Yes - Valve Really Did Fix Elden Ring PC For Steam Deck!

Join Rich for a journey back to the launch of Elden Ring on PC, how badly it ran on Steam Deck during the final days of the review period - and then how Valve's optimisations via the Proton compatibility layer transformed the game. A handheld PS4? Better than Xbox One S? Find out for yourself... and yeah, tests on two high-end PCs with the 1.02.03 patch...
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[@swayamkrishnan8273]

If this is the kind of optimization we continue to see from Valve for more demanding games, we may very well see the Deck last for years to come. Fantastic job!

[@MrJeanjean2009]

It's a great move for sure! I don't know if demanding is the right term for Elden Ring though, badly optimized is more accurate I think.

[@DubElementMusic]

@@MrJeanjean2009 i just really hope FS is keeping optimize the game and release a good ray tracing patch, i would fucking love to play elden ring NG+ with RT

[@Dangerman-zg3ui]

I want a RDNA 3 + Zen 4 Steamdeck V2 ASAP w/ a 120Hz OLED screen. That'd be sick.

[@raresmacovei8382]

Don't confuse "fixing shader compilation" with basically fixing the problem of a cross-gen game. Proper 9th console gen games will have significantly higher system requirements.

[@DubElementMusic]

@@Dangerman-zg3ui for what 120hz on a gameboy? u wanna play 30 min. until the battery is dead?

[@KDZen]

Rich showing up to break down Elden Ring's performance is like the store manager finally coming over to set things right 😂 His observations are, in a word, B E S P O K E

[@Gryzor88]

Witchard speaking like a bespoke forspoken. Such a cunning linguist ^_^

[@TimmyTurner421]

@@Gryzor88 Hahahahahahaha 😄👍

[@Crimsongz]

Hahah nice analogy 😂💯

[@datruth4766]

I say we dust off, and nuke the game from orbit.... it's the only way to be sure!

[@Megatog615]

bespoke is, the bespoke british word

[@frostburn311]

It sure would be nice if FromSoft reached out to more technical folks to improve the PC version of the game, add ultrawide support, higher frame rate support and such given the great success the game has had.

[@shivmom7903]

Off online ..better smooth my PC :)

[@shmekelfreckles8157]

For hogher framerate they need a new engine

[@sean8102]

I was thinking the same thing. They really need to let an outside team do their PC versions from now on. Like Nixxes would probably be a good developer to handle it. Edit: NM I had no idea Sony purchased Nixxes in July 2021. Makes sense though with Sony saying they will be bringing more games to PC.

[@Adamantium9001]

Ultrawide and high frame rate support are easy; I know this because _there are already mods that do those._ They just require you to be offline because they trip the anti-cheat 😮‍💨! The fact that the game didn't include them on launch is pathetic; it's just more evidence that Bandai Namco and/or FromSoft treat PC as an afterthought at best 😡. And I say that as someone who has put over 80 hours into Elden Ring on Linux.

[@shmekelfreckles8157]

@@Adamantium9001 high framerate mod breaks the game tho

[@hatcherluke]

Richard going solo on bespoke optimizations? This really is the dream.

[@Oversoulse7en]

In the here and now.

[@derptyderp5287]

He's gone rogue!

[@jockturner1547]

They really like the world bespoke don't they?

[@fadefade]

Fixed on Linux desktop too, not just Steam Deck.

[@colbyboucher6391]

Well, yes, anywhere you can use Proton.

[@insu_na]

@@colbyboucher6391 You can use VKD3D-Proton on Windows, too, which is the specific thing that contains the fixes for Elden Ring. Unfortunately Elden Ring *currently* performs even worse on Windows with VKD3D-Proton. It has a very low framerate overall, but at least it doesn't stutter... Either way I'm sure Hans Kristian will fix that at some point, tho the question will be if the fix is available before FromSoft creates a fix themselves. Edit: If you have a windows installation and want to test it out you can download vkd3d-proton from HansKristian-Work on GitHub, but you will also require the dxgi.dll from Doitsujin's dxvk GitHub

[@colbyboucher6391]

@@insu_na Good to know there's something like this floating around. I knew there was a more direct Vulkan "wrapper" for DX11 games but I didn't know there was anything for Proton.

[@vintatsh]

This level of optimization-possibilities is what‘s really exciting about the Deck and pretty unique in the PC space.

[@xBINARYGODx]

the Deck is not a PC.

[@blastu2fool]

@@xBINARYGODx so what is it if it's not a PC ?

[@NastyNick1776]

@@xBINARYGODx it really is lol, you can go into desktop mode

[@GoodOlKuro]

@@blastu2fool A cOnSoLe!!!11eleven!!

[@katzenjunge5869]

How is 720p and sub 30 FPS unique in any way? Even my toaster does a better job and yes that toaster portable too, because its a laptop.

[@jarnobot]

As someone that has been a linux enthusiast for many years, the last few years have been an amazing journey. From the moment Valve announced Proton in 2018 (?) it was clear that it would be a game changer, but it has exceeded my expectations immensely without any sign of stopping. Thanks Valve!

[@thomasmann3560]

It's insane to me that my steam deck has become like an ultimate console. It's the PC experience on a handheld I've been dreaming of. So many games run so well

[@Tass...]

The service DF provides in the video gaming world is next level. Nobody comes even close. You guys should be very proud of yourselves.

[@Wicked.Artworks]

I prefer linus

[@Tass...]

@@Wicked.Artworks Who does something very different.

[@Detlevboi]

GamersNexus is on the same level

[@iamlegend68]

The fact you can play Elden Ring on a handheld blows my mind. Really hoping sales do well for this. Waiting for mine to arrive soon

[@olefjord85]

Valve's move pulling in a compatibility layer for playing on Linux also gives them control over the rendering pipeline. The proton layer is a supreme peace of tech! Both technologically and strategically. Very thoughtful and carefully designed... And this is still the beginning. Nice engineering work!

[@TimmyTurner421]

Amazing

[@lottji]

I know this is redundant but I’ve just 100%’d Elden Ring for the third time (after PS4 and PS5) on steam deck and it runs amazingly

[@pentacosttb2565]

Honestly, you guys need to add Steam Deck into your PS5/XSS/XSX/PC comparisons. It's as much it's own current gen platform as the rest, and far more exciting than arguably anything else on the market right now.

[@bartjeyeyo]

Yeah nah

[@UltimateSlayer3001]

Lmao. The Steam deck is a fun little device, don’t get me wrong, but doing an honest comparison of this handheld, running at 25fps at 480p resolution? Haha, no. It has no place sitting next to actual hardware running true resolutions.

[@Matruchus]

@@UltimateSlayer3001 You mean 30 fps at 800p.

[@UltimateSlayer3001]

@@Matruchus Wow, correcting my over exageration. Good job, still doesn't make the hand held any less garbage compared to next gen consoles/PC lmao

[@pegolini1179]

@@UltimateSlayer3001 That shitty attitude is exactly what everyone hated about PC Players during last gen. PS4 and XBOX were years behind when it came to specs but developers were amazing at optimizing what the had to ensure some of the greatest looking experience of the last generation. And this video further ensures that Steam Deck plays by the same rules established by last gen consoles. Being that optimization has always been more important than raw power.

[@MrRoko91]

I could sit and watch Rich explaining stuff for hours... love this guy! 😄

[@yellowbat79]

You know it's serious when the tech god himself RICH graces us with hosting a video

[@TimmyTurner421]

Almost as good as our lord and savior Gaben personally delivering the steam deck 🙌

[@spicynachos2762]

Rich is the only one with the deck

[@yellowbat79]

@@spicynachos2762 because he is most worthy to wield it

[@phew...6097]

hehe... graces

[@frankvandermerwe1487]

@@TimmyTurner421 My lord! Gaben is the real santa

[@iseeu-fp9po]

Excellent video, thank you. I'm eagerly awaiting your verdict on future patches for PC.

[@Jambara]

This is actually significant, Valve's claim for why they have so aggressively pursued Linux gaming was to have the ability circumvent windows slow system approval on updates. With how quickly they improved Elden Ring proves their theory correct about how much more agile they can be with the steamOS.

[@gourdy]

i like your funny words magic man!

[@battleangel4833]

I definitely feel more confident in GabeN's supple caressers vs Spencer's iron pinchers

[@jellypuff5678]

For future performance tests, i suggest getting the "Night Maiden's Mist"-sorcery. Particle effects in Elden Ring seem very demanding and controlled via the "Effects Quality"-setting on PC. FPS can easely go down into the low 40's even just at "Medium" settings with this sorcery's effect on-screen on my R5 2600/RTX 2070 machine. The advantage is, that unlike a Dragon's breath or Giant Flower's poison mists, you are in full control of when and where to create heavy, demanding particle effects, making it great for controlled testing and comparisons.

[@eagle_rb_mmoomin_418]

I've been waiting for this. I was rather hoping they'd slap a desktop Linux distro on a test bench as well to see if there are any differences with say an RTX card running under Linux. With the Proton Experimental fixes engaged. That's how I'm playing the game and I've only noticed one single mild hitch. I have seen it run Fossilize the tool Valve referred to twice when booting the game up and I saw pretty much all 16 threads on my CPU spike. I'm assuming my machine has compiled the games shaders twice so far.

[@dominik2327]

Sadly, it will (at least partially) do that again after you upgrade your drivers. When I update my distro and there are new drivers comming, I simply left Steam opened in the background for some time when I don't need too much of a power for current tasks (or I don't use the computer at the moment) so that the new cache was built for all of my installed games. It can be activated in Steam settings.

[@krzysztof6591]

Problem is, 99% of gamers won't install Linux just because FS still can't managee their own engine after all these years.

[@dominik2327]

@@krzysztof6591 I don't think anyone here said that people should install Linux to fix stutters in one game, which is completely pointless to begin with. Though, it shows that having full custom over software, brings possibilities to optimize stuff for such devices as SD.

[@TRONiX404]

Ru using Pop distro. I'd use Linux for some games when they get HDR support and not much support for RTX cards either.

[@dominik2327]

​@@TRONiX404 I wouldn't expect HDR support on Linux very soon. The situation is pretty complicated. When it comes to NVIDIA cards, they work pretty well (I'm using 3060Ti myself), but it's still NVIDIA - they refuse to support Linux properly for decades and I wouldn't expect any change here, too.

[@W0lfenstrike]

Fromsoft REALLY needs a shader pre-compilation at the start of the game, many dx12 games does this like Forza Horizon 5 and Monster Hunter Rise. Sure, the game takes a bit longer to start the first time, but the smoother performance absolutely makes the wait worthwile.

[@vitorhnn]

Most of the issues with Elden Ring are not caused by shader compilation, as stated by Valve's Pierre-Loup Grifais in the video

[@SEXCOPTER_RUL]

@@vitorhnn yeah but the entire point is that its EXACTLY what valve did to get steam deck performance vastly improved and removed MOST of the stutters....so yeah, it kinda is, and in regards to pc, this would most certiantly have an even more dramatic effect.

[@harryarmstrong5728]

@@SEXCOPTER_RUL This is incorrect, please review the video at around 13:00. E.g. "shader pipeline driven stutter isn't the majority of the big hitches we've seen..." Etc.

[@darkmanure]

@@harryarmstrong5728 Not majority, doesn't mean it does not cause stutters.

[@cykablyat6348]

i think bl3 had shader precompilation when you selected dx12 but the game did still stutter, disabling control flow guard seemed to fix it

[@Templars1005]

Based on From's track record, I don't think they will fix this. But I'm mildly hopeful. Game is *chef kiss* but the stuttering is really annoying (and at times life-or-death inducing...).

[@somnia3423]

the developer depot is active, last update was 5 hours ago

[@thomasbitmail7937]

they will be adding ray-tracing to this game sometime maybe in a year or so. Until then, they just gotta fix this game first.

[@bodybag22]

Considering RT is going to make the game run even worse it's probably the last thing they should implement.

[@rickstorm4198]

I've had one stutter, runs 60fps @max settings 2560x1440p Im honestly betwixt at how so many seemingly have issues and others do not. I have the proper hardware/software to record frame pacing/timing and while if seen better it's 99th percentile is mostly normal. The only change i did was Nvidia settings , set shader cache to unlimited. I also set "max performance" .... Past that it runs awesome. Nothing fancy rig wise. Windows 11 ,12600k, Asus Prime D-4 mATX mb, 32g ddr4 3200mhz, Lian Li CPU cooler 240, Sound Blaster Z sound card, RTX2080 Gigabyte wind force, 1000w EVGA PS. Asus 2k G-sync 32 inch monitor 175hz w/hdr600, wooting 2 He Keyboard (best 200 i ever spent) plus a second mechanical keyboard since the wooting can ve programed each each key, even as analog game pad functions it can cause typing or alt outing of game to be an issue. Logitech Max ergo thumb trackball. That said i have a gaming laptop snd it stutters horribly. W10 i7 6/12 c/t 16g ddr4 2400mhz (irc) rtx2060, 1080p gysnc 120hz screen. I haven't tried fixing it or recording. Though i will over the next 2 weeks. I want to compare settings changes and effects...

[@candycabngfl]

@@rickstorm4198 Its a weird one. I'm not huge on Souls games [ played through a lot of #3 ] but decided to give this a run. Launch night I played for a good 2 hours, not a stutter or hiccup anywhere. I was surprised after seeing the chaos surrounding launch performance. Nothing special hardware wise either, MSI Trident 9700K @ 4.7 across all cores. 16gigs Corsair Vengeance @ 4300mhz, 3080Ti, 4TB Evo 860. Game ran like a top, its a shame too because its pretty much wasted on me as I don't really have the patience to properly dive in to the game.

[@koushikneriyanuri5420]

watching this on steam deck, thanks for the excellent coverage df!

[@PlayfullWithFire]

What I would have like to see is Linux/proton performance on the desktop pc to see if valves improvements scale to 60fps.

[@FilippoTarpini]

True. Has anybody tried?

[@-aexc-]

@@FilippoTarpini i have, my laptop went from like 39 fps to the mid 50s when i moved to Linux

[@Enzed_]

@@FilippoTarpini check out the channel Bero Tech. They have videos on Linux gaming

[@AusSkiller]

It sounds like Valve are caching shaders specifically for Steam deck so when you download the game you get the pre-compiled shaders for it too, and when D3D requests compiling them valve intercepts that and instead injects the pre-compiled shaders so they never have to be compiled. So it probably wouldn't work as well on desktop PCs because the hardware can be so diverse and Valve probably isn't going to be building a cache for them.

[@jaimiepotts7638]

@@AusSkiller Valve have a very extensive vulkan shader caching service on Linux across pretty much all games. Every time I open Steam, I seem to be downloading some shaders lol. Apex Legends recently became playable and it probably took a few days for my shader cache to build up to the point where I was getting a solid 144 fps

[@GoldNSilverLuigi]

You guys should totally make a Linux PC Gaming episode. It'd be nice to get more attention on Linux Gaming or just Desktop Linux in general and not have it be too niche.

[@imo098765]

TLDR Linux gaming is in a better position than its ever been but its still a bad experience for the general pc gaming community

[@ShaunsterTheMonster]

I get the same issues as Alex has on PC. Game will randomly pause/freeze for a second then fast forward to catch up. Annoying when fighting a boss.

[@Blazehoof]

Me too... I have the same problems with a 8700+2080TI. Buttery smooth gameplay with random pairs of hitches.

[@fufu1128]

Are you playing on a m.2 nvme drive? I don't have the game to test. Could be the same kind of issue with FF7, transfer the game from m.2 to ssd or spinney drive, and like magic the issues are gone with framerate hitches. 👍🏻

[@JakubWasikiewicz]

@@fufu1128 what? why would that do anything?

[@IronicSonics]

@@JakubWasikiewicz Its reading lamb entrails for at this point. Break out the crystal balls and chi maps

[@Blazehoof]

@@fufu1128 Yep. I might test it, but if this is true, it would be so stupid... T_T

[@nighttimestalker]

We need y'all to start testing more games on this. I'd love to see y'all takes games that were ported to switch in comparison to this. Just to show how much a performance difference there is.

[@MrDarkjeda]

I've been playing the game in a Linux distro and the game experience is amazing, always 60 FPS. In Windows the problem is when a lot of stutter comes out of nowhere

[@blumiu2426]

It's always garbage Windows. Every update I panic and loathe what will mess up on my system.

[@Nico1a5]

@@blumiu2426 glad I have ltsc, then on my laptop I barely turn it on and it always wants to update something. Imagine installing windows on deck and always requesting an update and a restart, then you restart and yet more updates remaining

[@TimmyTurner421]

@@Nico1a5 pain in the ass

[@shayanali8771]

Which distro are u using

[@MrDarkjeda]

@@shayanali8771 Pop! OS 21.10 running with Linux 5.16

[@fehbari]

Would be great to see a video showing other games with similar shader-compilation issues (Shadow Warrior 3 being the most recent) and if they're fixed by Proton and the Deck.

[@charlestrudel8308]

yeah, was valve was able to fix general issues, or only elden ring issues.

[@crust5909]

in theory it should fix Shadow Warrior 3, Kena, Sifu, FFX12 and anything as well. DX12 is garbage if you don't know what youre doing

[@KenMathis1]

Valve said the majority of the problems were memory allocation issues, not shader compilation ones. See @ 12:50

[@charlestrudel8308]

@@KenMathis1 then its probably just elden ring issues. Valve will really need to wok on a lot of games to make them compatible.

[@panamike6178]

God, it feels like more people are rooting for the Steam Deck to fail than succeed. The gaming community sucks in this era, everyone is loyal to their piece of plastic that they hate every other piece of plastic.

[@TheLastLineLive]

Hoping another patch comes soon. I had to stop playing due to the stutters and inconsistent framerate. Last patch didn't address it and Nvidia hasn't updated their drivers since close to 2 weeks before the game launched. So hopefully a new patch and/or driver does the trick.

[@BlindBison]

That’s my hope as well - I’m waiting for a real fix from the devs or maybe from Nvidia’s end.

[@roundearthshill248]

I've had good luck just running the game in 1440p. Kind've a drag on a big TV but it still looks pretty damn good. Really moistens me balls.

[@mitcHELLOworld]

@@roundearthshill248 man for me the game actually runs flawlessly now as far as frame rate goes... but I get some really REALLY annoying crashing. im running at 4k max settings and it never drops below 60 but sometimes ill crash 2 or 3 times in the run of a single hour. sometimes I can play for a few hours but its always inevitible it will happen sooner or later

[@Spardasrebellion]

@@mitcHELLOworld I had luck fixing those crashes by disabling steam cloud saves. Hope that helps your issue as well!

[@dragothica4925]

Aren't Nvidia drivers already almost 1 month old? Could expect new drivers soon, hopefully..

[@returningwhisper]

Excellent video. Really hoping that From starts to address these problems, especially with how well the game has sold.

[@GO-tq6hs]

I had to disable hardware accelerated GPU scheduling to fix my stuttering on a 3080. Suggested it to some other people and didn't work for them. Performance is as mysterious as the rest of the game's world.

[@JigglypuffTutorials]

lmaooo

[@AthosJosue]

I'm using a fps unlocker, the game runs between 75 and 100 fps and it feels pretty smooth, i don't see the hitches or stutter, im nor sure if is the new patch, the shaeder compilation or the frame unlocker but it works as it should. (oh tho i have to play offline when using the unlocker)

[@igorgiuseppe1862]

maybe they're using a different driver version?

[@kendokaaa]

So far that feature doesn't seem to help with any workload so it's generally recommended to keep it disabled for everything. It tends to mess with some software

[@Lotuseater24]

I'm on a 9900K and 3090, and there's still plenty of little framerate hitches where the whole screen freezes and then catches up to the scene, and it makes it extremely difficult to recommend the game on PC.

[@theblackbaron4119]

I'm on a 10900 X i9 and a 3090 suprim X. This shit has complete stutters where the game completely halts and then speeds back up again. This game looks nowhere near as good as MHW on 4 k but runs like shit.

[@shroom2967]

Yep my pc has a 2060 and i7 and this game ran like pure trash even after their updates lol, one boss fight crashed 7 times for me and majority of time lots of fps drops and hitches. No settings I run fix anything lol

[@MisterLindsay]

On PC I was having minor stutters before the game was patched, but now the stutters are much heavier and fully impact on gameplay. It could be because I'm deeper into the game, but if the patch was an attempt to fix it then it certainly hasn't worked for me.

[@sean8102]

Same here. Minor issues pre the most recent patch, but now I'm getting awful stutters like shown here on Alex's PC.

[@po4058]

I love the fact that you didn't phrase the title as a clickbaity question, but rather cut straight to the chase. This made me all the more eager to watch the video.

[@2greenify]

Awesome review, more steam deck articles please!

[@marctech1996]

I was gonna comment on how genius it is of DF to make an Elden Ring Steam Deck video even before clicking. And here is Rich greeting us admitting that those are two of the hottest topics right now. 😂

[@emanuelserpa]

Linux deserves the love of gamers. Imagine having total control of the operating system in a deep level. Most people won't do this, of course, but people that do can share with the community like Valve is doing.

[@geovanneteixeira100]

Not just that but having a light OS can help your PC when trying to squish more FPS

[@pt8306]

Unfortunately Windows is "just easier", even when it doesn't work and you have to dive into CMD because it forgot how to talk bluetooth or decided to randomly break. Windows gets a lot of free passes when it sucks, Linux can have tiny minor faults (like a status bar not updating properly in one application) and suddenly it's shit. Unfortunately what matters is not whether or not the software delivers as promised. Windows doesn't deliver as promised. What matters is the public perception of the software. As windows does things like add advertisements to the flie browser, hopefully we will see more adoption of Linux, but even if Linux was perfect and gave full control and a big FPS boost, we wouldn't see gamers switching over because they are used to Windows, even if it blows big chunks constantly.

[@-aexc-]

@@pt8306 i agree on the whole about windows being easier but ive only ever had stuff randomly decide to stop working on windows. once i finish setting up my distro i have way less issues (setting it up is more complicated though)

[@killer414]

deep level it seems lmao

[@EricDFreak]

Mark my words, windows would never be overshadow by Linux, yes Linux has a big array of builds to any kind of need but the sole fact that there are many differences depending on the distro makes it not user friendly no matter how you put it, we can only hope game developers give us more attention

[@richardcorns8553]

Loving this game on my SX with vrr. Also have the steam deck on order, very excited to receive it.

[@TeamDaemon1980]

Richard has the GOAT Steam Deck coverage. I still have to wait until Q3 to get mines. I'm still kinda on the fence because I'm really not into modern gaming and already have all my favorite retro games on my phone.

[@jonathanhernandez352]

It would be great if you guys could get Linux on your PCs for future comparisons against Windows and the Steam Deck too

[@DMitsukirules]

I don't know if this will be covered, but they didn't just fix it for steam deck, it's flat out fixed on Linux. I get 0 frame drops 60 fps now with a 6700xt at 1440p Just make sure you install mesa-git

[@DMitsukirules]

@@gamerdude3126 yes, it should!

[@axeratedmofo]

Appreciate the Aliens reference re "nuking the whole thing from orbit"

[@DarthQueefious]

3080ti, 5800x, 32gb ram. Character stood doing nothing for a couple of minutes. No cam movement. FPS unlocked and Ultrawide 1440p fix. Latest patch Average framerate : 95.4 FPS Minimum framerate : 85.9 FPS Maximum framerate : 96.3 FPS 1% low framerate : 80.4 FPS 0.1% low framerate : 12.0 FPS (fml)

[@gellister]

Valve have created something amazing here. They have managed to make multiplatform games a "portable exclusive" for their hardware, effectively creating a back-catalogue of portable exclusive killer apps overnight. I am obviously talking about steam deck in general. This cherry on top of valve using software manipulation to optimize games for their bespoke PC platform creates a level of curation and care I really appreciate. Gaben truly wants this to have a value in the market and to succeed

[@TimmyTurner421]

Their forespoken bespoke support of the steam deck is a sight to behold

[@katzenjunge5869]

What do you mean portable exclusive? Did laptops die out or what? Just take a controller with you and you can play on a bigger/better screen.

[@gellister]

If you consider that portable then I have an 80s cell phone I would love to sell you. Joking aside, yes, I have gaming laptop I sometimes use if given the space but compact and completely handheld is undeniably more of what the average person would consider "truly portable" than a full laptop with a controller needed as well.

[@64bitmodels66]

@@katzenjunge5869 "Did laptops die out or what?" Yes. what person have you heard of recently actually using a gaming laptop? shit guzzles down the battery and can't even play games handheld. there's a reason people are hyped for this

[@TheOfficalAndI]

@@katzenjunge5869 Also you'd need to install linux/proton to be able to make use of valves improvements.

[@BlindBison]

I wish Nvidia and AMD would do these kind of fixes via their own drivers. But, really the fault is with the devs I suppose.

[@kwedl]

They are probably already doing as much they can. There is only so much you can fix on a GPU driver level. Valve have full access and control over the operation system and SoC. Overall Fromsoft just need to step up their game with optimization. It would probably be a good idea to take off 1-2 years to actually improve/update their engine. It will only make things easier not just for the user but also for the dev.

[@Erksah68]

@@kwedl they dont have high refresh support ds3 should have had it yet sekiro and elden ring still dont have it. Let alone the stuttering the game is plagued by.

[@Volker_A4]

@@Erksah68 if you mod them both Sekiro and Elden Ring can play uncapped without issue.

[@kwedl]

@@Erksah68 Not having high refresh support is definitely just bad at this point. Even years later you still need a mod for Sekiro to get 120 fps or higher support. Or even basic things like having Dualshock buttons for the UI.

[@BlindBison]

@@Volker_A4 not online sadly though in Sekiro of course that’s no issue.

[@Gucc111]

You know it's gonna be a good video when anyone at DF says "bespoke"

[@jd5507]

Don’t forget to lock on your enemies ;]. I’m excited to see the future of steam deck and optimizations. Great video.

[@drewbrew444]

the person recording gameplay not using lock-on in combat is internally killing me

[@VaultF]

I've been playing all last week and this week on PC (i9 10850K, RTX 3070) and these frame drops occur every time, but only when I load my save game, like 10 seconds after my character spawns. I have played 3, 4, 5 hours straight sessions and I don't experience any frame drops in my play sessions other than the initial single one.

[@sanketower]

And this video comes out right before the 1.03 patch, damn

[@siphu]

Nice Aliens reference at 16:20.

[@walter_the_wobot2349]

Can valve fix coop for Halo Infinite next? Oh wait, Microsoft refuse to support the Deck despite Phil Spencer tweeting that Halo runs great on Deck…🤦‍♂️

[@qchtohere8636]

Technically they already did (most -antichrist- *anticheat* software including EAC is already available for Linux), now, is the devs who have to allow the Proton version to be used. Edit: I was appropriately autocorrected, but to clarify... XD

[@Vartazian360]

Steamdb shows that there are changes in the qa-release branch from 5 hours ago (hoping this is a performance patch that may be released in a bit after QA signs off on the changes) but it seems like they are at least working on the game for pc.

[@techieg33k]

This of pretty awesome to see what Valve has done to help games on the Deck

[@PlayinWithGhosts]

That hitching was driving me nuts. I ended up resolving it (for real) on my custom rig by rolling back MSI Meg z690 BIOS to a previous stable version. I had monitored CPU and GPU ticks for a couple hours while playing the game and noticed that during hitching, there would be an equivalent hitch on a core tick (12900K). I still think From needs to improve the DX12 implementation for this game, but I'm finally able to lock a consistent smooth 60 now. 12900K - MSI Meg z690 Unify - 32GB DDR5 (XMP 6000) - EVGA 3080 ti Hybrid

[@Hree]

Actually first time seeing captured fps drops on Elden Ring and now I know how truly it sucked. I thought people were exaggerating because I haven't encountered those fps drops on my old RX 480 for some reason...

[@promc2890]

Its a high end problem it seems that the game runs well on old cards without stutters

[@drhank33y]

Yep, on my RX 580 I dont encounter those fps drops either! Game runs smooth

[@Tommyvang187]

@@drhank33y not for me, I have the same card with a r5 2600, game runs like absolute trash for me. even worse than whats shown in the video. Same for my entire friend group with similar builds.

[@unnoticedhero1]

It's an issue with the game in general, some people it's working just fine but no matter the level of hardware there's a few of us having severe issues like the game crashing every few minutes to an hour. I've got over 50 hours and played almost every day since launch and have probably crashed 60+ times already and have tried every fix including running on Linux and the game still crashed though the stutters were pretty much gone.

[@MrEditsCinema]

Just because you don't notice it doesn't mean its not there. Every single PC version of the game has the stutter period lol

[@TeamDaemon1980]

IGN gave the Deck a 7/10. It's understandable. It has 1st generation issues that many 1st gen products do have. But that price and it's potential is so compelling. A portable PS4 for $50 more than a Switch OLED.

[@bartjeyeyo]

Thats alot of money. And thats the cheapest model your talking about. I think its very expencive. Rather buy a desk top for that kinda money with better everything

[@killermoon635]

It only match PS4 if you ignore resolution. Elder Rings run 1080p on PS4 and it was tested on 720p on Steam Deck. Thats big difference in resolution

[@Lieutenant_Scrotes]

@@killermoon635 Yeah, DF seem reluctant to directly compare the PS4 and Steam Deck with resolution parity, but they did do it briefly in their original Steam Deck review and the PS4 had around 30% superior performance. It would be more accurate to state that the Steam Deck is akin to a portable base Xbox One.

[@megakirby64]

in my experience on desktop PC with a rtx 2070, those double lag spikes are really bizarre and can ruin the experience, but i found i was able to get rid of them (most of the time) by going into NVIDIA control panel and in the program settings for the Elden Ring game, set the frame rate to 59, hit APPLY, then set it back to 60 and apply again. unfortunately you can only tell if you're getting the lag spikes after you've already launched the game, but this has worked for me fairly consistently. (fps dips can still happen though, just without the lag spikes)

[@Hasperon]

Patch 1.03 dropped... time to do another test

[@LegionIscariot]

Newer games will be more likely to be Deck Verified. Since developers have devkits, and also Valve can optimize Proton before the game's release date.

[@HorseheadNebula85]

Valve working miracles? Ya don't say...

[@edwin260]

Disabling the shader cache in the nvidia drivrer and deleting the shader cache folder actually helped reduce the severity of the stutters for me a ton.

[@Jorquay]

Nice Aliens reference at the end there

[@geovanneteixeira100]

My god, imagine playing elden ring on a handheld with the same performance as a PS4? This is insane!

[@e.777.r2]

So when are they gonna patch it so it runs at a stable 60 fps on PS5 and Xbox Series X ?

[@edhenshuusha4666]

It seems to be random on my PC. Some days I can play with mostly no stutters at all, while other days it's basically a stutterfest.

[@Akrymir]

Using Special K made a huge improvement to performance for me and it also uncapped the frame rate. I'm averaging 90 FPS, though it ranges from 70-120 depending on where I am. I'm also using reWASD as a means to fix the dodge delay.

[@Zwim]

Is Special K still flagged by EAC? I remember they were working on getting it "approved" like reshade.

[@Akrymir]

@@Zwim From what I'm told you need to disable matchmaking, set to offline, and opt out of their monitoring/data share, otherwise EAC will catch it. To me, that's basically the same as needing to disable EAC.

[@kakkarot045]

Doing good work for Linux and giving an alternative to people fond of handhelds. Godspeed Valve.

[@mrsmilee]

considering how quickly Valve did this you can see just how easy it would likely be for studios to knock out PS4/XB1 ports.

[@ricepony33]

I’d love to see Steam and other vendors offering an optimized settings option based on your local hardware’s performance. This could then be shared on the steam etc platform.

[@sambaoleck295]

Awesome review !

[@voltagedx4586]

This just proves that Valve wants you in Linux more and more

[@krazyfrog]

Considering how much of a dumpster fire Windows 11 is, Linux becoming more viable for gaming might just be the thing we need.

[@griffgames9538]

Well, Valve's distro.

[@colbyboucher6391]

@@griffgames9538 The Proton Compatibility Layer is how we run Windows-specific Steam games (and games that aren't even on Steam, sometimes) on literally every Linux distro. It's just a specialized version of Wine. This isn't a feature of SteamOS, it's just a feature of Steam which is available on basically every Linux distro around.

[@griffgames9538]

@@colbyboucher6391 Yeah, I know. All Proton conversion unless native. But the Deck does use a specific Linux build.

[@TVPInterpolation]

@@griffgames9538 i mean, Linux is Linux. Just depends If people want something pre-made for them, or If they want to begin from Scratch and have the best Setup for that specific individual

[@DeejaySpandex]

Can they fix it for PC now?

[@zZiL341yRj736]

I know right? How the hell does Dark Souls 3 have Dualshock 4 support and 144hz and their piece of shit doesn't?

[@Rugg-qk4pl]

@@zZiL341yRj736 pretty sure Dark Souls 3 144hz is a mod and not built in

[@raknikmik]

@@zZiL341yRj736 What are you talking about? Dark Souls 3 is locked at 60fps and Dualshock works with both DS 3 and Elden Ring.

[@MrStrangermoon]

try prirate version work ok. you have make grass medium and shadows low. pirate version also get updates but it was better on first rlease already. am thinking easyanticheat program causing issues. you have do offline mod vie ini file. making offline on inside game seems not work properly. the only drop ı notice on castle area instead of outside areas. ı also notice everytime opening game making antliasi on you have to make off. ı installed game external usb hdd not c drive.

[@WinterDominus]

I was a bit torn whether I should aim for 30+ fps or cap it. Decided to cap at 30 with low/mid settings and 720p (only keeping SSAO and AntiAliasing high). Seems pretty stable there, looks fine and it's fun. Having them Bloodborne vibes as far as performance goes 😂 At the end of the day, if I want crazy looks and performance, I got PC for that. Good video, I was curious about the technical side of things for ER on deck.

[@jesseslack2089]

Props for the Aliens line in this review...it is the only way to be sure!

[@carriongoat460]

would be very interested to see linux vs windows comparisons in elden ring on a desktop PC. in my experience valve's fixes applied just as well in linux, they may have had unique shader compilation done for the steam deck exclusively but their fix with handling the thousands of allocations applies on desktop too and it has made elden ring significantly more playable on linux than in windows. their user compiled shader sharing system also isnt in windows, so shader comp stutter was eliminated for my playthrough simply because someone else was playing the game with a 2080 super and valve facilitated the sharing of our compiled shaders with each other and whoever else was on a similar system. i'd go as far as to say the game plays best in linux as a whole, despite being made for windows, because of valve's fixes. i played the game from start to finish on linux and it wasn't free of performance dips but it was closer to perfection than windows for sure

[@insu_na]

Valve also does shader pre-caching on Linux without the steamdeck, tho on a regular Linux PC they give you the uncompiled shaders, SPIR-V, GLSL or HLSL, whatever the game issues and make you compile them before you start the game. This usually takes ~1 minute or so if you haven't done it before. Then these compiled shaders remain cached on disk and are loaded into RAM when the game is running

[@mbsfaridi]

From the accompanying article on eurogamer, "On the Linux/Proton side, we have a pretty extensive shader pre-caching system with multiple levels of source-level and binary cache representations pre-seeded and shared across users," Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais told us. "On the Deck, we take this to the next level, since we have a unique GPU/driver combination to target, and the majority of the shaders that you run locally are actually pre-built on servers in our infrastructure. When the game is trying to issue a shader compile through its graphics API of choice, those are usually skipped, as we find the pre-compiled cache entry on disk." However, Griffais believes that most of the issues in Elden Ring were caused by other factors - picked up on Twitter by several developers examining Github commits to the open source compatibility layer. Elden Ring review - FromSoft ventures into a sumptuous open world Read more "Shader pipeline-driven stutter isn't the majority of the big hitches we've seen in that game," Graiffais continues. "The recent example we've highlighted has more to do with the game creating many thousand resources such as command buffers at certain spots, which was making our memory manager go into overdrive trying to handle it. We cache such allocations more aggressively now, which seems to have helped a ton. I can't comment as to whether this is the problem the game experiences on other platforms, as well, but we've been playing on Deck with all these elements in place and the experience has been very smooth."

[@mbertolijr]

You may want to compare your ram timings to see if there’s a difference there. Your PC might have tighter timings and that might be why you’re seeing less stutters. You may also want to check for resizable bar on both machines as well. I’m running an RTX 3090, R9 5900x with very tight RAM timings and Re Bar turned on and I’m not seeing stutters like Alex either. I bought the game a few days ago so I’ve only been running the current build with no precompiled shaders.

[@sean8102]

Maybe that's it. For me things got worse with the most recent patch. Before it was just FPS drops from time to time when running around the world on Torrent. Now it's turned into the awful stutters Alex has on his PC. It's so weird. I have a RTX 3080 (with Re Bar on), 8700K @ 4.6 Ghz, game installed on a PCI-E 3.0 NVME SSD. My RAM is a 32 GB (4x 8GB) DDR4 3200. But I'll be honest I know very little about adjusting RAM timings etc. I just turn on XMP. Edit: This is the RAM I have "G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series Model F4-3200C16D-16GVKB". I've got no idea if the timing on that RAM is bad or not. Either way I feel like if I can run games like Cyberpunk maxed out at 1440p at a solid 60 FPS, there is no reason ER should be performing the way it is.

[@mbertolijr]

@@sean8102 totally agree about the performance being unacceptable, no one should have to have beyond the minimum spec to have a playable experience. It seems like even if the settings are turned down all the way people are still hitting massive stutters in the game.

[@mbertolijr]

@@sean8102 I just patched today and it’s stutter city, it’s really bad

[@xxlaze44]

Incredible work

[@roballan5952]

Q2 for my deck order (512 managed to manually refresh brute force the checkout 15mins in after release) really looking forward to that, on the comparison between latest pc build on your setup stutter be gone vs Alex still experiencing stutter any major difference storage or memory gen wise in your builds? great content as always the efforts much appreciated. Big thumbs up.

[@iamgates7679]

Man if the SteamDeck v2 has OLED and VRR and a bit more power it will be coupled with all the software improvements they’ve made as well. I’m looking forward to that

[@Ray-dl5mp]

yeah that sounds like a near perfect handheld device. It is unfortunate that we have to wait. If this version had the high quality screen you mentioned, it would be a better sell.

[@magic3383]

You thinking 2025?

[@madjunir]

@@magic3383 I do believe they'll iterate specially on the higher end models. They said those are the most on demand. For the cheapest or lower end they would probably keep it as is for now. Since they don't need to update the entire lineup they can get higher end models with improvements out quicker (kinda what we see with smartphone manufacturers). Anyway it did take Nintendo 5 years to release an OLED version so allowing Valve a few years is Okay IMO

[@guillermo9171]

VRR is a bad idea on anything running on battery. You need to find out the lowest FPS you can accept and cap to that, leaving a little extra overhead to have any chance at decent battery life.

[@killertruth186]

@@guillermo9171 You meant lightweight titles?

[@bluedragon219123]

I wonder if some of the stutter is from the DRM. I used to think that people that said that were trying to find excuses for having older hardware trying to go for settings higher than their hardware can handle. Then Resident Evil 8 happened and even Digital Foundry confirmed it. So now I'm wary though the DRM is unlikely to be the only issues causing thing, shaders for example. :)

[@kicapanmanis1060]

I doubt it it in this case, Alex confirmed most of the issues is due to shader compilation.

[@Day100]

@@kicapanmanis1060 try disabling EAC yourself and see how much smoother it runs even with that. It's a combination of issues for sure

[@goeddy]

regarding the performance difference on the 2 pcs with the same cpu its probably also worth looking at the RAM, cl 14 vs cl 18 timings can make quite a difference in CPU limited performance.

[@Killah107]

Good stuff I'm excited to get mine now

[@sdewey4152]

To be fair if the PS4 ran at the same 720p it would probably still be ahead. Still quiet impressive from the Deck though. Question is, how long will they give this sort of attention to optimisation for? Hopefully for a good while to come.

[@Mash3OH3]

No it wouldn’t. You can’t compare ancient Jaguar set up GCN architecture. To the steam decks RDNA and Zen 2 tech. At least in the decks case it’s a custom APu that’s equivalent to the Zen 2. The Steamdeck is just better overall.

[@sdewey4152]

@@Mash3OH3 so when the deck goes to a lower resolution for performance gains that's not a performance gain in your eyes? Of course it is. Dropping resolution will invariably improve performance. That's called logic. Also thanks for pointing out the obvious that newer architectures are better than older ones, I didn't know that.

[@doublevendetta]

@@sdewey4152 only if dropping that resolution doesn't then shove the bottleneck in the opposite direction toward the CPU, which is more than likely what would happen on the PS4 and its aging Hardware. Tldr; Yes you CAN see a performance *decrease* from dropping resolution.

[@lifestorock]

Then you should also limit the PS4 power consumption to 15w. As far as I know the PS4 uses >160w.

[@sdewey4152]

@@doublevendetta i completely agree in some cases it would generate a bottleneck but for the most part PS4 games still run better than the Xbox One/s equivalent which has a faster CPU, the GPU is then the problem. The PS4 Pro on the otherhand is meant to be rather bad on the CPU bottleneck.

[@davidpliskin3330]

Now fix the damn PS5/Series x versions.

[@johnodaz1273]

Really good Video DF. Yh Elden Ring Running on the Steam Deck at 720p 30fps is looking like a really good option Overall, especially Playing it on the go aswell.

[@TheLastLineLive]

BTW any chance you can bench the steam deck at 1080p while docked versus the ps4 and xbox one? Just seeing if you lower the settings if it can still muster a relatively smooth 30fps.

[@chimeron260]

5:25 is why Bloodborne literally gives me headaches. Also I have been playing lots of elden ring on my set up. generally a pretty smooth experience on max settings 1440p with a 2080 and r7 3800x, but sometime's when I run the game I get massive hitches like you guy's did several times, and other times I can play for hours without a single hitch. It doesn't seem to matter either whether I had been to the area or not before. FromSoft makes some of my favorite games, I just wish they knew how to optimize their games better.

[@gabgame300]

As much respect as I have for FromSoft for their beautiful, and passionate games - This is such an humiliation of a show of incompetence or even worse, lazyness. Just imagine someone else fixing your own mess when you couldn't or couldn't be bothered. Still having the PTDE port as a showcase of that already back in the day.

[@Games-tx1zc]

I agree that it's a shitty port job, but often AMD and Nvidia do this with "Game ready drivers" it's not uncommon for a game to get fixed in the drivers. That being said it shouldn't be this bad. Gnarly

[@eon5417]

It's not laziness. From's engine has strict limitations, and they're also not a massive multinational company with millions and millions of dollars behind them like Santa Monica or Bluepoint are. The poor frame pacing and stuttering goes back to the original Demon's Souls, it's merely an unfortunate byproduct of their engine and development restrictions. Elden Ring already took twice or three times as long as any game they've made yet to develop, and despite being the largest and most visually stunning title yet it actually runs better than any of their other games... I don't really understand the frustration. It's not surprising that the game runs the way it does, and it's not as if it has issues with bugs, crashing, or game-breaking. Like Sekiro, DS3, and Bloodborne before it, it's a little jittery.

[@maegnificant]

@@eon5417 you can fix an engine mate and they had plenty of time to do that.

[@jonathanmora8208]

Their ports are always trash

[@tscotts9699]

I stand with you, brother. Prepare for the onslaught of FromSoft Fanboy vitriol.

[@volsavious2319]

Love your content!

[@GooBeyond]

awesome explanation ! would be awesome if you guys did another analysis of Crysis Remake now that patch 3 is out! seems to have boosted performance greatly !

[@Snoozie]

I installed linux to dual boot and see if the game ran better for me in linux than windows and it did Its still not perfect But proton is making it playable for me

[@alaskanmalamute101]

If valve can fix this shit on there handheld why can't Sony, Microsoft, fromsoftware fix issues on more powerful software seems crazy to me.

[@dennishyun7173]

Great content~!! Thanks~!!

[@ricky_pigeon]

nice to see more steamdeck stuff

[@HuGiv5]

Valve does what From Sofdont.

[@EVPointMaster]

Kinda disappointed that they didn't talk about the big increase to input latency you get from using the Decks 30fps limit. It makes the game much more difficult to play.

[@cocobos]

It's not that bad and still playable, you'll get use to it.

[@xmaxdamage]

does enabling screen tear in the quick menu solve this?

[@EVPointMaster]

@@xmaxdamage no, the screen tearing option only works when no fps limit is used and v-sync is disabled. Elden Rings V-sync is always on.

[@EVPointMaster]

@@cocobos latency increases by about 60ms when you enable the 30fps limit. Streaming the game from my PC to my Steam Deck has significantly less latency than playing on the Deck at 30fps.

[@VVENDINGEN]

I had the same issue as Alex running the game on 3080TI/10700K. What completely fixes the freezes is stopping the „Device Association Service“ in the Services Tab of the Windows Task Manager. Really weird, maybe You could look into this further.

[@TilSkywalker]

Proton just gets better and better! It is fascinating to see.