Medium
- Grass high quality: Medium
I’ve opinion-blabbed elsewhere that you simply ideally shouldn’t drop beneath Most shadow high quality, simply to keep away from that distracting flickering, however it’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, exterior of a handful of spots, you might also need to decrease your Deck’s refresh charge/FPS cap (by way of 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 principally simply stopping the show from refreshing extra usually than it must, which might add a couple of minutes to battery life.
